One thing that worries me about the lifepaths, is that they'll all basically follow the same general storyline. Or even worse, they' all start in different spots, and at a point converge on the same path. So I'm afraid the differences will not be very significant.
I didn't bother yet with the game, but this feature looks like origins. I don't remind much RPG with origins, obviously DAO, now DOS2, and then there's the special case of Tyranny with the strategic prelude setting up a sort of origin for the play. But otherwise I don't remind. So it's still a very abstract concept without many references.
Origins aren't necessary about main story evolution and differences. For me this can add various aspects:
- Have more diversified first parts. For many Rpg but not a majority, I do many start, much more than full plays. Diversified starts from origins enhance a lot this discovering/first exploring phase thanks to the extra diversity during the first parts of the game.
- You can have the same main story and still have differences that means something, solving problems differently, getting different information, different events along same main story, some choices possibilities depending of origin.
- Mix the ability to choose of your main character with a main character with a real existence in the game world, past history, fleshed life and personality. I suppose that only DOS2 tried that, and don't like what they did, but I think the idea could be good, it's more DOS2 implementation of that which isn't very good, for me.
The point is it's not because the main story is the same that it's the same play of a main story. Choice and consequence can exist without generating true alternate main stories. I would even say that despite it's Tyranny for which origins influence the most the main story, it's not making its strategic prelude origins stronger than DAO origins (overall I prefer Tyranny over DAO even if I'll admit DAO is more impressive).
