RPG Dialogues: More Than Meets the Eye

Back when I was just a gamer, dialogues were just there.  It never occurred to me that any kind of thought had to be put into anything other than the actual content, the words.  Now that I am a developer, I am acquiring an analytic eye.  That new trait and personal experience writing dialogues for RPGs has taught me that more thought goes into a uniform structure for how dialogues work in your game, or at least "should" go into.  Consistency is the key.

When writing for an RPG in which the player controls a main character, you have to think about how you want your players to relate to him/her.  How much "I" association do you want the player to have?  Is the player meant to feel that it is him inside the game, or do you prefer a more cinematic atmosphere in which the character has his own name and identity apart from the player?  With a little variation used here and there, I have found two main approaches for RPG dialogue structure.

The first is what I like to call the immersive approach.  Elder Scrolls is a great example for this method, and it is best suited for games with encompassing character creation.  Starting the game with control over whom and what your character is gives a player the feeling that he decides his character's motives and response to his environment.  From a dev standpoint, it is a good idea to run with that.

With the immersive dialogue approach, the main character is pretty much mute.  Yup, never says a thing.  The actual audible dialogue is done completely by the supporting cast.  In addition, everything the main character says, and I really mean everything, is a player choice, a branch in the dialogue tree.  That sounds like a lot of work, and it does mean you need to write more dialogue, but no one will be too upset if both choices lead to the same response.  The point is to get across that the demeanor and attitude of the main character is in the player's hands, regardless of how NPCs respond.  Full dialogue branches are, of course, neater, and some purists may disagree with me here, but they are not always necessary.  Dragon Age, Fallout 3 and Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning are also excellent examples of the immersive method.

I like to refer to my favorite alternative as the cinematic method.  The Mass Effect series makes use of this one.  Voice recognition in Mass Effect 3 does add a more immersive quality, but the essence is the same.  In this approach, the main character does more talking than anyone else.  Sometimes the player chooses what the character has to say; sometimes the main character is an automatic part of the ongoing dialogue.  Important to note with this method: Every dialogue choice comes with an actual line the main character says.  That is because this method gives your game a different kind of immersion.  Where the immersion method aims to give the impression of playing yourself in fantastic scenarios, the cinematic method conveys the feeling of acting out an important role in a story; like getting to play a character in a movie or novel.

If there is audible voice acting for character text, sticking to the rule of following a dialogue choice with actual main character dialogue is doubly important, because in this case you are hearing the conversation.  Listening to a dialogue in which lines are missing disrupts immersion, like a hiccup in your brain.  While you are reading the entire dialogue, and can follow it, part of your brain still registers the conversation as "not making sense".  On the other hand, a complete dialogue where everyone is actually saying their lines really lets your mind settle into the story.  The Gothic series is a good example of this approach.

Finally, there is what I call the static method.  It is simpler and maybe less immersive, but not to be underestimated, as it has served countless RPGs well over many years, and I feel it deserves mention.  The static method doesn't give dialogue choices.  Typically, the player is only required to press a button to progress to the next line of text, but the whole thing is entirely pre-scripted.  The advantage to this method is that it is very solid; you can't do much wrong with it.  The static method is also the most classic and well-tried.  It has shown its worth in games like Chrono Trigger, Wild Arms, Final Fantasy, Shadow Hearts, Kingdom Hearts, etc, etc, etc

The next time I write game dialogue, I will strive to pick a method and stick with it.  I really don't recommend mixing them.  Writing this entry was a learning experience for me, it really helped me analyze, compare and organize my thoughts on the whole thing.  I hope it can do the same for anyone reading it.