At one point in beta, enough of the wildlife had been killed, and enough of the middle-difficulty monsters had been killed, and there was a bug where town guards didn't work quite right .... and a dragon strolled down the streets of Trinsic, leaving a trail of bodies behind it.
I then took a dead guard's plate, cape and halberd equipped it. Looking exactly like an NPC guard I wandered around the city tricking other players. You could enter combat stance and everyone would flee.
Funny to think I can still vividly remember this 18-19 years later but can hardly remember the plot of many of the recent AAA titles.
Might also be age related ;).
Joke aside, I recently spent some time partially replaying the two games I most vividly remember (Baldurs Gate II, FF7 PC version), and it's by far not as memorable now as it was back then. And I haven't played at all the last 12-15 years, so it's not that I got used to different types of games.
That's because the "plot" in most AAA titles is relayed to you in a series of cutscenes, not something you actively participate in.