769 réponses à ce sujet

[In Exile]

That's a great example. Your character could just be snarky, of maybe he really does think so little of his servants that he will casually threaten to have them killed.

A different reading of that line can change it a lot. That's something the silent protagonist gives us. When the voiced protagonist gives us the same, then I will entertain the suggestion that it is adequate.

In your example, I'm just working from your description of it. Human Noble is the origin I've played the least.

It's an awful example. Because a line delivered as a threat to execute a servant when you have the power to do it is so alien to a playful and smartass joke that there is no conceivable world where you get the same reaction. Apart from the general context of the Cousland's dialogue on how they treat their servants, this kind of unbridled violence is not at all like a joke.

[SKAR]

No way we are going back to a silent protagonist, especially for mass effect.

I cannot stand silent protagonist, I actually start to gave a **** about my main character in fallout 4 because finally he was not an empty shell like in the previous fallout he was a real character. It is actually what made me buy the game earlier (well one of the reason) because if not, the story would not have been as exciting as it was.

Damn good point.

[Larry-3]

I do not mind my character speaking. I would like some voice editing options in the creation screen, though.

[AlanC9]

Of course you can. You compartmentalize.

Do you always metagame whenever possible, because you just can't help yourself? Of course not.

Compartmentalization is the basis of every thought experiment ever. Compartmentalization is required for every investigation of a hypothetical. Every method actor compartmentalizes.

Pretending to believe something for a moment is not the same as actually believing it. Sure, I can put together a chain of b.s. to rationalize the NPC's reaction to the fake PC tone. What does lying to myself about how the NPC reacted gain me, though? I know it's not actually what happened.

But even more importantly, why would you choose to perceive it in the first place? I was quite annoyed when someone pointed out that the dialogue options in KotOR were nearly always sorted the same way. It was easier to play the game when I didn't know that, sure, but I still manage. And learning how to ignore the order even after I knew about it turned out to be good practice for the dialogue wheel, where I ignore both position and tone icons.

You think I have a choice about perceiving it? When someone sings off-key, I can pretend that I didn't hear it, but that doesn't mean that I didn't.

[In Exile]

And to put it differently, why stop at tone? The same logic used to justify inventing tone can be used to justify anything - including Duncan surviving Ostagar and the Warden actually being a shape-shifting alien from Zacxlabroz 23, looking for a warm habitat to lay its eggs.

As for how you justify Duncan surviving - same type of headcanon. Alistair talks about Duncan being dead? He's just been unhinged by the ordeal. Duncan is the one that delivers most of the lines and the HOF is in the background - you just "imagine" him speaking. He's too injured to take part in fights.

[straykat]

And to put it differently, why stop at tone? The same logic used to justify inventing tone can be used to justify anything - including Duncan surviving Ostagar and the Warden actually being a shape-shifting alien from Zacxlabroz 23, looking for a warm habitat to lay its eggs.

As for how you justify Duncan surviving - same type of headcanon. Alistair talks about Duncan being dead? He's just been unhinged by the ordeal. Duncan is the one that delivers most of the lines and the HOF is in the background - you just "imagine" him speaking. He's too injured to take part in fights.

 

Damn, I'm out of likes again..

 

If it's gotten to this point, you may as well write your own stuff.. or create your own games if you can. Cut out the middle man.

[Sylvius the Mad]

The only leap of logic here is your own in saying that because we can't know the mind of another person that means they're completely unpredictable.

If they're unpredictable at all, that gives us the space we need to control tone.

We're only unable to control tone if we insist that people be 100% predictable.

You're arguing against decades of scientific research and evidence on this one. You might as well argue that gravity doesn't exist, which you can believe all you want but you're still stuck on this planet.

If you're referring to psychology, no I'm not.

The fact is that you've already admitted to not understanding Human behaviour and no longer trying to understand it, which means that any argument about it that you make is going to be applicable to you and only you.

So that doesn't defeat my original argument: Being able to choose tone of voice isn't a benefit of silent protagonists. It's just easier to say that than to add "Unless you're Sylvius" or "for the vast majority of people" at the end of it every single time I type it, so I'm not going to do that.

It's a benefit if the player chooses to make it a benefit. Every player that chooses otherwise is responsible for his own lack of control over tone.

[Sylvius the Mad]

And to put it differently, why stop at tone? The same logic used to justify inventing tone can be used to justify anything - including Duncan surviving Ostagar and the Warden actually being a shape-shifting alien from Zacxlabroz 23, looking for a warm habitat to lay its eggs.

As for how you justify Duncan surviving - same type of headcanon. Alistair talks about Duncan being dead? He's just been unhinged by the ordeal. Duncan is the one that delivers most of the lines and the HOF is in the background - you just "imagine" him speaking. He's too injured to take part in fights.

This is exactly correct.

Anything not made impossible by explicit on-screen content is available for us to headcanon.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Convenient how you deny the existence of implication until it suits your needs.

There's an unfortunate lexical gap, there. Implicit covers both things that aren't there at all (and the listener just made up) and things that are logically guaranteed by the explicit content but not actually in the explicit content.

Those are two very different things, and there ahould be two different words for them, but (as far as I know) there is not.

When I deny implication, I refer only to the former. In this case, I refer to the latter.

Regardless, I've explained to you time and again: people may not be inconsistent, but they may seem inconsistent. People form conceptions of others by aggregating perceived behavior. We then attempt to integrate every new piece of observed behavior back into that conception. For behavior that doesn't fit the pattern we formed, we attempt to find a reason for it (i.e. a gun to their head), and any unexplained behavior that remains will appear inconsistent.

Exactly. That's something the observer does. He doesn't have to.

But the Turing Test doesn't exist to prove that a machine seems human to Sylvius the Mad, it exists to prove that a machine seems human to people. What BioWare have to do is make a character that seems human to most people.

Sometimes I'm asked why I deny the existence of groups.

This is why.

So? You of all people should know that you can't generalize your opinions to the entire population, especially those regarding human behavior.

And yet that's exactly what you're doing when you're leaping to conclusions about how other people's minds work.

There is no leap. I form my conception of another, and any behavior I can't reasonably integrate into that conception, seems inconsistent. That you can't sympathize with my perspective is unfortunate but irrelevant. All I have to do is prove that many people are irked by perceived inconsistencies produced by inventing tone. By the size of your opposition, I'd say that I've done that

You're completely ignoring the possibility of error in your original conception. This creates compounding errors going forward. You're virtually guaranteed to be wrong eventually.

I thought a good RPG didn't require any player skill.

A good RPG doesn't.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It's an awful example. Because a line delivered as a threat to execute a servant when you have the power to do it is so alien to a playful and smartass joke that there is no conceivable world where you get the same reaction. Apart from the general context of the Cousland's dialogue on how they treat their servants, this kind of unbridled violence is not at all like a joke.

You wouldn't get the same reaction from the same person with the same background, but there's no reason to believe that it is the same person with the same background across playthroughs.

In the playthrough in which you make the threat, perhaps the servants are so scared of you that they play along out of fear. In the playthrough where you are snarky, the servants could have a playful relationship with you.

If it hasn't been established in this playthrough, then it isn't necessarily true in this playthrough. Each playthrough gets to be its own bubble universe. That's part of what makes the game so replayable; you get to meet and get to know each NPC again each time, because they're not necessarily the same.

[Cyonan]

If they're unpredictable at all, that gives us the space we need to control tone.

We're only unable to control tone if we insist that people be 100% predictable.

 

When a NPC approaches 0% predictability then they no longer seem Human. This is what happens when you assume random tones of voice with NPCs in Origins.

 

You already admitted to not understanding Human behaviour, so your point is questionable at best. It would be like me admitting I don't understand accounting and then proceeding to tell somebody how to balance the books for their business.

 

Why the hell would they listen to me after I just admitted that I don't know what I'm talking about?

 

It's a benefit if the player chooses to make it a benefit. Every player that chooses otherwise is responsible for his own lack of control over tone.

 

You're completely wrong on this one.

 

When I assume random tones of voice I notice that characters are too unpredictable for normal Human behaviour and that hurts the overall RP and story telling in the game for me. If I don't feel like my character is interacting with actual people, then it doesn't feel like good RP.

 

I can no more change that than I can change the fact that I like oranges. I can pretend to have changed those things, but that would just be lying to myself about it which isn't going to result in me enjoying the game more. I'm still going to notice characters not acting like Humans, and I'm still going to like oranges.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Pretending to believe something for a moment is not the same as actually believing it.

Actually believing something is idiotic. It adds nothing to your understanding of the world, and it creates future confirmation bias.

Everything you do relies on assumptions. You might believe some of them to he true, but they're still assumptions. Being aware that they're assumptions allows you to swap them out to see where else the reasoning might then lesd without any loss of veracity.

Sure, I can put together a chain of b.s. to rationalize the NPC's reaction to the fake PC tone. What does lying to myself about how the NPC reacted gain me, though? I know it's not actually what happened.

What did actually happen? On what assumptions does that conclusion rely? What happens if you change them?

You're only lying to yourself when you believe.

You think I have a choice about perceiving it? When someone sings off-key, I can pretend that I didn't hear it, but that doesn't mean that I didn't.

You have a choice about the standard of evidence you use when you intepret it.

When someone sings off-key, was it a mistake, or is the singer just really into '70s prog rock and she's trying something? Or any other possible explanation?

You can't control what you see. You can control what it means to you.

[Sylvius the Mad]

When a NPC approaches 0% predictability then they no longer seem Human. This is what happens when you assume random tones of voice with NPCs in Origins.

Why are you assuming random tones? Are you actively trying to ruin the experience?

If you assume tones that makes sense for your character under those circumstances, and those are the same circumstances the NPC is experiencing, while the motives might be wildly different the reactions don't seem to me to be a problem.

Yes, if I assumed my character was always shrieking her lines at everyone, or sobbing through them, that would make things harder to reconcile and push that predictabilty closer to 0%. But the predictability is never 100%, so we can live in that gap.

And that's what I do.

You already admitted to not understanding Human behaviour, so your point is questionable at best. It would be like me admitting I don't understand accounting and then proceeding to tell somebody how to balance the books for their business.

I might not be familiar with generally accepted accounting principles, but if I can do math then I should be able to construct a system that will keep them from going broke.

Why the hell would they listen to me after I just admitted that I don't know what I'm talking about?

Because you presented them with a plan that works.

You're completely wrong on this one.

When I assume random tones of voice I notice that characters are too unpredictable for normal Human behaviour and that hurts the overall RP and story telling in the game for me. If I don't feel like my character is interacting with actual people, then it doesn't feel like good RP.

I can no more change that than I can change the fact that I like oranges. I can pretend to have changed those things, but that would just be lying to myself about it which isn't going to result in me enjoying the game more. I'm still going to notice characters not acting like Humans, and I'm still going to like oranges.

The problem here is the assumptions you're making about what constitutes normal human behaviour.

[RoboticWater]

There's an unfortunate lexical gap, there. Implicit covers both things that aren't there at all (and the listener just made up) and things that are logically guaranteed by the explicit content but not actually in the explicit content.

Those are two very different things, and there ahould be two different words for them, but (as far as I know) there is not.

When I deny implication, I refer only to the former. In this case, I refer to the latter.

Yet more compartmentalization. Yes, whenever someone picks up on implication, they're wrong and irrational. Oh but when Sylvius does it, it's logical and implicit.
 

Exactly. That's something the observer does. He doesn't have to.

Just turn it off. Like a light bulb. It's so easy. That was sarcasm by the way. I wouldn't want you to assume my tone.

 

Like it or not, this is the way that people approach other people. It's hard coded partially at birth and partially through development. Saying "he doesn't have to," is like saying nobody has to sneeze.

 

You may have the ability to just turn it off, but games aren't made just for you.

 

Sometimes I'm asked why I deny the existence of groups.

This is why.

So that you can be right all the time, and everyone has to cater to your preferences? How convenient.
 

And yet that's exactly what you're doing when you're leaping to conclusions about how other people's minds work.

And yet, so many others agree with me. Isn't it odd how things don't need to be 0% or 100% certain, but somewhere in between? Our collective understanding of human behavior isn't perfect, but it's evidently better than yours.
 

You're completely ignoring the possibility of error in your original conception. This creates compounding errors going forward. You're virtually guaranteed to be wrong eventually.

Yes, of course I'm guaranteed to be wrong. That's why I update my conception of others as time goes on. Your method injects garbage information into the system from the start.
 

A good RPG doesn't.

Yet we're apparently required to compartmentalize. That's a skill more complicated than aiming and shooting.

[Cyonan]

Why are you assuming random tones? Are you actively trying to ruin the experience?

If you assume tones that makes sense for your character under those circumstances, and those are the same circumstances the NPC is experiencing, while the motives might be wildly different the reactions don't seem to me to be a problem.

Yes, if I assumed my character was always shrieking her lines at everyone, or sobbing through them, that would make things harder to reconcile and push that predictabilty closer to 0%. But the predictability is never 100%, so we can live in that gap.

And that's what I do.

 

I can write any character so that a tone will always make sense for them. In my example with Alistair it's not even some odd tone of voice, I'm simply being insulting but his responses aren't consistent.

 

I might not be familiar with generally accepted accounting principles, but if I can do math then I should be able to construct a system that will keep them from going broke.
Because you presented them with a plan that works.

 

but I have no idea if I presented them with an actual plan that really works or not.

 

It might look like it works in my opinion, but my opinion shouldn't be held in high regard by anybody because I just admitted I don't know what I'm talking about.

 

On top of you admitting you don't know what you're talking about everything you're saying is inconsistent with my observations of Human behaviour. I have zero reason to believe you've got a decent grasp of the subject here, as all evidence as I see it is pointing to the contrary.

 

The problem here is the assumptions you're making about what constitutes normal human behaviour.

 

They're observations of Human behaviour backed up by a lot of scientific research, not assumptions.

 

An assumption means that it is a conclusion reached without any evidence, which is not the case. There is a lot of evidence.

 

You have provided zero evidence that when I assume an insulting tone with Alistair the majority of the time that his responses are believable Human behaviour. Saying "Humans aren't predictable" isn't evidence of this, nor is claiming that it's my fault for holding that opinion.

 

Right now the most logical conclusion for me to make is that your lack of understanding of Human behaviour is allowing you to ignore this and choose any tone of voice you want. Until the current evidence changes that will always be the most logical conclusion I see to come to and as such, will be the one that I have.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Yet we're apparently required to compartmentalize. That's a skill more complicated than aiming and shooting.

I expect all people to be able to do that. If they can't, then I understand then even less than I thought.

[Lady Artifice]

This debate is going to be consistently abstracted by Sylvius' willingness to redefine anything according to his preference.

 

Just throwing that out there.

[Sylvius the Mad]

but I have no idea if I presented them with an actual plan that really works or not.

You would never know that without testing them first. Neither would they.

It might look like it works in my opinion, but my opinion shouldn't be held in high regard by anybody because I just admitted I don't know what I'm talking about.

No one's opinion should be held in high regard by anyone.

The people who need the accounting done should test the plan before they trust it. It doesn't matter who made it for them.

On top of you admitting you don't know what you're talking about everything you're saying is inconsistent with my observations of Human behaviour. I have zero reason to believe you've got a decent grasp of the subject here, as all evidence as I see it is pointing to the contrary.

Which is why I explain my reasoning every step of the way so you can follow along with the thought experiment.

You have not offered me the same courtesy.

They're observations of Human behaviour backed up by a lot of scientific research, not assumptions.

You and I disagree about how science works.

An assumption means that it is a conclusion reached without any evidence, which is not the case. There is a lot of evidence.

It's an assumption if you reach the conclusion without conclusive evidence, which you will nearly never have.

Scientific hypotheses are necessarily falsifiable. Therefore, you know there's a chance that they're wrong. You, however, are assuming they're right, which runs entirely contrary to the scientific method.

You have provided zero evidence that when I assume an insulting tone with Alistair the majority of the time that his responses are believable Human behaviour.

What would that data look like?

Saying "Humans aren't predictable" isn't evidence of this, nor is claiming that it's my fault for holding that opinion.

I'm advancing the rational default position of uncertainty. Lacking conclusive evidence, there's no reason ever to abandon that position.

You're not claiming to have conclusive evidence, so you must therefore be advocating a different default position as rational.

Right now the most logical conclusion for me to make is that your lack of understanding of Human behaviour is allowing you to ignore this and choose any tone of voice you want. Until the current evidence changes that will always be the most logical conclusion I see to come to and as such, will be the one that I have.

You're using inductive reasoning again.

[sjsharp2011]

This debate is going to be consistently abstracted by Sylvius' willingness to redefine anything according to his preference.

 

Just throwing that out there.

It certainly seems that way.

[Sylvius the Mad]

This debate is going to be consistently abstracted by Sylvius' willingness to redefine anything according to his preference.

Just throwing that out there.

That's kind of the point, isn't it? In a fictional world where nothing is real, we get to decide how we interact with it.

[RoboticWater]

I expect all people to be able to do that. If they can't, then I understand then even less than I thought.

Sylvius, at this point, you shouldn't be at all surprised at how little you understand other humans.

 

This debate is going to be consistently abstracted by Sylvius' willingness to redefine anything according to his preference.

 

Just throwing that out there.

Most certainly. As both Cyonan and I have said, we wouldn't be doing this if we had anything better to do with our time. As it is, following the chain of Sylvius' hypocrisy and mental gymnastics provides some amusement for me between deaths in Dark Souls III.

[Lady Artifice]

That's kind of the point, isn't it? In a fictional world where nothing is real, we get to decide how we interact with it.

 

Well, I don't think so. People have the freedom to come to whatever conclusions that they like, but that doesn't automatically give their conclusion some kind of legitimacy. I think it has a lot to do with balancing the subjective and the objective, and that's kind of a hard sell on the internet. Deciding whether you like something is easy, realizing how rarely that actually reflects the quality of that thing is harder.

[Il Divo]

Sylvius, at this point, you shouldn't be at all surprised at how little you understand other humans.

 

Most certainly. As both Cyonan and I have said, we wouldn't be doing this if we had anything better to do with our time. As it is, following the chain of Sylvius' hypocrisy and mental gymnastics provides some amusement for me between deaths in Dark Souls III.

 

I'm doing a trilogy rerun right now. I love this series. 

[In Exile]

That's kind of the point, isn't it? In a fictional world where nothing is real, we get to decide how we interact with it.

 

But we're not god. Our perspective is fundamentally anchored, and our ability to define the world is clearly limited. As I understand P&P (never played it myself) this would be a good analogy to it - you can't just imagine away what other players say, or how the DM defines the environment or the encounters. You just control your own character, and your perspective is limited to what we IRL would be limited to - i.e., sight etc. You can decide how your character interpret stuff, and to some degree you have control over what that character expresses - but in a cRPG you have to account for the medium, which is why options are heavily, heavily constrained and we need e.g., tone indicators - but that's it. You don't get to control the other side of the conversation. 

[In Exile]

I'm doing a trilogy run right now. I love this series. 

 

I never got the allure. What I'm playing is the Banner Saga (1&2), and I swear the developers occasionally use a paraphrase - in a silent VO game. Or really weird grammar. Now that series basically has set protagonists (and your perspective flips - there are multiple PCs, it's really well done).