Interview RPG Codex Community Q&A: Project Eternity with Josh Sawyer

[evdk]

So how does one check something like "Power" in dialogue? They promised stat checks there, right? Will Charisma be dropped completely then? Will it be replaced by a skill to help you choose the right line?

You check accuracy for how accurately you can pick the correct answer from the list, damage for how damaging your witty remark is to your opponent and skills for rap battles.

Probably something like this, actually. Combat-related stats and skills will also have non-combat applications.

Well sure, I just hope the stats have less retarded names.

 

[Infinitron]

So how does one check something like "Power" in dialogue? They promised stat checks there, right? Will Charisma be dropped completely then? Will it be replaced by a skill to help you choose the right line?

Sawyer doesn't like social skills, so they're out. Any extra dialog options will be made available via C&C, like you side with group A, you get special dialog for group A and their enemies group B.

Not entirely true - he's not against attribute checks, since attributes are bound by combat-related concerns. They're not like a social skill that you can pump in order to WIN ALL DIALOGZ.

 

[Surf Solar]

So the answer to my underdark question sounds like there'll be some DLC ?

 

[evdk]

Not entirely true - he's not against attribute checks, since attributes are bound by combat-related concerns. They're not like a social skill that you can pump in order to WIN ALL DIALOGZ.

Maybe he should try his supreme system designer skills at improving them instead of throwing them out altogether. I am not a fan of the insta dialogue win buttons myself, but I believe a different solution was in order.

So the answer to my underdark question sounds like there'll be some DLC ?

An expansion is already confirmed (it was offered as a pledge upgrade / additional reward on higher tiers during the KS campaign).

 

[tuluse]

So how does one check something like "Power" in dialogue? They promised stat checks there, right? Will Charisma be dropped completely then? Will it be replaced by a skill to help you choose the right line?

Sawyer doesn't like social skills, so they're out. Any extra dialog options will be made available via C&C, like you side with group A, you get special dialog for group A and their enemies group B.

Not entirely true - he's not against attribute checks, since attributes are bound by combat-related concerns. They're not like a social skill that you can pump in order to WIN ALL DIALOGZ.

You're right, there could be strength tests or dexterity tests or whatever, but there are no skills or attributes that will only or primarily have social functions.

 

[FeelTheRads]

you can always say that the character's 'Skill' boosts damage and his 'Cunning' boots his defenses and so on.

Who the hell cares about what you "can say"? It's not about it being "realistic" or playing make belive, but about:

if the system is simplified

Sawyer's solution here enables strategic variety in your character customization.

What? How? Push this button to increase damage, for each and every class. Where's the strategical variety?
Also, you had problems that a fighter with intelligence 3 can speak to people? Now, THAT is LARPing. If the conversation doesn't take into account the intelligence (or other stats) anyway, what the hell does it matter if it's 3 or 18?

Maybe he should try his supreme system designer skills at improving them instead of throwing them out altogether.

But that's all he is able to do. Remove stuff and call it improved. And as you see, there are people even here who agree that somehow it's better to just remove than improve.

 

[Logic_error]

The way that dialogue ought to be handled is simply through Ability/skill check without the [Diplomacy] tag. So when new dialogue lines appear due to better skills, you have to READ them instead of relying on tags.

 

[Lancehead]

Not entirely true - he's not against attribute checks, since attributes are bound by combat-related concerns. They're not like a social skill that you can pump in order to WIN ALL DIALOGZ.

Maybe he should try his supreme system designer skills at improving them instead of throwing them out altogether. I am not a fan of the insta dialogue win buttons myself, but I believe a different solution was in order.

A social skill would make sense if its application is generic. And that doesn't suit a game like PE.

 

[evdk]

The way that dialogue ought to be handled is simply through Ability/skill check without the [Diplomacy] tag. So when new dialogue lines appear due to better skills, you have to READ them instead of relying on tags.

Oh, I agree with that 100%, people just tend to get emotional about that. Also when all the responses are simply sentences and the [Intelligence] response is over three rows long it is kinda obvious anyway (see PS:T).

 

[Logic_error]

The way that dialogue ought to be handled is simply through Ability/skill check without the [Diplomacy] tag. So when new dialogue lines appear due to better skills, you have to READ them instead of relying on tags.

Oh, I agree with that 100%, people just tend to get emotional about that. Also when all the responses are simply sentences and the [Intelligence] response is over three rows long it is kinda obvious anyway (see PS:T).

That is where full sentence dialogues with good writing come in. Think about MoTB, without the giveaway tags. That is a game I would like to see.

 

[Shadenuat]

Why can't just new dialogue branch appear due to high Diplomacy, but then you still need to read it and pick lines smartly as in Arcanum, I don't even... I know it's lots of job, but it really gives dialogue that replay- emm re-readability.

 

[Logic_error]

Why can't just new dialogue branch appear due to high Diplomacy, but then you still need to read it and pick lines smartly as in Arcanum, I don't even... I know it's lots of job, but it really gives dialogue that replay- emm re-readability.

I do not know. I can think of several possible reasons however:

1) Gamers are too ADHD to read through text.
2) Writers are lazy to write full wholesome and reasonable conversation lines
3) It is the skyrim/sawyer syndrome: Not used? Remove it.

 

[tuluse]

Why can't just new dialogue branch appear due to high Diplomacy, but then you still need to read it and pick lines smartly as in Arcanum, I don't even... I know it's lots of job, but it really gives dialogue that replay- emm re-readability.

There is a setting to hide tags. I'm not sure what you're asking.

 

[Infinitron]

Why can't just new dialogue branch appear due to high Diplomacy, but then you still need to read it and pick lines smartly as in Arcanum, I don't even... I know it's lots of job, but it really gives dialogue that replay- emm re-readability.

There is a setting to hide tags. I'm not sure what you're asking.

He's saying that if the game always hides tags, that prevents dialogue skills from becoming "insta-conversation winners", because you can't recognize the conversation winning dialogue options.

Unfortunately, we know from PS:T that that's hardly true.

 

[Lancehead]

Hidden tags only mask insta-win disease; failure of a lazy attempt at a solution. Besides, I'd want to know if my character is using a skill.

 

[evdk]

Why can't just new dialogue branch appear due to high Diplomacy, but then you still need to read it and pick lines smartly as in Arcanum, I don't even... I know it's lots of job, but it really gives dialogue that replay- emm re-readability.

There is a setting to hide tags. I'm not sure what you're asking.

He's saying that if the game always hides tags, that prevents dialogue skills from becoming "insta-conversation winners", because you can't recognize the conversation winning dialogue options.

Unfortunately, we know from PS:T that that's hardly true.

As mentioned previously the standard dialogue options and the special attribute driven choices would have to be written similarly, ie sometimes the generic answer would e wordy as hell while the short and to the point one would actually be the better choice and vice versa. It's true that PS:T's approach would not work in this instance.

Hidden tags only mask insta-win disease; failure of a lazy attempt at a solution. Besides, I'd want to know if my character is using a skill.

We're talking attributes now though, and that might be a bit different.

 

[Infinitron]

Hidden tags only mask insta-win disease; a lazy attempt at a solution, at best. Besides, I'd want to know if my character is using a skill.

There's an argument here that dialogue writers should always try to write deep, layered conversation trees that use multiple skill checks, to avoid the "insta-win disease", and I definitely sympathize with that argument.

The thing is, by demanding that, you're placing the onus of balancing the system on your content creators. You're telling Chris Avellone and George Ziets to possibly compromise their creative vision in order to make your conversation skill system work.

 

[Shadenuat]

One dialogue line should't lead to solving the "text puzzle", you could still fail because of your previous actions ("You persuade me with this now, but before you did that") or win because you pick a more compelling argument ("If you are a thief, which guild are you from? - Tarant's of course, everyone knows it's the largest").
However, from what I understand, your skill picks in PE would not lead you into new dialogue branches you would not find without them. So sure, you won't get insta-win text quests to resolve situation, but you will also have the same conversation every time you play no matter what character you play; even if sometimes your INT will give you a hint or some more info.

There's an argument here that dialogue writers should always try to write deep, layered conversation trees that use multiple skill checks, to avoid the "insta-win disease"

Skill checks, player's knowledge checks, C&C checks, there are a lot of checks which can screw up your level 20 Diplomacy skill. At least that's how I think dialogue should be handled. I do not understand what are they winning by removing conversation skills.

skill tags

And these should burn in hell, because they are stupid.

 

[Infinitron]

Skill checks, player's knowledge checks, C&C checks, there are a lot of checks which can screw up your level 20 Diplomacy skill. At least that's how I think dialogue should be handled. I do not understand what are they winning by removing conversation skills.

Like I said - the ability to write conversations without having to artificially stuff them full of checks to balance the otherwise overpowered Diplomacy skill.

 

[Lancehead]

Hidden tags only mask insta-win disease; failure of a lazy attempt at a solution. Besides, I'd want to know if my character is using a skill.

We're talking attributes now though, and that might be a bit different.

Well, again, I'd want to be informed of any active applications: I believe PE is going to have actions that you can take in dialogue, similar to PS:T. Consequences, if it makes sense, should be obscured, obviously.

I'd have liked an NPC Reaction stat, but don't think that's going to be, nor suited to this game.

There's an argument here that dialogue writers should always try to write deep, layered conversation trees that use multiple skill checks, to avoid the "insta-win disease", and I definitely sympathize with that argument.

The thing is, by demanding that, you're placing the onus of balancing the system on your content creators. You're telling Chris Avellone and George Ziets to possibly compromise their creative vision in order to make your conversation skill system work.

I'd like to think that they design quests/dialogue with character system already in mind.

 

[Hormalakh]

I wrote this on the OEI forums. Wanted y'alls input.

You know what I would like? I would like the attributes to play as a balance between non-combat and combat type attributes.
Have a few attributes that affect your combat abilities and a few that affect the story you get and make them equivalent in how often they are "tested" in the game.

So, very broadly, you have your Combat-output (damage output, magic output) attribute and your combat-input (health, stamina, constitution, etc) attribute. Then you have the story-mental attribute (charisma, intelligence, wisdom, how likely you are to be successful at a particular non-combat challenge) and story-creativity attribute (number of different choices you'd have during non-combat based challenges).

there are aspects to the game that are more "adventure-based" and those should be reflected in what I see the attribute mechanic as: an over-arching system that deals with RPG content as a whole.

basically that is what distinguishes an RPG from a MOBA or a RTS-based "RPG".

these attributes would work in concert with other mechanics. So for example, lets say you've got a group of goblins you have to fight. If you want you can fight them, sneak by them, or talk them out of a battle, a character with a high story-mental attribute (possibility of winning a dialogue challenge) could step in and take a shot at it. but then he's got to know skill:languages to be able to talk with the goblins or maybe skill: item crafting to be able to craft a nice shiny object to give the goblins as a tribute, etc. if he's got story-creative attribute, he can get a few different options (i.e. chances) to do this. if he fails, then he would be pretty useless in combat (assuming he has low combat-oriented attributes), and the rest of the party sort of comes in and cleans up the mess.

the idea is sort of a mish-mash of the D&D attribute system and the attribute system in King of Dragon Pass, where some attributes could come in handy for certain "challenges" that occur during the game.​

 

[deuxhero]

I actually like tags as long as the dialog isn't instant win. It makes it clear that my character build is having some kind of effect and tells me adding points into some skill was "worth" it and a character that skipped those wouldn't get them.

Plus when possible causes overlap, it's nice to know which it came from.

One of the first build specific dialog options, instead of a check, I encountered that I remember is in the Boneyard in Fallout, you can ask a guy where he gets the material for gunpowder and he'll compliment you on knowing the components (to my knowledge, it's is just flavor). This dialog could have been based on my character's science, small guns, intelligence (all of which were high), meeting a threshold on multiple of those, meeting the threshold on any one of them or even not actually stats dependent. Because of this I don't really feel my attributes and skills are as important, even when they are.

 

[Shadenuat]

Like I said - the ability to write conversations without having to artificially stuff them full of checks to balance the otherwise overpowered Diplomacy skill.

Sounds one-dimensional to me: every attribute or skill affecting combat is a "right" design choice, but affecting conversations is a "wrong" one. Where's consistency in that?

 

[Infinitron]

Like I said - the ability to write conversations without having to artificially stuff them full of checks to balance the otherwise overpowered Diplomacy skill.

Sounds one-dimensional to me: every attribute or skill affecting combat is a "right" design choice, but affecting conversations is a "wrong" one. Where's consistency in that?

This is a big topic, but luckily somebody has already explained it better than I could: http://sinisterdesign.net/toaster-r...finished-evolution-of-rpg-character-creation/

Combat is generally an RPG’s most highly emergent system. Combat is built upon a number of actors operating according to simple rules, which then produces unexpected and complex situations. There are dozens of different factors in play at any given time in battle: a single scenario involves dozens of player decisions, and is unlikely to play out exactly the same way twice. This emergent quality makes combat a tempting choice to form the backbone of a cRPG, since it offers a much higher ratio of entertaining possibilities relative to development time spent than a more static system (such as, say, dialog trees) would. Thus, combat ends up accounting for a huge chunk of playtime, which in turn makes combat-related skills the most consistently valuable skills in the game.

Further, because combat skills impact an emergent system, their use offers a wide variety of possible effects. Gunplay, for instance, can deal direct damage; it can injure particular parts of an opponent’s (or player character’s) body; it can detonate explosives; it can break parts of the scenery; and so on. It offers variety and flexibility because the system it impacts responds organically to its use. This, in turn, makes these skills carry more water in terms of offering satisfying, unpredictable results across multiple playthroughs.

By contrast, skills that are useful only in scripted systems do not possess these benefits. A skill check or variable check in a scripted event will always produce one of two (or, in a best-case scenario, one of a few) pre-generated results. Because each result has to be hand-crafted rather than arising emergently, such skills are much less efficient at generating interesting variations throughout the game, and tend to feature less heavily in wRPGs than those skills which directly impact the game’s emergent systems.

 

[Hormalakh]

dialogue needs to become emergent and soon. when are we going to have AI-DMs creating cRPGs? It's taking too long dammit.