Originally Posted by _Vic_

Maybe I misunderstood your argument, but i´m pretty sure in PF there are choices that only appear if you have some particular alignment or race, worship a particular diety, etc...not only dialogue choices, some of them quest-solving choices. Your choices and alignment will also determine what allies and companions you will have along the way. And in the end they could change how the world would change at the end of the campaign.

Yes, Pathfinder has a story and has reactivity. It just doesn't give a crap about a character I want to play.

As far as pre-determined vs. custom character there is a good balance that needs to be struck, and this will change from game to game. In RPG naturally you want player to have freedom to create character they want but realistically developers have to put some limit on you.

Kingmaker has a good set up - you create a custom character but you are restricted to being a ruled of the kingdom. Where P:K looses me, is that in my 84h with the game (starting 3rd chapter - well actually doing the DLC now) choices weren't interesting. I was never asked to define values of my character, and those values were never challenged. It might be limitation of the alignment system - I decided to be neutral lawful and I get neutral lawful things to pick. I was never challenged if my decisions might not be correct, nor the game made me wonder if I am making a right choice. It's just pick your flavour. It is possible that down the line certain choices will have repercussions and if in unlikely case I would do a 2nd run, I might think harder about what I am about to do, but even so I don't think that's great - not being encourage to think in the moment of making the decision move dlalogue from being engaging to filler inbetween combat.

And while Witcher3 might put you in Geralts shoes and greatly limited your roleplaying abilities, decisions it put in front of you were far more agonizing, and therefore more engaging. Pathfinder so far: "Are you a good boy, a bad boy, or an indifferent boy?" Oh also: will anyone ever notice I am a tiefling? I know its part of the DLCs, so they couldn't reimplement reactivity (they are not Obsidian afterall!), but I was disappointed when Tiefling from the same DLC failed to notice multiple times I am a tiefling too.