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[Blessed Silence]

What's a Paladin?

For those that don't get this, if you played the Ultima games your character becomes a paladin

Then in Ultima 9, that same person who has been a paladin and the Avatar, actually asks a person "What's a paladin?"

Look up Noah Antwiler on You Tube and look through his Ultima Retrospective playlist

OT though, I can see what the OP is getting at. I like to click every dialogue option I can, and not all seem apparent what they are going to have the protagonist say.

But I also look at it from an RP/ my character's POV. If they are not a Qunari, of course they will ask what one is. Maybe they never had contact with one

[DuckTheSecond]

Where did we ever have a character teach our character the basics of fighting. If I remember correctly, our protagonist has always been seen as a prodigy.

 

And those questions, most of the time you're not forced to ask them. And sometimes a question like: "why do templars need lyrium" is plausible for my character (even if I personally now the answer).

[Ennai and 54 others]

 I remember trying to avoid asking obvious questions during my mage origin(phylacteries? What is that room over their? What do Templars do? What are darkspawn? What are rods of fire used for? Tevinter? Apostates?).

 

I may as well have complained that my character starts at level 1 and only knows 3 spells/abilities even though they have been training for possibly a decade.*shrugs*

 

 I like that cunning modified the dialogue options in DAO, there were opportunities to demonstrate your characters intelligence .

 

When the cunning mage warden was trying to get the rod of fire form signed by that dark skinned senior enchanter she mentioned  how she needed the plants at a "constant temperature in order to isolate the active reagents." This is only available to mages wth high cunning ,you can even avoid answering the sloth demons riddles with dialogue options that only appeared if you had a certain amount of the cunning stat.

 

There is an instance where the warden says that s/he remembers hearing that qunari are called "the warmongers of the north" during the first conversation with sten.

with enough cunning the warden can be the one to suggest using the treaties at the end of the prelude .You can also say "believed or not,somethings must be accepted" when initially questioned by Flemeth.

 

Sometimes the options would be specialized .During Wardens keep the human noble warden knows who the drydens are ,the mage warden can explain what the veil is and can also explain to levi that wardens must be politically neutral(except when there is a blight).

Mage Hawke can even explain things about the veil and demons to mundanes (when there are no other mages in the party) or identify a hunger demon in the deep roads.

 

 

The pc should simply have more opportunities to demonstrate that they know their specific stuff, that they are still intelligent even though they ask the strangest questions sometimes.

[MisterJB]

DAO did it well, I think.

If your character's Cunning was high enough, then you would have extra dialogue options that reflect your knowledge.

[Nashimura]

Those questions are crucial for a first-time player, and can be avoided the second time around. What's the problem?

 

Sure, but they can be voiced differently... so if its something the protagonist should know, he is explaining what lyrium is. For the players benefit, but still looking like he knows what he is talking about. 

 

Replaying DA:O there are many moments where the npc will even say "My god man!!! Have you been living under a rock???" when asking these types of questions, thats not needed. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

Yep. There's a WORLD of difference between:

NPC: "It all derives from the Elven magics . . ."
PC: "There are Elven magics?!?!"
NPC: "Yes, from ancient Arlathan."

and

NPC: "It all derives from the Elven magics . . ."
PC: "You mean, from Arlathan?"
NPC: "They used them to shape the landscape . . ."

Exactly the same exposition. The first one makes the PC look like Derpy McDerpstein. The second one makes it look like the PC might actually have paid attention in class.

And neither one should be forced on us. We should be able to play a character who knows things, or a character who doesn't, or a character who does but wants to pretend he doesn't.

[Dabrikishaw]

And neither one should be forced on us. We should be able to play a character who knows things, or a character who doesn't, or a character who does but wants to pretend he doesn't.

Are you being unreasonable again?

[Patchwork]

How high does the cunning stat need to be to unlock those dialogue options? 

 

 

Sure, but they can be voiced differently... so if its something the protagonist should know, he is explaining what lyrium is. For the players benefit, but still looking like he knows what he is talking about. 

 

Replaying DA:O there are many moments where the npc will even say "My god man!!! Have you been living under a rock???" when asking these types of questions, thats not needed. 

 

 

A lot of the Info For The Player dialogue options are just poorly worded. There's a Skyrim mod that let's you "speak" like a khajiit but it also alters info dialogue so you don't sound like a moron. 

 

Those types of questions are needed in a game, everyone has a first run, but they don't need to be so awkward and out of place. 

[efrgfhnm_]

As far as these sorts of things go, Gears of War 2 actually did a good job. The two main characters could either help train a rookie, introducing him to both gameplay and story elements a first time player would need to know, or could skip the tutorial and head straight into the action.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Are you being unreasonable again?

I'm being perfectly reasonable. I want to design my character, and I would rather the game's interface not get in the way of that.

In this respect, the best dialogue system was a keyword system like the classic Ultima games, or Morrowind. All you did there was choose the topic, but how you asked or what background knowledge you assumed was entirely up to you.

I want people to be aware of the roleplaying costs of these more detailed systems.

[Fishy]

 I remember trying to avoid asking obvious questions during my mage origin(phylacteries? What is that room over their? What do Templars do? What are darkspawn? What are rods of fire used for? Tevinter? Apostates?).

 

I may as well have complained that my character starts at level 1 and only knows 3 spells/abilities even though they have been training for possibly a decade.*shrugs*

 

 I like that cunning modified the dialogue options in DAO, there were opportunities to demonstrate your characters intelligence .

 

When the cunning mage warden was trying to get the rod of fire form signed by that dark skinned senior enchanter she mentioned  how she needed the plants at a "constant temperature in order to isolate the active reagents." This is only available to mages wth high cunning ,you can even avoid answering the sloth demons riddles with dialogue options that only appeared if you had a certain amount of the cunning stat.

 

There is an instance where the warden says that s/he remembers hearing that qunari are called "the warmongers of the north" during the first conversation with sten.

with enough cunning the warden can be the one to suggest using the treaties at the end of the prelude .You can also say "believed or not,somethings must be accepted" when initially questioned by Flemeth.

 

Sometimes the options would be specialized .During Wardens keep the human noble warden knows who the drydens are ,the mage warden can explain what the veil is and can also explain to levi that wardens must be politically neutral(except when there is a blight).

Mage Hawke can even explain things about the veil and demons to mundanes (when there are no other mages in the party) or identify a hunger demon in the deep roads.

 

 

The pc should simply have more opportunities to demonstrate that they know their specific stuff, that they are still intelligent even though they ask the strangest questions sometimes.

 

That something I greatly miss from NWN 2. You had intelligence/Wisdom/Spellcraft/Magery/Cunning/Intimidation/Persuasion check. So if you played a Drow Wizard with high spellcraft/intelligence you could actually had some ''clever'' discussion with other mage. If you played a dumb barbarian with - int. You could barely speak and everyone would make fun of you ;p.

[Maria Caliban]

On the other hand, I don't like my character knowing things I don't know.

"While I enjoyed the jumping and puzzles, this 'Mario' fellow knows how to install a drainage system while I do not, removing much of the fun of the game."

"As much as I enjoyed hacking monsters to bits, Geralt seems to be an expert swordsman as well as a skilled lover of women, two abilities I am ignorant of. Immersion ruined!"

[Rawgrim]

That something I greatly miss from NWN 2. You had intelligence/Wisdom/Spellcraft/Magery/Cunning/Intimidation/Persuasion check. So if you played a Drow Wizard with high spellcraft/intelligence you could actually had some ''clever'' discussion with other mage. If you played a dumb barbarian with - int. You could barely speak and everyone would make fun of you ;p.

 

Stuff like this is almost gone from "rpgs" these days. The newer games seem to be all about leveling up "ways to kill enemies", and nothing outside of combat.

[Sarcastic Tasha]

Can asari reproduce with each other?

 

This is one of my favourite stupid question Shep can ask. Honestly I think this question was intended as a stupid question. The way Liara answers: "Think about it Shepard, how would we have managed before we invented space travel? Its a good job your pretty because your as thick as..." Not the exact quote but close enough.

 

To be fair you don't have to ask that question. Both because you don't need to be from 2183 (if I'm getting my fictional dates right) to know the answer and because you're not forced into either asking the question or being rude.

[Maria Caliban]

How high does the cunning stat need to be to unlock those dialogue options?

In DA:I, as far as we know, it's not based on cunning but on the various dialogue skills.

[Il Divo]

That's kind of a funny comparison since Mario is almost always a (truly) silent protagonist, and part of the reason for that is immersion.

 

But fair enough from the way I phrased it, I'm not saying I want them to be completely dense about obvious things. But the more these bits of knowledge come up, the more they become more of a set protagonist like Geralt or Mario I guess lol.

 

 

I would disagree with that. I can understand the desire of variety, but if something is common knowledge, I don't really think it forces your character to be "set" in any meaningful sense.

 

Someone used the car example earlier. Bioware's KotOR is another perfect example. The player isn't allowed to inquire regarding the nature of spaceships or what a lightsaber is (far as I remember), because it's regarded as exceptionally common knowledge. Personally, I think it "sets" my protagonist as much as the stipulation that all my characters are required to have two arms and legs, which is to say very little. 

[Milan92]

 

"As much as I enjoyed hacking monsters to bits, Geralt seems to be an expert swordsman as well as a skilled lover of women, two abilities I am ignorant of. Immersion ruined!"

 

I lol'd.

[Patchwork]

In DA:I, as far as we know, it's not based on cunning but on the various dialogue skills.

 

I meant in DAO, sorry the wording wasn't clear. I got the "believed or not some things must be accepted" dialogue once with Flemeth and always wondered why I never got it again.

[Nukekitten]

Then this person is either in a mental state (which of course doesn't make them idiots) or joking with you.

If there's limitation of knowledge then that's why this person is asking, to gain more knowledge and not with questions like "what's a car", which i assure you there's no person that would ask this kind of question since one of the first things a human sees in this modern nation is a car since it's part of it. People usually will asks things that haven't been said in schools or not often discussed in general.

And no, this can't reveal you as an idiot. Just someone who has little knowledge on this matter.

People just love to offend someone by calling them an idiot for not knowing something. Which this, in my opinion, makes you an idiot for the offense. (this is not directed to you of course )

Well, there are a couple of things there, that I mentioned in passing in my previous post:

Given a context, what are:
- The limitations of your knowledge?
- The accuracy of your guesses?

We wouldn't expect someone who doesn't deal with computers or mathematics to know about big O notation, and not doing so hardly makes one an idiot. We might expect them to be able to make guesses about how it functions, given a basic education, and not being able to do so may indicate they're not the brightest cookie in the room, but again it doesn't make them an idiot.

In other cases it's less excusable. I'm reminded of Tina Farrell (23 at the time) who was playing a scratch card game and, upon finding out she hadn't won, said:
 

"On one of my cards it said I had to find temperatures lower than -8. The numbers I uncovered were -6 and -7 so I thought I had won, and so did the woman in the shop. But when she scanned the card the machine said I hadn't.

I phoned Camelot and they fobbed me off with some story that -6 is higher, not lower, than -8, but I'm not having it."

Source: http://www.mancheste...nfusion-1009701

That woman simply does not understand some very basic maths - and it's not particularly plausible that she was denied the opportunity to gain it. We have a state education system - negative numbers are a subject that was, when I was in school, covered when we were six or seven-ish IIRC.

Of course we can make excuses, maybe she had terrible teachers, maybe she's never had to use any maths outside of school and never had any interests to which it's relevant, maybe she had terrible parents... maybe she's not actually as ignorant in that regard as she's appearing and is just trying it on in the hope that people will say she's won anyway. But we've started the reaching game there and in any case, with the exception of the last, they deal more with why she is a certain way than that she is or isn't.

And it's not as if she's particularly abnormal.
 

More than 15m adults in Britain have poor numeracy - the equivalent of a G or below at GCSE maths

(Same source as earlier)

Though one would hope that a G at least means they get negative numbers.

... And now I feel mean because I came up with a ridiculous example rather than a real life one to avoid picking on anyone

----

All that said, I don't particularly like the sense that tends to go along with the idea that someone is an idiot: That it's some basic quality about their brains. It's not usually a helpful generalisation of things like interest, experience, opportunity and capability.

Relating this back to the original point, however, the concept that seems to be being forwarded in this thread is, under a slightly stronger interpretation, that it's not a desirable thing to appear to be someone who doesn't have an interest in the world around them and to have the basic capability to pursue those interests.

If you assume that someone does have interests and the ability and opportunity to go after them, then there are certain classes of question that they wouldn't be liable to ask in the manner given. They're not going to be ignorant of, at least the basics of, important themes in their world. They'd have wondered long before and found answers long before, (i.e. the context of the question would be different.)

It is plausible that some dirt-scrubbing peasant in medieval-land, or a slave or what have you, has never had any particular chance to pursue an education. However, I don't know how much of that would be true for any of the Warden backgrounds because the Warden is fairly good at fighting, and getting good at fighting requires significant time not spent struggling for food to survive (i.e. it requires a certain degree of wealth) or for your survival to be more directly tied to fighting (i.e. it's your profession in some form or another.) I could believe it for the Dwarven Commoner background I guess.

[Sasie]

This always annoys me to no end when I replay games I love. It's just horribly annoying since at times 2/3 dialog options will be asking dumb questions. However one solution to this could be a Fallout 3 like origin and start of us as a child and play though a few highlights of growing up.

It's a good way to introduce a world and a child could be forgiven for not knowing what lyrium is. If that's too much effort they could simply use their codex to give us the information we need to know. Of course people would most likely complain that they would have to read through several pages of lore to understand what's going on though.

Also there is my favorite option of doing it Kotor 2 style. Simply make our character know more then we do and give us dialog options that act accordingly. Takes a while to catch up at what's going on but at least it's rewarding to have a character that feels like it belongs in the universe instead of a self-insert.