Thanks everyone! Some very great choices

Definitely meant something like interactive fiction (actually that's probably exactly what I meant, except in graphical form instead of typing out unsuccessful commands).

Will check out Academagia, Gateway, King of Dragon Pass and perhaps Age of Decadence ASAP!

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For those that might be interested in something like this but in book form, definitely check out the Fighting Fantasy series.

It's basically a book (series) with multiple choices, each leads up to fights, new places, etc. Most of which are determined by physical dice rolls that you make.

I've played Academagia, and the reason I didn't recommend it is that while it has a great deal of choices (it's a life sim, basically you play one year of a 13 year-old student at a magical academy, choosing what you want to study and how you spend your time), it is VERY stat-heavy, even more than RPGs.

If you like stuff like choose your own adventure and life sims it's a great game, though confusing at first. If you actually like the conept, then I can recommend quite a few games like it, most of which will be much simpler to get into.

Definitely share

Then the first thing I'd recommend since you mentioned liking Choose your Own Adventure books is the Choice of Games website here. Lots of interesting Interactive Fiction there, plus links to others in the forum.

Another good life sim I liked is Shira Oka, you can download it and a demo here.

It was already mentioned, but King of Dragon's Pass is also very good in that genre with a bit more management/strategy thrown in, but unfortunately it's kind of hard to get hold of a copy nowadays. The devs are apparently making an iOS version though.

That's all off the top of my head, if I think of any others I'll add them later.

OMG I loved Gateway. They don't really make IF like that any more...

Just wanted to say "thanks" for sharing this one. I used to love the Choose Your Own Adventure books when I was a kid. This is a fun flashback!

Well, I don't want to come off as arguing that one type/style of game is better or worse than another but your above is a bit erroneous as far as RPG definition goes and is also a false dichotomy(re: stats, in many well designed RPGs determine a whole lot more than how good you are at "killing stuff").
RPGs by definition have to be heavily stat-based. Without those quantifications then you are left with either no GAME at all(just improvisational acting/drama class) or a completely different genre of game(such as arcade-action or adventure). The thing that differentiated D&D(as badly designed as that game was, it was still the original RPG) from "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians"(two role playing activities that were common to young children up until the 1980s or so) was that "Cops and Robbers" ALWAYS degenerated into arguments between the kids of "I shot you!"/"No you didn't...I ducked behind this tree!/No I shot you before you moved!/etc." Why? Because there was no GAME mechanics. No means to measure one person's probability of shooting the other or avoiding being hit by the other etc.
RPGs are special because they have quantified game mechanics(i.e. "stat based gameplay"). This does not preclude(in fact it encourages) choices and consequences, storytelling, acting etc.

You're quite welcome to argue that one style of game is better provided you remember it's subjective.

To clarify my opinion, I'm not doubting the need for stats in a RPG, I actually prefer when the game gives a detailed explanation of its mechanics, how things work and have complex stats and derived abilities. I like numbers, provided they make sense and are explained properly somewhere.

However, I find that in many recent RPGs, contrary to older games like Planescape Torment, Fallout or Arcanum, your base stats have very little influence on anything except combat ability. How intelligent, or how charismatic your character is often makes no difference at all to how the game plays out for you, except in combat (depending on class) and possibly in some conversations.

That obviously makes very little sense in a RPG that's by definition supposed to rely more on character skill than player skill to determine what you can and can't do. A very clever character should be able to find alternative solutions to quests, a very charismatic one should be avoid to avoid some fights with intelligent enemies, etc...

I also didn't mean that a game that doesn't do that type of thing (like Morrowind, for instance) isn't an RPG, just that I'll like it less than one that makes the effort of making the game reflect what kind of character I'm playing in other areas than combat, therefore increasing replayability. This is why I like stat checks, both in conversation and for quest options.

I've always been on the fence about dialog choices being affected by character stats myself. Sure, they make sense from a simulationist perspective - everything about a character is spelled out in his stats, everything the character can do or say depends on his stats - and I suppose they can help differentiate between a strong but dim fighter and a weak but intelligent wizard. But since players are no longer in control of what dialog choices they can make - that is, there are limits to how players can "roleplay" through dialogs, there's arguably the risk of the mental and personality stats getting caught up in min/maxing powergaming.

Take Planescape: Torment, for instance. Given how dialog-focused and combat-light the game is advertised as, why would anyone not pump up their characters' Intelligence and Charisma on every level-up, ever?

A more recent, though rather different, example is in Mass Effect 2. There are several "Paragon" and "Renegade" choices (basically, lawful and chaotic choices) throughout the game, which result in some outcome that's better or more interesting than the non-Paragon and non-Renegade options. These choices depend on your Paragon and Renegade ratings, with choices later in the game requiring higher ratings. You increase these ratings by choosing "easier" Paragon and Renegade options in other dialogs. So if there's some late-game Renegade option you want to pick, you're only going to get it if you've grinded for Renegade choices earlier in the game. This has serious implications since the choice between Paragon and Renegade is your main source of roleplaying.

I think this becomes an issue because, when you think about it, even in the RPG "greats" you don't do much besides combat and running through dialog trees. You might get some traps and locks, the odd inventory puzzle, and maybe a switch puzzle, but that's about it. And only the traps and locks have ever been stat driven.

King of Dragon Pass does more to put you in the "role" of a leader than any other game I've played. There are stats and probabilities under the hood, but all the gameplay is filtered through prose storytelling.

Full agreement with that.