I realized something about RPGs yesterday after Daggerfall was brought up (yes, I can hear you groaning Terminal). You can break down the RPG elements into two parts: the mechanical and the role-playing, both should should like what they are (but I will explain to be safe).
Mechanical: The “build.” It’s your stats, perks, and stat requirements, the last mostly for gear or skill checks.
Role-playing: The choices (real or illusion) you can make that isn’t just mechanical. This is conversations that have different routes base on your choice in conversations and (if there is a meaningful skill check) skills. This is the (very limited) roleplaying part.
The thing I realized is that these two elements interacting is what makes/breaks games or just leave no impact. I think a way this can break games (or at least the enjoyment of the games) is when the roleplaying limits the mechanical.
I’ll use Daggerfall as an example because it stands out to me like forest fire. The first town I go to have a knightly order I want to join. However, since the requirements are so stringy and I don’t want to play an archer or waste limited skill slots on language skills, I did quests for them in the vain hope of getting enough reputation with them that they’ll let me join anyway. Foolish, I know, but I was despite. This is an example where the game limits your experience base on your build/roleplaying for no good reason. Why not have the knights have more proficiency requirements so more builds can enjoy their questline? Why not have them be base on the stats of a skill and not a proficiency check? Why limit what players can experience per character instead of just letting them try and enjoy everything with one character? It’s just not a good or fun limitation. Another crashing of systems is the language skills. From my understanding, they sometimes allowing to avoid fighting a specific enemy type. That’s it, and they’re very situational, and demands you to heavily invest into them to be of use. This makes the experience less enjoyable because you are losing valuable skill proficiency for roleplaying that rarely comes up or is worth it.
Now lets look at Skyrim, where the roleplaying part is more limited. In it, your build is pretty much where your roleplaying starts and ends. You have no meaningful choices outside of the Civil War questline and if you revive or destroy the Dark Brotherhood. This is a game where your roleplaying leaves no impact (for the most part). This is what I mean by the third option of the two parts mixing leaving no impact.
One more example of the mix breaking is Greedfall. I never played it myself, but Thanotos did mention that he did and that there’s a situation that you can only resolve peacefully with stealth. Why is the player only limited to stealth for that outcome? Speech checks have always been an option for this type of situation, so why not here as well? It’s limiting the player’s enjoyment by having only one skill check option for success and not three or four, which is more reasonable for RPG games and meaningful choices. Fallout New Vegas knew this, so Greedfall should as well.
I’m not sure if I know any that mixes them well, honestly. Maybe my idea of them mixing well is unreasonably high, or I’m just forgetting them at the moment. Anyway, wanted to get that off my chest.