Debate/Discussion as a Combat System (Mages/Intellectual PC)

[Critical]

Oh whole heartily agree the Antagonist should explain themselves. If they never do it will prevent closure to the story.

 

I just don't want them to undervalue the Antagonist and ruin the ending (*cough* like some other unspoken games) simply to give the player a sense of agency. If it works and it can be done then sure! Absolutely! I also applaud the chance to side with the Antagonist. But if it ruins the story by creating an implausible conclusion, then it shouldn't be in there.

I really dislike that kind of exposition; is too cheap and lazy for my taste, like they didn't know how to portray the bad guy through his actions so now they need him to be explicit and explain his evil plan word for word like you're "special". It's lazy at its best patronizing at its worst, best we find out by ourselves what we want to do rather than be swayed by pretty arguments. I mean how hard can it be to write some scenes where both points of view are expressed through acts rather than words.

 

I agree if done wrong it becomes an exposition, but there can be reason to engage in conversation near the end, especially if the antagonist seeks to change the protagonist. The main antagonist doesn't have to explain the whole damned plan in a giant monologue, in fact as the player progresses threw the end area it can be used to reveal any last bits of information the player may not have known. Letho is a perfect example of a final meeting with an antagonist. Geralts final explanation is in fact a flash back and there are plenty of other unique ways that don't involve Monologues. The main purpose of a conversation just before the climax is to unveil any last revelation which allows for reflection and thus creates closure.

 

If you didn't catch the *cough* well....

Edited September 28, 2012 by Critical

[TrashMan]

Given how complex a singel debate this, I dont' see a satisfactory way of making this happen.

A simple minigame would fel shallow.

 

A proper debate would require TON and TONS of conversation options, since at every stage you have tons of options on how to proceed (strawman, ad hominem, logical fallacy, challenge point A, challenge point B, etc, etc..)

[agewisdom]

Given how complex a singel debate this, I dont' see a satisfactory way of making this happen.

A simple minigame would fel shallow.

 

A proper debate would require TON and TONS of conversation options, since at every stage you have tons of options on how to proceed (strawman, ad hominem, logical fallacy, challenge point A, challenge point B, etc, etc..)

 

You could be right. I am just exploring whether this has been done before. Not to the best of my awareness. There could be a proper debate, but just restricted to a few scripted events. The debate in the courtroom in NWN2 best comes to mind.

[moridin84]

Combat-like diagloue system could easily end up being very, very silly or very very bad. Unless they have a good idea of what they want to do then I don't think they should do it.

 

The NWN2 court case on the other hand was really great. Sure it was heavily scripted but... so what? What's wrong with scripting things? Especially in regards to conversational dialogue options.

[agewisdom]

There's nothing wrong with scripting. I'm just exploring whether a non-scripted approach to debate is possible and whether any games have done so. That's all.

[ImNotCreative]

So you are asking for an option to talk people to death?

 

In all seriousness if you are thinking about something different than scripted dialogue (which will certainly be in the game where it makes sense) then it would look like this if they put a lot of effort in to it. So I will have to go with no on this one.

[agewisdom]

I'm just wondering whether there have been any games that have done so, especially those in the 80's or 90's in cased I missed out. But it seems difficult and perhaps not very satisfying if it's a mini-game that devoid of actual content related to the debate at hand.

 

Maybe a scripted approach is the only way to proceed, for now.

[happyelf]

There are several tabletop RPGs which have 'social combat' or comparable systems. The question is, wether the design and structure of a 'gameable' conversation or debate system would clash with the ad-hoc and freeform dialogue that Crpgs tend to use.

[agewisdom]

Hi HappyElf,

 

Could you let me know which tabletop RPGs have those? I'd like to see how they implement this, just to satiate my curiosity.