Well, that is something I have quite a few strong opinions about (like plenty of things that have to do with ChoiceScript games), but I’ll admit that my preferences are mostly rooted in very personal opinions and likes.
And I love it when a game surprises me by making the PC’s dialogue as it goes. It’s a chance for the author to stretch a few different muscles when it comes to game writing, and plus I can enjoy a more literary story. I tried to write a few words to kind of show my point:
By having the second choice just give a broad overview of what my character is saying, I can flesh out the dialogue between the professor and his student, making their relationship be more evocative and a bit more true to how people behave. I mean, most of my conversations don’t begin and end in a few sentences, and they’re often filled with "Uhm"s and "Well"s as they go.
Plus, when games do what the second example did (Like Deathless, for example) they can show me sides of the character I didn’t even think about, which is cool. They can also make the PC wittier and smarter than a few readers.
Yeah, probably. I haven’t really played a lot of CS games recently, so I forgot how they used to do it. Maybe if the narration asked the reader something like “How are you feeling regarding the upcoming contest?” or something like that, the choices shouldn’t be in quotations.
I’m planning to do it so the character only speaks when you explicitly select an option for him/her to speak. Here’s an example:
She places a hot mug of tea in front of you and gently blows on it before taking a
seat herself. It looks black but it smells different.
*fake_choice
# "What kind of tea is that?"
"Roiibus. From Africa, I think."
Not sure if this is a good idea. It doesn’t actually take away any choices that already exist in the game, but maybe it feels like it does?
What I’d like is consistency in how your character interacts with the world. Instead of sometimes speaking through a choice and sometimes having your words just written out in plain text, all of your character’s speech is through a choice even if there’s only really the one thing your character is going to say.
Obviously there are a few extra choices here, such as just ignoring the tea, but for the sake of conversational flow I’m not going to include different options for every single back-and-forth piece of dialogue.
I’m personally in the camp that likes follow-ups to what I’ve selected, mostly because when an RPG portrays you as someone who only speaks in one sentence at a time I get the impression thst regardless of the other particulars, the character I’m playing is either very shy or a total meathead.
I’ve been experimenting with the second option since making this thread, and it feels quite freeing. It’s nice to be able to have more of a quick back-and-forth in conversation!
The main challenge (on top of making sure that the dialogue matches the tone of the choice) is making it clear in the choice text whether the PC is talking or not. A playtester found that one choice set was ambiguous about whether the PC was speaking up, or having internal thoughts. So that’s something interesting to think about when writing!
My personal setup in this is to put the dialogue (or a snippet of it) as the choice…
Let me show you.
*choice
#"I don't think that's a good idea."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"What? B- but- but-"
"Face it, Leo." Liya snaps her finger. "That thing of your design looks so weird and dangerous.
I'm not going to let you blow up the workshop again."
You pat Leo's shoulder as he starts sobbing.
#Nod
You nod.
I think there’s a balance to be struck between allowing the player to do whatever they want, and being able to tell a story that contrasts with that vision. In Choice of Robots, I definitely wrote the protagonist with the POV that robots are cool, and importantly, everything else is less interesting. It’s the reason the robot stats are called out but other effects aren’t, for example. So this plays out in dialogue I wrote for the character as well, where the effects of technology on people are met with this kind of “…oh” reaction. If somebody comes to the game with this idea of playing a really socially savvy person, they’re going to be frustrated, but that’s not the story I wanted to tell. And that’s reflected in the stats: the only player personality stat is the draining humanity, how much they chose to ignore their technology’s effects on people and themselves. So if they do let that go down enough, then the “…oh” turns into “…oh whatever.” You get a little bit of a bye if the stats screen clearly advertises what can be different with the protagonist, and what can’t.
If there are some attributes of the protagonist that are non-negotiable, that makes it easier to write dialogue without player input - you decide their diction, the kinds of things they’ll remark on, a few people they definitely have strong opinions about, and so on. There’s no “I hate and fear magic” background in Choice of Magics, just like there’s no “I am very wary of technology” attitude in Choice of Robots. We all love magic and robots and that’s what gets the story going and gives us a stance for generating dialogue.
Leaving all the dialogue to explicit choices closes off too many fun moments when there are just two of you on-screen. From Choice of Magics (the set-in-stone bit is “you are friends with Tal at the beginning”):
"Brave of you to be your own test subject," Tal says.
"I thought you told me earlier that Vivomancy
could have unintended effects."
# "I'm a little disappointed I didn't sprout a third arm or something. But having wings was pretty fun."
Tal scoffs. "Three arms? Why think so small?
Four arms is where it starts to get good.
Carry twice the stuff."
"Applaud twice as loud," you say.
"Legendary hugs," Tal suggests.
"Epic high fives," you say.
"Double the damage," Tal says.
"Now that's just practical."
"I know, I was just thinking it the whole time, sorry."
You make a mental note: [i]Banter is fun. Must do more banter.[/i]
This can’t possibly work if you’re not allowed to riff on what was chosen by the player. I think that price is too high! So ultimately I think it’s just important that the riffing remains in the spirit of what the dialogue option looked like it was going to do.
In stories I put thoughts in italics. That seems to be the way most of the authors I read tend to do things. Another way is to simply not have ‘thoughts’ at all, turn them into actions that describe the feelings.
