playthroughs seem to be meant to be intricate experiences, rather than game scenarios with clearly defined victory conditions and fail-states
I share some of the skepticism about the game, but this gives me some pause. Because of save-scumming in RPGs, the "game scenario" portions (by which I guess you mean battles) don't actually really have "fail-states." Looked at retrospectively from the end of the game, the player's path is a continuous string of victories. The strategic and tactical layers of the game
generally arise somewhat less from avoiding an outright game over, and more from managing attrition (typically of short-term resources) and growth (typically of long-term resources). Thus, an individual battle is typically a matter of "how can I minimize the loss to HP, MP (or memorized spells), and consummables, while avoiding any persistent negative status effects?" An area is typically a matter of "how can I maximize the gain to XP, gear, and reputation/companion happiness?" Put otherwise, the tactical/strategic layer of RPG gameplay is largely a matter of resource management in which a player reduces attrition of short-term resources in order to provide himself maximum opportunities for long-term growth. In that sense, it's not that different from, say,
The Wall Street Kid for the NES.
The problem is that, overwhelmingly, RPG dialogue engages only the back half of this equation, and never involves short-term attrition concerns. (FWIW, this is one reason I think the Effort system in TTON is theoretically clever, even if actually unsuccessful.) What I gather
Kasparov and his crew are talking about is moving the attrition-management side of combat into dialogues. The question is whether the dialogues provide enough tactical space and sufficiently predictable rules for that to work. But, theoretically speaking, the idea seems like a good one that would address a problem that has plagued RPGs generally.
(As an aside, the Lovecraftian game that Iron Tower was briefly sponsoring in days of yore also took a stab at dealing with this issue, by creating various risks to sanity, reputation, and interlocutor-attitude while you talked to someone. It was a nice idea.)
