Dialog Choice making a difference!

monjon1 · May 2013

Ok so I really want a dialog choice to make a difference in what happens next in the story.. here's the basic scenario:

NPC1 has a kidnapped victim. You want to free him, of course.

Talk to NPC1

NPC1 gives player a choice.. Join and live, fight and die.

choice 1 = [Lie] Sure I'll join! (and you fight them anyway, but a kidnapped victim lives)
choice 2 =Die scum! (you fight them, and the kidnapped victim dies)

So, in choice 1, I'd like to have the fight, then when the fight is over, have a living person there to talk to and save.

Choice 2, however, player has the fight, but during the fight, kidnapped victim is slain. So now instead of a living person to talk to, like in choice 1, you've got a corpse instead.

The problem I'm coming across is when I create the objectives, they line up on the story editor as a sort-of "do all of these"

So, in the tree, it's something like

****************Talk to NPC1
*******************|
**********__________________
********* |*****************|
*********Fight1************Fight2
********Victim Alive********Victim Dead
**********|*****************|
**************** |
***************Quest End

But, I'm trying to look like:

************Talk to NPC1
*******______|*******|_____
*******|*******************|
******Fight1**************Fight2
*****Victim Alive*********Victim Dead
*******|****************** |
******Quest End**********Quest End

I tried using dialog queues to make NPC's appear, but once you set them as an Objective, they can only appear, disappear with that objective, not based on the dialog queues on a previous conversation

Hopefully this makes sense and someone can help me out here.. Thanks!

keylord02 · May 2013

Make two NPCs, once shows up when a dialog option 1 is reached, the other shows up when dialog option 2. Have the dead one use the "corpse" animation.

That should work!

monjon1 · May 2013

This works, but sadly, you can't branch the actual story objectives off. So a new "Speak to" objective couldn't differentiate between one NPC or the other and two separate "speak to" objectives would each have to be completed to keep going.

huntgodpw · May 2013

I am just scratching the surface of the foundry, but is there a way to change to state of the character depending on dialogue choice.

So if they choose lie, it plays out normally, but if they choose fight, it turns the victim into attackable and the have to fight and kill them?

Sorry if that's dumb, I had a similar conundrum I was working on, I am very interested in how you are able to resolve this.

keylord02 · May 2013

You can branch off into nonlinear stuff in the middle, but it has to come back together at some point, unfortunately!

I personally have a really basic objective of "get to a location" and then made the entire module about doing elaborate things to get to that room. I think it'll be really fun once I'm finished, but might not necessarily be the highest rated, haha.

keylord02 · May 2013

huntgodpw wrote: »

I am just scratching the surface of the foundry, but is there a way to change to state of the character depending on dialogue choice.

So if they choose lie, it plays out normally, but if they choose fight, it turns the victim into attackable and the have to fight and kill them?

Sorry if that's dumb, I had a similar conundrum I was working on, I am very interested in how you are able to resolve this.

I'm using a few examples of something similar but not for main storyboard/objective stuff. You can have an option to attack the enemy that triggers a conversation line. The talkable npc can be made to disappear when this conversation block is reached and an encounter can be created that is set to appear when the same conversation block is reached.

You could deviate paths by basically having two "treasure chests" with keys in them. One appears in the room when the enemies "turn aggressive" and is received for fighting and winning the battle. The other is given by the NPC if you make different conversation choices. The keys could open two different doors giving the player a completely different experience based on which they chose.

Or you could even just give the same key for both options if you want to allow the player to play the same linear module in different ways!

hercul33t · May 2013

You're going to have to keep most everything off the Story tree. Make the only objective something like "Get out alive" and then whatever happens inbetween is anything goes.

NPC A and NPC B are in a room and you can choose to kill either? No problem, just make sure that the door behind them unlocks no matter what you choose. Without using Story tree you can now take your player anywhere, as long as he ends up at the chest at the end.

monjon1 · May 2013

Amazing suggestions and solutions.. Thanks folks!

I was able to take from this and come up with the ending I was hoping for. If you'd like to give it a shot, you can find it searching for "monjon1"

Thanks!!

zogvarnoka · May 2013

Yea using the story tree has both pro's and cons when it come to objectives. I only use the story tree objectives when I want to lead the player to a specific thing (area/dialogue/interact/etc) or if I want to give them a "DM note" prompt from reaching a certain point. Otherwise I avoid it when possible and just give vague quest objectives so the player feels as if they are determining themselves how to complete the quest.

ranncore · May 2013

Just as an example:

Make a boss.
Behind him is two locked doors.
The boss drops a key for each locked door, but when you use 1 of the doors, it consumes both keys on use.

You can also hide secret doors or hallways based on reaching a dialogue objective that doesn't have to be part of the questline.

zovya · May 2013

You have to use magic tricks, slight-of-hand and illusions.

I have one place where I have someone talk to an NPC. But there are actually 3 different NPCs they can talk to based on dialogue choice. So I just have them go to a marker, but quest text says talk to NPC. I just spawn the appropriate NPC at that location with the required conversation. 3 different ways, but only one objective on the storyline.

Dialog Choice making a difference!

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