I'm very bad at fitting them in, which is making me a little worried about some of the conversations. I, of course, would like people to enjoy playing my module, but I'm scared of the wall of text syndrome. You know, the one that has people not bothering to read anything and/or beating a hasty delete. For example, there's a speech given by an NPC towards the end of the module that I was writing tonight. It's about 800 words long, and honest to god, I can't think of a single way to throw in a PC response without it being completely pointless. I can do NPC interjections just fine and not disrupt the flow, but coming up with something a PC could say is very challenging. Not to mention it adds to the length of the dialogue, which always scares me. Anything over 1000 words, and I'm thinking: wow, these poor saps are reading English paper's by Azenn.
The problem is that, to me, the story does not really revolve around the PC at all. Sure, it's from the player's perspective, but it's not really about your character. If anything, it's about the people around him. Actually, the module mainly revolves around a character who's physically present for the least amount of time. Like 5 minutes at most. And then after that, the story is, on an emotional level, about everything else in the world besides the PC. Maybe that's a design flaw when I came up with the story (although I never really planned it, just jammed it together). I simply have a tough time tossing in PC responses because stuff like "What do you mean?" and "Sir, do you have any quests that need doing?" don't really float my boat. Especially when the conversations don't revolve around the PC in the first place, ie -- you're not initiating the conversation.
Instead, I have dialogue that's mainly NPC's doing a lot of the talking with the PC occasionally making snappy comments every now and then. Usually I try to offer 5 responses in this order:
1) The typically good-guy boring response.
2) The not-so-confident PC or the guy who's a little slow and needs the second clarification.
3) The smart-ass.
4) The asshole.
5) The Wanna-Be Drizzt Do'Urden Douchebag (usually these are the throw-away responses that make me laugh because they're way over the top).
I don't know if that's enough though. I don't really imagine myself as the character when playing a game, so maybe that's why I have such a difficult time with this. I prefer JRPG's where the most your character says is: "..." (although that's where my love for JRPG's stops). Oh well, this is just another thing on the list of why I think my module ultimately sucks. Which is a shame, because I really do quite like the story behind it. It does mean something to me, if that makes sense.
Lightmaps
1 day ago
10 comments:
For me, personally, I prefer a good story. I often play a generic CG fighter with a goody two shoes personality so I won't have to worry about spell list or abilities since all I want to do is enjoy the story. That's me. I think I am ikely the exception. It seems many people get really attached to thier characters and want the story to revolve around them. If you leave your mod as is, at least I'll like it.
Being a simple easy to satisfy player. I'm happy when the game don't force me or put the words in my mouth to say long and often artificial sentences. If the choice is "Sure, I'd like to help you out." or "No [disgust]" In my head I add on my own words and feelings about the situation. The situation, the story and the NPC's help me get into the right mood.
But that's just me.
PC commens for the sake of them detract from the module. if it's something the player is meant to stop and think about, then it should have some meaning/add something to the experience. 800 words with no PC response sounds fine to me.
If you do really want to have the PC play a role but don't like PC responses, what about focussing on changing what the NPC says based on the PC skill/stat/race? Or adding in non-dialogue narrative based on those?
I'm the same as Amraphael, and that's actually how I conceived the PC dialogue in Trinity. Also, I have decided to steer away from the "conversation simulator" type of exchanges (where PC lines don't really impact the story anyhow) which I find is usually meaningless and slows down gameplay, and focus more on decision-making (various ways of handling an encounter)and information-seeking for the PC dialogue.
I also find PC lines with only one option to be bad convo design.
Of course, this means I face the same problem you touch upon, that is an NPC chatting non-stop for several lines. I make a point though to break this up with comments or actual questions from companions or interaction with other NPCs. I also sometimes use pauses and change camera angles.
All that's in response in part, to my dislike too of writing PC lines (and my dislike, often, of having to read and select such lines as a player.) I find that writing conversations involving more than one NPC instead is much more fun.
I like your idea of having a story *not* centered on the PC, it's innovative since it is the opposite of most of the RPGs 9_9
About PC responses, you could add the possibility of saying something like "please keep it short" (or something like that) and have the speaking NPC skipping parts of the dialogue and just say the most important things. That is for impatient people who want to get the quest but are not interested in the story. Wait, are we sure that RPG players *are not* interested in stories?
Well, as long as your module has less text than Planescape it's fine. Otherwise, some "non hard core rpg players" may get bored.
Please note, I consider myself a hard core rpg player and I think Planescape is one of the BEST rpgs I've every played.
- Epantiras
I hate them too, but they sometimes are necessary.
What I know about your writing and how your mod is shaping up, I feel comfortable reading a monologue with(or without) responses. Honestly, and this can be said to death, do what you feel is best and are comfortable with. Anything less is painful for everyone involved.
I'm with you guys. I hate PC responces so much, that I gave up trying to interject them when they didn't add to the conversation.
I've gone so far as to loathe when the PC actually HAS to say something, although it does allow for some RP choices in how the PC chooses to respond to whats going on (when appropriate).
Lol, I'm surprised so many of you actually agree with me... at least somewhat. I thought I was pretty much alone on this one. I don't necessarily hate PC responses in general. I simply hate when they serve no purpose. Something like Fallout 3 comes to mind. I've never played the game, but I've seen some of the PC responses. Usually the 'intelligence' answers were the worst, where it's just the PC restating what was said.
So it's more of me feeling bad when I'm writing them and I can't think of anything clever to have the PC say. And then when I don't have any PC input whatsoever, I feel even worse about it.
There was a time when I first played player modules that I had no patience for any reading and rushed through. Probably because they were early works with less polish, but now I am the opposite. That said, having to stop and think of my reply in the middle of an epic dialogue can ruin its momentum or make me lose (some) of the details cause it stopped the momentum.
I think you will make a lot of people happy with the story not being PC-centred. At least, in light of all the complaints previously heard about "the chosen one theory".
as for the rest, I am looking forward to the douchebag dialog line: despicable but surely fun.
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