X-From_: tbenn@csus.com Mon Mar 30 21:26:08 1998 Date: Mon, 30 Mar 1998 21:30:13 -0800 Subject: Articles & Examples Submission From: tbenn@csus.com (Tucker Bennett) Precedence: first-class Priority: normal To: b l a d e s@ spiderwebsoftware . com (Note spaces added to thwart spammers. Remove spaces for valid email address.) MIME-Version: 1.0 Notes On Dialogue Dialogue can add a lot to a scenario. Although you can incorporate a fair amount of text using special nodes, dialogue is what differentiates an actual role-playing scenario from a hack-and-slash one. Think about the Exile trilogy. What would it be like without the extensive discourses and personalities of major NPCs like Erika, Linda, Rentar-Ihrno and Motrax? Innovative, perhaps, but not nearly as interesting. How much dialog is enough? Well, major NPCs make the biggest difference. Every friendly town deserves at least a few NPCs with a number of conversation nodes beyond the standard look-name-job. Dungeons don't need this as much, but adding one or two friendly, talkative folk can really spice it up - for example, the prisoners in a Nephil fort. Don't forget that conversation can serve most of the same functions as special nodes as far as advancing the plot goes - they can reveal information, use if/thens, change stuff done flags, and even call special nodes. If a character does talk, try to give him or her at least 1 or 2 conversation nodes beyond look-name-job. But not every character needs to talk. For example, having guards talk would be unnecessary, and tedious for the scenario designer. On the other hand, while having every single villager talk might not seem important, having too many silent characters can make a scenario seem somewhat flat. Instead of leaving personality at -1, consider a simple look-name-job setup, with perhaps 1 conversation node and an "other" message something like "Can't you see I'm busy right now?" This method can also be used if you have a lot of sedate characters. For example, the serfs in the packaged scenario "A Small Rebellion" don't say anything, but they could, for example, all have a similar look-name-job and an "other" of "If I talk guards hit me" or something of the sort. There are plenty of examples of this in the Exile trilogy, such as the Slith farmers in Gnass or a few bunches of the giant intelligent friendly talking spiders. Finally, a word ought to be said about calling special nodes, and special conversation nodes, in dialogue. A scenario I downloaded recently had a really neat plot twist - some NPCs turn themselves into magic items so the party can transport them. The scenario accomplished this by calling a special node within the dialogue, which also killed the creature. However, it did not force the dialogue to end, which allows resourceful players to ask about it repeatedly and get many, many copies of the magic items. Be sure you test any nodes integrated into dialogue thoroughly. Some other uses for dialogue node calls include: answering a yes or no question, or any question requiring an immediate response, via a one time display message special; buying certain item types from the PCs, checking if the PCs have a certain special item, teaching the PCs a spell or recipe they don't have to buy, some of which even have their own special node types dedicated to them. As far as the force conversation end conversation nodes go: they can be very useful. But make sure that you don't use a kill monster forced end if you aren't absolutely sure the monster has given the player all the information he or she needs. And be very careful with town hostile forced end. If the monster is simply offended by what the PCs said, hostile forced end is probably more appropriate, unless you are dealing with a commanding character, like a dragon or major NPC. One last note. Spelling is especially important when you refer to an NPC you didn't create. If you want someone to talk about Rentar-Ihrno, for example, look up the spelling of her name, don't guess (Rintarino? Rent-Arono?). If you're not careful, she might just throw some quickfire at you. - Tucker Bennett (tbenn@csus.com)