RPGs where you can be a turncoat?

[dryan]

I hope this is the correct section to post this question.

I was wondering if there are any RPGs out there that allow you to be a turncoat, to shift allegiance, in a believable and meaningful way.

And I don't mean it in a "faction" sense, where you already know there are two or more competing factions which are more or less equivalent, then you choose to join one of them and dismantle/sabotage/confront the other.

What I'm actually looking for is something that alters your main quest's goals to the point where they become the opposite of what you initially set out to do. A crude example would be something like: The king sends the hero to slay the "evil" wizard. The villain asks for a chance to plead his case to the hero. The hero may or may not be convinced by the wizard's reasoning. So the hero may decide to slay the wizard after all, or to join him and help him achieve his objectives, if he thinks they're fair now that he can see the big picture. Of course, the supposed "villain" would have to have decent motives, and not the same old "ancient evil guy/dragon/monster wants to destroy the world because he's a jerk".

Any games like this?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Geneforge 4/5

Lots of ways to shift allegiance, different motivations for different actors, lots of people who you initially set out to kill/work against but who you can actually join after they plead their case to you. Definitely the highlight of Vogel's career, choice and consequence-wise.

 

[Sranchammer]

...KOTOR?...

 

[mondblut]

Prelude to Darkness, up until very end.

The Fall: LDOG, except you aren't given a choice. A posterboy for librul games.

 

[Xor]

Arcanum.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

In terms of changing the outcome of the main quest, I can think of the following:

KOTOR - you can turn on the Republic if you wish to

Fallout: New Vegas - you can turn on Mr. House

Jade Empire - you can turn on the Water Dragon

Alpha Protocol - lots of different ways to turn against AP and the people you had been working with

There must be more but those are the ones that immediately spring to mind.

 

[Menckenstein]

Fallout.

 

[undecaf]

With Fallout, didn't they initially plan to let the player continue on with the game after being dipped?

 

[Baron Dupek]

Deus Ex?
Maybe I've watched too much Xfiles then but whatever...
Turning from corporate drone (when crappy voiceacting fits well actually) into rebel wood....

With Fallout, didn't they initially plan to let the player continue on with the game after being dipped?

It was but not in F1 (because time and money) and was one of concept during F2 developement but abandoned.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Geneforge 4 and 5 do this better than any other RPG I've ever played. You can play as a double or triple agent for long durations and most of the fun is in seeing how long you can play all the political factions off one another before your actions exclude you from fully joining any given group or turns them into enemies. And you can remain pretty "free" to change your mind up until the end of the game (although G5 has a more restrictive morality system which will exclude you from some factions depending on your actions earlier in the game than G4).

In fact, I think G4 and G5 do factions better than most RPGs, period. Their one biggest flaw is that their morality system is such that if you make a decision in one place everyone across the whole world seems to instantly know about it and will judge you accordingly (which is kind of unrealistic), but what I like about them is that I think they are complex enough to accommodate play styles where the game acknowledges that the player character could be "lying" when he makes X or Y choice. Some of the outsider factions will deliberately require you to lie and pretend loyalties to other factions to achieve their ends, so you could spend huge amounts of the game pretending to be of one moral philosophy just as a means of furthering an entirely different moral philosophy, which is kind of a rare thing in RPGs with morality systems.

 

[sser]

Dragon Age sorta had this in regards to the Loghain plotline. It's actually pretty well fleshed out and I still wish it had been the primary focus of the story.

 

[racofer]

Mass Effect 3 where you can turn... gay.

 

[felipepepe]

Geneforge and Arcanum, I think.

Fallout: New Vegas - you can turn on Mr. House

New Vegas simply sucks in matter of factions and turn-coats. The factions relations are just a point-based shit, full of chances to reset it, and don't really mean anything on the importat moments. You can go and kill the entire Camp Forlon Hope by yourself for the Legion, that Ceasar will still treat you like shit and NCR will still offer you a chance to be a bro again.

And the double-crossing on Mr. House is dumb, it's dangled in your face, you have no real motivation besides doing it for the lulz, and even doing so gets you nothing but a different ending slide...

 

[deuxhero]

Morrowind? You're sent to kill an evil wizard who turns out to just someone the guild leader has a beef with twice and you can do as ordered, or help them fool the quest giver.

 

[BLOBERT]

BRO REALLY ALL THE GENEFORGES SET YOU OUT WITH AN AGENDA AND LET YOUFR DO WHAT YOU WANTED

BUT YEAH IN 5 THE INTRAFACTION POLITICS WEERE ESPECIALLY GOOD

 

[Mastermind]

Geneforge and Arcanum, I think.

Fallout: New Vegas - you can turn on Mr. House

New Vegas simply sucks in matter of factions and turn-coats. The factions relations are just a point-based shit, full of chances to reset it, and don't really mean anything on the importat moments. You can go and kill the entire Camp Forlon Hope by yourself for the Legion, that Ceasar will still treat you like shit and NCR will still offer you a chance to be a bro again.

And the double-crossing on Mr. House is dumb, it's dangled in your face, you have no real motivation besides doing it for the lulz, and even doing so gets you nothing but a different ending slide...

Sure I do: I want to rule. I pretty much always pick that option and I'm glad it's there.

 

[felipepepe]

Sure I do: I want to rule. I pretty much always pick that option and I'm glad it's there.

Doping things for the lulz with the game clearly throwing them at your face is boring. Is not like you had such high skills or found yourself a way to double-cross him, but will be hard to pull it off... it's not even that you just don't randomly shot him because you felt like it. No, you go to Yes Man and he says "Oh btw, can can totality betray Mr. House, in case you're lulzy but too dumb to think about that. Just pick option 2 bro, and I'll spell it out for you."

 

[WhiteGuts]

Giving you the possibility is throwing it at your face ? Cause you know, you can still side with House at the end.

The game doesn't push you toward any specific course of action, it's just that the Legion and the NCR want New Vegas, which can only be achieved by neutralizing him. So no, turning on House isn't just for the "lulz", it's basically determining who wins the conflict.

 

[eremita]

Sure I do: I want to rule. I pretty much always pick that option and I'm glad it's there.

Doping things for the lulz with the game clearly throwing them at your face is boring. Is not like you had such high skills or found yourself a way to double-cross him, but will be hard to pull it off... it's not even that you just don't randomly shot him because you felt like it. No, you go to Yes Man and he says "Oh btw, can can totality betray Mr. House, in case you're lulzy but too dumb to think about that. Just pick option 2 bro, and I'll spell it out for you."

I disagree. Benny did all the planing and hard work. Courier discovered this option because he was chasing Benny. In this case, it's quite a believable sequence of actions. And no, it certainly isn't here for the lulz. One of the strongest pillar of NV is that it allows you to role-play properly. If you've got yourself a character who wanna be a boss (for whatever reason...), double-crossing Mr. House is completely valid option. Or maybe you believe in NCR/Legion and so you do it knowing that it might benefit those... Sure, the walkthrough itself could be probably more difficult or complex but still...

 

[felipepepe]

Yes Man's existence is completely retarded. He spells out everything you can do like a walkthrough, and if you want to do any of that you have to tell him so the game will "allow you" to do so.

Why can't I just kill Mr. House, get to his computer and use my Int 10/Science 100 to do the same? Or say fuck you to the world, kill Mr. House and blow all the secury-trons, leaving everyone without it ? Or even just beat the game without fighting on that goddamn dam? I really don't care about it, NCR or Legion.

 

[WhiteGuts]

Go to the Sierra Madre and side with Elijah. Then you wouldn't have to fight on the Dam.:D

 

[felipepepe]

Meh, Dead Money content. You can't do that on the base game.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Yes Man's existence is completely retarded. He spells out everything you can do like a walkthrough, and if you want to do any of that you have to tell him so the game will "allow you" to do so.

You have to remember the horrid abomination's target audience this was built for. Yes Man being the in game walkthrough is probably what allowed most bethtards to finish FNV...

 

[Lemming42]

I can think of a lot of individual quests that let you shift allegience, but not whole games. There's New Vegas as everyone else said, but the faction mechanics are kinda derpy if you try to suddenly switch allegiences.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

AoD, in certain situations.