Fallout 4: Speculation & Suggestions
Thread #8
This topic is for ideas and suggestions for Fallout 4 so that we can keep all the discussion in one thread. Other very general idea/suggestion topics for a future Fallout game will either be closed, or moved to this one.

This thread should be used to discuss items you'd like to see in a future game, gameplay tweaks, quest ideas, things you hope are not in the next game and so on. If you want to discuss major issues, use a separate topic - such as the discussion about adding multi-player or co-op play, which already has a thread. Please search first to see if there is an active/recent thread on a particular topic.

Previous Threads

http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=978480
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=995631
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1010129
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1023429
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1039919
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1046887
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1053029

Well, in the last thread, it looks like we were talking about aiming, the "shooter" elements, and player skill vs. character skill. Personally, I think that ship has already sailed in regards to Fallout 3 and the hypothetical #4. I think we're going to be firmly in "Action RPG" territory from here on in (unless we start seeing some more traditional spin-offs in future, of course.) I don't really have all that much of a problem with the fact that I'm going to have to be relying on my twitch skills to hit enemies for the most part. I didn't even blink when Mass Effect went that way, for example, and I had a grand old time with that game.

I think the thing with Fallout 3 was that a lot of us had played a Fallout 1 and 2 that were very different from this approach. Had those not been games that were 100% reliant on character skill, it probably wouldn't even have occured to me that Fallout 3 could have been made any differently, in regards to the mechanics of shooting a Supermutant in the face. Honestly, though I do feel a sense of loss with the lack of turn-based options, and more of a relience on the player's skill, I have to admit that if you want to make a game with an eye towards heightened tension, then a sort of "shooter" approach is probably the way to go.

Creeping around a dark building, hearing the Feral Ghouls scurry around, and then turning around to see one rushing at me with a will to rip my face off, is one of the better emergent moments in Fallout 3. The fact is, you can't really get that same feeling any other way. If I had turned around and the game had switched to turn-based mode, I think it would take some of the horror out of it. I love turn-based games, but you can't really get scared in the same fashion, either.

I think maybe that's something they could push forward in the next game. When you get right down to it, the best post-apocalyptic movies are sci-fi takes on a western plot that's filmed as if it were a horror movie. (That's how you get the Mad Max movies, at least.) Maybe for the next game they should think about shifting a tad towards a "survival horror" approach to the game design. If the game was consistently giving me some good scares now and then, I'd probably be a lot more forgiving of the need to be physically placing my crosshairs over what I want to shoot at.

Yeah we need more Dunwhich buildings

I want a lot fewer imaging glitches. I swear, you on the PC [censored] about GTA IV, we of the Xbox 360 [censored] about the playability or lack thereof in Fallout 3.
A much less copy/paste texturing. 'Tis ridonculous that I must endure such drudgery.

I don't know anything about GTA, on the PC or otherwise, but I really don't have much of a problem with the game graphics of FO3. However, to get FO3 not to crash, I've had to disable all my codec packs, and that annoys me. If DA:O can coexist with my codec packs, why can't FO3?

Fallout 3 has pretty well all you want and can be played in any style and pace of your choice. It was an enhanced version of Fallout 1 and 2 and with the same kind of content and game-play.

Though the difficulty of the game in Fallout 4 should be that not too many skills and attributes could be maxed out.

Other than that, more of the same for Fallout 4 will do fine.

I'm not going down this road yet again, but no. It's not. It's very different gameplay and design philosophies. And that's okay. It doesn't have to be. Fallout 3 (and the main series from here on in,) is allowed to be it's own thing.

Back on track, something else that's high on my wishlist is that I'd like to see a bit more "character" in my character. The problem with having such a blank slate for which to project your character on (to me) is that alot of times I don't feel all that much of an emotional connection to my on-screen persona. There's a certain 3-dimensionality that is often lacking in an RPG. Bethesda's far from the only culprit here, as well. My character comes off feeling just sort of wooden, like a bad actor in a movie.

There's just no real way to emote my character's possible motivations, here. This is something all RPGs struggle with, and it's not an easily solved problem, either. I don't think it's any inherent characteristic of having an "open" experience, either. Sure, a game is never going to be able to have enough options to take into account every player's motivations for the actions they're taking, but I should think there's some potential compromise, there.

What I'm getting at is that I'd like to see way to add some personality to my character. To be able to build some feelings and motivations into my character, and to have those evolve over the course of the game. That's key in storytelling - the main character shouldn't be the same person they were at the end of the story as they were at the beginning. In Fallout 3, for example, I'm ostensibly on a quest to find my absentee father - how do I feel about that, how does the situation affect me? What's it like for me to leave the safety of the sterile environment I grew up in, to have it replaced by the brutally stark realities of the Wasteland?

I get a couple of dialogue options once or two to say how I feel, but there's no real focus on it. And (for me) not a whole lot of closure in any of those questions. Bioware (who's not really much better at this - I have this same problem with DA:O, for example - and Mass Effect as well, even though they really tried to alleviate this,) would probably have your companions deal with this element. You'd head back to your base of operations after every quest to talk about what it meant to them while leaving it up to the player's imagination how these experiences have affected the player character. The Bioware cast of supporting characters always have lots of depth, and motivation, and are always learning all manner of life lessons; coming through the adventure changed. But the PC is still that same blank slate, for the most part.

I'm not really entirely sure what the ideal solution would be, here. Just adding more dialogue options (ie, "I'm having trouble coping with this trauma," "I'm at this stage of the grief process now," etc) probably isn't going to solve everything. Having the NPCs challenge your character more as to their state of mind and motivations for their actions is maybe a step in the right direction, but it's probably also going to be limiting for the range of characters the player wants to make. Because there's only ever going to be so many options to choose from.

I'd just love to play an RPG where I could connect to my character as a living, breathing, human being. With complex emotions and real motivations for their actions. To be able to construct those motivations and states of mind myself; and to be free to do so, but to have the game allow me to emote those within the game world. It's nice in a Bioware game to have supporting characters with issues they struggle with, who evolve and emote throughout the game. But I'd love for a game company to allow my own PC to take center stage as the main character, instead of needing the secondary characters to bear the brunt of that task.

I actually have the same problem, but mine comes in the form of the radio station music. For some reason Fallout 3 doesn't like ffdshow (which I need for other stuff), and the radio station music stutters and glitches a lot as a result.



I don't see how spoon feeding the player everything is an improvement myself. It's your character; that's why most developers give the PC generic dialogue, so that you can fill in the blanks with whatever you please.

Granted some of what you want has been pulled off quite well before while retaining generic dialogue. The Baldur's Gate saga comes to mind. In BG1 your character had generic dialogue, but it often portrayed him or her as a wide eyed adventurer (which is what he or she was) who could shamelessly say things like "We're a horde of rampaging terrasques, squee squee!" to officers of the law. Now that wasn't the best example as it makes the BG1 PC seem like a smart ass by default which would be a forced personality, but it was optional and not all dialogue was written like that. In Baldur's Gate II the PC came across as more mature after the events of the first game, and his or her dialogue reflected as such.

I could accept something like the BG1-BG2 transition (a PC going from wide eyed to mature), but I'd rather not see the PC receive detailed dialogue explaining how they feel about their situation as that would kill the vision I like to create for my characters.

This is a personal peeve of mine, but it's a hard line to draw. For me, the best solution is either minimal responses for the PC, or many dialogue choices. As you say, the more specific the dialogue choices, the less likely the player will find one that matches, in RP terms, what your PC wqould want to say. There have been instances in all of the fallouts where I couldn't find a proper choice in dialogue.

Recently whilst round a mates house we were playing an old tiger woods golf game on his 360, and my friends suggested I let them make my game face(I think thats what its called. A picture was taken of the front of my face and one from the side, it then had to be left alone for about 20 minutes, and after that a computer generated version of my face was grafted on to my character, the resemblence was uncanny!
I was just thinking it would be well cool if this was added to the new fallout, you would care for your character a lot more anyway.

The original Fallout handled the PC's dialogue rather well I thought. I can't think of any moments where I felt shoe horned into a specific personality with no other options.

I actually only had this particular problem a couple times in Fallout 2, but the only instance that comes to mind is that quest in Redding where you have to evict the old woman because she is behind on her debts. The only good way to resolve that quest is by paying her debt yourself, and coming across as a naive loon by saying "I have no need for money. I am the Chosen One." The character I had in my mind wouldn't say something as ludicrous as that.

Dialogue is something that's near impossible to do perfectly for everyone. Some people want generic responses so they can interpret it to their liking. Others want a specific response to give immediate character or depth to a situation. They're opposites. Fallout 3 gives specific answers, so players don't have to interpret it themselves but can read a specific example of the action/thought/what's being said.

I think it's best for Bethesda to keep to this style. It may not be for everyone, but at least they're being consistent then.

Fallout 3's PC dialogues are generic and undetailed responses. That is I believe nu_clear day's problem with them; he wants them to be more fleshed out.

I find that somewhat odd...
if the character you had in mind wouldn't say something like that but the Chosen One would... the perhaps you didn't have the Chosen One in mind...
I'm all for character customization (and actually I think that was a better example of lazy quest design rather than of limited choice) but at the end of the day, if you're playing a role you have to go with it. I don't know... I sometimes see people complaining about not getting choices that, at best, won't serve the story or at worse would be outright pointless. I even remember someone complaining because in FO1 you don't get the choice to not accept the water-chip quest,but that doesn't make any sense: if you're going to refuse then why play the game? And if you're going to play you have to accept that you're playing a character that cares to find that water-chip.
Well.. if the game is about playing a role, I'm personally more interested at that than making a role. Give an interesting role and I'll play it

Most of the Chosen One's dialogue was pretty generic even in other similar situations. The "I don't need money. I'm the Chosen One" line was merely a setup for a bad joke, but of course bad jokes is how Fallout 2 rolled.

Well, this is the difference between sandbox roleplay and what I would call PROVIDED roleplay. Provided roleplay games give you a character that's predefined and you are supposed to deal with that. Half Life is something like that. The character is predefined for you.

Sandbox roleplay allows for more customization in character design. Players have the room ot play the character in several ways. So, you are The Chosen One. You must be, because the story is about The Chosen One. But is it a he or she, neutral good or chaotic evil, honest or steals, shoots or stabs? A sandbox roleplayer will end up having a framework in which character actions are defined, and a game like this should support the maximum amount of freedom possible. If the game is too rigid, it breaks the character concept and therefore breaks immersion. I have quit good games (PS:T comes to mind here) because they didn't support my concept of what kind of character I wanted.

So, we want to create our own character run with a lose story, and write our own adventure within the game world. Other folks want roles assigned to them. It's a matter of choice, but unfortually, it's difficult to do both within the same game.

That's missing the point. I don't recall suggesting spoonfeeding at any point.

What I'm talking about isn't solely the domain of dialogue trees - the ideal solution probably doesn't even lie in that direction. All I'm saying is this:

For myself, the best way I've always had of describing an RPG to others (and this was more applicable way back in the day when 90% of my peers had no concept of what roleplaying game was,) is that you're directing a movie or television show (or just simply telling a story,) where all of the participants get to be the director, casting agent, and star actor. With current-gen RPGs, we now have the technology to cast an "actor" that looks pretty darn close to every player's ideal. And yet, pretty much without exception, this lead actor has all of the acting ability of a piece of chalk. If the PC is never anything more than a blank slate, then that's what you get - all the charm and appeal of a blank chalkboard.

There quite simply has to be to a way to breath some life into the PC. The more detailed and fleshed-out the supporting cast gets, it only serves to illustrate just how lifeless a character the PC really is. Sure, you're never going to be able to code into a game every single possible choice a player might come up with - even in a tabletop game, the ability of the player to suprise the GM is as old as the medium itself, and quite legendary at this point (the GM's curse, quite literally.) But I don't think you have to, either.

Let's take F3 for an example. The main story is, quite literally, about following in your father's footsteps. There's really only so many possible outlooks on that situation, in regards to the character. The PC's relationship with Liam Neeson during his/her time in the Vault is either going to be a good or bad one - you're either going to be searching for you father out of love and concern, academic curiosity, or to confront him about what an awful father he really is. Ditto if you decide to not search for him. I think, in a meta sense, there's also something to be said for a Vault Dweller coping with the outside world - and again, there's only so many ways you can really approach that, when you get down to it. Sure, there's going to be permutations for each individual player, and I'm not saying you need to have the game fill in every blank.

But without a doubt, I think that if someone could ever come up with a way to allow the PC to emote some of this personality that we're being forced to work so awfully hard at projecting onto this unmolded block of lifeless clay we call a PC - it can only serve to make for a better game. Dialogue really has nothing to do with it. It was probably a mistake for me to even bring that idea up. Whatever the solution, all I want is something that would allow my character to take on a semblance of life without me having to imagine it all. I don't need a videogame to let me make up my own stories, after all. A game like Mass Effect is probably going to go further in this direction than something by Bethesda (and probably at the expense of "player choice," which I'm actually okay with - I'm not buying Mass Effect to roleplay as a Citadel Guard.) But surely there's room for a Beth game to take some steps in that direction at all - and without limiting player choice, as well. You don't need to get all that specific with it, really, to add some emotion to your character.

And on this subject of "open world sandbox RPGS," maybe we'd be better off without any sort of an overarching Main Quest. If the "point" is to be making up your own character, defining their goals, and dictating the terms of your own adventure - doesn't a Main Quest sort of just get in the way of that? Any Bethesda game is quite long and dense enough with just side quests that it's not like you'd end up with too "short" of a game if you just took out an element that really at some point is going to have to railroad you into a linear series of events.

Maybe this sort of RPG would be better off if it simply reacted to your larger choices (things like whether or not you blow up Megaton, etc.) Certain quests could open up/close/alter as you progress and make changes to the game world, certainly.

(Firstly I admit I haven't played Half Life but of what I know about it I don't think it qualifies as an RPG, provided or otherwise)

Also it seems to me that FO3 is pretty much as rigid as any other RPG I've played. There are quests with multiple solutions and all but that's not uncommon. The big difference is that you can do most of these quests in any order you want - and that's also not too uncommon! The one RPG that featured almost complete freedom was Daggerfall, and it achieved that because a) the PC had as much personality as a piece of firewood and b ) all quests where pretty much the same - whether you did a quest for the evil dark brotherhood or for a heroic order of knights you would end up wandering inside a random maze killing random monsters.

Furthermore I'd like to note that when it comes to character's personality development and customization PS:T did the best job I've ever seen: it supported the largest variety of potential personalities - it did that by allowing the player to also define the character's motives as well as allowing the player to lie consciously - to my knowledge no other game has done that in that extend, so I don't see how the Nameless One can possibly be considered predefined and rigid (except if it's about his gender and the color of his hair)... TNO is definitely a far more open and customizable character than the Lone Wanderer or the Chosen One! I have some issues with PS:T (I think the exposition suffers greatly after half way through the game) but when it comes to character development through his dialog choices it has no equal and it should be explored further. If the reason for quitting PS:T was because you felt that the character's personality was preset then you did a mistake and I'd advise you to get back to it when you have the chance. As long as you can accept that you can't change the fact that this guy is a big ugly man (all for a reason) you will find that any other aspect of his is as customizable as plasticine.

So as not to tell me that I'm getting off topic here's a speculation and a suggestion for FO4:
I suggest that in FO4 the character's dialog choices should be more influenced by PS:T (including the ability to lie)
And I speculate that that won't happen



Also
I think it's a mistake to view the character as independent of his environment. I can't consider his personality tabula rasa when I start the game. There should be some constants impossed on hom by the world that he exists within, and the interesting part is to see how I can develop a character that could function well in that world - I don't care to create a dysfunctional 'crazy' character that has absolutely no regard for his surroundings, I want to create a character that should be able to survive in that world and succeed in whatever he was set to do. If the game allows me to make a sociopath and then tells me to go save the poor widows and orphans then the game is lying to me. So if my character can't be evil there's no point in giving me evil dialog choices.
And since I can't realistically expect a game to convincingly cater to all possible choices - good, evil, less good, a little evil, indifferent, total wacko etc. I will either happily accept some limits or alternatively, I'll agree with nu_clear_day that there should be absolutely no Main Quest.

What you're proposing is essentially spoon feeding. The PC appears as emotionless and generic in most western RPGs for a very good reason. The only fairly recent exception is Mass Effect, and I don't think that game really qualifies as an RPG as a result because I didn't have any real control over Shepard's personality and emotion. I wasn't playing a role; I was watching a role be played. You're supposed to be in control of how your character reacts to a situation; if you hand that over to the developers then it's no longer your character, and as such not your role. In Mass Effect I felt like the GM rather than the main character of the story; even BioWare admitted that the player was merely a director as opposed to their previous games where they played out the role of the protagonist.



Mass Effect is a really bad example because as I said before you're not playing a role; you're following and occasionally directing one. What you essentially want it sounds like is to throw away the freedoms of the player to shape their character in favor of a character who shows emotion, and fits a narrow range of personality types because that's essentially what would happen. You can't have it both ways. Not every character would react to their father's death with sadness; some might be happy and some may simply not care, and then you have all of the states in between those extremes. The way the dialogue tree system works is that it (usually) offers generic enough dialogue so that you can interpret how the character thinks and feels yourself.



Planescape: Torment's dialogue was very generic, and seemed to fit most personality types to me. :shrug:



It's not an RPG, but I find it curious as to why Kjarista finds the role so "pre-defined". Gordon Freeman is a complete and utter blank slate; you only ever see his face on box covers, and he never speaks so you can imagine what he looks, sounds and acts like for yourself.

Missing my point, again.

What I said was that Bioware is probably going to be company that takes this concept further, and it's likely going to be at the cost of some degree of player choice, the exact method they end up implementing this concept. I didn't actually feel all that limited in Mass Effect. I'm personally of, I think, the same mind as rebet on this. I'm going to create a character that "fits" within the role imposed by the Main Quest anyway. I'm starting out with what's already a largely predefined character; but there's usually plenty of room for considering the permutations available within that role. In Mass Effect, you're forced to be a Spaceship Captain, but there's a degree of freedom in regards to how you define that concept.

But again, I'm falling into the common forum trap where my original point is getting buried in debate about inconsequential specifics, completely disregarding what I'm actually talking about. I'll just state what I'm talking about again, and leave out any suggestions as to how to accomplish this, so we don't get bogged down in it.

There are two ways to tell a story. You either focus on the action, or the characters (and this is another of those "sliding bar" concepts, and not an either/or sort of thing - most stories are a combination of both, with an emphasis one way or another.) Your typical sci-fi tv show, for example, is going to focus on the action. The spaceship gets into a crazy jam, and every episode is about the ingenious methods by which the crew extricate themselves. There's often a little sideplot going on which adds some depth to one or two of the characters at a time, and they'll emote during the episode and react to the specific problem at hand. Like Stargate, or most of the Star Trek shows. The characters can be very 3-dimensional and interesting; but the show is "about" the action taking place.

Other stories are more concerned with the characters. Something like Firefly or Battlestar Galactica, for example. They'll get themselves into a jam every episode, but the focus is often more on the characters themselves than what's going on, or the ingenious methods of extricating themselves. Look at the subtext of a firefight in any of these shows, for example. In "action" storytelling, the focus is on, well, how "awesome" the main characters are - they can be angry or scared or whatever during the action sequence, but the scene is really about them taking care of a problem. Then look at an action scene in BSG, for example. They're still pretty "awesome" in a firefight, but the emphasis is still on the characters and their emotions - it's not "about" them taking care of a problem, but what the stress of that situation reveals about their inner character.

Without exception, every single RPG I've ever played has been like Stargate. All I'd like to see is someone to try doing something a bit more like BSG. I'm a fan of both tv shows, and I'm not saying every single RPG has to accomplish this concept. But it'd still be neat to see someone try. And I don't see how you couldn't do with while still allowing the player all of the "sandbox" freedoms they're looking for in defining their own character.

I never really missed it; I know what you're getting at. Emotion and dialogue are often one in the same though, and if you want more detailed emotion well... you're going to need more detailed dialogue as well. Anyway I'm sure it does seem like I'm missing the point. I have a habit of going off on seemingly unrelated tangents because that's how I roll.



I'm not saying you should be able to play Mass Effect as an assassin or anything. You are however very much rail roaded in Mass Effect; your only real choice tends to be "Okay is Shepard racist, or tolerant? Does he like to grab collars or resolve situations peacefully?" And you have no real control on how the dialogue plays out because you have no idea what he's going to say until you pick something on the godawful dialogue wheel. What you pick usually only vaguely resembles the final result; if there's any resemblance at all.



I don't really watch much sci-fi; I haven't seen any of the shows you've mentioned. I don't see what's to stop you from picturing your character as "angry" or "scared" during a battle, though. It's not like you ever actually see your character's face in combat; most people don't even play Fallout 3 in third person to begin with.



I don't think sandbox RPGs even exist; you're always restricted by something whether it's gameplay mechanics, or story.

Ok, I'm a weirdo... That dialog wheel might have been the only thing I really liked in the very few hours I played that game: I found it pretty fun clicking on a choice and seeing how Shephard was going to phrase it.

I actually think that it could be very interesting if the hero's tone was defined by the player's choices in such a dialog system: ie. if you spend your time being evil you still get the same dialog choices as when you are good, but the hero would phrase it in a different - distinctly eviler way...



No man! Star Trek is about Spock!

:D

Well, obviously. The game world provides the physics...provides the rules, and provides some requirements. In FO3, you are from a vault. Drinking out of a toilet is bad. A shotgun is good. etc. Now, on top of all of that, we could either create a story that takes you all the way through the game, in similar fashion as the starter quest...you will do this, then this, then this, then this, with a few dialogue options that really don't change much... or you can drop a character into the world and have the player do whatever they want. What we got was a combination of the two extremes: A sandbox game with a very linear and basically very limited opportunity to make decisions with consequences. To me, a sandbox player, the main quest, and to lesser extent, the side quests as well, just get in the way of my sandbox play.

Then on top of that is the question of how the choices of the player changes the environment, and how dialogue changes the environment, and how stats change the gameplay.

Again, the more the game is scripted, the less room there is to customize a character. In PS:T, you wre a male with tattoos. I could never get into that: It was too restricted. I more enjoyed Arcanium, Ultima 7, and the first Fallout....all of which provided me with plenty of character customization, world changing consequences to dialogue and stat choices, and sufficiently sandbox to feel like Iw as making the choices where to go.

So, what do I want? I want a sandbox game...an extension to Fallout3, with a greater opportunity to change the world by impacting it with my character's actions. I don't need quest, although I won't argue that there shouldn't be any. I'd like to see more dialogue choices...choices that change outcomes, and actions that change the world view of my character.

I'd like for Bethesda to adjust the aiming on the consoles. After playing Borderlands, it's [censored]in' hard to readjust to Fallout 3's slow-as-hell aiming.

Because that's work. That's an investment that I, as a player, have to put into the game. Considering that the entire point of playing an RPG on a computer or console is to take as much effort off of the player's shoulders as possible, I tend to find it rather selfish that I'd get the additional burden of "imagining" what my character is actually doing. Myself, I'm an artist (not a particularly good one, or very successful at it, but nonetheless...) When I have the great urge to play make-believe and do all of the work on my own, I can write a story or draw a picture. I don't see why I should have to go through all of that trouble in an videogame RPG, however.

Back in the day when visual fidelity was rather low, and the genre was in it's infancy, this was something that could be forgiven. Nowadays, however, we live in the 21st century. I don't see how there's quite frankly any excuse for myself putting all the effort into picking my character's starting stats, getting a basic concept of the character in my head, painstakingly creating the face with enough sliders and options to come up with pretty much whatever I want - only to get an end result with as much personality as Chrono from Chrono Trigger (who, for anyone who's never played it, never had a single line of dialogue in the entire game - he was like a Hello Kitty doll, you projected your own persona onto a blank slate.)

If we're going to go with the "leave everything totally bland and generic so that the player can fill in all the blanks," then we probably shouldn't even have dialogue trees. At least nothing more than, well, Mass Effect's system where you're only picking from the gist of where you want the conversation to go (and then not having the PC recite any lines at all, and relying on the NPC's responses to provide context.) And I'd be fine with that in the next Fallout game. Dialogue trees are really just primarily info dumps, anyway - we can find other means of characterizing our avatars.

Frankly, I don't see what would be wrong with, instead of picking exact dialogue responses, going the way of the old Starflight games where you picked between emotions to convey to the NPCs. You're going to end up with the same info anyway, so why not simply decide which emotion to convey during interactions with NPCs? You could have quite a few, most likey, and combine them during a discussion for rather intricate results. If we're going to leave anything up to the "imagination" of the player, then we're probably better off imagining exactly what the PC is saying; and instead focusing more on how they're emoting those responses.