The problem with speech

[Butter]

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.

Part of what makes Alpha Protocol's dialogue work is that it's timed and that you don't get to redo it. It's designed to be as tense as a gunfight. Fallout has some moments where that could work, like with the Master or Legate Lanius confrontations, but a lot of the time you're just talking to some guy on the street and you want to exhaust his list of dialogue topics in order to learn more about New Reno or Freeside.

 

[laclongquan]

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.

Wrrrrrrong~ You are speaking ,like a combat noob.

The purpose of dividing into Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, etc a variety of different Combat skill is to serve defining different combat tactic/style.

Melee? Up close combat has different requirement compared to range.
Unarmed? Using tool to hit instead of feeling fist on flesh is a different beast altogether. The former rely on finding better combat tool while the latter just need to increase skill. A 120 Unarmed fighter is very different than a 120 melee combat fighter in early stage, middle stage, and end stage of game. The win/lose depend on whether melee fighter can find better weapons.

Firearms? Obviously range combat is different than melee combat. Plus you can have many different type of guns which is an important aspect of game.

Explosives? Its role of AoE short-range weapon can have some important effect in game aside from combat.

 

[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.

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.

I dont see how this context cannot be realized without different usage of the same skill, since mechanically their usage is the same (passing a check in dialogue and gaining a narrative consequences). There are no seperate skills use firearms to shoot at a war battle or to shoot at innocent babies, even though context is difference - single skill is enough because mechanically those actions are the same.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I dont see how this context cannot be realized without different usage of the same skill, since mechanically their usage is the same (passing a check in dialogue and gaining a narrative consequences). There are no seperate skills use firearms to shoot at a war battle or to shoot at innocent babies, even though context is difference - single skill is enough because mechanically those actions are the same.

I don't understand what you don't understand.... (snip)
Edit: I missed the part about different usage of the same skill. I get you, but I don't agree. Separating the skill allows for build diversity. Someone with high generic speech is basically a huckster archetype and can talk his way out of anything. Splitting the skill into situationally useful subskills allows for speech bonuses to augment different character archetypes and give them situational dialogue bonuses without making speech their main thing.

A techie having tech knowledge and using it in conversation (many games do this), a thug making effective threats, a rogue getting on well with the rougher types but not fitting well in high society. This also still allows the player to just pump everything into speech skills and play a con artist type who charms where appropriate and gets out of fights with empty (thanks to his lackluster combat skills) threats.

It's more flexible in terms of roleplaying and has more depth to it than just having one skill that says a character is good at talking to people.

 

[Bloodeyes]

Did anyone actually watch the video by the way? I thought it was rather good.

 

[Xamenos]

Did anyone actually watch the video by the way? I thought it was rather good.

I don't have 40 mins to spare on a random youtuber.

 

[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.

Part of what makes Alpha Protocol's dialogue work is that it's timed and that you don't get to redo it. It's designed to be as tense as a gunfight. Fallout has some moments where that could work, like with the Master or Legate Lanius confrontations, but a lot of the time you're just talking to some guy on the street and you want to exhaust his list of dialogue topics in order to learn more about New Reno or Freeside.

Talking to some guy on the street doesn't require a speech check either, so I'm not sure why you thought information gathering dialogues are relevant. Functionally, there's no difference between them and Mass Effect's Codex and that one had a dialogue system different to Fallout too.

 

[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.

Wrrrrrrong~ You are speaking ,like a combat noob.

The purpose of dividing into Melee, Firearms, Unarmed, Explosives, etc a variety of different Combat skill is to serve defining different combat tactic/style.

Melee? Up close combat has different requirement compared to range.
Unarmed? Using tool to hit instead of feeling fist on flesh is a different beast altogether. The former rely on finding better combat tool while the latter just need to increase skill. A 120 Unarmed fighter is very different than a 120 melee combat fighter in early stage, middle stage, and end stage of game. The win/lose depend on whether melee fighter can find better weapons.

Firearms? Obviously range combat is different than melee combat. Plus you can have many different type of guns which is an important aspect of game.

Explosives? Its role of AoE short-range weapon can have some important effect in game aside from combat.

I don't know if you could tell, but that was sarcasm. My point was that asking the player to specialize in a particular type of persuasion is just as valid as asking a player to specialize in a particular type of combat.

Talking to some guy on the street doesn't require a speech check either, so I'm not sure why you thought information gathering dialogues are relevant. Functionally, there's no difference between them and Mass Effect's Codex and that one had a dialogue system different to Fallout too.

And Alpha Protocol doesn't even have speech checks. Are you getting why it's not so easy to just transplant the system from one game into an entirely different game?

 

[barghwata]

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.

I dont see how this context cannot be realized without different usage of the same skill, since mechanically their usage is the same (passing a check in dialogue and gaining a narrative consequences). There are no seperate skills use firearms to shoot at a war battle or to shoot at innocent babies, even though context is difference - single skill is enough because mechanically those actions are the same.

But wouldn't defining skill categories purely based on how they are mechanically performed by the player and what outcome they give make skill systems completely meaningless and abstract? i mean when you think about it lockpicking a door or hacking an electrical door are basically the same action and both give the same result.... opening a door; so why have a hacking and a lockpicking skill then, why not just have an abstract "Open doors" skill that allows you to magically open any door by clicking on it regardless if it's a metal door, an electrical door, a magical portal etc..... thereby destroying any immersion or any feeling of meaningful character building, it's kinda like PoE's shitty stat system where stats are completely abstract, Might increases all types of damage, Intelect increase Area of effect etc.........

I don't think the mechanical utility and usage of a skill is all that should matter in how it's categorised, i would argue that the context in which it's used and how it relates to the world, setting and the type of character you're playing is much more important for roleplaying purposes.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Did anyone actually watch the video by the way? I thought it was rather good.

Watched until it went to talking about Fallout 4 (since I don't really care about it and F76).

That said, I'm not really fond of GURPS either. I'd rather have a mix between Fallout New Vegas' style of skill-based dialogue combined with the Charisma stat and the Speech skill either scrapped altogether or relegated to a sort of 'socialite' role as to avoid retarded situations like that with Lanius (i.e. a diplomacy option for him should've required instead a 'Battle Tactics' skill which would've amounted to the PC's knowhow about strategy combined with a high Charisma attribute which would've translated to the PC's ability to use that knowhow for the purpose of persuasion).

 

[Heroic Liberator]

I feel like the whole problem with many types of talky/combat skills would be solved somewhat with skill synergies.
If your guy is a marksman with firearms, then he should be able to use a laser gun, at least averagely. Same for a highly skilled diplomat in relation to other talky skills.

I think that 'talky skills' should be removed altogether and such dialogue options should be tied to attributes (e.g. intimidation by STR, diplomacy by CHA). As for specialized knowledge, all mechanically relevant skills should be done in such a way as to have a secondary dialogue usage. In turn, depending on narrative context, those skills should be conditioned by CHA when the NPC with which the PC is interacting with has no way to know if the latter truly has that specialized knowledge.

As an example, take the medicine skill in FNV. One might be allowed to save that mule in that mining town even if the NPCs allowing it don't know whether the Courier had prior medical training or not (i.e. a pure medicine skill check), but the medicine skill should be tied to CHA when the PC wishes to apply that knowledge to the treatment of a wounded human rather than a mule (i.e. skill & attribute check). Likewise there might either be a high CHA check when the application of that knowledge is not time sensitive (e.g. optional surgery on an NPC for a non-threatening condition or the medical examination of an important NPC) or a low CHA (or pure skill) check when there's a NPC bleeding out since it is feasible that the NPC in question wouldn't need too much convincing in the latter case since he'll be dead either way in lack of properly applied medical knowledge (ergo better to risk a botched medical attempt and possibly live rather than just resign yourself to death by bleeding out).

 

[Xamenos]

And Alpha Protocol doesn't even have speech checks. Are you getting why it's not so easy to just transplant the system from one game into an entirely different game?

We appear to be having some communication problems, and I'm not sure why. So let's try this again.

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.

This was the original post I was responding to. You are describing Alpha Protocol's system to a t. And your later irrelevant objections about "random guys on the street giving you information" are just that. Irrelevant.

When discussing mechanics, we must start from what we want to achieve. Do we want a better persuasion system? Or is our goal to make speech checks great again? If it's the former, Alpha Protocol provides the perfect template. Some adjustment may be required, but there's certainly nothing that would make it impossible for a Fallout game to use a system like that.

And if it's the latter, we'll have to look into games that implemented similar systems for inspiration. Luckily, it's not a new idea. Neverwinter Nights had separate skills to Bluff, Persuade, or Intimidate. Dragon Age: Origins had separate Persuade/Intimidate approaches. Even Mass Effect worked somewhat similarly with its Paragon/Renegade dialogue options. Would these games work as a basis for a similar system in a hypothetical Fallout? It could be done, certainly. But I personally don't consider these games as having a system worthy to be copied, and I'm not convinced it's possible for a given game developer to improve on the inherent issues of such a system.

 

[Lurker47]

I like the split between Speech and Deception. Even though, theoretically, every Speech option that could be Deception could be just Sneak or Sneak and Speech. I still like the categorization of Speech as "diplomacy" instead of just a catch-all for every kind of bullshitting under the sun.

 

[jungl]

another pretentious britfag youtuber. Stop wasting time watching baby zoomers on youtube and twitch talk about games. Nobody has time to watch 40 minute video.

 

[JarlFrank]

The real issue with speech skills is that most of the time it's a single check and you either win or lose the argument. Rarely you get multiple checks in sequence, even more rarely you can use information you found previously to unlock new arguments.

Why not turn persuasion attempts into a proper debate? Instead of giving you one speech check that auto-wins the argument, you have to navigate a series of dialogue choices and try to convince the NPC in a back and forth of arguments. Kinda like how convincing the Master in Fallout 1 works. It wasn't just one skill check, but you had to pass the skill check AND have the necessary information AND make the right arguments. Or Arcanum's persuasion master quest. The early Fallouts and Arcanum didn't have tags in their dialogue checks btw, so you didn't know which one was the persuasion option. You had to figure out yourself which option is the most persuasive one, rather than mindlessly clicking on the [Persuasion] line for autowin.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Fallout SPECIAL already has all needed skills and checks, it's just that vanilla dialogues don't implement them fully. Use bodycount to intimidate people (possible - Nevada has two bodycount checks, and, unlike AoD, game counts different enemies and critters); use barter for trading and reward dialogues, use doctor, repair and others. Yes, Nevada did some of that, could be implemented further.

 

[barghwata]

The real issue with speech skills is that most of the time it's a single check and you either win or lose the argument. Rarely you get multiple checks in sequence, even more rarely you can use information you found previously to unlock new arguments.

Why not turn persuasion attempts into a proper debate? Instead of giving you one speech check that auto-wins the argument, you have to navigate a series of dialogue choices and try to convince the NPC in a back and forth of arguments. Kinda like how convincing the Master in Fallout 1 works. It wasn't just one skill check, but you had to pass the skill check AND have the necessary information AND make the right arguments. Or Arcanum's persuasion master quest. The early Fallouts and Arcanum didn't have tags in their dialogue checks btw, so you didn't know which one was the persuasion option. You had to figure out yourself which option is the most persuasive one, rather than mindlessly clicking on the [Persuasion] line for autowin.

Agreed, Arcanum has easily the best persuasion checks of all time.

 

[Bloodeyes]

The real issue with speech skills is that most of the time it's a single check and you either win or lose the argument. Rarely you get multiple checks in sequence, even more rarely you can use information you found previously to unlock new arguments.

Why not turn persuasion attempts into a proper debate? Instead of giving you one speech check that auto-wins the argument, you have to navigate a series of dialogue choices and try to convince the NPC in a back and forth of arguments. Kinda like how convincing the Master in Fallout 1 works. It wasn't just one skill check, but you had to pass the skill check AND have the necessary information AND make the right arguments. Or Arcanum's persuasion master quest. The early Fallouts and Arcanum didn't have tags in their dialogue checks btw, so you didn't know which one was the persuasion option. You had to figure out yourself which option is the most persuasive one, rather than mindlessly clicking on the [Persuasion] line for autowin.

That's actually pretty reasonable. I think that the number and appropriateness of options in such a debate should be influenced by skills though, not just background info. But yeah this speaks to what Jon was talking about when he said that the 3D Fallouts never gamified the speech skill (something he sees as a problem, he thinks it should be a mini-game). Just having more and better dialogue options available based on character skills but unmarked as you say, so they aren't a clear "I win button". I think to get the most out of this it would need to be in combination with an autosave only system though, so there are no take backs.

Otherwise people would just save scum through the check and the multiple stages would just take longer. But that could apply to any skill check as is why I'm an advocate for autosave only systems and games just being stable and polished enough to handle them. It provides a superior experience when you are forced to accept failure and suboptimal outcomes.

 

[Alex]

I just wanted to comment that if Fallout had actually been made in the GURPS rules-set, it would have been a very different game. Yes, there are a few different skills for social interaction in that set. And perhaps even more would have been important according to the setting (such as etiquette specialized for different groups). However, Fallout tried to adopt a levelling scheme, somewhat similar to AD&D. Skills are inflated with a beginning character being rather incompetent at even his tagged skills and with a huge difference between a beginner and a master. In GURPS, on the other hand, a beginner character can easily have several skills at 12 and a few maybe even at 16. A skill at 12 represents someone that is competent at their trade and can pass standard difficulty checks 75% of the time, while a skill 16 character can pass the same tests 95% of the time, and can avoid half of the critical failures that a 12 skill character might have.

In GURPS, characters don't usually grow exponentially in power like in D&D or Fallout. But even in a campaign where they do so, this is done not just by increasing skills without end, but also by combining different skills and maybe techniques or advantages. A good "face" character in GURPS would usually have three or five different social skills (allowing him to approach people in different ways, an important feature in a dialogue centred campaign), a few incidental skills (such as etiquette or language), knowledge skills to help you gather information about your targets, and several advantages! Some, like charisma, are no brainers. But contacts, social status, rank and what-not might be useful as well.

 

[Grauken]

I just wanted to comment that if Fallout had actually been made in the GURPS rules-set, it would have been a very different game. Yes, there are a few different skills for social interaction in that set. And perhaps even more would have been important according to the setting (such as etiquette specialized for different groups). However, Fallout tried to adopt a levelling scheme, somewhat similar to AD&D. Skills are inflated with a beginning character being rather incompetent at even his tagged skills and with a huge difference between a beginner and a master. In GURPS, on the other hand, a beginner character can easily have several skills at 12 and a few maybe even at 16. A skill at 12 represents someone that is competent at their trade and can pass standard difficulty checks 75% of the time, while a skill 16 character can pass the same tests 95% of the time, and can avoid half of the critical failures that a 12 skill character might have.

In GURPS, characters don't usually grow exponentially in power like in D&D or Fallout. But even in a campaign where they do so, this is done not just by increasing skills without end, but also by combining different skills and maybe techniques or advantages. A good "face" character in GURPS would usually have three or five different social skills (allowing him to approach people in different ways, an important feature in a dialogue centred campaign), a few incidental skills (such as etiquette or language), knowledge skills to help you gather information about your targets, and several advantages! Some, like charisma, are no brainers. But contacts, social status, rank and what-not might be useful as well.

So what you're saying is thank god they (edit: Fallout dev team) were forced (edit: by upper management at Interplay) to ditch the GURPS rules-set

 

[Alex]

So what you're saying is thank God they decided to ditch the GURPS rules-set against Steve Jackson's wishes?

Fixed spelling and factuality. Anyway, I don't think GURPS Fallout would necessarily been a bad game, but it would need to either change how GURPS works a whole lot, or would have needed a very different philosophy to skill checks and problem solving. Fallout doesn't (at least as far as I know) use randomness in its skill checks. Usually, what you have for some skills is a single check somewhere that will see if your skill is a certain value. If it is, you succeed, if not, though luck, try another approach. This may seen silly and boring, but it at least works as far as making character building interesting. Is putting 200 points in science going to pay off later on (hint, it won't)? Is it a good idea to increase repairs past 75? Of course, many skills do have repeatable uses, based on randomness, and it works well. Weapons skills and medicine are obvious examples. But using skills in dialogue, whether speech or something else to solve a quest is done as a single non random check. As long as these things are going to be a single check, it is good that they aren't random, because otherwise you are making the system rather unreliable. Unlike combat, it is not like you can simply try again, and worse yet, failing on a very-high skill level rarely would have any interesting effects, and would just force the PC to use a skill he is probably worse at to solve things.

If the GURPS style skills were to be used, the game would need a different approach to problem solving skill checks, where rather than one big check, you have something where each challenge required several rolls of several different skills, with different results on individual rolls affecting the end result but not spelling failure or success outright. This, however, would take a whole lot more time. So, Fallout would have probably been a much smaller game. Not necessarily a bad thing, but possibly a less interesting result than what we got.

Edit: Apologies for any spelling mistakes I might have made in my original post. If you could point that to me I will be sure to fix it.

 

[Ol' Willy]

where rather than one big check

Man, the problem is not in the system - the problem is in its implementation. Have you played Fallout Nevada?

 

[Alex]

No, not yet. I would be very interested in knowing how it dealt with the problem I mentioned, though!

 

[JarlFrank]

The real issue with speech skills is that most of the time it's a single check and you either win or lose the argument. Rarely you get multiple checks in sequence, even more rarely you can use information you found previously to unlock new arguments.

Why not turn persuasion attempts into a proper debate? Instead of giving you one speech check that auto-wins the argument, you have to navigate a series of dialogue choices and try to convince the NPC in a back and forth of arguments. Kinda like how convincing the Master in Fallout 1 works. It wasn't just one skill check, but you had to pass the skill check AND have the necessary information AND make the right arguments. Or Arcanum's persuasion master quest. The early Fallouts and Arcanum didn't have tags in their dialogue checks btw, so you didn't know which one was the persuasion option. You had to figure out yourself which option is the most persuasive one, rather than mindlessly clicking on the [Persuasion] line for autowin.

That's actually pretty reasonable. I think that the number and appropriateness of options in such a debate should be influenced by skills though, not just background info. But yeah this speaks to what Jon was talking about when he said that the 3D Fallouts never gamified the speech skill (something he sees as a problem, he thinks it should be a mini-game). Just having more and better dialogue options available based on character skills but unmarked as you say, so they aren't a clear "I win button".

The thing is, most of the core gameplay works this way: a sequence of decisions that lead to success or failure, rather than a single decision/skill check that leads to success and failure. In combat you don't roll your weapon skill once and determine whether you win or lose. You fight a turn based battle or have an FPS shootout, both of which consist of many decisions made in quick succession. Actions like breaking into a place can also consist of multiple checks: sneak past a guard with stealth, disarm the trap on the lock, lockpick the door, finally lockpick the safe. You could design it in a way that you only need to apply a single lockpick check, but often level design is structured in a way that you need to do more than just a single skillcheck.

Dialogues should also be designed in such a way.

 

[Alex]

The real issue with speech skills is that most of the time it's a single check and you either win or lose the argument. Rarely you get multiple checks in sequence, even more rarely you can use information you found previously to unlock new arguments.

Why not turn persuasion attempts into a proper debate? Instead of giving you one speech check that auto-wins the argument, you have to navigate a series of dialogue choices and try to convince the NPC in a back and forth of arguments. Kinda like how convincing the Master in Fallout 1 works. It wasn't just one skill check, but you had to pass the skill check AND have the necessary information AND make the right arguments. Or Arcanum's persuasion master quest. The early Fallouts and Arcanum didn't have tags in their dialogue checks btw, so you didn't know which one was the persuasion option. You had to figure out yourself which option is the most persuasive one, rather than mindlessly clicking on the [Persuasion] line for autowin.

That's actually pretty reasonable. I think that the number and appropriateness of options in such a debate should be influenced by skills though, not just background info. But yeah this speaks to what Jon was talking about when he said that the 3D Fallouts never gamified the speech skill (something he sees as a problem, he thinks it should be a mini-game). Just having more and better dialogue options available based on character skills but unmarked as you say, so they aren't a clear "I win button".

The thing is, most of the core gameplay works this way: a sequence of decisions that lead to success or failure, rather than a single decision/skill check that leads to success and failure. In combat you don't roll your weapon skill once and determine whether you win or lose. You fight a turn based battle or have an FPS shootout, both of which consist of many decisions made in quick succession. Actions like breaking into a place can also consist of multiple checks: sneak past a guard with stealth, disarm the trap on the lock, lockpick the door, finally lockpick the safe. You could design it in a way that you only need to apply a single lockpick check, but often level design is structured in a way that you need to do more than just a single skillcheck.

Dialogues should also be designed in such a way.

The problem is, designing dialogue in such way takes a long time, especially if you want to make it actually fun. The problem is like this: first, you have to give the player several, non equal options. That is, the result of the exchange should be determined by what speech skills you did use. The player should, during the whole process, have more than one option, and each should be different. Failing or succeeding at each should, at the very least, have some consequence, at least in the whole exchange itself if not after it.

This is the bare minimum you would need to make conversation on par with combat. To have it be actually interesting, you would need to add more than that! It shouldn't just be a matter of choosing this or that skill, but finding a good and interesting way to use it, just like combat is not a matter of choosing whether you prefer a pistol or a rifle, but also figuring out which weapons will work better where. In other words, you also need to have this lead to some kind of challenge. Now, the best gameplay for that is, in my opinion, the use of Adventure games style puzzles. In fact, I think the old DOS Neuromancer game could be a good basis for what this is like. For instance, it shouldn't be an issue of just using intimidation against someone, but also finding the correct leverage for the intimidation. Maybe it is his family, physical violence, the threat of humiliation, etc. Finding what works best on each NPC and then finding a good way to use it to make a threat could be a whole lot of fun... But it also would take a whole lot of resources.