Interview The Dialogue Interview

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Brian Mitsoda; David Gaider; J.E. Sawyer; Scott Bennie

I've decided to explore the concept of dialogues in RPGs a bit by asking Brian Mitsoda, JE Sawyer, Scott Bennie, and David Gaider a few questions about this delicate subject. I also asked Chris Avellone, but he's busy watching the Aliens movies for ...uh... research purposes. I tried to play dirty and threw "think of teh kidz!" line at him. His chilling "The kids must suffer" reply provided a rare glimpse into his dark soul and, coincidentally, answered question #10: "What's evil and how do you show these traits in your characters?". Anyway, the interview:

6. What games/characters would you use as outstanding examples of great writing in games and why? What influenced you as a game writer?

Brian Mitsoda: Fallout was the game that made me transition from a career in film and apply at Interplay. I enjoyed that the story could be different to each player and I saw potential in reactive storytelling and the possibilities of game narratives. I was a bit naive in thinking it wouldn't sink into the same formulaic trappings of the film industry, but I look at games like Planescape, Psychonauts, and System Shock as examples of how interesting stories and gameplay can be intertwined in a way that can't easily be duplicated by other forms of entertainment. Planescape, I probably don't have to explain the sense of brilliant weirdness and fantastic exploration to readers of this site and Chris (Avellone, my boss) really hates it when people get fanboy on him (but you should probably dress up like Falls-From-Grace and wait for him in his car, he loves that.) The mind voyeurism/exploration aspects of Psychonauts and the smoothness with which they were blended into the game design, wow... more games should have that kind of story integration (and be that funny). For System Shock, I not only enjoyed the terrifying exploration of Citadel Station, but I don't think I've ever hated a "bad guy" in any game, movie, or book more than Shodan because she actively taunted and harassed me in a way that traditional written medium bad guys can't replicate.​

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I actually liked a lot of what Mr. Gaider had to say, other than the part about diplomacy over combat. I see his points, but how can a game be any worse by offering a greater range of choices, even if it circumvents what the developer thinks is fun (aka combat)?

And the point he made about Bloodlines (and Lionheart) pulling out the rug from under diplomatic characters was a little.....interesting.

Great interview. Quite the interesting stuff.

 

[Claw]

So... is David Gaider actually unable to say what dialogues add to the gameplay or did you forget his answer, VD?

 

[Jason]

Too bad MCA blew you off as this would have been right up his alley.

Good stuff all around, though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

@ Claw: Some developers were unable to answer every questions due to time constraints. Dave's busy with Dragon Age, so most likely that's the reason.

@ Baby arm: MCA promised to answer the questions later.

 

[Volourn]

Good stuff, DUDE.

 

[galsiah]

[Is there really no way to avoid the duplication of topics in Feedback + News? E.g. couldn't the News one simply be locked with a link to this one? Forever having two discussions just seems a little silly.]

Great interview. Interesting indeed.

I actually liked a lot of what Mr. Gaider had to say, other than the part about diplomacy over combat. I see his points, but how can a game be any worse by offering a greater range of choices...

A greater range of fully supported choices, sure. What Gaider describes is an option with no real support: it's not involved, interesting, developed etc. - just a one-liner that sees the player sacrifice significant amounts of content. Alternative choices/paths should open up similar amounts of content to the amount closed off.

Including extra paths that serve only to reduce the content experienced by the player is not a good idea. Options are only an asset when they're properly supported. Do it well, or don't do it. [If you're still in doubt on this, visit Bethesda's forums and witness some truly horrible design ideas defended with "It's an OPTION..."]

In a sense, the arguments against a more gamist approach to dialogue are similar - you get many more options, but each can end up bland and generic. You've added options, but you haven't supported them (with style/expression/reactivity in this case).
I'd love to see dialogue developed as a gameplay component (rather than for style/story-telling/occasional branched linearity), but it's difficult to see how you'd do it without its becoming soulless. The more you increase the range of player expression, the harder it is to give each dialogue action style, meaning and consequence [whether you're spending the same time supporting 40 replies rather than 5, or using a more generic all-purpose system].

I'd like to think that meaning and consequence could be properly handled within a more game-like dialogue system (with the right background game design). Style/mood would seem to be a non-starter though. I don't see how you'd get great versatility+reactivity without crippling writing quality. Rather unfortunate, but there you go.
[Anyone happen to know how that "Ico" game conveyed character/emotion without dialogue btw?]

 

[Selenti]

That Mitsoda guy sounds like he could write a much better game than the rest of them. Not that I'm surprised, really. Bloodlines blew every other RPG I've seen since then out of the water. Hooray for an absolutely starved market.

 

[Amasius]

Compared to this stuff all other RPG related interviews I've ever read outside the Codex are shallow. Nobody digs deeper than you guys, good work.

The projects I’ve had a major hand in include:
• “Baldur’s Gate 2” (my major contributions being much of Athkatla, the Drow city in the Underdark, and three of the four romances – Aerie, Viconia and Anomen, as well as other party members)

The last thing that a player wants, I think (and I’ve learned this over time) is characters that whine, complain or are critical of the player in any way and characters that exist solely to talk about themselves. I think we’re past that point, now.

Uh, great that he learned something over the years, but while I don't like whiners and people who talk only about themselves (in games of real life), I don't want to be surrounded only by nice, sympathetic, boring people. I despised Anomen, but he was well written and aroused emotions - and thats all what matters. Also even the greatest hero should be able to take some criticism or mockery. This seems to be another example of developers who try to avoid everything that may annoy some players.

 

[Annonchinil]

Did anyone sacrifice Morte at the Pillar? It was a good choice but why would I want to avoid story content?

 

[Veracity]

Did anyone sacrifice Morte at the Pillar? It was a good choice but why would I want to avoid story content?

Yes, and left him there, when I played as a not terribly nice Lawful Good mage, emphasis on Lawful - he and Vhailor got along swimmingly. Doing that is story content, surely?

Thanks for the interview, interesting read. Tourette I thought was meh, but the stop sign was funny, and this has reminded me how much LaCroix ruled.

 

[Eclecticist]

Great read. Thanks VD, keep it up.

This stuff is what makes the Codex worth it.

 

[jeansberg]

David Gaider: Part of the problem, I think, is with conveying motivation. I often hear fans say that they want to be “intelligent evil” – and thus the sort of character who is more manipulative rather than openly villainous. This entails, however, a character who seems to be doing good but is otherwise manipulating those around him to ultimately evil ends. How do you convey to a player that, yes, he is accepting this heroic quest right now but only to do “x” later on? The only way would be through some blatant out-of-game means, which we’ve never done yet and I’m not sure how it would work. So other than having an overarching plot that is intrinsically villainous as opposed to heroic, you’re stuck with assigning options that are short-term and largely transparent – both good and evil.

Wasn't this done several times in Torment with the [Lie] and [Truth] dialogue options?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Good interview, VD. Codex at its best - not whinging or crying, just having an intelligent discussion with developers.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

David Gaider: Part of the problem, I think, is with conveying motivation. I often hear fans say that they want to be “intelligent evil” – and thus the sort of character who is more manipulative rather than openly villainous. This entails, however, a character who seems to be doing good but is otherwise manipulating those around him to ultimately evil ends. How do you convey to a player that, yes, he is accepting this heroic quest right now but only to do “x” later on? The only way would be through some blatant out-of-game means, which we’ve never done yet and I’m not sure how it would work. So other than having an overarching plot that is intrinsically villainous as opposed to heroic, you’re stuck with assigning options that are short-term and largely transparent – both good and evil.

Wasn't this done several times in Torment with the [Lie] and [Truth] dialogue options?

Yep thats what I thouht too. I dont see a big problem in using this sysem to communicate the players motivation to the game.

 

[Lumpy]

2. No dialogue that goes more than three layers deep. This keeps it to a manageable level.

Huh? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

 

[Claw]

What do you mean? Do you not understand what layers he's referring to, or why more than three is supposed to be too much?

 

[Lumpy]

What do you mean? Do you not understand what layers he's referring to, or why more than three is supposed to be too much?

Layers.

 

[Claw]

Well, you know. Dialogue trees.

I believe he means something like that:

   ___A___        Layer 1 (That's like the greeting. You know, NPC says Hi, you get reply options)
 _B_     _C_      Layer 2 (You choose option B, get response "B" and associated reply options)
D   E   F   G_    Layer 3
              H   Layer 4

My take is that the H would be "too much" in his opinion.

 

[Lumpy]

Right. So he is retarded.

 

[galsiah]

How do you convey to a player that, yes, he is accepting this heroic quest right now but only to do “x” later on?

Wasn't this done several times in Torment with the [Lie] and [Truth] dialogue options?

To a degree, but all that tells you is that the PC doesn't want to tell the truth. The player has his own reasons for the lie (possibly involving many convoluted machinations), but the game doesn't know about these plans, nor does it convey understanding to the player. It works well for an individual quest if there's exactly one clear path that's supported by lying.
If the PC has some long-term "evil" plan which requires completion of this one "good" act, simply clicking ...[Lie] does little to communicate anything to the game. In particular, the game has no way to react convincingly to his action. It can react by removing inappropriate options/content which assume he was telling the truth. It can't in general add options/content tailored to his intentions - the best it can do is to fall back to fairly generic / non-specific options.

If the [Lie] options in Torment had any consequence, they were restricted to the individual quest (or for very general alignment changes). That probably makes reasonable sense in a game like Torment - a game without a greatly connected/dynamic/reactive world. In a game with many more inter-quest (or non-quest) interactions, or a more sim-like approach in general, the player might reasonably have almost any long-term intention for an individual act.
The more wide-ranging the implications of an act, the harder it is to deduce the motivation behind that act. For any suitably complex situation, the only sure way would be to have the player directly spell out his intentions. That's what Gaider's getting at with his "out-of-game means". Without this input, the game can't effectively react (in dialogue) to a diverse range of player intentions.

Right. So he is retarded.

Not really - he's talking about organization of questions/responses. He doesn't mean to restrict the options.

Think of it as a parallel of reducing action-depth within menus in user-interface design. What's the maximum depth of a menu option in your browser? In mine, there's only one path to options with depth 4: View->Character Encoding->More Encodings->... [a rarely used option]. What does this imply about the power of the menu options in my browser? Very little. It's simply a user-friendly organization - breadth is generally preferred over depth.

In most dialogue cases, picking an option doesn't rule out most other options. Most options are fairly independent - e.g. do you ask about A, B, C or D? Most NPCs don't change their response to any of those, whether or not you've asked about the others.

He's expressing a general preference for this:
(0) [A-Z]
(1) [A-F], [G-K], [L-P], [Q-U], [V-Z]
(2a) [A], , [C], [D], [E], [F]
(2b) [G], [H], , [J], [K]
(2c)...
(2d)...
(2e)...

Over this:
(0) [A-Z]
(1) [A-M], [N-Z]
(2a) [A-G], [H-M]
(2b) [N-T], [U,Z]
(3aa) [A-D], [E-G]
(3ab) [H-J], [K-M]
(3ba) [N-Q], [R-T]
(3bb) [U-W], [X-Z]
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(4...)
(5...)
(5...)
(5...)
(5...)


Of course this doesn't apply to dialogue where each option taken is a real decision that naturally enables/restricts many other options - but that's not what he's talking about. Even there, you can allow a deeper logical structure, without complicating the "physical" structure. For example, a decision at depth 3 can open a new top-level option - that option's logically at level 4, but once it's open the player doesn't need to navigate 3 levels to see it - so effectively its at level 1.

Bennie's rule applies to the "physical" organization/navigation of dialogue options. It has no implications for the logical structure - which is what ultimately matters most.

 

[Ellester]

This is one of the better interviews I've read from this site. Great Stuff!

 

[Section8]

Nice interview. Haven't time to digest it and make comments, so one-line reply FTW!

 

[Elhoim]

I guess it was an interesting creative exercise, but the ordeal was honestly pretty lame considering the title was supposed to be M-rated. "Whoa guys... we're okay with seeing peoples' heads get lopped off left and right, but let's not get crazy with this abortion talk!"

The world is just filled with idiots.

 

[Azarkon]

Right. So he is retarded.

From the perspective of someone who wants to make games that don't sell, perhaps.

The one thing I learned from all the interviews is that regardless of what designers really want, their creativity is ultimately limited by what is acceptable to the market. Thus, getting better talent into the gaming industry won't do anything. Changing the people who play games, on the other hand, would.

Of course, it's alot easier to do the former than it is to do the latter. This ties into the whole market economy crap discussed in the other thread.