The old game siege of avalon is such a great example. You arrive on a ship at the besieged fortress of avalon. You are a nobody. Your brother is a high ranked captain. As you arrive you nearly have 5 minutes with your brother because he was sent to a secret operation outside the castle. Your brother gives you the task to explore the castle and get orders from another captain and show your skills at the training seargent. There is no time frame or order in what you explore the castle or start several quests. Due to you beeing a nobody you have limited access to areas in the castle. When you decide to finish the training level you get the information that the squad of your brother went missing. Your brother is MIA. so now the Urgency begins. You want to find your brother but you are not allowed to leave the castle. To do so you need to either enlist to the military, join the master spy or assist the master mage. This required many quests and setting up your reputation. Because why would they trust a nobody in times of war? When you finally are allowed to leave the castle you find your brother and takes him back to castle. When he wakes up many levels later you gained enough reputation that the people don't refer to you as the brother of the captain but for your fame and titles. For example you could get knighted in the game if you focused on the military path. You were not the chosen one, no royal blood and not even famous. You were simple the youngest brother that got reputation and fame for solving the quests and helping the people.

I haven't played a Fallout, but I have played both Skyrim and Oblivion, so I get what you're saying. Personally, I think it's funny that I completed the entire Knights of the Nine dlc in Oblivion before entering my first Oblivion gate. That's the equivalent doing the entire of the Dawnguard dlc in Skyrim before fighting your first dragon in Skyrim. Though I think part of the problem stems from the difference between western RPGs and Japanese RPGs. Generally speaking, WRPGs give you a blank slate character, and ask "what role do they play?" Whereas JRPGs give you a character who is their own thing separate from whatever you're doing, and ask you, "hey, play this character." It's like the difference between playing a character at a D&D table, and playing Hamlet. Obviously these are not universal. The Dragon Quest games, and Persona games spring to mind as distinctly Japanese RPGs that give you a blank slate of a character (can't think of any WRPGs off the top of my head that ask you to play a premade character though). Neither's inherently better than the other (though I do have my preferences. You might be able to guess what they are based on how long I spend talking about each example), but the best of both rewards you for playing in line with what the devs want you to do. For an example of the WRPGs, in Oblivion's Knights of the Nine dlc, there's this dope armor and weapon set called the Crusader's relics. You cannot use them if you have any infamy (fame/infamy is the metric by which the game tracks how good/bad of a person you are), and if you murder two people after getting them, you lose the ability to use them until you go on a pilgrimage to the different shrines for the Nine Divines. It's a mechanic that encourages you to play the role of the holy knight doing the gods' work. Contrast this with Trails of Cold Steel quadrilogy, a JRPG subseries (it fits into the larger Trails series put out by Falcom) where you play as anime protagonist Rean Schwarzer, who can't keep stop himself from helping other people, even to save his own life. The game actively encourages you to stick your nose into everyone's business and help as many people as you can. It does this by making every request not only give a reward of money and/or items, but they also give AP, and "Thor's Unity Rating" (that's what it's called in 4, I don't recall what it's called in the previous ones). These are important, because the best accessories in the game are locked behind maxing out your AP and Thor's Unity Rating. So the game rewards you for acting in the most Rean appropriate way possible, sticking your nose into everyone's business and helping out literally everybody, with the best equipment in the game. It does this again in 4 by putting the most overpowered, Rean exclusive, accessories behind maxing out bond levels with your party members. It encourages you to seek the power of friendship, by letting you break the Rean balancing after maxing the right people out (for a couple examples of what I'm talking about. You can get Rean to auto revive 4 times per battle, with full health. Or, you can get him out speed Fie, the fastest character in the game, while also having him hit as hard as Laura, the character with the highest strength stat in the game. That's just two examples, there're a lot more options). Apologies for rambling about this game for as long as I have. Please forgive a man wanting to talk about his favorite game I don't know what this has to do with your video, which was interesting by the way, but I'm gonna try to tie it back. I suppose the best way to do that, would be like this. I feel like the main quests in most Bethesda games are too urgent, for too little reward, while also directly contrasting with the WRPG style of role play that the games try to enforce everywhere else.

I have to play all of these games with "alternate start" mods to counter the "urgency" that you discuss. I love playing as a nobody in games, I'm so tired of "you're the chosen one", or "here's this massive task for you" right off the bat. For example in the Skyrim alternate start mod, you can start the game as a hunter, spawning in a random shack in the woods. Or a miner, waking up on a bedroll in dilapidated cave. This is much more interesting to me, I'm able to craft much more interesting characters this way, and ignore any main quests, focusing solely on content I think this specific character would tackle. But yeah, great vid. I think about this every time I play one of their games, so it's nice to know others feel the same!

I definitely feel like I just need to pretend the story doesn't exist for Fallout 4 and treat it like Minecraft, because I do find the core gameplay loop genuinely fun and compelling. Here's hoping Obsidian is a lot more like Pillars of Eternity and a lot less like Outer Worlds when Avowed comes out.

I feel like Dragon Age Inquisition sort of did the Reputation system well like you were saying; but they called it the "War Table"

Yeah when I played fallout 3 again I was a little disappointed at how short the main story was. And like you, I also felt the urgency to finish that story line. Then when I did, the game ended. It would have been nice to get a hint before going into the final battle, that the game was going to end so then I could go explore the map before the end of the game. I think it was healthygamergg on KZfaq who said that video games are just a proxy for life. The reason why they are so fun when you are young is because you haven't really started the game of life yet. You are still on tutorial island I guess. That's why he says that when you are older games seem less fun. Because you are already playing the game of life, there is no longer a need for that proxy. So the reason I say that is to get at your 2nd fix. In the game of life we are all playing that reputation game and trying to accumulate wealth for a successful career/life and for a bigger purpose. Which in the video game would be the main story line. That's why personally I now enjoy games for their mindless entertainment and a little bit of escapism. But I can't spend too much time on that because I am busy playing the game of life. That's also why I like this Pokemon emulator on my phone, cause it means I can play it on the train to and from work. Also why my favourite game atm is Battlefield 2042, it's complete mindless entertainment in a way where there are short 40ish minute rounds so i have an easy off ramp to a gaming session, whereas RPGs can kinda suck you in for hours at a time.

Western RPGS (and this is why I prefer them more over JRPGs) your a blank slate and asked what do you want to be. JRPs you play as a character with history and backstory. And even when a Western RPG does have you be a "pre-made" character, you can still choose what to to and how to play them, like with KOTOR. Bethesda is the king of "Be whoever you want", in Fallouts I love playing as a charismatic mercenary, hell even with Starfield playing as a Bounty Hunter was awesome. Hell, that's why I never understood the whole "Bethesda does not understood Role Playing". They do, they just ask you what do YOU want to be, and give you the tools in the setting to be it. I do hope im not coming off as an asshole.

Totally agree with fallout 4 and have a mod recommendation that butchers and makes the ''main quest'' interesting. Look up ''Synthetic player'', this is great if you have considered role playing as a gen 3 synth.