Character dialogue and interaction that doesn't suck

I would like to see character dialogue and interactions that do not suck. That might seem like an obvious goal but it hasn?t stopped many RPGs from having some really really bad dialogue and character interaction.

Cringe worthy missteps:

1. Dialogue or internal monologue that no sane person would ever say or think. Conversations and thoughts should sound natural, not like someone wrote them.

2. The over use of cliches and one-liners.

3. Characters that feel the need to announce their emotions rather than expressing them through their actions and/or facial expressions.

4. Characters that seem completely clueless about the world around them and the events transpiring right in front of their eyes.

5. Villagers who are all too ready to tell you their entire life story the second you meet them.

6. Characters that feel the need to explain plot events like the player is an idiot (American movies are the worst offenders of this). It is o.k to let players attempt to interpret an events meaning from time to time. They don?t need to be spoon fed every little thing.

7. Conversations that are overly blunt. It is perfectly o.k. to let the player pick out important or useful information from a larger conservation from time to time without beating them over the head with the obvious.

8. Characters that wait around for you to fix every little problem. I kind of doubt that you are the only person in the entire world skilled enough to kill the rats in farmer Mike?s vegetable cellar.

9. Characters that are all too ready to fight to the death over every little thing. Yeah I know I stole your loaf of bread but you are seriously going to attack a guy dressed in full plate armor wielding a flaming sword over it?

10. Characters who possess this mystical ability to know exactly what deeds or misdeeds I performed even if they were not there and there is no logical reason for them to know this information.

11. Stay a way from purple prose. It is wonky and has no place in immersive gameplay.

12. Overwhelming melancholy. ?Noooooooooooooo!!!!! Don?t Die!?. ?..um, yeah?..

13. Pointless or unnatural details. Farmer Joe: ?Ah! Fine day we?re having! Monsters roam the lands, though.?

14. Characters that are too black or white. I am a huge fan of George R. R. Martin?s Song of Fire and Ice series (Game of Thrones) and one of the reasons I enjoy it so much is that it is very much a ?gray? fantasy. Everyone has their own goals and agendas and while those goals can and often do cause characters to clash with each other, no one is marching all around the world committing evil deeds just for the heck of it.

15. Let important and much loved characters die. Yes, some people will curse you for it but it is unnatural that everyone on the ?good? side makes it through the game unscathed.

16. Choices are rarely 100% good or 100% bad. What choices you make have real consequences and effects on the world around you. Some will benefit and some will suffer.

 

This post made me lol.

It's true though. Some of the dialog/things in RPGs these days are like "Really..? ... seriously?"


I hope the AI in this game is not like Skyrim, where if you put a pot on someones head, they are too stupid to ever remove it and do anything about you rifling through their stuff and taking it all.

 

I'd also like to add... NPCs that lie. It would be nice to have them not tell the truth sometimes, especially when they might want to keep something from the player or other NPCs. I think this also goes along with that 'gray' area you're looking for in your fantasy.

 

Very interesting post. I wonder how the conversation are going to play out in this game. I liked not knowing what to say to people, in U4 for example, until you found a certain keyword from someone else and you had to go find that person again. It made you need to remember where they were or take notes even. But I am not sure how todays community would handle actually typing in game.

3. This might be kind of hard in a system where facial displays are limited. You may need to convey through story when its a static conversation.

5. Definitely. Who am I to you? Figure out who I am before you divulge everything.

10. "You dont know me!"

12. Lets call this the Vader effect.

@Kilhwch: I like this idea a lot.

 

All great things above, and completely agree. But also extremely difficult and complex to implement. I hope they can even pull off some of that. If Skyrim's $85M budget couldn't even solve the buckethead problem, well, bucketheads in SotA it shall be. And I'm fine with that

Smack, of the Buckethead Guild.

 

after seeing the torment kickstarter and how extensive they're going with dialog and reactions to your dialog choices...i really hope there is quest that don't resort in battles....that would be pretty amazing if you could swindle your way out of fights or make people fight for you..or betray a king with words so much possibilities

 

One of the things I always liked doing in D&D was providing rumors and "facts" in towns/taverns that would lead the party on wild goose chases for things that don't exist.


It also allowed for you to create these feelings of terror in dungeons for things that aren't actually going to happen.

"Don't pull that lever! They said whatever's beyond these doors can kill everyone!" (and then what's behind the door is a powerful sword).

Things like that are kind of fun.