DIALOGUE CHOICES IN GAMES

I've been mucking around with RPGs with social aspects to them, mainly WRPGs like Disco Elysium and New Vegas, but also some standouts like Persona 5. One thing I don't find much point in though is dialogue choices, I find myself not really leaning into a role. The worst being is the good/evil options which boils down to basic morality I don't care much for, which sometimes can lead to character inconsistency if you care too much about it. Persona 5 has a semi-mute character where you can choose between 3-4 things at key moments that don't have much consequence. However it makes me think about what would make for the most interesting reaction, rather than having choice paralysis. The drawback becomes why would you NOT pick the smartass/joke response every time? Playing it seriously feels like the boring canon thing, but also makes me think they should have just written an actual personality for the protagonist.

Another thing I don't understand is why so many games feel the need to have optional exposition dialogue where you either exhaust the list of available choices or don't bother. Sure some people might want to skip all the world building and what amounts to quest giver reminder thing but I'm always compelled to check it all anyway just in case. In a standard JRPG this is equivalent to talking to every NPC but at least I'm not standing in the same room listening to the same character go on and on. Stopping and giving me choices just impedes what could be a smoother/tighter exposition anyway.

Then there's the issue of the charm stat that can just mind control NPCs into giving you what you want. New Vegas thankfully made this into a threshold stat meaning if you have a high enough number you don't have to risk a disappointing dice roll. But if you do have it, why would you NOT pick the charm option every single time? Disco Elysium brought it back to dice rolls and has multiple stats for personality/intellect. It has an interesting way of making the stats into actual advisors, a voice in your head representing logic for instance will nudge you into not selecting certain stupid options. So there's at least some direction on what to say and what outcome it'll actually have. It does still loop around to just picking the option that would have the most fun outcome, and generally I feel like I'm missing out if my 50% roll didn't go well.

Then there's the whole social skill aspect, making social skills an actual challenge to overcome which I personally think is impossible. You either make it a combat with the context change to resemble a sort of debate or information exchange or really abstract it out into something really mucky that's different from combat but not at all from how talking to people irl actually works. Video games aren't very good at simulating social interaction. What makes the Persona series works is that it doesn't even really attempt it (sans demon taming in 5) and just makes it about choosing which characters you want to spend time with based on which ones you like (or who you think gives good benefits). It's more social life simulation than social simulation. The strength being that the writing of the hangout scenes carries the social aspects even though it's static. So I mean, it loops back to CYOA linear story telling being a solid and consistent format even if a bit rigid.

One weird idea I have is just give your customizable character personality traits or stats that affect some dialogue moments but there's no choice given or maybe not even a warning. CYOA driven by your actual character rather than you the player choosing on the spot. The story just unfolds before you based on choices you made at the start and acts like an autopilot. There are still a ton of possibilities but you're not allowed to branch unless you somehow change your character's personality (whoa maybe character growth?). This will probably cause more problems than it solves, as it doesn't give much feedback. There could be a little "Your high wit stat made this joke possible!" notification. Conversely the game won't tell you what you missed out on. Still it could clash with the writing. A level headed protagonist might suddenly overreact in situations if they have a high neuroticism stat or something. Which causes inconsistency especially if its built to have zero consequences. Although if you had the time it'd be interesting to see if the plot causes were brought about by different possible traits. Plot points still happen but they're brought about by different flavors of your snowflake personality.

Anyway, enough rambling. I want to know what YOUR thoughts on dialogue choices are in general. Especially from a player's perspective because I'm wondering if I'm the odd one out here. Though this is a pro-JRPG place I imagine there are some takes on the matter. Any thoughts appreciated.

Yeah I forgot to bring up the actual Social Link correct answer choicing. Those are at least gamified so there's a goal or a point to the choices, which actually puts them above "how quirky do you want to feel feel today?" but aside from quizing you on how much you paid attention it has its own dating sim purpose.

I definately lean more into wanting more inconsequencital choicing but potentially something that feels interactive. Like you're affecting the character chemistries in ways that a linear story wouldn't. Like imagine finding out that the girl hates squids based on an incidental choice and that unlocks a prank option to further mess with them with a squid. Though the problem with choicing is that you only see one of the outcomes if all of the choices are equally as interesting to see the character react to, and just... accepting that players will not see like 70% of the branching writing (or sadistically assuming they'll replay your game over and over). Then again that assumes the dialogue choice format is the only possibilty and not some alternative that accomplishes simular things.

I'm not sure what spurred this search other than me really enjoying FFXV and FF7 Remakes characterizations. They didn't have dialogue choices I could remember but it did make me seek out games where you're just faffing about with other characters and having a bit more agency. This does make me want to seek out games with more VN components though like Rune Factory. Yet with RF I hardly remember getting to the actual dating stuff since the beggining is frontloaded with a lot of farming and story setup.