Emulating human communication in a digital medium is… interesting. We are built and bred to identify threats, including from members of our own species. We immediately recognize and detect certain body motions and facial expressions as being on a sliding scale of dangerous to not. Our linguistic capabilities also follow something of that trend it seems, with certain phrases clearly being those of a threat, even if not written so. Dialogue in video games is an interesting problem, as it must be meaningful yet dynamic. Ideally, the player must have every one of their own thoughts repesented to an accurate enough degree that they can be themselves, or adequately be the character they wish to represent.

I have noticed some short trends in writing in some RPG’s and stories that would be interesting to see followed through. One is the [silent] option, present in the Dark Brotherhood quest in Oblivion and the introduction to Fallout3’s Megaton. Another is Ambassader Kosh from the show Babylon 5. The stoic mystique has such appeal, but rearely can they be acted out in a game setting. Oftentimes you are forced into a role of choosing either naive innocense or bitter, broody, badguy. The solution would seem to be to focus on certain archetypes when presenting dialogue options, and building quest interactions around a player’s desired character communication.

Currently I have created a prototype to show how persuasion/affinity minigames should work. When presented with a statement from a character, as an element of dialogue, the player is given a random series of options to repond with archetypal reactions. The player could JOKE, CRITIQUE, ENGRATIATE, etcetera. The character’s affinity towards the player character would be adjusted as a result. Hopefully this will draw in players to feel more engaged with characters in the worldspace, or at least feel like their attention to action->result is rewarded.