» Tue May 03, 2011 1:49 am
Well, ideally, none of the above; but if pressed... Like it was in Oblivion (not that I liked it much, but I understood the reasoning behind it, and it kind of/ sort of worked).
How do you do this realistically? (Depict random custom small talk in a non-repetitive way).
Oblivion does it by making it an abstraction though a minigame. The options represent verbal tactics instead of what would actually be said, the NPC gives their reaction, and their personality affects what tactics work on them.
I loathe skill thresholds (as seen in FO3 & FO:NV); I understand the reasoning there too, but it doesn't concern me, and the trade off is not worth it IMO. All that matters (to me) about is that it the PC magically becomes perfect above a certain difficulty, and is not subject to any unique situational details ~like the NPC being in a bad mood, or having a head ache and a lack of patience.
*Slightly related... consider the lock pick threshold, and how that plays out in a hotel... a hallway of doors with identical locks; yet each lock should have seen a unique amount of abuse over time. Yet the PC that meets the threshold would be able to open them all ~even the rusty one, and the one that one guest took apart. These kind of [invented] details are what the weighted chance method of skill checks imply.
*From a dev's perspective (some anyway), the 'chance method' only means that some players will surely reload until they succeed, and thresholds fix that ~role playing be damned.
For the record, I don't see anything wrong with repeated attempts until success (just not the reload part; In Fallout the locks could break/jam). Provided they have the time [in-game], and the tools ~why not? I opened a combination lock at age six [virtually blindfolded] by just spinning it randomly for a minute ~it happens.
Since I voted Other: My preference would be just as RPG's have done it for decades... and how Fallout did it (the original).