Lies, lying in conversation

Lying is important. In Planescape, it was common that two or three of the dialogue options one had was marked with [Lie]. You could lie about many things, not simply quest things like "Did Leandro steal my things?" but lying about personal beliefs, intentions, etc.

 

I've seen other RPGs incorporate lying, but only P:T would have the same identical lines available, one marked with [Lie] and the other without.

 

I also understand it would be hard work to incorporate it into the game world, but the ability to spread false rumours, create arbitrary conflicts, and in general get factions, organizations and people into hostilities with each other would simply be... terrific. I don't think I've seen this in any game before, but it was an immensely important tool in the noble's power struggles, historically. To depict a power struggle without giving room to lies is a mistake.

 

When is it appropriate for lying to require a successful die roll? Discussion and answers to poll appreciated.

 

Does anybody have examples of when lies have been overused, or badly used, in game before? I'm sure there must be some examples to heed.

I think that lies are important in games, specially in RPG.

 

When you like evil sides you could lie for several reason, making conflicts, make people suffer, send them to a trap, fool them and so on.

So it's a part oh your character that exist in you every day life, not just in quest time.

 

But it must be a two side effects as if the npc realize you'v tried to fool him your level of respect can go low depending of who you try to fool.

I think it could be a "simple" effect as if you lie to someone but in an other conversation you say things in an other way thoses npc could meet each other and discover your lies.

 

People could also see that you lie and could react differently, nicely and say don't fool me, attack you, spread your lies...

 

Well anyway my poor examples, lies are interesting in game because they give some oportunities to set out of the main line.

 

 

About the rolling issue i think that liying is not natural and not every one have the same reaction. So it's not as simple as you can lie for everyone and they all trust you.

Lying should have nothing to do with being 'evil'. People lie every day for many different reasons and it doesn't make them evil or bad people.

 

One game that came out recently 'The Walking Dead' featured lying in the conversation system. In that game, you have a reputation with each individual that can get affected if you arent honest with them and they catch you.

Edited January 30, 2013 by maggotheart

I think an important notion to take from the OP, though, is the importance of denoting the intent of a dialogue choice.

 

"Sure, we'd be glad to help make sure no one disturbs your wagon" should allow you to choose your reasoning for doing so, right then and there. Otherwise, it's kind of like you've got Schrodinger's intent. You're both selfless AND a lying bastard, until you actually choose whether or not to go against your word.

 

You're either want to screw someone over, or you don't. Just like how you can't start slaughtering people, then stop and say "Just kidding, I want peace and don't think hostility is a good idea, really."

 

Mainly, though, you often run into the conflict of not really knowing if you're committing (via unseen game code) to an oath, or misleading someone, because the text conveys no tone or intent without some kind of indicator.

 

The worst examples of this I've ever seen are the dialogue options in some games that initiate an attack, but don't say they do.

 

"Well, I'm not so sure you will..." in response to "We should be long gone by tonight" doesn't TELL me I'm about to attack them. It only suggests that my character doubts the likelihood that they'll be long gone by tonight. Maybe I wanted to tell them about some things that might cause them delay. Why did the game assume I wanted to kill them, and not tell ME that it assumed that?!

I sudges next therad "Telling thuth in conversations" or "Not telling anything in conversations" thread as next ...

Really? I'd go with "Get up out of that! You've got conversation all over your new coat!" as the sequel thread.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Lephys

But could it be colour coded rather than tagged? Red for a lie, normal for truth?

But could it be colour coded rather than tagged? Red for a lie, normal for truth?

Green for being polite ? Pink for being **** and yellow for "I don't care" ? ike in Dragon Age 2 ?

 

I hawe only one answer for this ..

 

 

Guys they already said this would be in the game. [lie]

 

 

But could it be colour coded rather than tagged? Red for a lie, normal for truth?

Green for being polite ? Pink for being **** and yellow for "I don't care" ? ike in Dragon Age 2 ?

 

I hawe only one answer for this ..

 

 

 

 

that is adorable. Can you explain why you don't think this is a good idea? Edited January 31, 2013 by JFSOCC

 

 

But could it be colour coded rather than tagged? Red for a lie, normal for truth?

Green for being polite ? Pink for being **** and yellow for "I don't care" ? ike in Dragon Age 2 ?

 

I hawe only one answer for this ..

 

 

 

that is adorable. Can you explain why you don't think this is a good idea?

 

Becouse i personaly think that led by the hand or facilitate and helping me on every step

 

 

 

 

 

 

But could it be colour coded rather than tagged? Red for a lie, normal for truth?

Green for being polite ? Pink for being **** and yellow for "I don't care" ? ike in Dragon Age 2 ?

 

I hawe only one answer for this ..

 

 

 

 

that is adorable. Can you explain why you don't think this is a good idea?

 

 

 

Becouse i personaly think that led by the hand or facilitate and helping me on every step

 

 

You need to work on your English, no offence meant. I take that to mean you don't want hand-holding. which is a sentiment I fully agree with. However, colour coding intent is merely clarification, not the same as telling you which option is better.

We had a big discussion about it a while back

Edited January 31, 2013 by JFSOCC

Why colored then ? Why not simple " (lie) " for example

 

anna died but in converastion with christofer you have

 

1. Anna died sorry mate

2. (Lie) Anna is alive she is waitin for you

Because I believe a [tag] is immersion breaking, and I think a colour might not be. it's true, I'm not sure.

1. Anna died sorry mate
2. Anna is alive she is waitin for you

Edited January 31, 2013 by JFSOCC

 

Because I believe a [tag] is immersion breaking, and I think a colour might not be. it's true, I'm not sure.

 

1. Anna died sorry mate

2. Anna is alive she is waitin for you

Pretty sure they will use tags in case the player is color-blind. Sawyer says he is red/green colorblind, for example.

There could be neither a tag nor a color code, and you just have to be paying attention to know what is a lying response and what is not. Part of the problem with being a liar is keeping track of your own lies, it might be more immersive to make the player think before speaking and have to remember what he said.

Because I believe a [tag] is immersion breaking, and I think a colour might not be. it's true, I'm not sure.

 

1. Anna died sorry mate

2. Anna is alive she is waitin for you

 

Mayby but as you can see this is one step forward to:

 

1. Anna died sorry mate

2. Anna is alive she is waitin for you  

3. Ha i don't care stupid ass

4. Ya .. umm.. i dunno .. leave me alnoe

5. Mayby .. you have some gold ?

6. I killed her let's fitght

7 who is anna ?

8 Who are you ?

9. Whanna drink something mate ?

10. uuuu.. what a big dragon you have there ...

 

etc. Sory this is good idea only if applaied to lies, but we also have provocation, intimidation, persuation, saducion, questions and other line .. if we will give color to lises, we need also for intimidation .. and what id you are lieing and intimidaiting in the same time ?

 

I'm realy not a fan of "makeing things esier" expecionaly is it not needed ... if you are playing game, and you don't know where are you lieing or intimidaiting ... you shoud think about your play-style or not drink so much ...

 

I also hate an DA2 solution or Mass Effect solution where you can

 

Be asss-hole

 

Don't care

 

Be overmoralising, dush

 

 

So personaly im not yor that type of solution.

Edited January 31, 2013 by Ulquiorra

how many conversations do you think there will be where you would have all options at once.

Besides, you can limit it to only certain types of intents.

 

As for colour blindness, that's a pretty good argument (though it's catering to a minority, perhaps) But there are colours which aren't part of any known colour blindness., alternatively you can use italics, bolding, or underlining, each of which helps convey intent without resorting to meta-text.

Edited January 31, 2013 by JFSOCC

This sounds exactly the kind of thing where one likes one thing and the other one the other.

And where making a tag/color/tag+color option in the setup wouldn't break the resource bank.

 

For myself, I liked ME system for it's simplicity, though not the answers themselves, also because of their simplistic-city.

Kind of tricky. In general terms, I am favour of the ability to lie, but I don't want it to be a chain, either.

 

Like, if I tell a questgiver "I will totally go do X" without an explicit 'lying system' in place, then I can still decide to go do X or not go do X. Whether it was a lie or not is entirely in my hands.

 

But if instead I say "[Lie] I will totally go do X", I worry that the game will hold me to that. That the game itself will not allow me to change my mind and go do X after all. I would not like that at all.

 

But other than such hypotheticals I'm OK with lying.

Because I believe a [tag] is immersion breaking, and I think a colour might not be. it's true, I'm not sure.

 

1. Anna died sorry mate

2. Anna is alive she is waitin for you

I couldn't disagree more.  Gimme tags, Obsidian.

The problem isn't how well or poorly written the dialogue options were in other games that happened to use visual indicators to make the tone of those dialogue options distinct...

 

The problem is that, sometimes, with purely written language, the player has NO idea how the line is being delivered by the character.

 

This isn't quite the same thing, but is a good example along the lines of how many different ways text can be misconstrued:

 

The sentence "I never said she stole my money" can have up to 7 different specific meanings (when only emphasizing a single word), depending on which word is emphasized.

 

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

"I never said she stole my money."

 

So, if we left off the italics (the visual indicator, in this case), you wouldn't know what specific meaning was being stressed, if any.

 

See, the example further above was about a fact. Either Anna was dead, or she wasn't. So, if you know whether or not Anna was dead (you're paying attention to information available to you, the player), you know which is a lie. However, let's try a subjective statement:

 

"I think that's a fantastic idea!"

 

Is that a lie, or is it the truth? If you pick that, are you telling the game that your character REALLY does support the idea, or does he simply wish for someone to BELIEVE he supports the idea when he really doesn't?

 

Why leave it up to guessing, when it takes about another calorie's worth of effort to add in a visual indicator? *shrug*

 

(This response was solely to inform the "I don't even see the problem" posters.)

I utterly despise the explicit "(lie)" next to dialogue options, why is it there?

 

What possible scenario would it be useful? I remember such a dialogue from KOTOR

 

"Are you prepared to accept the Jedi code?"

 

2 options were

"Yes"

"Yes (Lie)"

 

There's no difference in gameplay impact. It could have just been "Yes" and then I decided whether it was a lie. Somehow the other option, to lie explicitly, bothered me. Maybe because it didn't actually feel like lying. It was, ironically perhaps, telling the truth  in its own way.

What possible scenario would it be useful?

Easy. When you're claiming to know about something that no one else present does, in order to impact another's decision. Example:

 

"Don't worry. I can create amulets that will protect us from the beast's poison." Now everyone present is reassured and maybe more people come with you to track down some poisonous beast, when they wouldn't have before. Only, until that point, it's not as if the game told you "Oh, hey, btw, just so you know, for some upcoming dialogue, there's no such thing as an enchantment that will protect you from this thing's poison." So, without an indicator, you, the player, will most likely assume that THAT choice means that you actually are making everyone amulets of poison-protection, when really you're just making glowy amulets to make everyone feel better.

 

The game either has to tell you you're lying, or arbitrarily make sure the player is ALWAYS informed about anything they might need to lie about, ahead of time (which seems like a lot more work, if you ask me). Or, the 3rd option: Let you guess, and potentially piss you off for no reason.

 

"Don't worry. I can create amulets that will protect us from the beast's poison. (Lie)" tells the player that his character KNOWS he cannot (or at least isn't really going to) create amulets to protect against the beast's poison, AND that any options without (lie) on them are true as far as your character knows. All with 1 simple indicator.

 

What possible scenario would it be useful?

Easy. When you're claiming to know about something that no one else present does, in order to impact another's decision. Example:

 

"Don't worry. I can create amulets that will protect us from the beast's poison." Now everyone present is reassured and maybe more people come with you to track down some poisonous beast, when they wouldn't have before. Only, until that point, it's not as if the game told you "Oh, hey, btw, just so you know, for some upcoming dialogue, there's no such thing as an enchantment that will protect you from this thing's poison." So, without an indicator, you, the player, will most likely assume that THAT choice means that you actually are making everyone amulets of poison-protection, when really you're just making glowy amulets to make everyone feel better.

 

The game either has to tell you you're lying, or arbitrarily make sure the player is ALWAYS informed about anything they might need to lie about, ahead of time (which seems like a lot more work, if you ask me). Or, the 3rd option: Let you guess, and potentially piss you off for no reason.

 

"Don't worry. I can create amulets that will protect us from the beast's poison. (Lie)" tells the player that his character KNOWS he cannot (or at least isn't really going to) create amulets to protect against the beast's poison, AND that any options without (lie) on them are true as far as your character knows. All with 1 simple indicator.

 

I suppose that makes sense, and I bow to you. Assumed character knowledge, that the PC doesn't have, is always something weird.

 

As long as there's not a dialogue option that's the same thing, but ones the truth and ones a lie, I suppose I can see the above occurring and being rather cool.