And I do wonder if there is some way to have a dialogue or communicate information to the player that allows you to do something more interactive than just reading or listening while the PCs are communicating information to you and still allow you to make meaningful choices.
I'm not sure I really get this statement. Since dialogue is a two-way thing, the player needs to pay attention in order to effectively respond. If the player doesn't have to think about their response, then either the dialogue itself is weak, or you're not offering enough interaction on the player side.
Of course, the statement could also be interpreted as providing a player with a means of responding with expressions during lengthy exposition, much the way a real human would nod, gesture or possibly interrupt in response to a soliloquy. But that in itself is hardly a meaningful reaction, it's little more than an indicator that you're actually paying attention. At best it could evoke something on a spectrum of "<pause> Are you even listening?" to "Oh, you're such a good listener, I'm really glad I've finally found someone who understands me, and doesn't think I get all worked up over the most trivial of things."
All in all, I think that the problem is best solved by targetting tedious dialogue at the source, but there's nothing wrong with some innovation along the way.
Balor said:
Ok, we can have a better system: <snip>
Interesting ideas, but it seems a little convoluted, and likely to disrupt the natural flow of dialogue if the player has to specify a great list of modifiers in order to make a simple statement. Adding to that effect is the fact that gameplay interaction from the player's perspective is actually "Someguy, identity, cheerful, bribe" and the actual manifestation of the phrase is mostly redundant.
It may just be me personally, but in games that have tried similar systems (Daggerfall, Wizards and Warriors) I pay little to no attention to the essential repetition (plus fluff) of my response. The natural way to converse is
NPC speaks, Player responds, repeat. Your idea extends this to
NPC speaks, Player responds, Player reads generated text, repeat.
It's interesting fluff in the same vein as verbose (as opposed to terse) combat text in Fallout, but you could quite easily disable the display of the final generated phrase, and it doesn't change the actual gameplay. I'm not completely dismissing the idea, but it seems to me that it would turn dialogue into yet another measured gameplay component, or "tactical talking" as opposed to a reasonable imitation of social interaction.
