Associating Emotional Impact to the point of decision or point of effect
Re: Tim, Snake5

If you delay the effect from the decision, you could get emotions such as regret and appreciation. In your game, you could have a history letting the player choose to behave a certain way, but never with any immediate effect. For example, the player may choose to be good but its makes the situations harder. However, near the end, the history that the player had chosen the good behaviors opens the path for a good ending. When the player reaches the point of effect, the player feels appreciation and reward.

In this construct, it is still the consequences that gives the emotional effect. However, the impact is felt not at the point of decision but at the point of effect.

In your construct, you were trying to get an impact at the point of decision. This can be accomplished by pairing the effect point with another decision point.

At this new decision point, the player is presented with choices, A and B. Depending on the history, only one of them would be viable. For example, if the character had been good, he could save everyone by choosing A, while choosing B would be not as good. If the character has been bad, choosing A would completely fail, while choosing B would be the only way to survive.

Emotional impact at a point of decision free from history
Re: Tim

I think you were more interested in decision points where there was less history involved. In that case perhaps you could let the decision point occur early in the story. If the story has 13 chapters, you let the player make such a decision by chapter 2. Since most players do not expect to replay the entire game, you get the impact by letting the player choice and identify the choice with themselves. I think you get the same kind of feeling when a player choices the race and class for an MMORPG that requires a lot of leveling up. There is no history that affect the player. But the player is asked to commit to how he wants to enjoy the game--what class to play, what decision to live with for the rest of the game.

Regret is not an option - you don't want the player to stop playing the game, right? If I would finish a game with a bad ending, I'd feel like I have wasted my time and I wouldn't want to try to get a better ending because it's almost like the game is saying that I'm not the kind of person that will get it. But a game needs to be willing to co-operate to get and keep the attention of the player. And a good story shouldn't try to create emotions that might stop the player from playing the game. Also, the further the bad effect is from the choice, the more chance it has to ruin the experience for the player - he might want to redo something, to fix his mistakes.
A game is a form of interactive entertainment, not like movies where the player(viewer) is not responsible for anything, and that's why difficult choices in traditional storytelling will never be the same or even near to making choices in games.

Working Regret into the Plot
Re: Snake5

One way you could have both regret and gratification, is to pair up the point of effect with a point of decision. In this case, you could make the player feel regretful for what he had done in the game world, but at the same time let the player choose a path of redemption or change. A point of effect is not necessarily the end of the story, therefore the story could keep going. You could do both.

That's a good idea - letting him fix his mistakes instantly. I think I haven't seen that in any game, might be worth a try. At least it should be much better than the default "done something bad - go cry" (in other words, the game doesn't care how it makes the player feel) thing implemented in some games (like GTA4).

I like the idea of delayed effect. It doesn't solve the problem, as the player still knows that they could replay and make a different choice if they wanted to. It does look like a very useful tool for getting the player to re-consider the events that have led to the point of effect.

I'm not looking to give the player choices which are right or wrong or lead to a happy or sad ending. If it's a sad part of the story then both choices will be sad, for example, which character lives and which dies. Equally if its a happy part of the story then both choices are happy, for example which character the player makes "president of everything". Obviously these are simplified examples and most choices will have both positive and negative consequences.

Say at the end of Titanic if you'd been given the chance to step in and save Jack, but you could only do it by making him be a coward and leaving Rose to die? If you've made an attachment with Jack, identified with his romantic spirit you're likely to choose the honourable option but still feel sad that there was no other choice. If you DID step in and change the ending the meaning would definitely change too!

Choice increases meaning. Player choices can be managed to keep the meaning (a free and emotionally difficult choice of happy/sad ending) structured and believable.

Wouldn't you just watch it twice to see each ending? And wouldn't each one be less powerful simply because the other existed.

On another note, those are good examples of what I was talking about having each choice have some upsides and some downsides, to me neither of those options is an out-and-out happy or sad ending.

Don't expect every player to have the same opinion.

Some players might go back to a certain save to avoid having to replay games with choices, but I for one do not. I've played through most recent BioWare games 3 or 4 times! I'm currently on my first playthrough of Dragon Age, and I fully expect to play through it at least twice more. Some people, like me, are in it for the story as a whole. It would not be enjoyable to me if I kept reloading saves just to see what happens if I would have taken the other path. It doesn't always make sense in such games anyway, because your actions usually add up, producing an outcome that you might never reach by changing only one decision.

And still others, like my wife, hardly ever read dialogue in games, even though she plays the dialogue-heavy Fire Emblem and Mario & Luigi series.

So in my opinion I don't think you have a problem at all. In addition, I'm pretty sure the general opinion these days is that games with non-linear stories are preferable to linear ones, hence the current favoring of CRPGs over JRPGs (in the US at least).

Yes, if there is a choice of ending then it makes the emotional impact of a death a bit less... impacty. And yes you'd play both endings, just to see (surely that'd be part of the fun?). But that's life. Unless games become once-only self-destroying 'experiences' then there will allus be a reset button.

And what about a player making emotional attachments with a character. Maybe they've felt Jack was flaky from the start, so they fulfill their own prophecy and watch him run like a Frenchie. Or perhaps they're a helpless romantic and they've played with a sense of grand tragedy that must be ruled by destiny.

Getting people to make an emotionally difficult decision is what I'm aiming at I guess, making the choices hard even though in truth you're only choosing which button to press. There's all sorts of choice available in games really, but a lot of it goes unnoticed.

And I tghought of a better example, just as I logged off - if the Titanic game was played as Rose which ending would you choose between staying true to Jack and seeing him die, or agreeing to marry Whatsizchin (and letting him manage your use of prescription medicines) so that Jack could live?

Quote: Choice increases meaning.

It never does that in games. In movies you can see the way of thinking of a hero who's about to make a decision but in games - it's just you and your mind. You can try to make it big in your mind but it actually doesn't matter as you have the chance the reload the game. If one tries to force the choice to be powerful by making the gameplay harder, the game will get worse because this kind of thinking contradicts the ideas of good game design.