Redefining talking systems in RPGs

Hello there!
I've done quite a bit of thinking about incorporating talking systems into RPGs, because a lot of them involve killing others for EXP.

Preface

There was an Extra Credits video that I encountered a while ago, where they talked about making non-combat in video games as fun as combat. It was uploaded well before Undertale came out.

Undertale was the game that first intruded me to this concept, but it certainly was not the first game that had this concept, as there were games like Shin Megami Tensei which it got the idea from in the first place. I thought of making a game similar to Undertale not long after it came out, but I didn't feel like I could do anything original with the formula. I thought of putting a talking system into a game version of my book 'Evermoral' but the game never came into fruition, partly because of low experience at the time.

That was until 2017 when I came across "Jojo's Bizarre adventure" on the SNES based on a manga of the same name, where you can go through the whole game without killing a single person thanks to the 'talk' option. Admittedly the gameplay was fairly simple and bland where the talking system was not any different from killing. But it made me think that perhaps talking systems could be like combat except without violence, hence I started to think about talking systems in RPGs again.

The way talking systems functioned in the Shin Megami Tensei games (including Persona 2 and 5) was that it was used for recruiting demons and also avoiding combat which frankly I think is far more ethical, interesting and less tedious than trying to catch that particular rare legendary Pokémon by lowering its health and then wasting 100+ Ultra-balls to catch it.

With that being said, I think that the talking system in the Megaten games though important, are a small slice of the game-play pie. You can't talk your way out of a boss battle; you need to deal with them with violence. I think these games utilize the talking system far better than Undertale (or its successor Deltarune - though it is too early to say for the latter), you'll learn why in the next section.

Unrealistically talking smart

Talking systems in games like Undertale and Deltarune are rather simple. They sound innovate on paper, but in practice, in my play-through of both of these games, especially Delatarune's first chapter (in which I didn't even get a game over at all) sparing an enemy was no more complicated than killing it. It involved a lot of routine tasks like spamming 'Spare' or pressing one option that allows you to spare them a turn after.

This is one of the reasons I think these games (at least game-play wise) are pretty overrated and hyped. Not to say that these games don't have their merits, they certainly do but that's besides the point of this post.

A challenge one can get into when developing a talking system for an RPG using Undertale/Deltarune's foundation is that the 'act' options are very context-sensitive: For each enemy there is a specific set of actions you need do which gets quite easy if you know the pattern. These patterns can be mastered pretty quickly.

Since these 'act' moves do not use any kind of stats, it makes the RPG aspect of these games moot. Undertale might as well as be a visual novel with some RPG elements and a Touhou-style dodging system. There also isn't really any reward if you spare the enemy other than some money which can't be used to buy anything useful (given that you are going on a no-damage run).

Neither is killing an enemy, there is very little point to leveling up in Undertale, the late bosses can't even 1 hit kill you - even if you are level 1. I presume that this is to make the game possible for pacifist players but I can imagine ways to make leveling up important for pacifist game-play regardless, more on that later.

That's enough of me critiquing Undertale/Deltarune. I'll move on to Persona 2 and 5.

You can also spare enemies in Persona 5 and 2, with the former involving you putting the enemies down in order to get a "Hold up!" where you can either do an all-out attack where every active party member attacks the enemy or you can negotiate with them in traditional Megaten fashion, where you have dialogue choices and you need to choose the right one to have them join you, give money or items.

In Persona 2 you don't need to put enemies down, there is an option called "Contact" where you can negotiate with them. The interesting thing about Persona 2's system is that you can make the enemy happy, eager, scared or angry depending on your actions. If you anger them they will go fully hostile on you and you have no other choice but to deal with them the traditional way. Another interesting aspect is that you can use any party member you like to do the talking or use multiple at a time. Each party member will have their own actions which will stay the same regardless of specific enemy, but each enemy reacts differently to them.

This is easier to implement in the game than if one were to cater every single character's actions to each individual enemy. The gameplay would feel more organic and not feel like it is scripted. If you fully entice or make them happy, they can give you money or other cool things.

This kind of negotiation system is quite interesting as it offers a good amount of challenge. But this gameplay alone would not make use of the other character's stats let alone be a good way of making the game challenging. Fortunately, looking at the Jojo I mentioned in the beginning there is a way to make the talking system as fun as the combat without compromising stats.

What I will suggest would also make sense even from a combat perspective.

Unorthodox way of beating bosses

When I was trying to beat the Hell Biker boss from 'Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's call/ Nocturne', I constantly got my head handed to me. The boss had moves like "Hell Exhaust" which not only damages the entire party, but also cancels any buffs that my party had. If that wasn't enough, the biker would use "Hell throttle" which would increase the number of times he can attack per turn - easily obliterating my party within a turn, the biker would also cancel out any stat de-buffs that my party inflicted on him with "Dekunda".

At that point I looked up the Hell Biker's stats on the Megaten wiki and found out exactly how much MP he had (stuff used for moves). So I decided to do something ingenious and have the main character and another party member that knows a skill that can drain the bosses' MP and use the other characters to pass to give the MP draining characters more turns.

So I kept draining the biker's MP until it was 0. At that point, he still used those moves but there was a key difference: He did not have sufficient MP to execute them. He was almost helpless, he could not use the hell throttle, exhaust or dekunda.

Although, his melee attacks were still pretty strong, but I could easily offset those with some agility buffs to make it so that the biker misses more. With ease my party defeated him, that was it.

What I can draw from this is that if an enemy's MP, SP or whatever variable is used for stronger skills is depleted, they are pretty much useless. They can barely do anything other than the moves that consume HP or melee attacks - essentially snapping the whole battle in half.

I thought that perhaps this can be a good way of stopping an enemy in battle because if they have no MP, they are almost useless. Using the inspiration from Jojo, I thought of a smart way of how a talking system could be created.

War of words

As I said with my criticisms of Undertale/Deltarune's deconstruction of leveling up, even if you don't plan on killing any enemies, leveling up is still important. Talking and negotiation is a skill, not just consisted of simple patterns to impress someone and then the battle is over.

It involves a lot of failure and practicing, much like in real life. This is why I think that talking systems in RPGs should be something more than just picking a bunch of choices.

My idea of putting talking systems in RPGs is a rather simple one - make it like using elemental moves except with talking instead of fighting.

Since MP (or equivalent) is important to executing strong attacks, perhaps the talking system could lower MP. The enemy, once their MP is exhausted, could eventually be so 'tired' that they give up and you gain the opportunity to spare them. But you may argue, "This is no different than killing them" - and you might be right. Fortunately I have another trick inspired from Lucifer's call.

If there are large sums of enemies, they will reprimand you if you talk to a fellow member, in LC you would need to kill most of the opposing party in order to talk to the demon you would like to.

With my system however, you would need to lower all the enemies' MP or kill them if you want them to not block your sparing. These allies would also be covering a member with 0 MP by restoring it, so you would need to be careful if you are locking on to one enemy and trying to spare them right away.

Another way to separate lowering MP from lowering HP is that the character with the lowered MP can get below 0. They can still fight or talk but they can't use any skill moves. Furthermore, the character with SP below 0 sometimes waste turns, similar to the mother series when enemies or non-playable party members waste turns, trying to pay off  'Stamina debt' (a bit like anaerobic respiration when the muscles aren't getting enough oxygen).

If players choose to defeat the enemy, lowered MP can be very advantageous to defeating the enemies much like what I mentioned with the Hell Biker boss. Perhaps to counter this, the AI could be more defensive, relying on their friends to restore the MP, as I have mentioned before, use talk moves on the players to make it harder for them to use any powerful moves on them, or a melee attack.

Conclusion

Since I don't see talking systems like this in a lot of RPGs (or at all!), I thought it would be a good idea to propose my own idea of what a good talking system would be composed of without trying to sacrifice what makes the depth of combat so interesting in the first place.

In other news I'll make a blog post about Bounty Hutner III, since I haven't posted about that game in ages. Don't worry! It's still in development, I haven't canceled it. It's going to compose of screenshots rather than a lot of text, because I believe pictures can explain what thousands of words can.

That's all from me!