Hi guys Q: How to convey conclusion or a guess in the game? For example juvenile dragon in Moathouse is guarding exit from clerics trying to get out. If PC would kill the dragon the time will start ticking and in x days clerics would leave, thus cancelling important subsequent quest. Near the dragon there is "The corpse of the rogue" with "Around her neck dangles a black iron triangle with an upside-down yellow Y inscribed within". It would be nice if: Player would get to conclusion, that the dragon fought this rogue; Rogue was trying to get out; There could be more rogue comrades; Player need to consult with someone about the medallion; Options In Divinity, PC talk between themselves, bringing important conclusions to Player. In Prey (or it's predecessor - System Shock 2) Player can find recordings with dramatic voices describing situation. In ToEE some companion NPC would add additional dialog lines when talking to other NPC. Other games would have a sage, which would do such conclusions for a Player. RtToEE also has sage Todariche Nem (Knowledges +10) in Hommlet. In Disco Elysium (incredible detective dialogue game) PC has "internal monologue" where he can talk to his many subconsciousness with many different skill checks. Very impressive implementation. Ideas? BCC: @Shiningted, Sir head dialogue master, your ideas is most important
Sure, blame me. Sitra attached scripts to PCs with one of his script daemons, using a standard attachee.scripts[x] = y - you can then force that at the appropriate moment with obj.object_script_execute( obj, x ) and have the PC do a floatline just like an NPC. "Looks like this rogue was trying to get out, but the dragon was waiting... I wonder what happened to the rest of the party?", or some such thing. Similar floatline could play on san_insert_item() for the medallion. You'll need some sort of initial script attachment so the game knows what dlg file to use for the PC. So, py00xxxPC_chatter.py, matching dlg file, then just call it as a floatline when you want it. Note that (as Sitra does) if that player dies you need someone else to have the attachment: so it either has to be regularly monitored or started from scratch if you use this trick more than once. And stick with the 'game ends' idea if the players mess it up
Not sure if it is even possible. But even so, dialog between party PC would be incredibly hard to produce. That one is very nice idea. Easy to implement. Thanks @Shiningted! I assume this is a joke)) I also thought about divination spells like Omen of Peril (SC, Cleric 1), Augury (Cleric 2), Divination (Cleric 4) etc. But decided that it would be rarely used by a Player. As with situation with dead body of the rogue it looks like that to me: ---------- The body initially is hidden with low Search DC like 5. Meaning that engine would most likely popup "Secret door found" or if altered "You found a body". Which would raise Player interest. Opening the body trunk would bring up inner dialog. - You look at this oddly shaped body. Something is not completely right about it. * Examine the body. Heal check. -- You failed to identify anything particularly interesting about body condition. -- [Heal DC 10] The body looks few days old. * Inspect the body. -- The corpse of the rogue wears masterwork studded leather armor and bears a longsword, a magic shortbow, 12 arrows, 13 gp, and 3 100-gp gems (jade). You also found oddly shaped necklace. * Examine the necklace. -- Around her neck dangles a black iron triangle with an upside-down yellow Y inscribed within. * [Knowledge (Religion)] try to remember anything about such... * Insight [Sense Motive check] What does it mean? - [Sense Motive check DC 10] Looks like thy were trying to get out, but were killed by the dragon. Perhaps they have friends? * Investigation [Search check] What have we done? - Investigation [Search check DC 10] We have relieved the exit for them, so they can escape if it would be open for some time. - We killed the dragon. ---------- There will be some places, where such internal monologue could happen. Not many. So it would be interesting to try out. Not decided yet.
I was going to say just use your Inspect thing, but I understood the idea to be something that the game initiates, rather than the player having to think of it. Commune spells and such would certainly make for great plot devices - one-off spells, like a scroll of Sending with a very specific use, would be good too
@Shiningted, I suspect you have not played Disco Elysium. Please watch this for few minutes. Start at 5:54!
The various divination spells seem like cool plot hooks and such in tabletop, but I'm not sure how you'd motivate players to use them in foreseeable ways in a CRPG. The only examples I can think of are just scenarios where there's a device or NPC doing the divination on the player's behalf, because that's an easy combination of neither the player nor the designer having to anticipate the other's idea to use the spell. I guess the fact that they're in the game would be a clue that they could be used for something, but they're so open ended. It seems like it'd be a ton of work to implement enough scenarios to give the player the idea that using the open ended spells is actually worth trying, so that they don't just ignore them. Like, you'd need to make sure that the first time they go, "I wonder what this spell does," the spell does something significant to sell them on the idea of trying it more. And you probably don't have many chances after that for the spell to not do anything before it's written off. At least, assuming use of the spell is just an optional thing.
I was joking with Nestor's Bright Idea of course, but you could certainly add such divination spells as part of the dialogue-based interactions (or whatever form the inner monologue takes). I think you could add triggers that bring up dialogue between a PC and himself for such situations. It could be cool as a way to be your own quest giver!
No, never played it, but that was spinny. I see why people rave about the game. Now I'm tempted to unleash my own necktie and run amok. I'm reminded of the old action RPG Wizardry on the C64 (not the series by Sir-Tech - a stand alone by The Edge) and that had a help spell called 'Tell Tale'. In most areas, it would just say, "look to the map" - always good advice, and could even solve an apparent oubliette you could get dropped into. But in the presence of specific puzzles, it would drop a useful hint. That is not impossible to imagine being done usefully - so, if in, say, Hommlet or Verbobonc, a divination might say, "seek out those in authority" (basic advice in both those locales) whereas in the presence of specific triggers, you get a more specific response. Anyways, its up to anyone if they think it worth doing in their mods, but I like it.
Yeah, I definitely think that if you're going to write a hint system, divination spells would be a fun way to incorporate it 'in world'. I guess the danger with that is that if you also want to use it for some unique quest hooks, people might miss it because, "I don't need hints!"
This reminds of an old DM Tale: DM: "You notice a crow sitting above you in the old Weeping Willow Tree. It croaks: A shadow is lurking down the river. If you feed me, I can tell you a secret about it." Player: "I draw my bow and shoot the bird" DM: "Why?" Player: "We don't need DM hints" This being said, I really like the idea of PC banters! I can see the benefits of divination spells myself, but I fear it could be a bit hard to pull off, players are so unpredictable
I often have this problem while DMing)) In any case DM hints are miscellaneous, and in my view some should be imposed on a Player, specifically warnings of "End of Game" ones. PC banters are hard to implement. Player would expect to see character in a dialog. Charismatic, dumb or smart, intuitive or conservative traits are expected. Moreover charismatic females and males tend to formulate same thoughts differently. Plus single PC play. But internal monologue would be much easier to implement. Unisex PC vs subconscious mind plus some checks.
I haven't had this problem while GMing. My players have sometimes mentioned how they felt the advice wasn't specific enough to be useful, but they were open to hints.
