Choices and branches
Learning paths through this topic
Check the player can see every key event with limited actions per day
In a story with days and a few actions each day, some events only happen in certain days. Players will miss them unless the plan fits. Here is how to check that a full schedule exists and who gets squeezed out when it does not.
Catch a character who is dead on one path and still talking
When a companion can die in one scene, every later scene that lets them speak is a bug on some path, and you will not meet it unless you play that exact order. This entry walks every combination and gives the path that shows the mistake.
Detect the dead end where nothing the player can afford leads to the goal
A player spends the last food on an upgrade, and now every path to the story goal needs something they can no longer earn. The game looks fine and is lost. Here is how to search the player's real options ahead, find a way through if there is one, and say so when there is none.
Show only four of nine dialogue options without hiding the key one
A conversation can offer more answers than a screen or a controller allows, and cutting the list blindly can drop the one reply the story needs. Here is a selection rule that keeps the must-have options, fills the rest by importance, and leaves the order alone.
Catch disaster orders that no longer fit the city when they run
A player queues evacuate and defend orders before the flood arrives, but by the time they run, a building is gone, empty, double-booked or short of workers. Here is how to check each order against the city as it is and say plainly why one cannot happen.
Keep each hero's knowledge separate when you switch viewpoint
When the story switches between two or three playable people, one of them can suddenly mention what only the other one saw. Here is how to track who knows what, who learned it together with whom, and flag a line that tells more than that person could know.
Give a ruler a few edict slots and make repealing one cost something
If every law can be switched on and off for free, the player never has to choose. Here is how to limit the active edicts, make them say which one to drop when the slots are full, and stop the same edict from flickering back on the very next turn.
Pick the ending from what the player did most, with a fair tie rule
After dozens of choices, the ending should reflect the road the player took, but a plain count fails in two ways: two themes can end level, and a theme the player barely touched can still come out on top. Here is a rule for both, and the neutral ending when nothing stood out.
Choose which legacies carry into the next era, one of each kind
At the end of an era the player keeps a few things from the past. Without rules they carry the same bonus twice, take something they never earned, or stack three of one kind. Here is how to check a pick, name each refusal, and keep the order of the picks fair.
Show everything a one-of-two technology pick shuts out before it is made
When a story forces a player to pick one of two research paths, the loss is bigger than the option left behind, because everything built on it disappears too. Here is how to list the whole loss ahead of time so the choice is informed, not a trap.
Tell the player where an expedition can no longer get home
Marching deeper is a choice that feels free until the food is gone and the way back is longer than the supplies. Here is how to find the last place from which the army can still return, include a depot on the way, and warn before that step, not after.
Make sure every deadly choice was warned about just before
A death the player could not have seen coming is not scary, it is unfair. Worse, a warning given an hour earlier is as good as none. Here is how to check that every fatal moment follows a warning that is still fresh on every path that leads there.