How should the dialogue choices be presented in narrative RPGs?

[ultra loser]

Verbatim and I wish we could go back to having more than four dialogue options

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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.

(this post isn't an endorsement of dialogue wheels, I hate dialogue wheels)
Despite arguably starting the trend(what games used it before Mass Effect?), it's probably one of the few, if only, games with dialogue wheels where I don't remember having to reload because my character did something I didn't expect. It felt more like the traditional dialogue choice list except designed in a way to be easily accessible to people using a controller.

Dialogue wheels are an illusion to hide bad writers used by large developers to make content as fast as possible, nothing more.
One of the issues with dialogue wheels is that it lets the writers get away with being hacks and/or lazy, and leads to shit like this:

When writing dialogue choices they just think of a couple choices that rigidly fit into these tiny categories. Created to crank out content as fast as possible using what is essentially a coloring book for shitty writers.
Anything that allows itself to be used lazily will end up being used lazily almost exclusively.

Spoiler

 

[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).

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

Yeah, I was thinking about Tides of Numenera

 

[Bigg Boss]

It's my own fault. No worries.

 

[Nano]

Despite arguably starting the trend(what games used it before Mass Effect?), it's probably one of the few, if only, games with dialogue wheels where I don't remember having to reload because my character did something I didn't expect. It felt more like the traditional dialogue choice list except designed in a way to be easily accessible to people using a controller.

And except for the fact that a lot of the dialogue 'choices' in ME1 led to Shepard saying the same thing, just like in Fallout 4.

When writing dialogue choices they just think of a couple choices that rigidly fit into these tiny categories. Created to crank out content as fast as possible using what is essentially a coloring book for shitty writers.

But Dragon Age Inquisition is a bad example for this. Nearly all of the dialogue options are 'General' as the picture puts it, the emotional type dialogue options only show up like 5% of the time.

 

[luj1]

Fuck all Dark era RPGs

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Yes, a total beatdown.

 

[Üstad]

Yes-no-sarcastic

 

[Tweed]

Verbatim with speech skillchecks that secretly fuck you over later on in the game.

 

[Tigranes]

Pero_Gamechuck specifically with your OP example - I get the reasoning behind what you're saying, but I think it's too focused on something that isn't really that important for a good player experience, and misses the forest for the trees.

Yes, of course, the implied style means I can choose "I know" and the player will answer "I know that the tax laws were....", whereas in the explicit style, the player will choose "I know that the tax laws were..." even though the player doesn't know. But I simply don't think that's a big deal for most people. I know my player isn't my character and I don't know where the toilet is in the character's own home. That's not the key point for 'immersion'. Where I really get my 'immersion' is my ability to choose to play the kind of character I want to play, whether snarky, evil, manipulative, naive, whatever. And to do that, the expressive style can often be superior.

Also think about a slight variant of the example. Imagine that you were trying to persuade an NPC, and you're not just choosing the "High Per" option but the game is actually trying to make you think. The expressive style makes me actually read the lines and think: would "But sir, I am ever so hungry" persuade this hard-ass sergeant, or should I choose "Listen, for some soup I'll let you have a quick lookie under my vest"? I have to pay more attention to the dialogue and feel like I'm really trying to engage, whereas the implied style would have me take a step back into abstraction.

One of the only RPGs of this latter approach, where you really have to read the dialogue, is Age of Decadence.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

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

Keywords (typed) or parser - or bust!

Heavily disagree. If you're entering the text then you're no longer roleplaying, it's not about what your character knows but what you know. It becomes an adventure game(or action-adventure depending on how much action there is)
Not to imply that being an adventure game is bad.

 

[frajaq]

Implied is just fucked man, didnt mind it as much in Mass Effect series (which I liked a lot) but on the Witcher it was too much

 

[V_K]

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

Keywords (typed) or parser - or bust!

Heavily disagree. If you're entering the text then you're no longer roleplaying

And here I thought storyfags couldn't get any more... special.

 

[DraQ]

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).

First, implied style doesn't work, period.

It doesn't work because it makes it very easy to misinterpret intention and say something completely different from what you meant.

If you have a character saying specific dialogue, there is absolutely no legitimate reason not to put the entire text in as option.
The only reason to ever change what character is saying relative to what the dialogue option said is when there is something that interrupts the character - you want to explain something to someone but get suddenly shot with a incapacitating dart, the guy explodes, something else explodes, dragon suddenly flies low overhead, you get a silence spell cast on you or are compelled by preexisting curse, etc.
In any case dialogue option should spell out exactly what you *intend* to say, just as you are about to say it.

Now where verbatim dialogue doesn't work is when the dialogue options are too specific for variety of possible player characters.
What if my character doesn't consider that duel senseless for whatever reason?
But that still doesn't mean implied is the way to go. The way to go is is to not have player's character say specific things at all - which is achieved by Larian's descriptive style dialogue everyone seems so butthurt about.

Implied works fine in something like Morrowind, where you spam Admire 20 times and it doesn't really matter exactly what was said.

Morrowind has predefined keyword system (with occasional dialogue tree - yes, Morrowind can do dialogue trees), but I don't consider that a valid option for *narrative* (AKA storyfag) cRPGs.
It's a very good option otherwise, providing pretty much all the actual flexibility of parser without any of its problems.


Also

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.

this.

You should be able to feign ignorance, though, or feign knowledge as long as the dialogue option doesn't provide actual knowledge.
Tags like [lie] are appropriate in this context.
They can also be used to clarify the tone, for example [sarcastic].

 

[DraQ]

Name. Job. Bye.

You're asking for name before getting a job? Getting soft, I see.

 

[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).

First, implied style doesn't work, period.

It doesn't work because it makes it very easy to misinterpret intention and say something completely different that you meant.

If you have a character saying specific dialogue, there is absolutely no legitimate reason not to put the entire text in as option.
The only reason to ever change what character is saying relative to what the dialogue option said is when there is something that interrupts the character - you want to explain something to someone but get suddenly shot with a incapacitating dart, the guy explodes, something else explodes, dragon suddenly flies low overhead, you get a silence spell cast on you or are compelled by preexisting curse, etc.
In any case dialogue option should spell out exactly what you *intend* to say, just as you are about to say it.

Now where verbatim dialogue doesn't work is when the dialogue options are too specific for variety of possible player characters.
What if my character doesn't consider that duel senseless for whatever reason?
But that still doesn't mean implied is the way to go. The way to go is is to not have player's character say specific things at all - which is achieved by Larian's descriptive style dialogue everyone seems so butthurt about.

I agree that verbatim is inherently superior to implied if we are judging dialogue systems by themselves, detached from the whole design of a game.

Implied dialogue on the other hand makes for sleeker UI, so it can be the better choice if there is not much that is lost in terms of intended roleplaying experience when sticking to it. To return to the case of TW3, you are not roleplaying what Geralt is saying as indicative of his personality and values (which in this case are preestablished), but rather what his thought process ultimately decided in favor of - which is the better outcome in the case of a quest decision, which question to ask in relation to a NPC, which aspect to insist upon in a discussion with a NPC.

I'd argue that Larian's style is closer to implied rather than verbatim dialogue, since you are not picking the flavor of the dialogue as to flesh out your character's persona, but rather as a means of directing a conversation. This sort of dialogue being the equivalent of a wargamer playing a tabletop RPG and describing his choices to the DM not by roleplaying it, but by stating his PC's actions in order to advance the plot.

 

[mondblut]

Fuck all Dark era RPGs

If OP didn't rig the poll, the outcome would be vastly different.

All keyword-based dialog is also "implied".

 

[DraQ]

Fuck all Dark era RPGs

If OP didn't rig the poll, the outcome would be vastly different.

All keyword-based dialog is also "implied".

All keyword based dialogue doesn't have my character unexpectedly spew out something only tangentially related to what I selected and possibly contrary to my intended meaning, so no.

 

[mondblut]

All keyword based dialogue doesn't have my character unexpectedly spew out something only tangentially related to what I selected and possibly contrary to my intended meaning, so no.

Outrageous. My characters do not speak in retarded thees and thous! Burn the developers!

 

[DraQ]

All keyword based dialogue doesn't have my character unexpectedly spew out something only tangentially related to what I selected and possibly contrary to my intended meaning, so no.

Outrageous. My characters do not speak in retarded thees and thous! Burn the developers!

That's why Morrowind is better. Problem?

(Also switch from polite)

 

[mondblut]

All keyword based dialogue doesn't have my character unexpectedly spew out something only tangentially related to what I selected and possibly contrary to my intended meaning, so no.

Outrageous. My characters do not speak in retarded thees and thous! Burn the developers!

That's why Morrowind is better. Problem?

(Also switch from polite)

Point being, a lot of keyword dialog, from Realms of Arkania to Wasteland 2, expands keywords into some bullshit lines spoken by the party. Which is exactly the kind of dialog the OP was referring to.

 

[DraQ]

All keyword based dialogue doesn't have my character unexpectedly spew out something only tangentially related to what I selected and possibly contrary to my intended meaning, so no.

Outrageous. My characters do not speak in retarded thees and thous! Burn the developers!

That's why Morrowind is better. Problem?

(Also switch from polite)

Point being, a lot of keyword dialog, from Realms of Arkania to Wasteland 2, expands keywords into some bullshit lines spoken by the party. Which is exactly the kind of dialog the OP was referring to.

That's just window dressing, though.
You don't suffer the main problem of implied here:
Your character saying something completely different than you meant them to, followed by consequences*.

Whatever you say in a keyword based system is always going to mean the same, predictable thing (where is/tell me about X), plus some modifiers (like tone).
In a way it's actually more similar to verbatim where you may have no option that sounds like what your character would say.

Compare and contrast with:

I'm hungry.

Or

I want to be a dragon.

 

[jackofshadows]

Argument for implied from OP is valid to a degree but as was mentioned above, it's not a big deal and could be played around by the writer anyway. In some cases it's better to simply hide specific dialogue options if PC missed something rather to change the whole dialogue design instead.

What we need is to address the elephant in the room and say that the whole implied dialogue style system has settled so wide thanks to overall mass appeal game's console design where average player is like "hey, I came here to play a game, not to read a fucking book, Jesus". In DA2/DA:I Bioware added to the concept icons with emotion flavour so the poor player can even skip text replies entirely and simply click on the preferable icons like a literal retard. In F4 Bethesda has reached level of absurdity with infamous SARCASM options in this implied cinematic dialogue concept. "Hey, let's see where this *sarcasm click* will lead to *sit back*... ha ha, wait, what?!".

What can I say about it? Fuck that shit. I don't want to see simplifications like that in "narrative RPGs". It's ok to have similiar system in some Action/RPG where dialogues doesn't matter much (F4 is "perfect" example) but you will not able to persuade me to have this in a proper RPG, nope.

 

[DraQ]

Heavily disagree. If you're entering the text then you're no longer roleplaying, it's not about what your character knows but what you know.

That's why keyword selection system is superior to parser one. It can't be meta'd.

 

[DraQ]

Argument for implied from OP is valid to a degree but as was mentioned above, it's not a big deal and could be played around by the writer anyway. In some cases it's better to simply hide specific dialogue options if PC missed something rather to change the whole dialogue design instead.

What we need is to address the elephant in the room and say that the whole implied dialogue style system has settled so wide thanks to overall mass appeal game's console design where average player is like "hey, I came here to play a game, not to read a fucking book, Jesus".

Also where average player is staring at HUMONGOUS FONTS chosen to be readable on low res TV screens.