But Thou Must / MMORPG

"... This is another one of those moments where it really doesn't matter what I have to say, isn't it?"

—The Warrior of Light, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, "Word about Komra"

But Thou Must! in MMORPG.

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Examples where giving the "wrong" answer makes it impossible to proceed until you give the "right" answer (including giving Non-Standard Game Overs):

• Final Fantasy XI: In the Chains of Promathia storyline, fake choices come up often. Usually the other characters just react slightly differently but the scene goes on normally, so your decision is unimportant. However, there is a running gag of your character passing out and the Chebukki triplets robbing you. Finally, at the beginning of Chapter 7, you wake up first and find the triplets passed out. You are given the choice of whether or not you want to rob them. If you choose not to rob them, the game will tell you "You're always falling victim to these three. It's about time you returned the favor.". It will do this over and over again until you decide to rob them.
• Final Fantasy XIV:
  • Though the game more typically falls into the category below, in the first class quest for the Dark Knight job in Stormblood you're asked about the supposed contradiction of a dark knight fighting in service of the Light and asked if you still walk the path. One option has you say you'll never give up being a dark knight so long as innocents suffer, and the quest proceeds as normal. The other has you say that if service to the Light requires you to give up that path you'll do it; the trainer says he's not sure whether they're mutually exclusive, but decides it's your choice and bids you well, and then the quest just ends. You can't complete it or move on to the later class quests until you give the first answer.
  • A similar thing happens in the Return of Ivalice raid series, where brushing off a sidequest character prevents the quest from starting.
  • This is also the case with several FATEs that start by talking to a relevant NPC, who gives an overview of what the FATE will involve and then asks for your help. Say yes and the FATE properly spawns, say no and they will bemoan that no one will help them or bid you a good day or what have you.
  • Starting any new job usually involves someone to ask you if you are ready to commit to it. Any answer other than yes has the job teacher act disappointed and inform the player that they are still welcome if they change their mind later.
  • In later expansions, more and more jokes are made about how the Warrior of Light is a doormat who cannot say no when it involves helping someone in any way, even if they (the Warrior of Light) really would prefer to say no. One sidequest in Shadowbringers has an Amaro keeper ask the Warrior to help with a variety of tasks, culminating in carrying a sack of Amaro dung to a nearby botany site for use as fertilizer. When you get back, the keeper notes that he was surprised you just agreed to everything he asked of you without complaint. He expected you to say no when he handed you a bag full of literal shit.
• Done painfully in The Lord of the Rings Online in the Mirkwood Expansion. You are chastised by Celeborn for making the foolish decision to allow Mazog to live. A short while later, you actually rewind to the part where you were given that choice. However, selecting the option to kill him gets you overruled. You can practically hear the writers laughing.
• The Matrix Online simply closes the game if you pick the wrong pill. If you don't see it coming, you might think the game crashed.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic: Sometimes averted; many quests have more than one way to complete them. Otherwise, the only way to avoid doing things you don't like is to refuse quests. Which you don't get XP for. But at least you have the opportunity to refuse quests.

Examples where giving the "wrong" answer has little or no effect:

• In Gaia Online, you are given the choice between going into the woods to fight monsters with ninjas, or to go back to check on the head Ninja's niece (despite the fact that the previous quest established the fact that she was 100% safe). If you choose "adventure" over "loyalty", the Ninja will call you foolish, and will force you to go check on his niece. (This is because the Forest area isn't actually in the game yet, and checking on said niece unlocks the Wish Tree Quest, which provides a nice piece of exposition if you clear it.)

• An interesting example turns up in the MMORPG Phantasy Star Universe's Story Mode. Up until 'Episode 3', the plot has given, occasionally, a chance for a player character to express an opinion which is then summarily ignored. However, as of Episode 3's fourth mission, the developers have begun to go back through the story mode missions and edit things so that many of the responses, and player's actions during missions, can lead into entirely new branches of the story, as well as adding these conditional branches to newly released missions as well.
  • However, the trope is played straight in the prelude to the Episode 3 story mission Ambition's End 2: After some boring chatter, you're given the option of taking one of four different NPCs. Now, the AI being what it is in PSU, they're all useless to a variety of degrees, but each one is at least capable of soaking up some damage and dealing some in return, or providing you with some decent support to help keep you alive. No matter which you pick, you're forced to take a little girl with no damage potential, no useful support abilities, and who has proven herself to be an utter moron by, among other things, chasing after her brother when he chases a thief, loudly announcing her presence to said thief and his two thug brothers after said brother has caught up with them, telling him off when he tells her to run, and then meandering away when the biggest of the brothers comes to grab her. Later on in the same mission, when threatened by the Big Bad, she opts not to take the smart of option of fleeing, she skips over the option of using her (admittedly worthless) TECHNICs, and instead stands there and lets him beat her down. "Liability" doesn't even begin to cover her uselessness.
• Final Fantasy XIV starts doing this around the Stormblood expansion, but by Shadowbringers fully leans into the fact that the Warrior of Light/Darkness really doesn't have a choice in being a hero. Be dismissive or rude to quest givers, and they'll assume you're joking or kidding around, as a hero who has saved the world on multiple occasions couldn't possibly be turning down the chance to help someone in need. A few times though, the dialog options really lean on the fourth wall.
  A group of dwarves has asked for your help in a long, drawn out questline
  Choice #1: ... This is another one of those moments where it really doesn't matter what I have to say, isn't it?
  Choice #2: Oh, sod this.
• Kingdom of Loathing does this in its re-tooled Halloween event. You find an empty house with a giant bowl of candy. If you choose to steal the bowl, you get away with it, and there's no punishment. If you try to be honest by not stealing it, the homeowner appears, announces that it was a Secret Test of Character, and gives you the bowl.
• The Lord of the Rings Online has a choice in Rohan where you are asked if you want to encourage a Thane's son to attack a group of orcs (allegedly against King Theoden's will), or encourage the Thane to follow his mother's advice in leaving the orcs alone per Theoden's decree. The Thane's mother is actually in league with Wormtongue, and believes that betraying Rohan is the only way to save it. This trope comes into play because even if you choose to side with the traitor, you end up performing the same quests against the orcs anyway, leading to the Thane's Mother getting increasingly upset with you as she's hiring you to do X and you keep doing Y instead.
• Star Trek Online justifies this and plays it for horror in the Romulan captain mission "Mind Game". You have been captured by the Tal Shiar and placed under mental conditioning. You can resist all you want, but you're gonna end up doing some horrible things.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
  • There is a creative use of this trope in the Imperial Agent questline, where the player character has been brainwashed, and no matter what dialogue option you choose, your character will say the same thing which conveys a sense of not being in control of your own mind.
  • When encountering an important enemy, the player character can try to work things out peacefully instead of choosing the option to just attack, most of the time it won't work and they will have to fight anyway.
  • In the Bounty Hunter campaign, the game really wants you to be a Mandalorian. In the second chapter you're asked directly by Mandalore if you want to join up and there two options for saying yes and the one option for saying no is a needlessly hostile rebuke of the offer that leads to Mandalore shouting at you to leave. Not that it matters though, because as far as the narrative is concerned you're a Mando anyway and have access to their exclusive hitlist where they keep all the nigh-impossible targets.

Examples where there is no "wrong" answer available to choose:

• Parodied for a throwaway joke at least once in Kingdom of Loathing: when you encounter Dr. Awkward the second time, the game offers you three choices of Battle Cry, all of which have exactly the same effect (i.e. entering combat).
  • KoL does this quite often, in fact. The options given at the door to Felonia's chamber:
    Enter the chamber
    Enter the chamber (No other possibility)
    Enter the chamber (Seriously)
• Done painfully straight in Star Trek Online. Your Federation crew is asked to invade a Romulan base in search of superweapons and you're accompanied by the admiral who gave you the orders. As it turns out you just ruined Undine-spotting programs and the admiral was an Undine! And the worst thing is that you've probably figured something was wrong much sooner...
  • And again in the mission "A Step Between Stars". First, you're told that you need to fly your ship towards an outpost that controls the Solanae Sphere's ability to warp towards different places. Which is located near an artificial sun. Your choices are, paraphrased, "Sure, I'll do it", "Absolutely not, my ship can't take it" and "Why can't we just cloak?" Choosing the cloak option reveals that your opponents, the Voth, are getting smart towards those tricks and choosing No will have the mission giver tell you that you'll be safe as you'll be outfitted with a shield modification that will protect you for a short while. With that, you're given the standard "okay" or a begrudging "okay". You find out, later, that the only way to shut down the Solanae Sphere's ability to jump, and thus unleash a horde of Omega molecules that would destroy subspace, is to activate an Iconian gateway. The scientist with you, Dr. Eric Cooper, tells you there's no other way and Tuvok gives you the honors of shutting it down. You can sit there and tell Tuvok that you're not shutting it down, but it's getting shut down, even if that Vulcan has to.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic
  • It applies to a T with companion characters during the class questlines. After Bioware removed the option of killing companion characters during beta, recruiting them is mandatory with a variety of "Yes" answers. It doesn't matter how badly their personalities clash with your character (and can lead to a rather startling Out-of-Character Moment).
    • Skadge and Gault, companions of the Bounty Hunter, are particularly egregious examples if one is playing as an honorable or otherwise Light Sided Hunter.
    • As a Sith Warrior you can't kill Malavai Quinn after he tries to kill you on Baras' orders. The Dark Side option is simply to Force Choke him out before giving him a spot back on your crew.
    • Jedi Knights who hate Imperials with a passion have no choice but to add Lord Scourge to the party, even if his presence massively throws off your potential roleplaying. To the game's credit, Scourge's being forced on the player does make sense in the context of the story but keeping him after defeating The Sith Emperor is another example of the player not having any real choice in the matter.
  • Even if your Imperial character is an alien who is sick of racism and politicking of the superiors, they can't join Darth Malgus's New Empire on Ilum, even though Darth Serevin gets to. You don't even get a chance to say that you agree with Malgus as the game suddenly makes your character a fullbore Imperial patriot who won't suffer his treason.
• Browser-based MMORPG Travians lives on these, but one particular instance was at least more amusing than most:
  You attempt to give Lorena a letter from the main villain of the game.
  Lorena: Should I read it? You decide for me!
  Choice #1: I'll rather keep the letter with me for a while.
  Choice #2: Goodbye! (Standard conversation-ending choice)
  And if you choose the only choice available:
  Lorena: I trust your common sense.
• Early quests in World of Warcraft will automatically be placed on your list of accepted quests as soon as you talk to the quest-giver, without needing to accept them. However it's subverted as you could easily just abandon the quest.
  • Very few quests (maybe three or four out of all of them, such as keeping the Chained Essence of Eranikus or not, saving or killing the Human Seedlings in Hillsbrad, letting Marion Wormwing go free or killing her, and whatever this is) have any sort of choice at all, forcing your character to sometimes make odd decisions to keep the story moving.
  • Recently a few more quests give you options on which dialogue you can use, but it makes little difference what you say.
    • For example in the 'Battle for Booty Bay' arc, you have to kill Bossy the cow to convince a pirate you're on his side. You can give Bossy a long, inspirational speech about how Booty Bay needs her - now more then ever - or you can just say "Moo." Either way, Bossy agrees and if you don't chop off her head, you can't continue.
  • As of Cataclysm, one of the last quests in Westfall forces you to fly to Stormwind to tell the king that the Defias Brotherhood has reformed. Even if you're max level and could kill every one of the Defias with a single attack while naked.
  • Part of the Warlords of Draenor legendary questline has But Thou Musn't. At one point Cordana Felsong asks you for the ring you and Khadgar have been making throughout the expansion, realizing something is very wrong, your options are "No." and "Oh, HELL No!". Three guesses as to which was most often picked.
• Final Fantasy XIV has cutscenes where you can choose how to respond or react to the situation or characters involved. No matter how you respond, the story doesn't change and just continues on as is. Likewise, the Post-Final Boss in Endwalker tells you that you can just walk away without fighting him and he won't stop you from doing so. However, none of the responses that you're presented with give you such an option, so you end up fighting him anyway.

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