Epic discussions

[Erebus]

In CRPGs with developed stories, discussions have the potential to be just as exciting and intense as combat, if not more. In practice, of course, it doesn't happen very often.

The two examples that come immediately to mind are the discussion with Ravel in Torment and the discussion with Myrkul in MotB. In both cases, the discussion is intense both because of the unique being you're confronted with and because of the answers you've been waiting for for a long time.

Aside from offering a fascinating interlocutor and answering mysteries in a gripping manner, discussions can also achieve intensity by making it possible for the player to achieve something important through words alone. It's the case in your discussion with TTO at the end of Torment. It might have been the case in the NWN2 trial, if only it had reached its full potential (even as it is, it remains the best part of the game).

Obviously, a really memorable discussion needs to be well-written, to have quite a lot of text and to offer many possible choices. Not many designers have been willing to invest so much effort in a discussion, perhaps because they didn't realize how interesting it could be or because they expected it would bore many players.

Thoughts ? Examples ? Ideas ?

 

[oscar]

The main problem with trying to make a conversation as much a part of the game and challenge as a battle is that it's usually only dependent on one attribute, charisma, and one skill, speech.

This is compared to combat what has Strength and Constitution for fighters, Dexterity for rouges and Intelligence and Wisdom for mages. As well as lots of different skills and ways to overcome it (dodge, blunt weapons, edged weapons, arrows, potions, fireballs etc etc).

Since most games that do include some sort of conversational checks it never really amounts to more then "[speech] I'll probably need another 25 gold for killing those bandits to be worth my while".

So the solution would appear to be to make conversation reliant upon lots of different stats (there's more ways to convince someone or extract information then being charismatic) and perhaps even items. Results of conversations should also have some pretty significant consequences and require a lot of thought and 'strategy' to get the best result from them.

 

[Black]

Arcanum had a pretty decent end game discussion. My favourite.

 

[Destroid]

Replace character generation with 2 attributes, fightan and talkan.

 

[Black]

2 attributes would be too much hassle and too confusing for newer players, remove talkan.

 

[Destroid]

BTW Fallout 1+2 had more depth than that to it's dialogue. Intelligence, charisma and speech were all important for pretty much all social situations but other attributes were also drawn on from time to time. I can't remember if non-speech skills were every used though.

 

[DraQ]

The problem with discussing discussions is that there is no any sort of unified design methodology that can be applied to them, meaning that they are basically something done on case-by-case basis, and that they integrate poorly with whatever mechanics you may be using.

 

[oscar]

Yeah there should be uses for all stats and abilities in conversation. For instance that rough gang leader isn't going to give a toss about your philosophising on the nature of man, while the king isn't going to be too impressed by "hand over the gold cunt or I'll cut ya".

Destroid raises a good point. Just as there is no one stat or skill for fightan, there should be more then one stat/skill for talkan if you plan to make conversation a big part of your game. Darklands did this well, just because your smooth at getting a good deal with the local merchant (the 'Speak Common' skill) the Bishop isn't going to take you very seriously unless you've got good Speak Latin. And don't even try conversing with an Alchemist unless your skilled in that.

As mentioned Torment also did this well. Intelligence, Charisma and Wisdom all had their uses in conversation. Hell even Dexterity checks managed to worm their way in.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

2 attributes would be too much hassle and too confusing for newer players, remove talkan.

Talkan should be the hardcore mode and be text input like Infocom games.

edit: oh yes, discussions. Seconding Ravel and Myrkul but PST and MotB have really great dialogues in general.

 

[Johannes]

Yeah there should be uses for all stats and abilities in conversation. For instance that rough gang leader isn't going to give a toss about your philosophising on the nature of man, while the king isn't going to be too impressed by "hand over the gold cunt or I'll cut ya".

Actually the king might be as impressed by aggressive threatening as anybody, just needs a situation where the king isn't calling all the shots.

 

[Erzherzog]

I guess it's also true that context matters a lot but can you really turn that into an element in an RPG?