Simple ways to create complexity.
In Chapter 2.2,
we looked at seven ways to add emotional depth to an NPC. For most of the examples, however, the sense of emotional complexity—the emotional or psychological layers—in an NPC couldn't be accomplished quickly. Those techniques required getting to know an NPC over time, as in the case with the female alien whom your partner almost killed (in Chapter 2.2, “NPC Deepening Techniques”).
Can you give an NPC depth if he or she has only two lines or only one line of dialogue in the entire game?
Yes, you can pull this off. To demonstrate a few of the ways, we'll return to Chapter 2.3's Cook who serves you after your return from battle in our hypothetical WWII game. He doesn't see his friend Tom in line for the grub.
Dialogue Deepening Techniques can add depth to the Cook, even though he speaks just one line of dialogue.
COOK (worried): You seen Tom? Just don't tell me he took a bullet too.
Remember that just because a character—or even a line of dialogue—conveys a sense of emotional depth, that doesn't make the character or the dialogue interesting. Techniques to make characters, dialogue, relationships, moments, or stories deep are completely separate from those that make these same components of Emotioneering interesting.
If you made the Cook's worried line “deep” but not interesting, it would be weak dialogue. For example:
COOK (worried): I don't see Tom. Was he hit?
The two lines are very similar. They both convey the Cook's worry, but the first one is more interesting.
Sure, it's more interesting in that it picks up more of the flavor of spoken speech, but, as explained in Chapter 2.3, what truly makes it more interesting is that we sense a personality in the first example. The second offers no such glimpse of a definable personality. In the first example, we can at least gather that the Cook feels close to Tom, that he hates hearing bad news, and that he hears a lot of it. All three of these qualities are missing in the second example.
Thus, when it comes to any kind of Deepening Technique, including Dialogue Deepening, it's not a matter of making an element deep or making it interesting. Rather, when you choose to make an element deep, you almost always need to also make it interesting. The side effect of trying to do these two things (make the dialogue both interesting and deep) is that keeping the lines short is harder.
Remember, although making NPC dialogue interesting is worth striving for in almost every case where it's possible, making NPC dialogue “deep” is optional—a tool to be used when appropriate.
Let's try out a few other NPC Dialogue Deepening Techniques on our Cook.
You and your platoon just entered a German town. It's in ruins. You find an old man and, using Self Auto-Talk,[1] ask him which direction the Nazis retreated.
The Old Man points to some of the bodies of young German soldiers:
OLD MAN (cynical): They couldn't wait to die. Your men have been of great assistance.
Once again, we see that the more Traits we stick in one NPC's speech (here, Wisdom and Bitterness), the more difficult it is to keep the dialogue short. Of course, the positive trade-off is that the NPC with two Traits is more interesting than the NPC with just one, assuming the two Traits make a colorful grouping.
You might have noticed that the Old Man didn't answer the question. That was intentional on my part. In life, people often don't answer questions. You might have to ask him again, or you might have to aim your rifle at him to get him to answer, or he may never answer the question and you might have to ask or threaten another NPC.
If he doesn't answer the question, even if you point your rifle at him, will you kill him? Well, maybe most gamers would. However, if the game designer:
Dressed the old man in rags
Placed his dead wife in the scene, behind him in his ruined house (we'd have to ensure the player knows it's his wife)
then you, the player, might both feel annoyed with him and feel sorry for him.
In one fell swoop, the previous example with the Old Man exhibits four separate Emotioneering techniques at the same time:
His dialogue is interesting; thus, it's a Dialogue Interesting Technique. It's even more interesting than usual, because he has two Traits instead of one: Bitterness and Wisdom.
He has depth, because he displays Wisdom or Insight. This is one of the Dialogue Deepening Techniques discussed in this chapter.
As mentioned earlier, you feel two separate emotions toward him. On one hand, you're annoyed or angry at him because he won't answer the question. On the other hand, you feel sorry for him. Having two different feelings simultaneously toward an NPC is a Player Toward NPC Relationship Deepening Technique (see Chapter 2.13).
You then will decide to kill him or not. Because of what he's been through, it's not an easy decision. Giving the player tough decisions is a First-Person Deepening Technique (see Chapter 2.21)—a technique that causes the player to reach inside to a deeper place within himself or herself.[2]
So far, we've focused on Dialogue Deepening, which is a tool to enrich dialogue, but we've left aside the idea of using NPC dialogue to prompt an action by the player—which is usually its key function.
So let's return to our Cook and up the Emotioneering challenge even more. Let's see if we can make the NPCs dialogue prompt player action and be interesting and be deep. Let's do three things with a single line of dialogue.
The Cook needs to direct the player to see the Captain. His example lines will use some Dialogue Deepening Techniques you've already seen, and introduce some new ones as well.[3]
COOK (worried for you): Captain wants you for an assignment. The kind you don't come back from.
This (long by game standards) piece of NPC dialogue by the Cook exhibits Technique Stacking by simultaneously accomplishing four things:
It's interesting. (He has two Traits: concern for you and a gallows sense of humor.)
It conveys depth via worry.
It prompts action.
It also creates suspense, because we're setting up the idea that something horrible is going to occur. Suspense helps make plots interesting, and it is a Plot Interesting Technique (see Chapter 2.16).
Let's take a look at a few more Dialogue Deepening Techniques.
“Showing what a character feels beneath the surface” is a Dialogue Deepening Technique that perhaps deserves an entire book in its own right, but here's the short version.
Quite often, when someone feels a strong (and sometimes even a weak) emotion, they don't mention it. Rather, they hint at it through the words they speak, even if those words seem to be about something else. Or they hint at the emotion through their actions.
One example of this was given at the start of this chapter. Consider another from a hypothetical fantasy game:
You return, barely alive, from a fierce battle with an ancient, evil deity who has vowed to destroy a town that stopped worshipping him. He's a powerful boss.[4]
Your female companion (an NPC) has been waiting for you, not knowing if you were dead or alive. When you return to her, she wants to say that she loves you and missed you. But such direct statements of emotion are considered “on the nose”[5] and tend to be weak dialogue. Because such statements don't let the player “solve the mystery” of what the character feels, they don't draw the player in. Rather, they block player immersion. As a general guideline, avoid on-the-nose dialogue.
So, instead of stating her feelings directly, she expresses her love by saying:
WOMAN (angry): You go and fight that thing and don't even tell me?
Or, she presents you with a cool gun, saying:
WOMAN: Took a couple hours to clean it but...thought it'd look good with that shirt.
Or, she acts cold, and with Self Auto-Talk you say:
PLAYER'S CHARACTER: Why the freeze-out? WOMAN (icy): I never aspired to be a widow.
In all of these variations, she means the same thing: “I love you.”
Welcome to Russia, comrade. The game takes place in the present day, outside of Petrozavodsk, in Northwest Russia. The terrain is rugged. You and your Navy Seal squad, along with some Russian commandos, are trying to recapture a nuclear facility that has been taken over by terrorists.
INT. TENT - DAY In a large, makeshift tent, a mile from the nuclear facility, an ironic Russian NPC named Nikolai is slow to heft his gear and get moving. You just saved his butt in the last mission. You play Carter. Calling him the feminine name "Nikki" is how you good-naturedly taunt him. Outside, the rain pours down. (gameplay) You pick up various pieces of gear. You head out of the tent. Nikolai isn't there beside you. You turn to him. This triggers a... (in-game cinematic) Carter (using Self Auto-Talk): Hey Nikki, aren't you coming? Nikolai (Russian accent; ironic): I was going to wait here. But if you're going, then I better protect you. He picks up his gear and heads toward the tent entrance. In the game, this triggers: A LOUD EXPLOSION GOES OFF OUTSIDE, FOLLOWED BY GUN- FIRE. SCREAMS of wounded Navy Seals and Russian commandos are heard. (resume gameplay) You rush outside, followed by Nikolai…
Let's take a look at Nikolai's lines:
Nikolai (Russian accent; ironic): I was going to wait here. But if you're going, then I better protect you.
What he means is that:
He says he was going to wait in the tent, but of course, as a commando on a mission, that's not an option. He's being ironic. So beneath the surface he's saying he has no choice but to go.
He's saying that he better go because otherwise you'll probably get killed if he's not there to protect you. Thus, he's taunting you in return for you calling him “Nikki.” Beneath the surface, this taunting shows that he considers you a friend.
He may be saying he needs to protect you, but beneath the surface, he's trying to “save face” and deny that he needed to be rescued by you in the last mission.
So, in two sentences, beneath the surface of the words—underneath their literal meanings—Nikolai is saying three distinct things. Meanings and emotions beneath the surface of dialogue are one way to make even a single line or two of dialogue “deep.”
If I was to ask you how you feel about your father or mother, or your brother or sister, you might say, “That's complicated.”
Most people feel ambivalent[6] about many of the people and situations in their lives. Ambivalence in dialogue is always a “Dialogue Deepening Technique.” Let's look at one of the ways it can be done. This particular technique is called NPC's “Words are Neither Positive Nor Negative.”
Here's the game set-up: You've been driving a tank, and are now getting out of your tank to attack the enemy on foot. With Self Auto-Talk, you ask the gunner in the tank if he'll join you.
GUNNER (wry): Last driver asked me the same thing.
His answer is neither positive nor negative. It reveals ambivalence. Or he could say:
GUNNER: No way. (Pause) On the other hand, I do owe you one.
That technique is called “The NPC is First Negative, and then Positive.”
In both examples, because he's ambivalent, we can generate some suspense. You jump from the tank and launch into a fight with the enemy. Will that gunner later appear by your side? Maybe yes, maybe no. With his ambivalent answer, either one is possible.
Here's another Dialogue Deepening Technique:
Let's say that woman we discussed earlier truly is angry at you after you return from fighting the evil deity. She says:
WOMAN (dryly): Weather turned cold while you were away.
Now, assuming the weather really had turned cold, she'd be talking both about the weather and her feelings about you.
It's been stated before but bears repeating: When I offer tools like the ones here, I'm not necessarily implying that each tool (such as Dialogue Deepening Techniques) always should be used. I'm simply supplying some of the tools of Emotioneering.
While adding depth to characters, dialogue, plots, relationships, and game moments might often be an attractive option, making all these facets interesting, including NPC dialogue (whenever possible), is not an option but instead is something to strive for, unless there's a good reason not to do so.[7]
Because so much NPC dialogue either conveys information or prompts player action, the challenge is to make this dialogue interesting and, if appropriate, deep. As we'll see later in this book, by doing Technique Stacking, it's sometimes possible to layer into NPC even more functions, such as having the dialogue tie into a theme in the game or serve symbolic value.
It's also worth nothing that the way a character speaks can, obviously, change as the game progresses. This could relate to a change in the character's Traits, a shift of allegiances, emotional growth, attainment of depth, or other kinds of change.
[1] “Self Auto-Talk” is my term for when you're playing a character and you hear that character speak.
[2] You may read this and say, “No one would put that much thought into a single line of dialogue. Nor would anyone playing the game notice the subtle differences between a line like this and a less artful one.” This kind of thinking, when it occurs, demonstrates a real naiveté about the art of writing and of Emotioneering. There's nothing wrong with being naïve, but this kind of naiveté is responsible for much of what amounts to little more than hack writing in games.
The professional writers I know—the good ones—often rewrite heavily to make their dialogue perform several functions at the same time. To them, writing has more in common with a composer creating a complex and layered musical score than it does with what most game designers consider “writing.”
If you were to look at any one of many stunning television shows that have come and gone over the years—the better episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, various episodes of the different Star Trek series, Smallville, The Practice, The West Wing, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and so very many others—you'd see techniques like these layered on top of each other in almost every single scene.
[3] To see an example of writing with 35 Emotioneering Techniques stacked on top of each other in one three-minute scene, see Chapter 2.31, “Pre-Rendered and In-Game Cinematics.”
[4] In games, a boss is a villainous or monstrous person or beast of some importance whom you fight, and who is difficult to defeat or kill.
[5] “On the nose” dialogue is a film term that means a statement that is too direct or too obvious.
[6] Ambivalence means feeling, simultaneously, both positive and negative about a person or situation.
[7] For instance, in a battle, a commander might yell out “Take cover!” It might be a line of dialogue without any discernable personality behind it (and thus not interesting), and it might be clichè, but it could still be the right line of dialogue for that character in that situation.