Question about stat checks in dialogues

[TheEntitledOne]

A Roll is nice, but the variability should be small. If there are no consequences for failure you should just have a fixed value check (e.g. like taking 20 in DnD). Also, partial successes are nice (like in AoD).
I wouldn't give too much info on the required number, perhaps color code it. If your skill is high enough you see the req in green and succeed without rolling. If you have a very low chance of success color it red, etc. If you have no chance at all hide it.

 

[Gargaune]

Hardcoded checks, otherwise I will savescum until I get the desired result if I really care about it. I need developers to actively stop me from ruining my own fun, fuck.

Rolling dice, so I can savescum until I get the desired result if I really care about it. I need developers to let me press the button until I get the awesome.

Nah, seriously, I like the RNG playing into skill checks (to a degree, skill allocation should still be primary), I find it more exciting that way. Sure, it can also be infuriating at times, but it's just the nature of the beast.

 

[Tony Lynx]

Nothing like this PoE stuff

Imagine complaining about this when Sawyer specifically included an option to disable it so you types wouldn't complain about it.

It wasn't a complain, I showed this pic for the sake of an example of what I meant. And IIRC there was only an option to hide choices for which you don't have enough stats, and the requirements in available choices would still be shown no matter what

A Roll is nice, but the variability should be small. If there are no consequences for failure you should just have a fixed value check (e.g. like taking 20 in DnD). Also, partial successes are nice (like in AoD).
I wouldn't give too much info on the required number, perhaps color code it. If your skill is high enough you see the req in green and succeed without rolling. If you have a very low chance of success color it red, etc. If you have no chance at all hide it.

So if you don't meet the criteria you'd still be given an option to go for it but with dice roll and a chance to fail with a consequences. That's actually a nice option

 

[Roguey]

And IIRC there was only an option to hide choices for which you don't have enough stats, and the requirements in available choices would still be shown no matter what

There's "show unqualified interactions" "show qualifiers" and "show personality/reputation."

 

[Tony Lynx]

And IIRC there was only an option to hide choices for which you don't have enough stats, and the requirements in available choices would still be shown no matter what

There's "show unqualified interactions" "show qualifiers" and "show personality/reputation."

Oh ok then my mistake. But still that picture was just to show what I meant and not slamming PoE or anything

 

[luj1]

Nwn 1 is actually underrated in this regard as it used a variety of dialogue checks, ranging from Persuade/Intimidate and saving throws to attributes and what you called hardcoded checks.

These two don't necessarily exclude each other btw

 

[Funposter]

Hardcoded checks are preferable due to the way video games work as a medium, otherwise it encourages save scumming and causes player frustration if they fail a 90% check etc. Speech checks, in this way, work similarly to difficult enemies - have a Speech of 65 but need 70 to pass that check? Well, find some gear to buff you, or put off the quest and go do other content until you can level your Speech skill. As others have said, the possibility for partial success, or at least different levels of Speech checks with different outcomes are nice too.

 

[TNO]

(Welcome to the forum, Tony Lynx)

Like others, I think with the option of die rolls versus hard thresholds, the latter is better. Most people aren't playing the game ironman, so if they're willing to reload rather than start from scratch if they die in a combat encounter, there's a natural impulse to reload if they 'lose' a non-combat encounter. This is particularly so where most games which have 'speech skills' (etc.) alongside gameplay make 'failing a speech check' much more consequential than (e.g.) failing a given chance-to-hit roll - so long as you win a combat encounter, how 'perfectly' you do it seldom matters much. In contrast, missing speech check might block off content, change quest rewards, etc. Similarly, unlike combat, there's seldom a 'rescue' option available: if your paladan misses her (good) will save and gets debuffed, the party can still fight on and win - if she misses her [persuade] roll, that's it.

The underlying issue is most games, even if they have non-combat skills, have very minimal non-combat gameplay (in games which have 'diplomat' character builds, the 'gameplay' usually amounts to "Dump all your points in the speech skills then click on the [persuade] dialog options to win"). Roll-based speech works better in PnP version as you have a human DM and players who can generate the 'non-combat encounter' on the fly (e.g. "You're undercover in the command center of the bad guy, roll for profession to look like you belong there (I'll spot you a synergy bonus for your ranks in knowledge X)"/"You failed, so an underling comes to check if you need any help, bluff to avoid arousing suspicion"/"You did well enough to stop them raising the alarm, but they are suspicious and keeping an eye on you, (giving them a boost to detect you doing anything untoward)"). You could do the same in a computer version, although it demands a lot of work and is seldom attempted in games which are principally combat focused.

 

[Thac0]

Rolled checks are alright if there is anything that disencourages me from just reloading until I succeed. Be it a harsh saving system like Ironman, interesting results on failure or systems which allow me to manually reroll for ressources like in Torment: Tides of Numenera.
Sadly a lot of rolled checks are vastly more interesting if you succeed. As such failing on your main stat with a 3% chance just gets the f6/9.

Otherwise hard coded is better. You chose to be a glib bard, you want to see everything that happens with high Charisma in the game.

 

[Molina]

It depends of the outcome. If the failled outcome could be interresting, with a strong narrative, then random can do a good job of giving everyone a chance to find out.

If there is only one good outcomes... then hardcoded is enough.

 

[lukaszek]

as you can see from other responses, dice need to go

 

[CryptRat]

 

[pidstuff]

Let's face it. With dice rolls, players just tend to save scum until they get their desired outcome. I think it's only Disco Elysium that urged the player to move on despite a bad roll.. and even then, I see posts where people confess to savescumming just the same.

Personally, I prefer hardcoded checks, if only because it makes planning builds a lot more fun for me.

 

[Bohrain]

Hardcoded definitely. Unless it's something like a roguelike where the importance between different checks doesn't vary as much and regression towards the mean becomes a thing through multiple playthroughs. But in practice if it's a scripted branching scene you want the player build to matter, so thresholds are better. In tabletop the GM can tailor the experience to some degree, but something like Fallout 3 style checks just makes you want to either savescum or ignore investing in speech.

 

[lukaszek]

Let's face it. With dice rolls, players just tend to save scum until they get their desired outcome. I think it's only Disco Elysium that urged the player to move on despite a bad roll.. and even then, I see posts where people confess to savescumming just the same.

Personally, I prefer hardcoded checks, if only because it makes planning builds a lot more fun for me.

disco introduced impossible dice checks that even if you managed to beat them you still lost lol

 

[Pocgels]

Hardcoded checks, otherwise I will savescum until I get the desired result if I really care about it. I need developers to actively stop me from ruining my own fun, fuck.

Hardcoded checks for scripted interactions for story-driven games (like shadowrun dragonfall) I absolutely agree.

Dice-roll checks have a place too, but they work best in roguelikes where you'll be running many characters, or in a game like King of Dragon Pass

 

[v1rus]

I need developers to actively stop me from ruining my own fun, fuck.

Truer words have never been spoken.

 

[NJClaw]

Let's face it. With dice rolls, players just tend to save scum until they get their desired outcome. I think it's only Disco Elysium that urged the player to move on despite a bad roll.. and even then, I see posts where people confess to savescumming just the same.

Personally, I prefer hardcoded checks, if only because it makes planning builds a lot more fun for me.

disco introduced impossible dice checks that even if you managed to beat them you still lost lol

"This was not about failure or success. This was always going to be the horror. I should not have suggested it, and you should not have listened to me."

 

[V_K]

There won't be any out of the blue "choose this to persuade" answers. In order to even get this option, you'll have to chose appropriate responses from the start of the dialogue and carefully build it from there.

That's not what I meant. The problem with skillchecks is that the outcome is binary - if you have the required skill rank (and/or the RNG is kind to you), you pass; if you don't, you fail. You can't even prepare for them because you have no way of knowing when a skillcheck will come up, what skill will be checked and at which level. If stakes are high, that just encourages savescumming (where RNG is involved) or metagaming (where checks are hardcoded - see the whole AoD debacle). And if stakes are low, why even bother investing in dialog skills? Having to go through a dialog tree to reach the check doesn't really change much - I still have no way of knowing which responses are "appropriate" and have to read the dev's mind (or metagame).

Several games do it better in my view:

In something like Morrowind's persuasion system (underused as it is), the thing that's checked directly is the NPC's disposition. It is determined by your stats, race and faction and can be changed certain systemic actions, both in dialog (generic options to bribe, flatter or intimidate) and outside of dialog (gain faction reputation, wear nice clothes, cast charm spell). It admittedly makes it a little too easy since there's no limit on how often you can use those systemic actions, but that's easy to fix.

In The Council, any check can be passed irrespective of your skill rank as long as you have enough resource (effort) for it - but lower skills/harder difficulty make effort costs significantly higher. Effort doesn't regenerate on rest, so that makes you consider whether you want to spend effort on this particular check or save it for something more important later down the line. Naturally, a significant number of skill tagged options are traps - they don't yield any important results and are just there to make you spend effort. This feed into many other systems like some NPCs being immune to certain skills (so you spend effort for nothing) or vulnerable to others (so you save some effort). Finally, you're allowed a number of missteps in important dialogs (confrontations), so you can in principle recover from a bad choice - as long as you have effort for it.

 

[Tony Lynx]

That's not what I meant. The problem with skillchecks is that the outcome is binary - if you have the required skill rank (and/or the RNG is kind to you), you pass; if you don't, you fail. You can't even prepare for them because you have no way of knowing when a skillcheck will come up, what skill will be checked and at which level

Having only one check to immediately win a quest/conversation is a poor design choice, I'll try to avoid that. You can have one skillcheck just open an easier path which you still need to undertake with probably more checks along the way.
The more I dive into it, the more complicated it becomes. Especially in long dialogues

Thank you all for your answers and for giving me some good new ideas
These poll results warm my heart. I hope I will be able to show my game soon enough to receive helpful feedback and gameplay ideas throughout the development

 

[Sweeper]

The problem with hardcoded dialogue checks is that, if you play the game enough, you'll memorize every skill check and pretty much invalidate the checks in the first place.
But that's still better than savescumming, which I will do every single time I fail a check, regardless of how inconsequential the fucking thing is.
The obvious solution is ironman with dice rolls.
More RPGs should have ironman modes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

the answer for all of these issues is to simply not tell the player that there is a skill check happening