i am working on something similar in my RPG project.
when the game starts the player chooses his "cause" (good, evil, chaos, order), and the quests available are based on this (there are other factors, such as class, but that is not relevant right now). now, there will be several other "main characters" besides the player; they also belong to a "cause", and will either help or hinder (or possibly disregard) the player character and the other "main" NPCs. they might join the player''s party if they are of compatable alignments, etc... and thereby be under the player''s control for a while, but when not in the spotlight (i.e. not with the player, just out adventuring by themselves) they will be completing quests and growing in power, etc. so, if the player passes up a quest, it is quite possible that one of the other heroes will take it (or the quest might expire, such as in the "village is going to burn down" example). the player loses out on the material rewards, experience, reputation, and all that good stuff (and if they are of a cause that requires one to help out others, such as "Lawful Good", they might be punished by their patron deity). of course, the quest might end up killing off the other hero, and then the player can accept it and get an extra-nice reward (because the townspeople remember that dragon killing off the last hero they hired).
there is an interesting side affect of this: besides all the side quests and whatnot, the game will eventually move on to the main quest of the game, which is to defeat the opposing cause''s heroes. if the player chooses to refuse all quests, it is possible that they might completely miss out on the "final confrontation" part of the story. all of the other heroes would have met, fought, and one side would be victorious, and the player won''t even know about it until they hear the news from some townsperson!

I''ve probably mentioned this game before but, Inindo for the SNES had some elements like you''re describing and I thought it was pretty cool. You run around with your character doing the standard RPG stuff, but you can go on missions for the warlord of the area which has an effect on battles that might take place at the end of the month. Sabotaging an army''s weapons or food will make them weaker and more likely to be defeated. You could also do this sort of thing without being asked to. If the province belonged to a warlord that wouldn''t allow you in, then you now enter (at least untill next month when there''s a retalitory strike). There were also NPCs that would run around the country (which you could recruit for your own party if they liked you) picking up these missions. If you talked to them, they might say that they''re heading to some other province looking for work.

The whole game was kind of a hybrid between a standard FF6 style RPG and one of those war strategy games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The combat system was simple, the "exceptional men" were now the NPCs you meet and pick up on the othe jobs, you run around doing the standard "go find the magic sword" quests to become stronger, kingdoms came and went if you did nothing.

quote: Original post by Wavinator
Or so many games tell us... anyways...

We want to feel like we have a strong effect on our game worlds most of the time, especially the more immersive and fully realized the worlds are.

...

But what NPCs undertook missions / quests you passed up? After a certain amount of time, the quest would go away, and you''d get news that some other hero took the quest (and either succeeded or failed).

What do you think about this?

Narrative <----+------> Simulation

Where your game is on this scale is up to you.

HTH