The main character starts the game literally giving himself a traumatic brain injury by drowning himself in alcohol. It's not really the kind of RPG where you can play a self-insert, the player character is an actual character with his own backstory. Not being able to make good choices because of the player character's personal trauma and limitations is part of the story that the game is telling.

So bad that I had to hop on a forum and go “Hey, so, there aren’t any good choices in the dialog tree, did I fuck up my character generation? Should I start over?”

Your first mistake was thinking it was like any of those other CRPGS with dialog trees. No, you didn't fuck up your character generation. Your character IS a fuck up. That's part of the story it's trying to tell. You don't get to Mary Sue this shit.

How you engage with the game is figuring out how to un-fuck-up the character in a matter that is realistic. Or just ignoring whatever lessons the game gives you and continue down the same self-destructive path. Or somewhere in-between. All paths are have their creative stories to tell, and even being strange and weird with it can still lead to solving pieces of the crime you're trying to piece together.

Yeah, I don’t get games where “You want some fuck?” is a valid dialog choice.

Because it's fucking funny when you didn't know what the actual dialogue entry was going to be, you took a gamble, and the "pay off" (well, it was a failed check) is that your character says the cringest fucking line to some woman he's immediately attracted to. So cringe that even your own Volition (best fucking mental power, btw) is like "the words already left your mouth" as if he was already smacking his goddamn forehead right through to the other side. (EDIT: Actually, it was Suggestion, but whatever.) If anything, it should teach you not to make red check gambles unless you're prepared for the mental damage a failure might come with. Or maybe you just want to laugh at the upcoming misfortune.

Your. Character. Is. A. Fuck up.

If that bothers you, and you want to play something that involves some extreme power fantasy, where you can pick a class and play a completely silent blank slate, then this game is not for you.

Hey, if you don’t have traumatic brain injury, what are you doing on Lemmy?

I enjoyed it because many RPGs are a power fantasy, where you're an epic hero who saves the world. Some of them present you with a blank slate character you can shape however you wish, and whilst that can be fun, I find I have more fun when I'm playing a character with some history.

In Disco Elysium, you're playing as someone whose history is fucked up, so good choices often aren't an option. He's not a typical hero, and he'll be lucky if he can save himself, let alone the world — the world is even more fucked up than he is, riddled with scars from a long dead, hopeful era. Even though at the start of the game, both the player and your character have no knowledge of history, you can't escape it.

A huge part of why I like it is because I can see what it's going for, and I'm here for that. Even if I didn't personally click with it, I think I would respect it for having things to say and committing to it. What's an RPG that you have clicked with or loved what it was going for? If you're not into Disco Elysium, then I suspect that your answer might be a game that would pull me out of my comfort zone in interesting ways.

"dialog choices appear to have been written by or for people with traumatic brain injury."

I think this is a pretty harsh statement, but it did make me laugh, because part of why I vibed with Disco Elysium so much is because a couple years before, I actually bumped my head that I lost my memory and couldn't even remember who I was.

I mean, it's ok to not get it? It really does sound like you just don't get it. If your example of why it's bad is a genuinely funny, absurd result of a failed check, it might just not be for you.

Being insulted by Cuno and that other little rat faced fuck was a highlight for me

I mostly just hated that the story was largely delivered via info dump and nearly every character was a terrible person to the point of being grating. I don't have to enjoy every video game, but I wish I at least understood why this one got this much acclaim.

You've confused basic with good, common mistake

I think the problem is that it kind of isn't an RPG.

It's an adventure game with heavy RPG elements. Like the core gameplay clearly resembles old point and click adventure games. It's just the experience and leveling system are also so central to the gameplay that it wouldn't work without also being an RPG.

That's not what the detective said. He SAID "I want to have fuck with you"

By chance did you pick a character with a low intelligence or charisma? Because ability scores matter a lot.

I sadly didn't get to play much of it. I only had access to it for a limited time, and I did not get far at all.

I could see what it was going for but it felt like a chore to play so I stopped.

The term "over-embroidered" springs to mind.

To me Disco Elysium was the next example of the "Art Game".

The game people bring up when discussing Game as Art, without actually explaining what makes it art.

ITT: lots of people who don't like this kind of game saying they didn't like it, comparing it to wildly different games and getting pissed at people explaining why it was great.

I weep for our species' lost potential, which ironically was a theme of Disco Elysium.