Seemingly unimportant dialogue into more dramatic dialogue.

This concerns the FRPG6 Dialogue Engine.

Side note about the name FRPG6
By the way, the FRPG6 means that it was once a part of Flash Fiction. Yes, my original document was to create something that would generate both story and dialogue. The original title of that working document wasn't called Flash RPG. It wont say what it formerly was, in case I want to reuse that name, I'll leave it blank. It was … RPG 1d6.

So after I extracted the game into parts, FRPG means Flash RPG. So, technically I think the dialogue engine, behavior engine, flash RPG, three conflict chain, and deep dive engine all came from that original single document.

While later material dropped the FRPG6 from the title, the original source was one single document.

Anyway, to the main thrust of this blog post.

A comment about the dialogue engine was something like roughly, what happens when in the middle of action a player rolls up "Nice weather."

This comes from rolling a #1 on the friendly conversation mood column.

Here is #1's content from FRPG6 Dialogue Engine, page 6, on the Dialogue Mood and Topic engine which is the main engine for Dialogue Engine.

Casual conversation. See
Fact Generator = a current
sensory, emotional, and / or
cognitive experience. AKA
weather talk.

And after this, which was expanded to 12 moods in Relationship Engine, the friendly mood is the following, which requires a Fact Generator sensory roll.

Engaging casual topics

To me, this isn't a waste of a roll. Rather it is an opportunity for irony.

Imagine the battle scenes you may have scene that whenever in the height of battle, some confident person stops to enjoy the beauty of something–unfazed by the chaos or drama surrounding.

She stopped the running charge—and for a brief moment looked towards the heavens. 

"I love it when the sun shines down upon my victory," she said with a half-smile. She screamed a mighty roar and leapt into the fray.

That is a nice weather dialogue.

Does it make the dialogue worse?

To me, it only adds distinct flavor and a little bit of spunk.

Story Mechanisms: creating a story profile instructions (part 6)

Click on image to enlarge

This is the sheet of what has been created so far.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/257257/Story-Mechanisms

Expanding the story part 2

So far in this series I've made a basic story structure sheet, began constructing a story by selecting the basic story elements, decided to star the main character Dakota, and in last post created an argument opening scene between Dakota and Rowan.

Next, I'll roll for an inciting event. 

Inciting Event

Something important destroyed

Now I need to brainstorm. First, I'll write some of the prior keywords.

physical-based story
Dakota's social acknowledgment and self-actualizing from ugliness motivation
stop or destroy either the foe or the foes' giant ooze creatures
trying to attack an elvish village
archaeological dig, elvish ancient ruins, Expansions-age
character might be considered ugly
magical candelabra
stinky glob of ooze
"I'll kill you," Dakota heard Rowan say.

My main question is "what is the important thing destroyed."

Maybe it can relate to the archaeological dig. Maybe it can involve the ooze. Maybe it can involve the village.

I know! A archaeological golden statue is found.




Dakota scraped away dirt revealing gold.

Soon more frantic, Dakota quickly removed dirt until face to foot, a mysterious beautiful lady stood regal and powerfully looking at Dakota.

News quickly spread throughout the camp of the discovery.

Later that day, most of the elegant statue had carefully been uncovered from layers of dirt.

Dakota had even skipped eating.

What began as screams across the dig site soon amplified.

Looking towards the screams, a large bright blob slowly was moving this way.

Quickly standing, everyone moved away from the entombed room and moved outside.

The yellow ooze moved to the gold statue and surrounded it.

A sizzling sound and gray steam came from the blob and statue.

Dakota watched as the ultimate beautiful priceless find dissolved into molten blob.

The discovery was now gone.






Okay, now that sets the story up with a foe and a danger that Dakota must now be involved with.

First Conflict

What is needed to fight this foe?


The first conflict will be to try finding something to fight this ooze foe.

Difficulty Challenge: 1, easy; annoying.

Although the final conflict is going to be a physical one, this first conflict makes more sense being an investigation type conflict. I'll use my One-Roll RPG skill and stats mixed with my Flash RPG (RFRPG) and Three Conflict Chain RPG (3CC) rules.

I'll set up the challenge at the end of the inciting event.



Dakota needs stats.

I'm wording these using One-Roll Fudge RPG (ORF) terminology and stats, since I've recently made that game.

Mind: Good
Body: fair
Soul: Fair

Skill: Academics-archaeology: good (+1); fight-martial arts: fair (0); investigate: fair (0)

Roll for resolution for mind & investigate = (good (+1)+ fair (0)) + roll (2) = great (ORF) or +2 over the difficulty challenge for 3CC results Rolling over the difficulty by 2 means victory, with a twist. Although you succeeded roll for a twist to see what has changed.

Because of Dakota's fair

Twist

Rolling for twist result.

Twist in location.


Now time to write something out. The twist of location I'll fit into a different scene. Rowan will not be living nor staying at the same frequent location.

First a reaction scene





Dakota looked at pile of molten metal and gold. Dakota felt a sinking feeling—most of the excitement now turned to dread and hopelessness.

This was supposed to by my career-making discovery!

"Why did the blob eat the statue," one younger assistant asked.

Why indeed? "I don't know," Dakota simply said.

Dakota's mind filled with painful images, the glugging, slurping, and glurping sounds amplified.

And then the horrific event ended.

Dakota looked towards the ooze moving away from the area. Rowan stood and smiled—almost in glee—holding the candelabra up and nodding this way.

I need to find something to resist acid, Dakota thought. Or destroy it! Or stop —that person...

Dakota watched Rowan walk following the ooze off into the distance.




So, already Dakota should know who did it, what was used, and what caused ooze attack.
Dakota already solved how to fight the foe. And the character will now become an active participant in future conflict events. Rowan, however as a result of the twist, will not be easy to find.


Next posts
So far, the story has resolved the first conflict sort of by solving the first question quickly. The next post will go into the next conflict.

Story Mechanisms: creating a story profile instructions (part 5)

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/257257/Story-Mechanisms

Expanding the story

So far in this series I've made a basic story structure sheet and last time I began constructing a story by selecting a fantasy genre and the basic story elements, one of which I decided to star the main character Dakota that I created in October for Character Mechanisms.

Created last time

Based on the rolled results the story is a physical-based story where the main character must destroy either the foe or the foes' giant ooze creatures that are trying to attack an elvish village because of some social affection issue. The hero must stop or destroy the ooze in order to save the village.

Maybe Dakota at some point in the past interacted with each other, Dakota did something that created this desire to attack the village with the giant ooze. In all likelihood, The foe maybe was attracted to Dakota and wanted to pursue a relationship. Maybe this character might be considered ugly, which clashes with Dakota's social acknowledgment and self-actualizing from ugliness motivation.

Story Challenge

Using Story Mechanisms has challenged me with a story that I don't think that I would have ever created on my own. That is one great I think. It forces me to expand my writing ability. I do like how the story has a motive, the affection of the foe.

Story Themes and Conflicts

Themes

Three themes naturally can be assigned to this story which I find just looking over one of my charts for ideas. The affections is listed on my Theme Generator as affections vs feelings. For looks, I have vanity vs modesty. There is also love vs hate which fits a revenge motive.

Three Conflict Chain RPG

Opening

Although I know the main conflict, I want to look into the story for further conflicts and details. First is the beginning of the story.

A dialogue can help to establish the main character and the setting.

Argument between relationship.

Okay, so I will begin the story with an argument between two characters. I'll pull out one of my Character Mechanisms tool, the Dialogue Engine to do this.

I first look at the hostile/anger mood and topic chart.

Threat.
I'm/We’re going to...

In this argument, there is going to be a threat.

What type of character would be interesting to argue with Dakota—a skeptical charismatic character? 

I'll name the foe another gender neutral name, Rowan.

Probably a guardian type character that is trying to hold onto some type of ideal is the exact opposite of a skeptical character. Instead of questioning things, the guardian tries to preserve and return back to the past when things seemed to be better. Also, I can make this character more blunt and less charismatic. Appearance wise, maybe I can do something with elf ears. Maybe one elf ear is smaller than the other elf ear. And maybe his nose is bigger than normal. These two traits plus the blunt guardian personality might make this foe into a less attractive character.

Guardian

I/We should/have to… I (don't)
like...

I'm going to maybe use the archaeology of Dakota maybe as a common thread.

Both Rowan and Dakota are archaeologists excavating ancient elvish ruins when they come across something that causes an argument maybe it is something that leads to the giant ooze conflict. It could be an ancient powerful object.

I'll use Description Generator for some keywords.

11, 3 U shaped

This reminds me of a candelabra.

I'll try to throw some notes down for an argument scene over a candelabra at an elvish archaeological site. I'll just see where the writing takes these two characters.




Opening

"It's just a broken down brass lamp," Dakota said in a low quiet voice to Rowan.

Rowan eyebrows became tense and his uneven ugly ears turned red. "This is a magical candelabra, it's not junk." he said holding the bent and mangled crappy waste-of-time object in his hand. A small stinky glob of ooze pulsed where a candle should sit. "We have to preserve and study this Expansion-age power. It could be powerful. The ancients Expansions-age elves had greater knowledge and understanding than we even know today," Rowan said, looking at the object as if it were a lover.

"Huh? It's worthless and hideous," Dakota simply said.

Dakota turned to look towards the still-to-be excavated room. "Maybe there is a exquisite golden object somewhere in here."

A hand suddenly grabbed around from behind on the shirt collar.

Dakota smashed with a backfist, the fist hitting the ear of Rowan. Dakota heard Rowan hit the ground, but Dakota began to walk away.

Rowan then was breathing harder and harder, the air rushing in and out, echoing through the dig site chambers. His bulbous nose sniffled.

"I'll kill you," Dakota heard Rowan say. And then louder ,"I'll kill you!"

"Take your crappy thing and get away from me," Dakota said, deciding to stay away from Rowan for good.


I didn't know what this argument would look like until I wrote the words. It's good enough for now. I think I have written and developed the story enough for this post.

The next post

With that opening, the next posts I will try to figure out how the story can escalate.

FRPG6 Dialogue Engine example

This example is from the Dialogue Engine now available for sale as well as in a Dialogue Engine bundle which contains all of the needed tables.

https://www.rpgnow.com/product/249512/FRPG6-Dialogue-Engine

Example of Using the Dialogue Engine

In this example, I’ll use indented smaller text to show the game mechanics behind this short dialogue game situation.

The detective is approaching an old homeless man on the street in a Seattle attempting to find out if he has seen a suspect in the recent stabbing in the area. The homeless man will not trust the detective, at least initially

Old man

Personality = rolled 2D6 = 7 = guardian [from Character Generator]

Guardian - They seek perfection and to protect culture, society, and whatever they do.

However, if experiencing great stress, a Guardian becomes more of a Lone Wolf.

Lone Wolf - They seek to be original and unique.

The old man will be a minor character in terms of

importance.

vocal level = rolled 1D6 = 1 quiet ; rolled 1 = range, rolled 3 = middle range ; rolled 3 = texture, rolled 3 = twangy texture ; rolled 5 = word imagery, rolled 1 = cold, abstract word imagery.

The old man with a guardian personality speaks quietly, with a middle-range twangy voice, and uses

cold and abstract word imagery.

‘Excuse me sir. Have you seen this man,’ you ask, showing the old homeless man the picture on your

smartphone.

Hesitant, distrust; rolls a 1 = Pause often and cautious. Speaks little and guarded

The old man moved back from the picture, as if the image was dangerous or grotesque.

Quietly he spoke. ‘What ... did he do?” he asked in a twangy southern accent voice.

What is the old man’s motivation? Motivation rolls 3D6 = 12 defense mechanism, rolls a 13 = restoring a past wrong (from Motivation Generator]

The old man is speaking little, guarded, slowly, and cautiously because in the past he said something

that came back to haunt him.

The lone wolf in him caused by the increased past trauma is telling him to ‘Leave me alone’.

‘He may have done something very bad,” you say trying to read the old man’s face.

The old man will remember that experience feeling guilt at first and then hurt. Guilt roll 10 = sweating; Hurt roll 16, uneven steps, weak stumble, collapse.

The old man began to sweat. He seemed to brace himself on his old possession filled shopping cart.

‘I don’t like it ... when good people ... get blamed ... for bad things.’

I used the ‘I don’t like’ as suggested as guardian common words spoken.