What do you do if a player chooses the "wrong" dialog option?

[SilverSpook]

Hi, I'm having to deal with this problem while developing Neofeud, and I guess this is more of a general question about some of the better ways of approaching branching dialog, and the repercussion if the player gets it "wrong."

For example, an NPC asks you, "So, how can I trust you..." and the player can respond by saying, "I'm friends with X", where there's three different options.  If they get the name wrong, then the NPC doesn't trust the player and won't divulge more information.

One option of course is to just have each option result in a different outcome game wise.  Although this seems pretty tough to implement, and you'd need to have a whole lot of different pathways to success.  Another option might be to have the player come back and try the dialog again, but this is a bit stilted as it's unrealistic in a conversation someone to keep engaging in the same question till they get it right. 

Another way is to just have a big dialog tree with a lot of dead ends where you can get to the "right" dialog quickly if you were paying attention to the story -- rewarding engaged players -- but otherwise you'll have to sift through a lot of dialog for the key info otherwise. 

I seem to remember in Technobabylon, if you mess up the first phone dialog in the murder scene, there is a fall-back second way to get up the tower.

Thoughts on this?

[Ali]

I quite like the Telltale approach to this sort of thing. The choices you make won't necessarily have an influence on what happens, but they do influence to way in which those things happen. So the player is responsible for their choices in a moral sense, but most of the time they don't really control the outcome of a situation. Kind of like real life.

I suppose that's harder to do in the case of a binary right/wrong question. Perhaps the telltale-ish approach would be to have an option which results in maximum trust (help + information) doubtful trust (help) and mistrust (refusing help in such a way that the player is able to achieve the goal alone, or forcing the player to earn their trust through a further task).

I agree that the keep-asking-until-you-get-it-right approach doesn't suit a realistic game. But perhaps those kind of dialogue options aren't very realistic either? If someone asked me "Why should I trust you?" I wouldn't say, "I'm friends with Sally" unless I knew for certain that they were too. I certainly wouldn't choose a name at random or make up a name.

[Cassiebsg]

Perhaps the telltale-ish approach would be to have an option which results in maximum trust (help + information) doubtful trust (help) and mistrust (refusing help in such a way that the player is able to achieve the goal alone, or forcing the player to earn their trust through a further task).

This fits exactly the type of puzzle game I wish for my games... which of course results in a huge amount of work that most players will never see any way. But I want the players choices to influence the way the game evolves. For instance, in my BSG game, the player will control two characters, with distinct personalities... Meaning that when I get to this kind of dilemma, each character will it's own way of solving the problem... which if you choose wrong, not only you may loose the possibility of solving that with that character, but your wrong answer might be so bad, that it'll stop the other character to actually solve the problem by just saying the right line. And the player will be forced to go the "hard" way to solve the puzzle... Sounds complicated..

[Stupot]

One awkward thing about most adventure game dialogs is that the person you are speaking to seems to forget important things. Like you already tried talking your way into the club 5 times by telling the doorman you are a friend of the owner, a repair man etc., then suddenly you tell him that actually you are the magician they've been expecting and suddenly he forgets that you are the person who has been telling lies all evening and let's you in.

It seems a bit unrealistic, but this can be turned into a puzzle. How can I make him believe this particular "correct" lie over all the other lies? Well, in this case, show him a magic trick to impres him and regain his trust.