Man... I wrote an epic win post and my mashine crashed... It never did it... never... wtf... it was a sign... Rpg gods please forgive me... but here i go again xD
That argument makes no sense at all. It is impossible to point out such a literature piece because linearity is an intrinsic property of literary narrative, much like non-linearity is an intrinsic property of RPG narrative. This should be self-evident - since roleplaying by definition necessitates the ability for players to make meaningful choices over the course of the story, it is difficult to imagine a true RPG without at least some degree of narrative non-linearity.
The argument makes sense, its just worded crappy.
"(...)non-linearity is an intrinsic property of RPG narrative.(...)" - I would guess that its not but I can imagine that some people have a pretty set definition of rpg and dont consider Baldrus Gate a true rpg. But thats even not the main point. The rpg narratvie is flawed from the beginning because you just cant create a nice flo
w, pace ala classical tragedy or similar.
Take Baldurs Gate - pretty linear, you go to the mines, you go to the woods, you go to the city. Now would it be a incredibly better game if you could just enter Baldurs Gate and wander aimlessly? Would it be an incredibly better game if the devs put in the extra ressources to cross ref the npc dialogs so they would point you somehow to Sarevok and you could enter the tower and then his hideout from the beginning? I think not.
Take Fallout - as non-linear as you can get. It still heavily uses classical narrative design by restricting information. You go to vault15, stop by in sandyshands, go to the hub, to necropolis, mililtary base, master. That would be the proper way.
Now some retards fap themself to death about it and think that the possiblity of choise where to go first is non plus ultra in game design. I disagree. So in conclusion of this many worded epic poem:
Non-linearity quest and/or locationwise is overrated and even can be contraproductive to the narrative.