What are some games that are reactive to the player?

[graymeme]

In Arcanum, the game and NPCs reacted to the player in multiple ways:
-player qualities such as intelligence, race and sex (initial reaction, insults, dumb dialogue, etc)
-player state (invisibility or if the player is nude for example)
-player accomplishments (newspaper, some dialogue)
-player reputation/morality (some encounters, whether citizens attack you on sight)
-player choices (choosing between companions, some factions, etc)

What other games do this?
I know Fallout 1 and 2 does this to some extent, but I forgot how reactive New Vegas is to the player.
I am also interested to how reactive the Witcher games are to the player as well as Colony Ship.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

 

[Dark Souls II]

Morrowind. NPCs comment on your clothing all the time, voice lines change depending on your reputation etc.

Also, one of the worst games I've ever played overall, but admittedly Pillars of Eternity 2 does that. It was one of the very few RPGs in which picking a character background is acknowledged in the game (I played as however Obsidian's donutsteel OC blackguard is called, and it actually gave me extra dialogue options where I could use my background to intimidate NPCs).

 

[NecroLord]

In Arcanum, the game and NPCs reacted to the player in multiple ways:
-player qualities such as intelligence, race and sex (initial reaction, insults, dumb dialogue, etc)
-player state (invisibility or if the player is nude for example)
-player accomplishments (newspaper, some dialogue)
-player reputation/morality (some encounters, whether citizens attack you on sight)
-player choices (choosing between companions, some factions, etc)

What other games do this?
I know Fallout 1 and 2 does this to some extent, but I forgot how reactive New Vegas is to the player.
I am also interested to how reactive the Witcher games are to the player as well as Colony Ship.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Playing as a Malkavian or a Nosferatu offers one of the most unique gaming experiences, especially the Malkavian.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Probably not what you're looking for, but subtle reactivity is actually the thing that impressed me about Undertale. Lots of little details about your equipment or behaviour get reactions from the game, such as throwing a stick at various dog type enemies, or intentionally trying to die during a section where someone is pretending to try and kill you. There's a scene where a kid walks up to share your umbrella as you're walking along and you can choose to walk back the way you came, put the umbrella back where you found it and continue on without it just to spite him. Not like a listed dialogue option, just manually doing that, and the kid notices. And of course individual reactions for killing any of dozens of characters.

Caves of Qud has a pretty good reputation system, where various factions of mutants and such can become allies or enemies not just by interacting with them directly, but with their allies and enemies as well. Equipment can influence this temporarily as well, such as wearing a certain cloak functioning as a disguise that boosts favour with a certain faction, or wearing some gorrila fur making apes more aggressive towards you.

The old Shadowrun game for the Genesis had a pretty nice set of flags too where people would treat you differently; being a shaman, having a reputation above a certain threshold, having specific contacts or credentials could all influence various interactions and random events, and stats/skills could influence stuff like fast talking your way past security or a random office worker while on a heist. Previous history with runners would influence their hiring prices, so you had incentive not to fail jobs with them or let them get knocked out. Honestly probably one of the better RPGs out there for reactivity, it's a shame it's attached to such a shit combat system and tiny world.

I'd assume Underrail should be a good example as well, but I never played it enough to have any real examples.

 

[Tihskael]

Skyrim. You can steal stuff by putting buckets on people's heads. Genius.

 

[anvi]

I think most RPGs have some kind of reaction. Some more than others. In EverQuest all the characters and creatures react to each other and the players, based on their faction, race, religion. Players can also change the faction with their actions. If you do a quest that makes you an ally with that tribe or whatever, when you return they will all call you revered friend or something. If you are a race or something they hate they might be rude to you and refuse to trade. If you play as a Necromancer you hear a lot, "We will not trade with the likes of you!" Sometimes you go to visit a town and the guards and merchants charge at you trying to kill you. All because ages ago you killed someone somewhere in the world that they are allied with. You can fix it by killing their enemies and eventually doing quests for them. You can even get an illusion which will make them think different about you.

Each race has their own parts of the world. Trolls and Ogres are mostly friendly. But if a human or elf tries to wander into their areas they would be killed on sight. And vice versa. Wood Elves and High Elves lived together or close. Dark Elves were enemies and lived far away. Iksar were hated by everyone. Characters comment on how Ogres are dumb etc. Although this is based on lore not individual character stats.

- Player state: Invisibility was a huge part of the game. Everywhere you go there were things that can attack and kill you easily. The world was designed for 6 people working together as a group So when you explore alone it was dangerous. So invis was really useful. But undead can see through it. For that you could use invis vs undead. And you couldn't cast both originally so you had to sneak through dungeons carefully. Find a corner, cast a different invis, run through the rest. It also could fade randomly at any moment and then you would get jumped. Also if you tried to open a container or do anything like cast a spell, it would break.

-player accomplishments: I always wanted more of that. Especially in an MMO where you are just one person out of thousands. The ways to get prestige in the game were through your gear and through leveling up. You can select another person and click to inspect them and look at all their gear. And they could have a little bio in there if they wanted. I wished for a future game which would record any major accomplishments in there for people to see. But EQ at least had the items. Every item you wear and hold was an individual item that changes the look of the character. And every item had to be got through questing or fighting dangerous stuff. Some things were really hard, so if you see people with something like that, it was impressive to see. I still remember the first time I saw a higher level player, he was wearing a full set of steel plate armor and had a sword with fire coming off it. My friend and I were gawping at him.

-Player morality. Covered in the first one.

-Player choices. Covered in the first one too. Although there's also an expansion they had where the players needed to choose between a huge faction of giants or a huge faction of dragons. Once you start killing one they become your enemies and the other one will reward you.
It was pretty cool but I always wanted the game to do more with this and it never really did.
Also a downside of being an MMO is that it never really changed that much. In Gothic 3 you choose between a group of human refugees or orcs. And once you have chosen the other city gets wiped out completely and is empty forever. It feels more permanent.
Although there was a player run EQ server which did this too. There was a huge war with undead in one of the Elven regions and the players all showed up to fight. All the guilds worked together to fight huge undead. It was really exciting. In the end we lost. When we logged in the next day that city was changed forever, it was overtaken by Undead and remained that way for a long time. Not sure if he would have cancelled it if we won the battle, or what. But it was a cool idea. In WoW there are some buildings you can capture in the game world but that too was a bit of an afterthought. In Shadowbane capturing cities was a permanent thing. Shame it was so janky.

 

[anvi]

Later MMOs did some mind boggling things where 2 people would see different things in the same area at the same time. If you go to talk to Madam Thingy, and complete a quest, she might turn into a monster and attack you. But if another player is standing at Madam Thingy just starting the quest, they wont see her transform. Not sure where I've seen this but it was really impressive. Games like Vanguard and Rift had started the ball rolling on that.

GW2 big selling point was "you can change the world!" Lots of MMOs claimed to do that. But in reality was basically a lie. You do a quest to save a farm from giant skeletons. When you finish the quest the farm is transformed into peaceful looking and all the skeletons in the region are gone. But then 20 minutes later the whole thing resets for the next player