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[Zest]

I think it'd be a better idea to make a conversation combat system more abstracted- think about how the Sims constructs conversations. On the note about created content, there was a Dreamcast game called SeGaGaGa that allowed you to engage in RPG-style insult fights with other characters... so there is that.

Really, the best way to consider a game mechanic for something like this might be to think of it as a metaphor. What is a conversation like? Is it a race to come up with a better quip first? Is it a trade of blows back and forth? Is it a dialogue you build together with your partner? Once you have some sort of metaphor, you have a way of building a fresh-playing game.

[frederiksen]

i have nothing of worth to add, but i couldn't let that stand.

[Gimym TILBERT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_and_Betrayal:_The_Legacy_of_Siboot

Time to take a wayback machine to Chris Crawford seminal game:

The player, an alien creature named Vetvel, must compete with six other acolytes (each a different alien species) for the Shepherdship. Each of these characters has a distinct personality. Each morning, the acolytes wake up knowing one of each of the three "auras" the others possess. They must trade knowledge with each other in order to try to gain enough knowledge for the "mind combat" that takes place every night, which is basically a fancy Rock, Paper, Scissors game that depends on the aura counts for the players involved. The game is won when a player gets eight auras in all three categories. However, in giving away somebody's aura count, the player betrays that person, which angers them and may make them less likely to trade aura counts with the player. Therefore, a player has to know whom to trust and whom to betray, hence the title: Trust & Betrayal.

[tsameti]

Wow, how have I missed this conversation. I'm working on a short-story project right now which I would damn well like to figure out what the final mechanic will be. ( for the purists, I preface by saying this is currently ending up more IF than game )

The way I'm implementing is that other characters will have 'locktiers' which represent increasing levels of familiarity (although not necessarily friendship). Sort of like you're 'leveling up' your relationships. Depending on the way you choose to do that, it changes the type of the relationship you form and dialogue you can access.

I'm only implementing one character right now, just to get a demo complete. But you'd be able to decide whether you have a lighthearted jokester/fun friendship, a more thoughtful and insightful conversation, or a more no-nonsense respect based deal.


Here's my rub though, I can't quite seem to hash out a mechanic I'm truly excited about for increasing the raw numbers. I'm thinking of doing a kind of puzzly elements style thing, but I'd really like to stumble on something that expresses a little more nuance. If I have to I could always do something that casts non-verbal communications as if they were battle actions ( the OPPOSITE of nuance ). So I'd love to talk about ways I could pull this off.

What if you did an Auditoria style thing? With different nodes representing different results?

[Gimym TILBERT]

Haha! I had this some idea of familiarity as relation level (from formal to familiar). You go through level by having social ritual once you reach the end of a gauge. It's an adventure game the mechanics are spatio temporal: gaining relation allow you to gain new information through access of private area and new class of confidence tidbits. Mixed with an information economy you could totally make a nuance mechanics about the social appropriateness of revealing an information (that would depend on who is present and their disposition towards you and the target character). Social network propagation is the key. In my game there is a bit more but that's the basis!

[tsameti]

Wow, dude. Persona meets Psychonauts meets Myst meets Inception.

You traverse a series of floating islands in which there are mansions of locked doors. Each room isn't a physical space, but a level of insight or a shared experience between friends, and each island is a different person in your life.

You use colorful and kinetic non-combat actions to interact with the abstracts which inhabit the rooms, and you can also physically pick up features in your environment to transport them to other islands.

You can steal someone's secret crush, and embarrass them by sticking it in an inappropriate room,  (math class) or help them get the girl/boy by sticking it in the right room.

I have no clue whatsoever what your end goal would be, but I am falling in love with this idea.

[Gimym TILBERT]

yet again
what are you doing to me tsamati!

I remember that game I had design (but not realized)
Pas de cadeaux pour Buck Borris (no present for buck borris)
You were a team of kid trying to steal santa claus, there was emotional management as well. Whenever a emotional conflict happen, on a specific place (generally after each level when the character are together) you had a playable flash back where you would define your past relation (fitting the problem at hand) with the character, then back in the present the character would use this memory to challenge you.

[tsameti]

Nice.

[Feral_P]

Another type of non-combat confrontation, aside from social, would be economic. M.U.L.E is a pretty good example of this; people bid for and develop territory and trade resources with eachother to try and gain dominance.