Article - Useful Dialogue Tips
| Author | Topic: Article - Useful Dialogue Tips |
|---|---|
|
Warrior
Member # 4202
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 00:59
Profile
Homepage
Useful Dialogue Tips Talking is an essential part of Blades of Avernum. It serves several roles: • Shops • Advance the plot • Give the player hints • Add realism • Give the player a break from fighting monsters (some people like having conversations, too) Shops are essential to a BoA scenario. Most important is someone to identify your items and someone to sell stuff to. Preferably, they should be in the starting town so the player doesn't have to look around for them. Without these, the party will have their inventories full of unidentified items and items they want to sell. They can leave them lying in any town, but it will be wasted treasure. As a player, I find this very annoying. Also, shops that sell consumable items are important. Archers need javelins/arrows/bolts and non-mages need lights (candles, torches, and lamps). You never know if that kind of party might enter your scenario; don't assume they have a mage, for example. You should put in a healer somewhere, too. Other types of shops sell lights, food, tools, weapons, armor, bows/arrows, priest spells, mage spells, skills, alchemy recipes, alchemy ingredients, potions, scrolls, etc. You can even make your own random item shops using the calls get_ran and add_item_to_shop (although it is probably a better idea to decide what items you want in the shop instead of choosing randomly). Make sure the shops sell items at the right power level; in a scenario for starting parties, don't sell Iron Plate Mail. The party should be able to sell items to almost any shop that isn't a spell/recipe/skill shop. Almost all shops should have the same prices to sell to. This way the player won't have to bother going to the shop with the best prices all the time. Theoretically, it is also an economically sound decision for the merchants, at least within a single town. Using characters to advance the plot is a good decision. It gives them something interesting to say, and makes the plot feel more connected between people and monsters. The party is usually adventuring to save people from monsters. The people in danger ought to have something to say about it! They can say things relevant to the plot that have no actual effect, such as "The curse is making the crops die. People are starving." They can give quests, either side quests or part of the main plot. A quest should usually have a reward from the person who gave it. Characters can also give information. Beware, though: some players will not want to talk to everyone. Avoid putting information essential to completing the scenario in some random person's conversation. It is all right if he/she is an important person, such as Mayor Crouch in Valley of Dying Things, but you have to make sure there is a reference to lead the player to him/her. For example, in VoDT, as soon as you leave your room, you find a note telling you to see Commander Terrance, who gives you a quest to talk with Mayor Crouch. These also give decent directions to find the person — when you tell the player to find someone, make sure you give directions (for example, "Down the corridor to the south" or "In Sweetgrove"). Dialogue can be used in hostile towns either talking with prisoners, people that are hiding, or even important enemies. This is often part of the scenario's plot. The player can free prisoners for a quest, or learn about secret passages from a friend there, or perhaps do diplomacy with your enemies (or at least get to know them better). Characters can be used to give the player hints. If a certain thing is important, lots of people can say something about it. This way you can give important (non-secret) information to the player subtly. For example, everyone can talk about the monsters that appeared out of nowhere and their guesses about its origin. Or in VoDT, you can ask half the people about the School of Magery, which hints that it's important. Realism is important to keep your scenario believable. If people are farmers, they should talk about farming, and someone nearby might sell the food they produce. Also, some players like to talk. Give your characters more depth than "I sell armor." If the land is being ravaged by monsters and the towns are under attack, wouldn't people have something to say about it? Most characters in friendly towns have something to say or are at least willing to talk. Those that won't talk often have 'conversations' that are something like "I'm busy. Go away." To keep conversation interesting and realistic, give your characters varied personalities. (For more details about how to design characters' personalities, see the article Creating Compelling Characters.) Creating good dialogue can be very time-consuming. There are ways to reduce the amount you have to make. Less important people can have less to say. A crowd of people that are the same, like serfs or guards, can be very simple and all have the same dialogue in the same town. Talk to any guard in the scenarios that come with BoA to see what I mean. Don't put in more towns than you need, either, if they don't help the scenario in any way. -Isaac [ Saturday, April 10, 2004 01:52: Message edited by: Isaac ] -------------------- Creator of the 3D Blades of Avernum Editor for Mac. Get it at Ingenious Isaac's Illusion, my web page. Better yet, get Battle for Wesnoth, a wonderful free TBS game. Posts: 192 | Registered: Sunday, April 4 2004 08:00 |
|
Shaper
Member # 22
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 01:23
Profile
I disagree on the rankings of importance. My list would go more like - 1) Advance the plot. 2) Add realism. 3) Shops. 4) Give the players hints. 5) Give the player a break from fighting monsters all the time. Shops, while important (and essential), are not nearly as important as advancing the plot. I'm sure one could create a scenario that had no shops, but you could not create a scenario that had no plot and expect it to do well. Also, if you're creating dialogue to give the player a break from fighting monsters, then you're scenario obviously has too many monsters. Dialogue should be created for a purpose, not just to serve as filler between fights. Sometimes, if executed well, the fun of the scenario can be through finding out what to do - spoon-feeding the player plot-coupons can often give the opposite effect. Other then that (which is entirely my opinion, and you are entitled to yours), good article! Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
|
Warrior
Member # 4202
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 01:47
Profile
Homepage
You're right. Probably I shouldn't list their relative importance. I'll edit it and take out the part about "from most to least important", and fighting monsters "all the time". However, fighting monsters is the most important part of BoA. Sure, there could be a scenario without monsters, but the engine is designed mainly for combat. Also, while plot is certainly necessary, it doesn't have to be in dialogue. You could find out everything in the enemy's lair, for example. For reference, it said: quote:now: quote: [ Saturday, April 10, 2004 01:55: Message edited by: Isaac ] -------------------- Creator of the 3D Blades of Avernum Editor for Mac. Get it at Ingenious Isaac's Illusion, my web page. Better yet, get Battle for Wesnoth, a wonderful free TBS game. Posts: 192 | Registered: Sunday, April 4 2004 08:00 |
|
Shaper
Member # 22
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 03:05
Profile
Again, I'd disagree with you over that point - combat, while important, is generally not considered to be the most important aspect of a scenario. I'll use Blades of Exile as an example. I can name far more shining examples of plot driven scenarios (Falling Stars along with most of the Arc, the Spheres trilogy, etc. etc.) then I can name combat driven scenarios (the only truly good one that springs to mind is Doom Moon II, and some people despise it). There are even scenarios that exist entirely without combat - the Election springs to mind (which, while fairly unpolished, was still a solid scenario). I think this is because there is only so many times you can fight the same monsters in the same way before it becomes dull and boring. Doom Moon II was good because it introduced new methods of fighting, forcing you to rethink your tactics. Really, you need a mixture of plot and combat, but I believe that the combat should always be there to serve the plot, and not just there because "you're adventurers and that's what you do". Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
|
The Establishment
Member # 6
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 07:06
Profile
Emulations has no shops at all and it ranks quite well on the solid adventures table. Granted the setup is somewhat (hell, a lot) different than the "Vogel Standard Model" of scenario design. I guess the one thing I would like to add is saying that these words of advice do not fit all scenarios. More important beyond actual implementation of the suggestions is to ensure they make sense in terms of the environment in the scenario. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
|
Agent
Member # 14
|
written Saturday, April 10 2004 07:37
Profile
One problem that a lot of scenarios have is not necessarily a lack of people to sell you things, but a lack of people to buy things from you. Many scenarios contain a lot of useless loot that the player may or may not want cluttering their inventory when it could be turned into a nice profit instead. -------------------- Dragyn Bob "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!"-The Divine Comedy Posts: 1481 | Registered: Thursday, September 27 2001 07:00 |
|
Board Administrator
Member # 1
|
written Monday, April 12 2004 14:02
Profile
Homepage
If you would like your article posted to our website please email it to blades@spiderwebsoftware.com in plain text. I think it might be useful. -------------------- Official Board Admin spidweb@spiderwebsoftware.com Posts: 960 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |