The Ultimate Choice in RPGs: - Gameplay

@Gamasutra Felipe Pepe takes a look at the history of crpg 'choices'.

The history of CRPG choices;
or I how really need to learn how to be concise in these articles

In the beginning, there was no choice. At least, not as we think of them today.

While tabletop RPGs rely on the moment-to-moment choice of the players -"I try to climb down the cliff",
"I ask the sage about the scroll", "I ATTACK THE ORC!", etc - CRPGs at first had a limited scope.

In the late 70's / early 80's, the only real choice in CRPGs was character/party build.

You would create a blob of stats, and then your Imagination^TM would transform them into "Sir Isaac Darkwood, leader of the band of adventurers who just defeated the evil Werdna in glorious combat!"

Then Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985) came, and now HOW you played matter - if a beggar asks for money and you give him $10, your compassion goes up. And there were many events like that:

However, while the game does offers some choices, they are more like a game-wide puzzle - you need to pick the correct options and act as a true Avatar of Virtue to finish the game. You're free to play as an asshole, but you won't ever advance the game like that.