Maybe some sort of "likeliness" factor - say, you go visit the blacksmith to get yourself some new plate armour. When you first came to town, you heard of a caravan that got robbed on its way to town which was meant to bring new ore for the blacksmith to manufacture new weapons and stuff.

Now, on your visit, you would be offered to ask him about the caravan, because it's quite likely that he heard about it, given that he waits for the ore that was thought to be delivered by it.

During your conversation, he mentions some sort of cave hidden somewhere in the forest someone told you about earlier. This wouldn't have been in your list of topics to talk about with him, because you think (or the game does) that it would be quite unlikely that the blacksmith has heard about that cave. Now that he mentions it, however, it appears in the list.

(not the best example, I know - you can probably come up with something better)


Likeliness could be measured through other factors already described in previous topics - social standard, fame of the NPC you want to ask about, distance between NPC #1 and #2 (the blacksmith surely knows about the old beggar on the other side of the road, even though they are too far "away" from each other socially and the beggar isn't too famous at all) and other things as well.

Actualy, the game I plan to use this idea in(and I am not going to make it anytime soon. I need much more experiance if I want it to come out the way I planned it) will have a different dialog system. The basic idea of that system is that you press the talk button, and then the game shows you a number of lines to choose from, based on the area you are in and the people there. Then you choose a line, and every NPC in the room gets an event and they can response with their own lines, if they are programed to response to that line.

So, I was thinking the player will not ask each person in the room if they know Joe. Instead, they can ask if anyone have friends in Debilia. Then, if an NPC knows Joe(or anyone else in Debilia) he will response to that.

It sounds like you've put a great deal of thought into this. That is good. Generally, the success of a game idea is less reliant on the idea itself and hinges instead on how much time, effort, and care is given to the idea.

I both love and hate the "choose your own path" style game. It bothers me that quite frequently it is obvious that a certain path will hurt the possibility of the outcome I want, but it is the path I want to take. No way to fix the problem on my end.

Eg, in KotOR, if you kill Juhani (dark side... yessss, kill the defiant creature), then you lose the strength that comes from having her in your party. The only way to bring her in is through the "light side," that is, to redeem her. You can't take her aside and say, "You know what Juhani, I beat the crap outta you because I embraced the dark side in a way you never have. Follow me and I'll teach you how to surrender yourself to your passions and conquer the universe." Instead, the dark side option is to kill her, and thus your party choices are dimished by one.

Here are three thoughts on the "good vs evil" game that I consider worthy of notice.

Firstly, you should have a good idea of what to expect based on your actions: eg, if I kill that person I'll get their money - rather than the surprise result: if I kill that poor beggar the game will be over because they are actually central to the story line even though there was no hint that they were.

Secondly, you should have a good idea of what the effect will be on other people's reactions to you if you should make a decision - none of this you kill somebody out in the middle of nowhere and suddenly his entire clan is out to get you... how did they ever find out you did it!? Ludicrous.

Thirdly, you should have the conversation option to back down gracefully from what you perceive to be a mistake. "I know I made a mistake - I didn't know about XYZ - I want to make amends with you if I can." or "I'm sorry for threatening you earlier, I was hotheaded because of XYZ and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

If you threaten some useless Ithorian (again in KotOR) about HK-47, he drops the price, but won't do business with you anymore. You get dark side points. There is no option to go back to the Ithorian and admit that you were heavy handed and would like to make the price right for him, followed by a possibly renewed business relationship. The fact that choices are final is unexpected, unfair, and bottom-line... unfun.

Crafting a true work of art that allows you the freedom to choose a path, and the ability to recognize that path, and to ultimately enjoy any chosen path - now that is a goal worthy of effort, and I applaud this thread and hope it moves our games in this direction!

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Original post by Steven Hansen Here are three thoughts on the "good vs evil" game that I consider worthy of notice. Firstly, you should have a good idea of what to expect based on your actions: eg, if I kill that person I'll get their money - rather than the surprise result: if I kill that poor beggar the game will be over because they are actually central to the story line even though there was no hint that they were. Secondly, you should have a good idea of what the effect will be on other people's reactions to you if you should make a decision - none of this you kill somebody out in the middle of nowhere and suddenly his entire clan is out to get you... how did they ever find out you did it!? Ludicrous. Thirdly, you should have the conversation option to back down gracefully from what you perceive to be a mistake. "I know I made a mistake - I didn't know about XYZ - I want to make amends with you if I can." or "I'm sorry for threatening you earlier, I was hotheaded because of XYZ and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

The evil options tend to lack finesse too... While playing KOTOR2 a while back I was on citadel station (insert shodan reference here) at the bit where you have to deal with the exchange. I was being evil, and what I wanted to do was start a civil war between the evil peoples and go in and pick up the pieces myself. The only options were to side with one and kill the others myself. And then turn on my side if I wanted and kill them. The dark side always tends to come down to killing. This brings me to your first point. I don't think the player should necessarily know what to expect. Hit a random person on the street. Are they in a gang? Do you know if they have a large family that might come and get you? Will they call the police? Will passers by stop you?

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Original post by Steven Hansen Thirdly, you should have the conversation option to back down gracefully from what you perceive to be a mistake. "I know I made a mistake - I didn't know about XYZ - I want to make amends with you if I can." or "I'm sorry for threatening you earlier, I was hotheaded because of XYZ and I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Good point. Since it's an RPG, I can use the charisma stat to determine if the appology is accepted. Finally, a true use for charisma(and no, using as a modifier for ilussion magic is not a true use - it's an excuse)

Steven, the problem with what you're saying is that there would be no real consequences to actions. To me, that is unfun.

If I can be a bully to a shopkeeper and have no fear that I might not be able to shop there any more, I may as well be playing a game with a single storyline. If there are no consequences, making decisions is no longer important. They become a chore to the player, because the player knows it makes no difference what they decide.

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Original post by someboddy RPG, I can use the charisma stat to determine if the appology is accepted. Finally, a true use for charisma(and no, using as a modifier for ilussion magic is not a true use - it's an excuse)

True. Finally, a use for all those skill points on Bluff and Diplomacy no one ever seemed to notice during the game. :-)

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Original post by Kevinator Steven, the problem with what you're saying is that there would be no real consequences to actions. To me, that is unfun. If I can be a bully to a shopkeeper and have no fear that I might not be able to shop there any more, I may as well be playing a game with a single storyline. If there are no consequences, making decisions is no longer important. They become a chore to the player, because the player knows it makes no difference what they decide.

You won't be able to misbehave someone, apologize, and then everything will be back as it was before. Making NPCs hate you will be quick, but regaining their affection will be slow and take alot of resources.

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Original post by Bezben This brings me to your first point. I don't think the player should necessarily know what to expect. Hit a random person on the street. Are they in a gang? Do you know if they have a large family that might come and get you? Will they call the police? Will passers by stop you?

I agree that random acts should have random and unforeseen consequences, but such things shouldn't be plot central or typical. In the example I gave regarding killing the beggar off the street, it is pretty obvious that he's just a beggar. Ending the game when you kill him because he was plot central without any hints to that effect is not only unexpected, but leaves you shaking your head and wondering if you want to load your last save if the rest of the game is going to be this way.

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Original post by Kevinator Steven, the problem with what you're saying is that there would be no real consequences to actions. To me, that is unfun. If I can be a bully to a shopkeeper and have no fear that I might not be able to shop there any more, I may as well be playing a game with a single storyline. If there are no consequences, making decisions is no longer important. They become a chore to the player, because the player knows it makes no difference what they decide.

If you bully the shopkeeper hard enough, you would expect he would ignore your graceful apology. You should still be allowed to profer one, and as someboddy said, such apology may be more painful than just playing nice in the first place.

The key is that consequences should be expected not necessarily known. I want to be able to make a reasonable judgement about what consequences might occur based on my actions, and then have the results fall somewhere that I would agree was reasonable, even if I couldn't foresee the exact consequences.

This is really story-writing, less than mechanics design, though. The story-designer may were well think that harrassing the mob-connected droid-deal probably WOULD have repercussions on his willingness to sell you stuff. In real life (don't try this at your local WalMart), trying to extort the sales-clerk into giving you a discount will probably lead to you being banned from the shop, if not arrested and locked up.

There should never be any abrubt game-perverting events ("sorry. You shouldn't have talked to this guy. Game Over, Hope you have a savegame."). To me, killing a random guy on the street ending the game would be a shelf-level event, and I thankfully haven't seen this sort of aborrent behaviour in recent games (Sierra Adventure games used to horrific for this kind of thing).

Ultimately, this always comes down to a tradeoff between hardcoded 'rich interaction' and immersive (but sometimes bland) systems interaction. In the hardcoded scenario, the Bioware story-designer wrote the dialog he felt was needed for this character. If you did something he didn't expect (bring the ship-salesman an emperial star-destroyer for sale, he'd fall-back to a pre-canned 'generic' result "no.. I already have one of those..."). However, because the designer has full control over the dialog, you can get a rich storyline experience (see BG2 or Planescape: Torment).

The generic world scenarios are pioneered by the Arena / Daggerfall / Morrowind games. I never got into playing Morrowind, being burnt out on generic fed-ex quests in Arena and Daggerfall, but I hear it's getting better. The coolness stems from a system-of-systems approach; small interlinking eco-systems of design you can tinker with, that come together to have an actual effect on the world. The more complex a system like that gets, though, the easier it is for wrong behaviour to creep in (testing a system-of-systems RPG world the size of NYC is a pain).

2cents,

Allan