How should the dialogue choices be presented in narrative RPGs?

[Pero_Gamechuck]

Hi codexians.

First, a disclaimer. This isn't an advertisement for the game I'm working on. I was inspired to ask this question by a blog article written by our lead writer, Jan Juracic. And it is a great read.

The topic of the article is the dialogue in narrative games. What Jan compares in the blog are the verbatim and implied styles.

The first is the approach favoured by Black Isle Studios, of Fallout and Planescape fame, and other old-school RPG developers, which I’m dubbing the verbatim style, in which the options spell out the entire line your character will say word for word. If one of the options was, say: ‘Drop that gun, you melon farmer!’ That’s exactly what your character would end up saying.

The other approach is one we might call the implied style. You’ve seen this one in Mass Effect and the Witcher series. In the implied style the option only suggests the basic gist of what the character will say if you select it. In this style, selecting the option ‘Drop the gun!’ might produce the result, say: ‘Drop that gun, you melon farmer!’

These are the places where the implied style really shines. Consider this jury-rigged example:

Implied Style:

• NPC: ‘I know you’re not from around here, but you’ve heard of Harren of Dens, surely?’

Option 1: Yes, I have.

• PC: Of course, he’s the man who killed the Vicar of Shoals in that senseless duel. Over a couple of turnips, if I recall correctly.

Option 2: No, who?

• PC: Harren of Dens? Who’s he?

• NPC: He duelled and killed the Vicar of Shoals over a couple of turnips. Utterly senseless.

As you can tell, using the implied style let us give the player the opportunity to express themselves (in this case by choosing how well informed their character is) while still delivering the exposition in a natural way. The player doesn’t know who Harren of Dens is, but their character might. This is a kind of false branch in the dialogue tree, as both choices lead to the same outcome (i.e. both let the player know who Harren is) but the implied style lets us hide this fact from the player.

Consider how clunky and transparent this dialogue branch would appear in the verbatim style:

Verbatim Style:

• NPC: ‘I know you’re not from around here, but you’ve heard of Harren of Dens, surely?’

Option 1: PC: Of course, he’s the man who killed the Vicar of Shoals in that senseless duel. Over a couple of turnips, if I recall correctly.

• PC: Of course, he’s the man who killed the Vicar of Shoals in that senseless duel. Over a couple of turnips, if I recall correctly.

Option 2: Harren of Dens? Who’s he?

• PC: Harren of Dens? Who’s he?

• NPC: He duelled and killed the Vicar of Shoals over a couple of turnips. Utterly senseless.

The logic at work here is obvious: The verbatim style necessitates that the player knows what the character knows.

So in general, the verbatim style makes it harder for the player character to deliver exposition naturally, which might go some distance towards explaining why in many old-school CRPGs (that employed the verbatim style) the player character is either a foreigner (Fallout 1 & 2, Arcanum, Pillars of Eternity) or an amnesiac (Planescape: Torment, Torment: Tides of Numenera). An amnesiac or a foreigner protagonist can ask random strangers to explain everyday concepts without inviting a groan from the players.

On the other hand, the strength of the implied style is precisely in its ability to dole out exposition naturally and without overwhelming the player. Consider the success of Witcher 3, a game that many first played without having played its prequels, which nevertheless succeeds in presenting a complex world chock full of characters with intricate relationships in a way that is coherent enough to follow, and all the while having the story start in medias res.


What's your take on this?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Someone was just talking about circle-jerking on the NPC schedules thread, both threads fits the bill.

Who cares, really ?

Fallout 1 & 2 use one, Wasteland 2 the other but i like them both.

Spoiler

Wasteland 2 way less but for many other reasons than dialogs (exploration [rad. road blocks], retarded factions, tier itemization, camera views, scenario inconsistencies, non combat skills cool-downs ...)

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I think that both are viable design choices, but that the verbatim style is easier to pull off.

The implied style tends to work best with a preestablished character like Geralt whose personality is already well defined by his past history. In that sense, what you are roleplaying is not your own character who happens to be Geralt, but simply deciding his line of reasoning behind certain in-game decisions (all options being consistent with the character).

For the Mass Effect games, I'd argue that the implied style does the game a disservice since it limits player agency. The fact that the PC has a set name and a few background choices from which the player can choose from does not really constitute a preestablished character in terms of personality and what not. Add to that the fact that implied dialogue choices can often be misleading and you end up with an overall poorer roleplaying experience.

On a related note, I think that what makes the design of the Witcher series superior in this regard (as opposed to, say, Dragon Age 2), is that the choices do not represent stereotypes (good vs bad, sarcastic vs diplomatic vs aggressive), but different outcomes depending on one's line of reasoning (which is left for the player to do on behalf of the PC).

 

[Pero_Gamechuck]

I think that both are viable design choices, but that the verbatim style is easier to pull off.

The implied style tends to work best with a preestablished character like Geralt whose personality is already well defined by his past history. In that sense, what you are roleplaying is not your own character who happens to be Geralt, but simply deciding his line of reasoning behind certain in-game decisions (all options being consistent with the character).

For the Mass Effect games, I'd argue that the implied style does the game a disservice since it limits player agency. The fact that the PC has a set name and a few background choices from which the player can choose from does not really constitute a preestablished character in terms of personality and what not. Add to that the fact that implied dialogue choices can often be misleading and you end up with an overall poorer roleplaying experience.

On a related note, I think that what makes the design of the Witcher series superior in this regard (as opposed to, say, Dragon Age 2), is that the choices do not represent stereotypes (good vs bad, sarcastic vs diplomatic vs aggressive), but different outcomes depending on one's line of reasoning (which is left for the player to do on behalf of the PC).

Liking your arguments. How did you find dialogue in Torment: Tides of Numenera? Personally, it was overwhelming. Not because of the amount of text the player has to consume, but rather because of the number of dialogue options. Add a horrible UI to that, and you have a disaster (imho).

 

[Heroic Liberator]

How did you find dialogue in Torment: Tides of Numenera? Personally, it was overwhelming. Not because of the amount of text the player has to consume, but rather because of the number of dialogue options. Add a horrible UI to that, and you have a disaster (imho).

I don't remember it being that bad, but the whole alignment system ('tides') could be behind it. You are kind of forced as a developer to give somewhat redundant dialogue choices if you want all alignment choices to be equally spread for the player.

If you tie them only to contexts in which they thematically fit (as PoE does in an inverted manner with dialogue choices derived from the PC's class, race and what not), you risk making an unequal distribution depending on the player's pursuit (or lack thereof) of the side content. And if you tie them only to the critical path, you could end up with too few of them and thus giving the PC an alignment which the player didn't actually pursue. Since alignments are open to interpretation, you need as many (cumulative) options as possible as to settle through trial and error the differences between what you as a developer envisioned in terms of alignments and how they are perceived by the player.

 

[Butter]

Implied works fine in something like Morrowind, where you spam Admire 20 times and it doesn't really matter exactly what was said. But for something like Fallout, where dialogue is treated as part of the core gameplay, I think verbatim is always better.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Fallout/Deus Ex.
Shadowrun (SNES)/Morrowind

Those two styles work for me. The Mass Effect style doesn't even feel like a real RPG in part due to that damned wheel. It's why Fallout 4 feels like even less of a real RPG when compared to the barely RPG Fallout 3. One simple thing like "I control what my character is doing and saying" really adds a lot. Imagine that.

It's why I never played Mass Effect past the first few hours. It feels like I am playing any other third person shooter where dialog does not really matter due to clicking the next button when a prompt pops up.

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

I had no problem with ME1 conversation, notably because whatever was implied was actually being said, sometimes even better than what I had imagined (such as punching people in the face). But when I played Witcher 3, it was absolutely infuriating: sometimes the implied was against what I wanted from that choice in the first place. Or the character would say something I was (and everything I had done up to that point) against. For those reasons, i.e. difficult to nail, I prefer the text-book approach of Fallout or Deus Ex. Fallout is good especially since it can be modified through skill and stats, meaning that it feels more like a conversation that's contingent on the present moment rather than a pre-scripted cutscene.

 

[Pero_Gamechuck]

Fallout/Deus Ex.
Shadowrun (SNES)/Morrowind

Those two styles work for me. The Mass Effect style doesn't even feel like a real RPG in part due to that damned wheel. It's why Fallout 4 feels like even less of a real RPG when compared to the barely RPG Fallout 3. One simple thing like "I control what my character is doing and saying" really adds a lot. Imagine that.

It's why I never played Mass Effect past the first few hours. It feels like I am playing any other third person shooter where dialog does not really matter due to clicking the next button when a prompt pops up.

Eh. I simply couldn't get into post-Black Isle Fallout. Everything seemed dumbed-down. From action to dialogue design. On the other hand, I did like Mass Effect. I wasn't a fan of the dialogue wheel, but the conversations, the world-building, the characters seemed way more natural than those in Fallout 3 and sequels.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Fallout/Deus Ex.
Shadowrun (SNES)/Morrowind

Those two styles work for me. The Mass Effect style doesn't even feel like a real RPG in part due to that damned wheel. It's why Fallout 4 feels like even less of a real RPG when compared to the barely RPG Fallout 3. One simple thing like "I control what my character is doing and saying" really adds a lot. Imagine that.

It's why I never played Mass Effect past the first few hours. It feels like I am playing any other third person shooter where dialog does not really matter due to clicking the next button when a prompt pops up.

Eh. I simply couldn't get into post-Black Isle Fallout. Everything seemed dumbed-down. From action to dialogue design. On the other hand, I did like Mass Effect. I wasn't a fan of the dialogue wheel, but the conversations, the world-building, the characters seemed way more natural than those in Fallout 3 and sequels.

I'm a fan of Tactics and New Vegas (for the most part) but you are definitely correct. I don't know how anybody could prefer Fallout 3 dialog to Fallout 1 or 2.

 

[Prehistorik]

Poll is lacking the third option "User typed" like in Quest for Glory. Which is the best of course.

 

[Pero_Gamechuck]

Poll is lacking the third option "User typed" like in Quest for Glory. Which is the best of course.

Sure, why not. Done

 

[HansDampf]

Verbatim > Implied
I could see potential exceptions, but they are hard to justify. Like a dialogue system that puts the player under time pressure, so he is just choosing the general direction he wants the conversation to go.

Consider how clunky and transparent this dialogue branch would appear in the verbatim style:

Verbatim Style:

• NPC: ‘I know you’re not from around here, but you’ve heard of Harren of Dens, surely?’

Option 1: PC: Of course, he’s the man who killed the Vicar of Shoals in that senseless duel. Over a couple of turnips, if I recall correctly.

• PC: Of course, he’s the man who killed the Vicar of Shoals in that senseless duel. Over a couple of turnips, if I recall correctly.

Option 2: Harren of Dens? Who’s he?

• PC: Harren of Dens? Who’s he?

• NPC: He duelled and killed the Vicar of Shoals over a couple of turnips. Utterly senseless.

The logic at work here is obvious: The verbatim style necessitates that the player knows what the character knows.

So, you can't literally translate from one style to the other without it sounding awkward. Why give up?
If it's a pre-defined protagonist who may have knowledge the player doesn't have, then option 2 shouldn't even be there. The player will learn about Harren of Dens by reading the dialogue option, like he is inside the protagonist's head and can read his thoughts, or rather his possible responses. If it's not a pre-defined protagonist, you can track the player's knowledge with variables.
Or the NPC could give a different answer to option 2, maybe state his own opinion on the event instead of just describing it.
Or maybe the NPC shouldn't even ask the question if it's supposed to be common knowledge, and instead just talk about the event, assume the protagonist knows about it, and say whatever he wanted to say in the first place. The player could then, once again, learn about Harren by reading the dialogue options.

 

[Reinhardt]

4. kingcomradeYou are asked if you heard of Harren of Dens.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

You mistake lies in assuming that player should be able to decide if their character knows something. You either have a preestabilished character, so in this instance developer decide if the character has a prior knowledge about something or you have a player created character. If you go for the letter a you should use backgrounds check or skill checks to decide if character knows about the subject. You should also have in game checks to establish if character has acquired information that should be acquired during playthrough.

 

[DraQ]

Verbatim if it doesn't make all options out of character for significant number of playable characters.
Always verbatim if voice acted.

Descriptive otherwise.

Implied calls for immediate

 

[Karellen]

The implied style is somewhat underrated, in my opinion. In RPGs it's associated with Bioware-ism, so it makes sense that it wouldn't be come across as appealing, but elsewhere, it works well enough in the Wing Commander series, which has (in my opinion) a very respectable degree of roleplaying and associated branching. Many classic adventure games do something similar, too - they often show part of the line of dialogue verbatim, but the playable character then continues to speak without further input by the player, to the effect that the player only really has dialogue choices when they're relevant or important.

I think that a return to some manner of user typed or keyword system could very well be incline as well. Specifically, there are plenty of situations where the dialogue choices are used to solve puzzles, make connections between disparate bits of information, ask the right questions and so forth, and in such situations it's tedious to the extreme that the dialogue options effectively "spoil" the correct answer without the player even having to think about the matter. Leaving some room for players to take initative in information gathering, or solving problems by accessing hidden dialogue options, for instance, would make many otherwise tediously humdrum RPG quests a great deal more interesting. Of course, it's mightily difficult to implement well, but a man can always dream.

 

[Kliwer]

There is not even a dilemma. Give me the whole line; in RPG I wish to role-play my character, not to watch a character designed by designers. Plus voice-acting of players lines is a plain cancer, 100% useless.

There is nothing better than Fallout/Baldur's Gate/Torment dialogue system. Everything else had been invented only for main-stream pseudo-cinematic style of gameplay. There are exceptions (like Gothic) but rare.

 

[Pero_Gamechuck]

There is not even a dilemma. Give me the whole line; in RPG I wish to role-play my character, not to watch a character designed by designers. Plus voice-acting of players lines is a plain cancer, 100% useless.

There is nothing better than Fallout/Baldur's Gate/Torment dialogue system. Everything else had been invented only for main-stream pseudo-cinematic style of gameplay. There are exceptions (like Gothic) but rare.

Ugh. I hated Torment. Somehow it was all over the place. Dunno, perhaps it's just me. Fallout (1,2) dialogue system wasn't as complex and, imho, it delivered more depth to the story and characters. I couldn't care less about characters, story in Torment (tides of numenera).

 

[Pink Eye]

I think, the better question here, which one fits the narrative for the game? Dragon Age and Mass Effect are like adventure games, where you're just playing along. And the characters are voiced too. So that style works for them. For example, you're not roleplaying as yourself, you're roleplaying as commander Shepard. But something like Fallout will require a verbatim style. The main character isn't voiced. So it's easier to role play as yourself. Descriptive dialogue makes it easier for the player to better insert themselves. So I think verbatim style is nice for actual role playing.

 

[Thunar]

The way ultima 7 does it, visible keywords.
That's what the standard should have been, chose a topic and let the npc talk, let the PC piece together what the npc said in light of their previous knowledge and react as they sees fit, within the rules of the game. If this approach had been followed, quests with multiple resolution like in fallout would have been much more interesting. You wouldn't have the NPCs constantly hinting what you needed to do.
The verbatim style leads to story faggotry, the implied style leads to fake choice poppamole.

 

[Falksi]

Mass Effect's Dialogue wheel is one of the most backwards, decline inventions in the whole history of RPG's. It totally undermines the player, and takes away any sense of self in the protagonist.

 

[Bigg Boss]

There is not even a dilemma. Give me the whole line; in RPG I wish to role-play my character, not to watch a character designed by designers. Plus voice-acting of players lines is a plain cancer, 100% useless.

There is nothing better than Fallout/Baldur's Gate/Torment dialogue system. Everything else had been invented only for main-stream pseudo-cinematic style of gameplay. There are exceptions (like Gothic) but rare.

Ugh. I hated Torment. Somehow it was all over the place. Dunno, perhaps it's just me. Fallout (1,2) dialogue system wasn't as complex and, imho, it delivered more depth to the story and characters. I couldn't care less about characters, story in Torment (tides of numenera).

Torment somehow automatically made me think of Planescape, so this whole post was confusing at first.

 

[V_K]

Keywords (typed) or parser - or bust!

 

[mondblut]

Name. Job. Bye.