Some Thoughts on Story Presentation, NPC Dialogue Structure, and Alignment, Etc.

I agree all the way, it's definitely a legitimate concern. The concept of alignment in D&D has always been a constraint on character depth and development. I would definitely prefer that my character's alignment be established through choices and actions. It's unfortunate that so many game mechanics are tied to it: protection from good, evil, law, chaos etc.

Also, being presented with choices is much better than suffering through linear dialog. When there can be only one outcome, the only challenge of dialog is how fast you can click through the responses, and the only reward is when it's over. Dynamic dialog that can have varied, meaningful consequences is always much more fun.

 

You know, I might get crucified for referencing Neverwinter Nights, but this points out one of the things I really liked about NWN. Not so much the OC, but in the expansions and especially some of the player-generated modules your actions had huge influence on your alignment. You started off as a set alignment under the rules of D&D (more or less) but as the game progressed your choices could change that to the point of having a Paladin who could no longer gain levels because she wasn't LG anymore, or a monk who couldn't advance as that class because he was no longer Lawful, etc. I even once had a character that started as a CG Barbarian and by the end of the module was a LG Barb/Pally multiclass!

I would love to see this type of consequences built into ToEE, though I understand that it might be a programming nightmare to implement. (In fact, from what Gaear and Ted have said here and elsewhere, I suspect this might have already been implemented somewhere somehow if it wasn't a huge PITA to create.)

 

I'm not entirely sure what you're advocating with respect to railroading. Are you arguing that everything should be initially railroaded and only allowed to branch later, or are you saying railroading is generally superior?

My stance is that one should make an effort to allow everything that makes sense. And furthermore, player choices should be supported - the world should react in a convincing and coherent manner. The goal should be to simulate the range of choices you'd have in a pen and paper session as much as possible.

All this, within reason, of course - for instance, I don't expect every single dialogue node to have checks for diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, spot, alignment, race, gender, etc, that would be a nightmare to script/write - it takes an engine with procedurally generated content to support that level of interactivity. The dialogue editor I'm yearning for would just bringe us a step or two closer to that.

By the way, in my opinion, intelligent procedurally generated content is the holy grail and future direction of CRPGs - and already we're starting to see some experiments and games moving in that direction, like Facade, Dwarf Fortress, the Sims, Spore, and even Oblivion to some extent.

As for alignment, this is also the subject of many debates. If you ask me, alignment should strictly be used to reflect your choices and state of mind. For the player it should be meaningless and transparent - you choose whatever you want, your alignment is just an input for spells like detect evil and such. It's too bad ToEE doesn't support alignment shifts, but then again it never placed much of an emphasis on character growth - as some have put it, you're just in charge of a multi-headed monster trampling through a dungeon (or Hommlet as it may be).

 

I totally agree with you G. ToEE dialogue is flawed pretty badly.

Furthermore, not only are the conversations boring but are also limited
to only 5 responses. It seems that Troika made them in a hurry
so that they could release the game. It's pretty painful that the
characters have no depth, look at Arcanum for example. They
did a marvellous job on fleshing out those characters and yet they
screwed up here.

IMO, Co8 has done an enormous effort to improve ToEE mechanics-wise
(yes, there are still bugs, well tough luck), now it's time to improve the story.
That's what the Tales of the Wild Coast was also about, we were discussing
more consequences, like the occupation of Hommlet if the players are slow
on stopping the Temple. The only problem with improving storyline/dialogue
is the restriction we (I feel I'm part of Co8 too ) have imposed on ourselves
is the character voicing. How are we going to improve the NPCs if we
don't have voice-overs for them? Thank William the Conqueror (and some other
guys who invaded Britain ) that English is not a very inflection-oriented language
so you don't have that much problems with chopping up the pre-recorded
stuff. However, the number of words/conversations is limited and we may not
be able to flesh out/develop unfinished/undeveloped plots and characters.

Of course, we can circumvent the restriction in a way and change the non-voiced
characters but they are usually minor ones who don't have any meaning to the
plot.

So... I say screw that restriction, period. The only way to make new storylines
is to add new dialogues to major characters and joinable NPCs.

 

Hear hear!

(also, the way you center-justify your text makes it look like a poem )

edit: ninja'd! :ninja:

 

Hehe, I just changed that. Because it looked like a poem.


OK. No more de-railing (as opposed to rail-roading) the topic.

@Sitra: I think the example with Fruella was supposed to show the
idea that the world should be 'alive'. Characters/People have their
way of conduct and behaviour and motivations. A conversation like
this would not only get the player a little more involved in the game
but, primarily it would put him in an unusual situation. Of course we
should be avoiding situations where (as it happens a few times in the
previously mentioned NWN) the player tries to sneak past some
characters and a dialogue is simply triggered because the game
designers wanted this-and-this to happen.

Back on track again. I agree, it may be seen as a form of rail-roading
but for the sake of an interesting/memorable game experience we should
(sometimes) allow it, especially in dialogue.


BTW. Noticed how many "road" oriented metaphors I've used in my posts?
Unintentionally though.

Sorry for the Wall of Text effect. I need to learn making paragraphs shorter.

 

Sitra was talking to me, and while I haven't answered him yet about the technology, Gaear brought up some good points about usage, so I'll talk here a bit.

1 )Linearity
-------------
Gaear is correct, many dialogs start out with choices instead of railroading the player into listening to a monologue. I agree with Gaear that this is wrong. What has happened is that Troika is trying to avoid a "pitfall" of the game with the arguably best written dialog -- Planescape: Torment. Many people praised the lavish dialog, and many people complained that they thought they were reading a book (last I checked, most schools say books are good, but what do I know).

There are only so many ways to get background and other information into a game -- the manual (which only 1% of us apparently read), text on note items (read only by people who read the manual), and listening to NPCs drone on and on. Instead of giving the background in paragraph-length tect chunks (a'la Torment), ToEE could use saller lines broken up by active player interaction (what Gaear suggested). Instead, Troika just went for the money shots, and there is a certain sense of a void needing filling.

In short, I agree with Gaear -- even if it sounds like railroading, it is really "establishing dialog." Unless the players actions are being determined, it's not really railroading, it's good writing.

2) Alignment
---------------
DnD alignment, as we all know, is like Party Politics -- register as one party, act that way your whole life. It sucks, but it's the rules. The main problem is that many people write aligned dialog like Gaear's example (evil does this, neutral does that, good the other). Hop on the Alignment Railroad.

I've been experimenting with more "negative alignment dialogs" -- using alignment to deny a course of action rather than allow. More like "chaotic can't do this", etc. It allows Neutral a lot more variety, and then, when it's serious, you can preclude neutral as well.

An example with my Althea dialog:

o Not Lawful can advise Althea to ignore her father; she assumes PC means elopement and refuses, EVIL characters can clarify and move her towards killing her father (or just act like eloping was all they meant, honest)

o Not chaotic characters can reinforce her father's right to rule

o Lawful (Good) will offer to help her convert Marek (no Paladin should offer to help the heathens).

Anyway, I tyr to avoid what I call stupid-evil.

Just a few copers from...

--thearioch

 

Actually, Torment offered lots of choices.

You could tell all of your potential party members to fuck off. You could even sell them to slavery. You could shove Morte back into the pillar of skulls. You could cement Dak'kon's status as your slave. Or do the exact opposite of all the above. It was great. It was fantastic. If ToEE had even half of that, it would've been my second favourite game (right after Torment )

I don't see the need to arbitrarily introduce railroading in the beginning. If it makes sense, go ahead. If not, then not. If it doesn't make much sense but takes a colossal effort to provide more than one choice, then don't either.
But you should always at least have the 'fuck off' option, except perhaps for the most fundamental things (e.g. telling Hrudek or the Lord Mayor to go stuff it in the opening vignette; might as well hit the quit game button)

 

And it is regarded as the best crpg ever for dialog. And by some as just the best crpg ever. And it sold like crap. People who ask me if I want fries with my meal thought there was too much text. And many choices implies much thought.

Friends, modders, and fellow crpg'ers, I come here not to bury Torment, but to praise it. We will not see it's like again. At least not for money.

--thearioch

 

How would such a choice-driven alignment determination game start?

Could I now form a party with LG and CE in the same party? Or would they even have alignments? Or be neutral?

Would the party's alignment be altered, or the individual characters'?

Would it be easier to change the party's choices and the NPC reactions without fighting the existing programming so much?

And to change the subject slightly, wasn't Livonya talking about this sort of thing last fall or summer?

 

Shame on you Ted! :rant:

I never know when you're joking so just in case:

Planescape: Torment is thought to be the best (as in most
ambitious) cRPG made for the Infinity Engine. It was more
of an adventure game with heavy RPG elements (you can't
die, and even if you do so in combat the game doesn't end)
if you ask me, but nevertheless it was known for original character,
well-written dialogue and non-linearity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_Torment

 

Really? Someone spent last decade in barrel..