Obsidian Entertainment games have a minor form of this with their typical "influence" systems, wherein some aspect of an NPC can be boosted or changed depending on how much they like you. In the game that introduced it, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, this turned out to be a major plot point: the Exile had a tendency to unconsciously and easily create strong Force bonds with people, thus when the final battle of the Mandalorian Wars at Malachor V killed off basically everyone under her command, she had to cut herself off from the Force - rather than the Council doing so as part of her punishment, as she assumed - just to survive the backlash through the Force from all the people she was bonded with dying horribly all at once. The only reason she can use the Force now in gameplay is because, returning to the galaxy and traveling with people again, she's started making those bonds once more and is subconsciously drawing off of their Force potential to make use of her own abilities, which also explains why you can train almost everyone who joins your party as a Jedi and why your influence can change their alignments to match yours (even unintentionally explaining why one character doesn't have enough influence gains to change his alignment or learn more of his backstory). One of the Big Bad Duumvirate, Darth Nihilus, even acts as a foil to the Exile, apparently having found himself in a similar situation to the Exile but choosing instead to drain power directly from others to fill the void - sort of an active Force vampire, versus the Exile being a passive Force black hole, which becomes a big part of why you're able to beat him near the end. Kreia even uses the Exile for her plan to kill the Force, rather than Nihilus, because he is still entirely reliant on the Force, but the Exile was able to cut herself off and survive without it - and now, as a black hole in the Force, she sees in the Exile a way to kill the Force entirely. Later games of theirs keep the system, and it still works because that's how human beings work (minus the Force bits, of course), but it's never had any sort of major story connection like it did the first time.
Besides being too long and spoilered, it doesn't fit; an Artifact is something that has become useless or out of place, which the creators want to remove but can't. This is a feature that adds to the games (like making your companions stronger) even if it hasn't measured up to what it was in KOTOR II. Besides, it did not start in KOTOR II: Planescape: Torment had it.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
I am removing this:
Besides being too long and spoilered, it doesn't fit; an Artifact is something that has become useless or out of place, which the creators want to remove but can't. This is a feature that adds to the games (like making your companions stronger) even if it hasn't measured up to what it was in KOTOR II. Besides, it did not start in KOTOR II: Planescape: Torment had it.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.