The problem with speech

[Bloodeyes]

The following is a rather good video essay on speech skills in the Fallout franchise. The presenter, Jon, is an aggressively normie youtuber who occasionally breaks that mold where Fallout is concerned. He makes a few good points here, I think the best of which is that saviour faire and streetwise should be distinct skills. Separating these skills (as well as allowing nerd/mechanical skills) to be used in speech checks gives a more realistic, deeper feeling to a game and a more unique feel to the character you are roleplaying as. It's a shame we never got GURPS Fallout, it would have been even better than what we did get.

Anyway here's the video:

 

[Bester]

I think the best of which is that saviour faire and streetwise should be distinct skills. Separating these skills

You're just concentrating on one aspect of... well, reality. But if we wanted to do that to all aspects, then a lot of skills would have to be split into more.
E.g. sneak can be split into:
- hide
- move silently

Or, to go in the opposite direction, we could have Deception cover both Sneaking AND Lying.

If we start splitting all skills into what realism dictates, then we'll end up with about 250-300 skills.

Which is better and why? Eh.

I don't think splitting skills would make the game better. Number of skills = balance between autism and hypercasualism, wherein lies fun.

 

[Butter]

I think the best of which is that saviour faire and streetwise should be distinct skills. Separating these skills

You're just concentrating on one aspect of... well, reality. But if we wanted to do that to all aspects, then a lot of skills would have to be split into more.
E.g. sneak can be split into:
- hide
- move silently

Or, to go in the opposite direction, we could have Deception cover both Sneaking AND Lying.

If we start splitting all skills into what realism dictates, then we'll end up with about 250-300 skills.

Which is better and why? Eh.

I don't think splitting skills would make the game better. Number of skills = balance between autism and hypercasualism, wherein lies fun.

The purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that you don't get a win button for every social situation from a single skill.

 

[Bester]

Or the purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that your Speech-oriented character would suck more at other jobs, because he'd need to pump multiple skills instead of one. Do you want to do that? Because that's what you'd achieve.

Or, in many games they do this: you have intimidate, deceive, bluff, whatever, and then every dialogue allows you to win if you have at least one. Always thought that was ridiculous. Might as well just have Speech.

And if the game allows you to resolve quests by "stealth or brute force or dialogue", and you're shit out of luck because you pumped Bluff, but the dialogue requires you to have Intimidate, then what? You broke the game with your skills.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I think the best of which is that saviour faire and streetwise should be distinct skills. Separating these skills

You're just concentrating on one aspect of... well, reality. But if we wanted to do that to all aspects, then a lot of skills would have to be split into more.
E.g. sneak can be split into:
- hide
- move silently

Or, to go in the opposite direction, we could have Deception cover both sneaking AND lying.

If we start splitting all skills into what realism dictates, then we'll end up with about 250-300 skills.

Which is better and why? Eh.

I don't think splitting skills would make the game better. It's a convention.

I'd say that some abstractions make more sense than others though, and support the different roleplaying archetypes better as well. Grouping move silently and hide into "sneak" makes sense because they cannot function separately in practice. Both are aspects of sneaking in actual usage and there is no reason to take one and not the other. Having a character that relates better to their own type of person and gains speech bonuses with them does make sense and does add to the roleplaying experience. One certainly might choose to make a streetwise rogue and not put points into saviour faire if they are playing that archetype and that build would work for them. Just as someone playing a nerdy tech type might choose not to put points into either saviour faire or streetwise and be generally socially bad, except when talking to kindred spirits.

See what I mean? One distinction adds depth of gameplay and roleplaying and the other is functionally meaningless. They aren't equivalent.

 

[laclongquan]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

 

[Butter]

Or the purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that your Speech-oriented character would suck more at other jobs, because he'd need to pump multiple skills instead of one. Do you want to do that?

Yes.

Or, in many games they do this: you have intimidate, deceive, bluff, whatever, and then every dialogue allows you to win if you have at least one. Always thought that was ridiculous. Might as well just have Speech.

Many games have Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, and you can win any fight if you have at least one. Might as well just have Combat.

 

[CyberWhale]

The purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that you don't get a win button for every social situation from a single skill.

No need to do that. F:NV heavily used other skills in regular conversations, and adding multiple requirements for a single option (for example, checks for both Speech and Repair) would solve the issue.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

This is a false dichotomy in this case. Streamlining all social skills into speech detracts from realism and doesn't enhance gameplay fun.

 

[Bester]

Many games have Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, and you can win any fight if you have at least one. Might as well just have Combat.

Any combat skill allows you to win a combat scenario.
Any speech skill allows you to win a speech scenario? Nope.

Or the purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that your Speech-oriented character would suck more at other jobs, because he'd need to pump multiple skills instead of one. Do you want to do that?

Yes.

You can achieve that by giving less skill points on level up. Same result.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Many games have Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, and you can win any fight if you have at least one. Might as well just have Combat.

Sarcastic, but an interesting point. I would address this by saying that good games present enemy types and situations where different combat skills are more useful than others. Melee, for example, is a shit skill unless there are enemy types that are resistant to bullets, ammunition is rare or expensive, or your character is frequently disarmed.

It is a weakness of many RPG systems that, when building your character, you are wasting skill points if you select more than one method for dealing damage to an enemy. Real warfare has never been like that.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

This is a false dichotomy in this case. Streamlining all social skills into speech detracts from realism and doesn't enhance gameplay fun.

Steamlining all the skills required to win in a firefight into a signle "firearms" also detracts from realism and more so than steamlining social skills into speech, but you guy seems to not have a problem with that or do you?

 

[Bloodeyes]

Many games have Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, and you can win any fight if you have at least one. Might as well just have Combat.

Any combat skill allows you to win a combat scenario.
Any speech skill allows you to win a speech scenario? Nope.

Or the purpose of splitting Speech into multiple skills is so that your Speech-oriented character would suck more at other jobs, because he'd need to pump multiple skills instead of one. Do you want to do that?

Yes.

You can achieve that by giving less skill points on level up. Same result.

Yes, you could nerf speech in both ways. But you could not allow for more diversity in roleplaying archetypes and better character development just by increasing the point-buy cost of the speech skill. Playing a gentleman who gets on with those of his own class, or a thug who does the same would cost less in terms of social skills than a pure huckster archetype who invests just in speech skills at the detriment of his other abilities.

 

[Butter]

Many games have Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, and you can win any fight if you have at least one. Might as well just have Combat.

Sarcastic, but an interesting point. I would address this by saying that good games present enemy types and situations where different combat skills are more useful than others. Melee, for example, is a shit skill unless there are enemy types that are resistant to bullets, ammunition is rare or expensive, or your character is frequently disarmed.

It is a weakness of many RPG systems that, when building your character, you are wasting skill points if you select more than one method for dealing damage to an enemy. Real warfare has never been like that.

I think if an RPG wants to do speech options justice, you should have to consider what method of persuasion works best for any given character. You might be given the option to intimidate, deceive, reason, seduce, bribe, but some of those could outright fail or otherwise damage your reputation if the person isn't amenable to it. Just like you have to consider your enemy's resistances before trying to fight him, you should have to consider a character's personality before trying to bend him to your will.

 

[Xamenos]

I think if an RPG wants to do speech options justice, you should have to consider what method of persuasion works best for any given character. You might be given the option to intimidate, deceive, reason, seduce, bribe, but some of those could outright fail or otherwise damage your reputation if the person isn't amenable to it. Just like you have to consider your enemy's resistances before trying to fight him, you should have to consider a character's personality before trying to bend him to your will.

So, Alpha Protocol?

 

[Bester]

Playing a gentleman who gets on with those of his own class, or a thug who does the same

So you must have liked Age of Decadence more. I liked Fallout more.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

This is a false dichotomy in this case. Streamlining all social skills into speech detracts from realism and doesn't enhance gameplay fun.

Steamlining all the skills required to win in a firefight into a signle "firearms" also detracts from realism and more so than steamlining social skills into speech, but you guy seems to not have a problem with that or do you?

It depends. If there are combat scenarios presented by the game that offer benefits of using different types of firearms (Sniper rifles, concealed pistols, assault rifles all could serve different roles) then there is a reason to split the skills. if the system just has guns all deal varying degrees of ranged damage to all enemies then there is no functional benefit and there should just be a gun skill. Likewise, if different speech skills (persuade, intimidate etc) all produce the same functional result then the choice between them is meaningless, but a better system would make this choice less shallow.

 

[Lemming42]

His proposed solution of actions/knowledge replacing speech is a really good one.

Maybe you could still have a Speech skill representing emotional intelligence, though - things like empathising with people, getting people angry, other interactions not based around your reputation or factual knowledge.

 

[Butter]

I think if an RPG wants to do speech options justice, you should have to consider what method of persuasion works best for any given character. You might be given the option to intimidate, deceive, reason, seduce, bribe, but some of those could outright fail or otherwise damage your reputation if the person isn't amenable to it. Just like you have to consider your enemy's resistances before trying to fight him, you should have to consider a character's personality before trying to bend him to your will.

So, Alpha Protocol?

Alpha Protocol did some really cool things with dialogue, however not all of them would translate to Fallout (which is what sparked the thread), and notably AP doesn't have any speech skills.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Playing a gentleman who gets on with those of his own class, or a thug who does the same

So you must have liked Age of Decadence more. I liked Fallout more.

I found Age of Decadence... a little rough. I haven't played it enough to really give a properly informed opinion. I'll be diplomatic and just leave it at that.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

This is a false dichotomy in this case. Streamlining all social skills into speech detracts from realism and doesn't enhance gameplay fun.

Steamlining all the skills required to win in a firefight into a signle "firearms" also detracts from realism and more so than steamlining social skills into speech, but you guy seems to not have a problem with that or do you?

It depends. If there are combat scenarios presented by the game that offer benefits of using different types of firearms (Sniper rifles, concealed pistols, assault rifles all could serve different roles) then there is a reason to split the skills. if the system just has guns all deal varying degrees of ranged damage to all enemies then there is no functional benefit and there should just be a gun skill. Likewise, if different speech skills (persuade, intimidate etc) all produce the same functional result then the choice between them is meaningless, but a better system would make this choice less shallow.

Can intimidation and persuaion REALLY be made meaningfully different mechanics? For example. if persuation is a skill you use to pass a persuation skill check in dialogue, what intimidation is supposed to do? help you pass a skillcheck of a different color? I don't think that kind of gameplay difference requires a seperate skill.

 

[Bester]

I found Age of Decadence... a little rough. I haven't played it enough to really give a properly informed opinion. I'll be diplomatic and just leave it at that.

*DIPLOMACY FAILED*
So you didn't like it enough to keep playing, huh? I see.

And so you're advocating for a system that you didn't enjoy.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Realistic or Gameplay Fun: Which is better and why~

This is a false dichotomy in this case. Streamlining all social skills into speech detracts from realism and doesn't enhance gameplay fun.

Steamlining all the skills required to win in a firefight into a signle "firearms" also detracts from realism and more so than steamlining social skills into speech, but you guy seems to not have a problem with that or do you?

It depends. If there are combat scenarios presented by the game that offer benefits of using different types of firearms (Sniper rifles, concealed pistols, assault rifles all could serve different roles) then there is a reason to split the skills. if the system just has guns all deal varying degrees of ranged damage to all enemies then there is no functional benefit and there should just be a gun skill. Likewise, if different speech skills (persuade, intimidate etc) all produce the same functional result then the choice between them is meaningless, but a better system would make this choice less shallow.

Can intimidation and persuaion REALLY be made meaningfully different mechanics? For example. if persuation is a skill you use to pass a persuation skill check in dialogue, what intimidation is supposed to do? help you pass a skillcheck of a different color? I don't think that kind of gameplay difference requires a seperate skill.

Context is what should matter between persuasion and intimidation. One might persuade a pretty girl into going on a date with them, but intimidating them into doing so should have a vastly different outcome. One might persuade an investor into giving them startup capital for an enterprise, but intimidating them into doing so is a lot less likely. One can persuade reasonable people but many people are not reasonable and only respond to the threat of force. Lunatics, fanatics, drug addicts etc. Context and consequences are what should make these two skills distinct. If the context and consequences are the same (different colored skill checks, same result) then the skills should be merged and that dialogue system has less depth than it could have had.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I found Age of Decadence... a little rough. I haven't played it enough to really give a properly informed opinion. I'll be diplomatic and just leave it at that.

*DIPLOMACY FAILED*
So you didn't like it enough to keep playing, huh? I see.

And so you're advocating for a system that you didn't enjoy.

I just found it too GD hard to really get into right away. It's not a casual game and at the time I played it I didn't have the energy to give to learning its systems. I'll get back to it one day.

 

[Xamenos]

Alpha Protocol did some really cool things with dialogue, however not all of them would translate to Fallout (which is what sparked the thread), and notably AP doesn't have any speech skills.

Yes, it was a system very different (and much better imho) than Fallout, but I don't see why it wouldn't work in another hypothetical Fallout game. It certainly seems much closer to what's described in this thread as ideal than, say, splitting speech into persuade, bluff and intimidate.