[Skill X] Dialogue Options

[Emperor Devon]

This occurred to me when I was adding skill checks to some dialogues in the original KotOR. Is it better to put [skill X] in front of skill-dependent dialogue options or not? I'm referring to examples such as these:

 

[Computer Use] There isn't a system I can't crack.

[Persuade] Are 50 credits enough reason not to call the guards?

[Treat Injury] You've been infected with leprosy!

 

On one hand, to some level this breaks immersion. I can't place my finger on exactly how - the mechanics shown above do exist (albeit on a more abstract level) in the game's universe. Some people are more proficient at certain skills than others. These options are also the player's only way of knowing (unless it's particularly obvious or if they've examined the game's dialogue files) that their choice to invest ranks in Skill X gave their PC more things to say.

 

All the same, to some level I think it breaks immersion and encourages meta-gaming. This is especially true for conversation skills. For instance, in NWN2's OC, I was playing a character with 0 ranks in Diplomacy (it's not a class skill for wizards). When I negotiated with the lizardman tribe by Highcliff, having no Diplomacy skill to fall back on, I had to pick my words with care. This was appropriate, as in-game it's supposed to be a tense situation.

 

On a later playthrough as character with full ranks in Diplomacy, I knew I'd be able to resolve the situation peacefully because there was a [Diplomacy] dialogue option. It would be impossible for me not to pass the check. Needless to say, it made the situation less tense (granted, I knew it could be resolved peacefully anyway, but that was only because of a previous playthrough).

 

I think there's a compelling argument for not including [Conversation Skill X] in front of some responses. It makes the player think less carefully about what they say, and causes them to discount responses that aren't skill-dependent*.

 

By that logic, there's also reason not to include [skill Y] in front of other responses. Partly to keep things consistent, and also to stop some skills from having an objective (dis)advantage over others.

 

On the other, labeling skill-based responses allows the player to (directly) see the consequences of choosing to invest in some skills over others. It definitively shows their PC is skilled at something in a way numbers on the character menu can't. For instance, being able to identify an infectious disease (and possibly cure it) in a dialogue is more satisfying than being able to save an extra medpack because of high ranks in Treat Injury. It is to me, anyways.

 

Thoughts?

 

 

* (I think it would be interesting if high ranks in a skill was to the player's detriment in some cases. For instance, using [Lore] would piss off a farmer that doesn't care for books and fancy learning.)

[Pavlos]

I'd say it's more to do with the fact that skill options always have positive effects. If I were to, as you say, use my Lore skill in front of a farmer he may not be particularly pleased with me; in fact, he'd probably just find me annoying and then shift his responses to my questions accordingly.

 

That's a pretty clear illustration of one of the major weaknesses of dialogues in RPGs throughout the history of their existence: that the personality of the character remains cosmetic and refuses to integrate itself into gameplay. The player should have to think every time they speak to a new NPC about how they will react to different responses and how they, the player, wish to act on that. Dialogue creation obviously requires many more hours from the designer this way and creating enough fully-fleshed out characters to fill a forty hour game may take writers with a Dickens-like ability to churn out quality text on demand but it's probably worth it.

 

Edit: The cosmetic issue is prevalent in a lot of areas, actually. For example, we have these wonderful things called "Next Generation" graphics and yet very few games use their pixels as anything other than "oooh pretty". Integrate those pixels into the story-telling and you have something. Meanings do not hide "behind" words, the words are an integral part of the meaning, so too should pixels be an integral part of the story if we are to push video games as a visual medium. Visual story-telling or theme-showing or whatever is entirely possible yet so few games engage with it. Jade Empire was an absolutely beautiful game yet, for the most part, that beauty's aim was simply to exist, it had no roots in either story-telling or gameplay.

[DarthParametric]

I don't mind prefacing with the skill name. You need to let the player know somehow that they are getting a special option not normally open to other characters. I find that method much less intrusive than say what VTM Bloodlines did with its different fonts. That looked truly god-awful when you had a set of dialogue options with three or more different font types, sizes, and colours.

 

Besides, the whole "immersion" thing is a complete crock. If you are ever playing a game and are truly "immersed" (i.e. you don't realise you are playing a game), see a doctor. David Gaider has made several responses to the old immersion chestnut over on the Dragon Age forums in the last few months that nicely sum up the reality of the situation.

[Emperor Devon]

@Pavlos: That's an excellent point. Skill-dependent options shouldn't always have positive results. That nicely allows players to know their PC's skills made option X possible, while maintaining incentive to select skill-independent options - as it should be. The whole point of skills in conversations is to provide additional responses, not inherently better ones.

 

Besides, the whole "immersion" thing is a complete crock. If you are ever playing a game and are truly "immersed" (i.e. you don't realise you are playing a game), see a doctor.

 

It's important for any creative medium to draw in and elicit emotion from its viewers. 'Immersion' is a buzzword for when this is done successfully in video games.

 

Confusing engagement in a game with inability to distinguish it from reality is silly.

[stoffe]

All the same, to some level I think it breaks immersion and encourages meta-gaming. This is especially true for conversation skills. For instance, in NWN2's OC, I was playing a character with 0 ranks in Diplomacy (it's not a class skill for wizards). When I negotiated with the lizardman tribe by Highcliff, having no Diplomacy skill to fall back on, I had to pick my words with care. This was appropriate, as in-game it's supposed to be a tense situation.

 

I was happy the Persuade options in NWN2 was marked as such so I knew what conversation threads to avoid, getting a lot more XP and loot in the process.

 

On a more general note I don't mind if skill governed dialog choices are marked as such since it can be hard to determine what path the developers intended a particular dialog arc to have with just the text (and if you fail the skill check you know what you'd need to improve to get the desired result). Though I prefer the dialog font/color markup used by VtM:Bloodlines better than having tag prefixes on the dialog responses.

 

For non D&D games you could have an "intuition" skill or something like that which determines if skill based dialog choices are shown, representing the character's gut feeling of what would be appropriate in a conversaiton with a particular NPC.

[DarthParametric]

I think this quote from Moby Games's "The World of Western RPGs" article is appropriate:

 

Immersion – marketing speak that no one actually understands and is considered a synonym for "cool".

[jrrtoken]

The biggest problem with skill tags in dialogues is that they're giant bullseyes towards the PC, as every option that includes them translates as [More XP/Loot Here!], and automatically, the player chooses it, because the PC knows that it will lead to greater rewards than all of the other dialogue options.

 

The only way to break the trend would be to add negative reactions when including them in dialogues, or to simply do away with them all together. I think that it should be left up to the player to discern which convo option would reap greater rewards from text only, instead of simply tagging a skill to make it rather obvious.

[Pavlos]

Immersion – marketing speak that no one actually understands and is considered a synonym for "cool".

Yes, that's true; "immersion" (also known as "OMG Immershun") has become an industry buzzword, like "choice" and "epic". What is also true that the sense of utter involvement that takes place when you read Coleridge's "The Pains of Sleep", watch Alien, or play the first half of BioShock is vitally important to any work, whether considered high or low.

 

If Rembrandt didn't fascinate with his extremes of dark and light then you might as well build a house with his paintings rather than hang them in a gallery for people to look at because no one would and, quite frankly, there'd be no point in doing so.

 

If you don't chain someone to the wall and make them watch your shadow-puppet show and listen to the echoes then they're going to start walking around the cave and notice that the reflections of life aren't real after all and not worth thinking about.

[stoffe]

The biggest problem with skill tags in dialogues is that they're giant bullseyes towards the PC, as every option that includes them translates as [More XP/Loot Here!], and automatically, the player chooses it, because the PC knows that it will lead to greater rewards than all of the other dialogue options.

 

Or not. As is the case in Neverwinter Nights 2, where choosing diplomacy/peaceful/non-combat actions generally lead to poorer rewards than the violent brute force solution to a situation would.

 

Though in other games I'd say its reasonably fair that such options should offer some form of reward since players pay for them when leveling up by putting points into those attributes/skills. If using persuade/diplomacy is no different than not doing so, why waste any points that might be better placed elsewhere on those?

[Pavlos]

Though in other games I'd say its reasonably fair that such options should offer some form of reward since players pay for them when leveling up by putting points into those attributes/skills. If using persuade/diplomacy is no different than not doing so, why waste any points that might be better placed elsewhere on those?

I think that it's perhaps more interesting if certain characters would respond better to, say, "Intimidate" than "Diplomacy/Persuade". I wouldn't want a player to get punished for choosing to spend points on those skills but I think it's important for the player to think about and become more involved in their options before jumping for the node with the skill-check in front of it.

[RedHawke]

I wouldn't want a player to get punished for choosing to spend points on those skills but I think it's important for the player to think about and become more involved in their options before jumping for the node with the skill-check in front of it.

You need to reward players for making investments in skills, not the other way around. Poorly designed games do not do this properly, if the skill investment isn't rewarded then what is the players motivation to take that skill at all?

 

It is hardly the automatic choice (for the discerning player) when you see a conversation option with a skill in front of it (depending on if you are playing good or evil in some games, the skill option is not always best), of course that is all assuming said player of said game can actually read text and is aware of what was just said to him in the preceding lines and his earlier dialog choices.

 

Also when you design a game you have to appeal to a broader audience, and surprising as it may sound to us there are some people who play these games that just love that "Easy" button in a conversation. (The type of players I call "The Button-Mashing Console Kiddies" is one of them.) If you don't believe me then please stroll over to Shem's threads in our K1 and TSL discussion forums they are chock full of replies from said players that Shem got when he posted vids of game footage.

[Darth InSidious]

You need to reward players for making investments in skills, not the other way around. Poorly designed games do not do this properly, if the skill investment isn't rewarded then what is the players motivation to take that skill at all?

Perhaps in many circumstances it would be beneficial, say, to take the [bluff] option in dialogue; but there is a question of realism, in that NPCs should not all respond the same way(s) to the same rhetorical tactics.

 

If I try and bluff you that I am an employee of the Bank of Africa in Burkina Faso who has just discovered that there is an account full of money that you and me can split, I might succeed; but why should the same tactic work equally well, say, against Pavlos or stoffe? Equally, while I might get away with playing word-games with Pav, threatening might be more effective against Devon.

 

There's a question of differentiation, IMO, actually making a discernable difference between options if you have more than one dialogue skill; similarly, skill check options should not always lead to something "extra"; rewarding the player/returning on an investment is important, yes, but there can still be ample reward without making the skill-check option always the one to pick.

 

This might also be achieved through having skill rolls, such as in MoW most recently, but I think this conversation is most relevant to important NPCs in a game; generally, the bigger the role, the more defined a personality such a character should have, and IMO that should also involve what is the best way to approach them.

 

It is hardly the automatic choice (for the discerning player) when you see a conversation option with a skill in front of it (depending on if you are playing good or evil in some games, the skill option is not always best), of course that is all assuming said player of said game can actually read text and is aware of what was just said to him in the preceding lines and his earlier dialog choices.

 

Well, yes; but that's a choice you make as a discerning player to role-play with a degree of conscious involvement in the process. But it does seem a bit to me that you're developing a level of reactivity or choice that isn't really there (particularly in the KotORs, where several dialogue options often lead to the same thing) in the game itself.

 

If that works for you, great; personally, though, I'd prefer with a dialogue system like the one in the KotORs/NWN/2/etc that you have to think about how the personality in front of you might react as well as what best suits your PC's character.

 

What you're saying just reminds me of a quote from an interview about Dragon Age:

It's all about the compelling choices. When do I drop the fireball.

 

Also when you design a game you have to appeal to a broader audience, and surprising as it may sound to us there are some people who play these games that just love that "Easy" button in a conversation. (The type of players I call "The Button-Mashing Console Kiddies" is one of them.) If you don't believe me then please stroll over to Shem's threads in our K1 and TSL discussion forums they are chock full of replies from said players that Shem got when he posted vids of game footage.

 

This is true to an extent, in that a game has to be accessible, but equally, I don't think a game should be made in such a way as to be primarily appealling to the lowest common denominator. And when that lowest common denominator apparently has a hard time reading and choosing an option, then call me a snob, but I think a little complexity at the price excluding such people may be warranted.

 

I'm by no means advocating that games should be super-complex life simulators only for the enlightened ubermensch, but at the same time, expecting the "button-mashing console kiddies" to grow up for a moment shouldn't be too much to ask. Whether it's profitable to do so is another issue entirely, of course. I suspect the answer is "no".

[DarthParametric]

I don't think a game should be made in such a way as to be primarily appealling to the lowest common denominator.

Games aren't art, they are a business. They are always going to be made for the lowest common denominator. Unless you are talking about some indie game that maybe 5 people would play. And it's only going to get worse as time goes on and games become more mainstream. Look at the Wii for an indication of their future direction.

[Pavlos]

Games aren't art, they are a business. They are always going to be made for the lowest common denominator. Unless you are talking about some indie game that maybe 5 people would play. And it's only going to get worse as time goes on and games become more mainstream. Look at the Wii for an indication of their future direction.

That's not true. The cinema is a business and produced Orson Welles, Carol Reed, and Alfred Hitchcock. The theatre was (and still is) a business and produced Shakespeare, Middleton, and Marlowe. The industry is still in its infancy but I imagine it's only a matter of time before it differentiates out in the same way as film did where you have the summer block-buster, the pretentious art film, and that rare sort which achieves high art through pulp fiction (which are always the best).

 

Anyway, a lot of "art" is made to the lowest common denominator; that is the leather trouser wearing, champagne sipping, post-modern deconstructors whose large wallets flood the art galleries of New York and London, their brains left at home with their unopened copies of Neitzche, bought to decorate the coffee table. The sort of person who uses the phrases "it works on three levels" and "it just feels so significant" as a fig leaves for their vacuousness.

 

*Cough*

 

Yes, ummm... so... ummm... yeah...

 

Edit: Which is not to imply, by the way, that all post-modernism is worthless; I just find a lot of it to be pretentious in its belief that it operates outside of the cultural and historical context of our time, as though these are things that can truly be separated from our lives.

[DarthParametric]

The cinema is a business and produced Orson Welles, Carol Reed, and Alfred Hitchcock. The theatre was (and still is) a business and produced Shakespeare, Middleton, and Marlowe.

Perhaps. But what would your average slob on the street know about any of those? They would recognise the names of Welles, Hitchcock and Shakespeare no doubt, but could they name any of their works or describe their content? I think not. It's like the argument (which I think was on these boards) about Citizen Kane being held up as the greatest movie of all time. It only gets that label because everyone says it is, not because the majority of people have actually ever seen it or know anything about it. If movies (or games) produce "art" then it is only as a by-product, not an intentional outcome. Again, unless it's some non-mainstream indie thing that nobody will see.

[RedHawke]

I can tell DI or Pavlos never worked in the gaming industry.

 

Well, yes; but that's a choice you make as a discerning player to role-play with a degree of conscious involvement in the process. But it does seem a bit to me that you're developing a level of reactivity or choice that isn't really there (particularly in the KotORs, where several dialogue options often lead to the same thing) in the game itself.

 

If that works for you, great; personally, though, I'd prefer with a dialogue system like the one in the KotORs/NWN/2/etc that you have to think about how the personality in front of you might react as well as what best suits your PC's character.

And if what you want works for you great, that really wasn't my point...

 

When making a game you have to be able to look beyond your own likes/dislikes and remember that the bottom line is not what you would like yourself but in features that the most people would like. And folks like yourself have to face this fact there are more and more of those who "want it now" than there are of you around buying these games.

 

This is true to an extent, in that a game has to be accessible,

Unfortunately there is no "extent" here, this is a fact, games have to be made to appeal to the largest amount of players, while you and I can choose to do things on our own esoterically within said game, the fact is that the larger player base will not do so or care to do so.

 

but equally, I don't think a game should be made in such a way as to be primarily appealling to the lowest common denominator. And when that lowest common denominator apparently has a hard time reading and choosing an option, then call me a snob, but I think a little complexity at the price excluding such people may be warranted.

 

I'm by no means advocating that games should be super-complex life simulators only for the enlightened ubermensch, but at the same time, expecting the "button-mashing console kiddies" to grow up for a moment shouldn't be too much to ask.

If the real world worked like this we wouldn't have any games at all.

 

You also miss the fact that the very Button-Mashing Console Kiddies I talk about are the broader audience here, and you have to entertain them as well. Asking them to "grow-up" for their entertainment is a tad too much to ask of them I'm afraid.

 

Whether it's profitable to do so is another issue entirely, of course. I suspect the answer is "no".

It is a resounding... no.

 

Sorry folks but you produce a game for profit so you will build for the largest possible player base and the fact is we, the more discerning players, are the least counted among gamers.

 

Games aren't art, they are a business. They are always going to be made for the lowest common denominator. Unless you are talking about some indie game that maybe 5 people would play. And it's only going to get worse as time goes on and games become more mainstream. Look at the Wii for an indication of their future direction.

Exactly... business first.

[Pavlos]

Exactly... business first.

I wasn't disputing that fact. What I will say is that video games are capable of achieving something that we'd recognise as "art" (whatever that is) within the confines of that business structure; either through specialisation and development of the market or by achieving the perfect mix of high and low*. BioShock (or at least its first half) is pretty nifty, it probably fits into the second of those groups. It was a massive seller because it placed its gameplay first, it concentrated on being a fun shooter. The fact that the narrative is linked with the gameplay (plasmids etc. aren't things distinct and separate from the game world) and that the area design is linked to and informs the narrative (Andrew Ryan plays golf while his city burns, Nero much?) lead to a seamless integration of its trigger-happy side and its intellectual (that is pertaining to thought, not the aforementioned leather trouser wearers) side.

 

* I dislike these terms but I can't think of any others; they imply that one is better than the other when, quite honestly, in films and such where the two operate on their own they're generally awful.

[DarthParametric]

I think most game writers like to blow their own trumpet (or more accurately their publishers/bosses do), but if you were to assess them as "artists", in comparison to other writers, most (if not all) are hacks. If games are art then it's pretty piss-poor art in the main.