作者：Guy Hasson

游戏开发过程借鉴多种艺术形式，包括已有上百年历史的电影和历时数千年的散文及戏剧中的情节故事。尽管对话理论在戏剧中已有数千年的发展史，但游戏设计中的对话艺术往往为人所忽略。

出身传统戏剧的游戏或故事设计师并不多，他们所缺乏的恰恰是对话艺术这个重要层面。我们将努力通过此文来开创改变当前态势之先河。

对话不同于文字

首先，我们要把对话当成画布，而不是文字和信息的载体。画布上的图像可能蕴含许多内容，你所看到的基础信息（游戏邦注：比如画中的香蕉、猴子或外星人残害地球勇士的情景）只是其中之一。画布上还有构图、情绪及作者对颜色的运用等，这些方面传达着超乎单纯信息的体验。如果你只通过图像传达信息，那就等同于没有恰当使用整套绘图工具，可能无意间犯下构图错误，这样的作品会让你显得很业余。

对话也是如此。传统戏剧数千年的发展告诉我们，文字是对话中最不重要的内容。对话只是“行动”的结果而已。

dialogue(from critical-hits.com)

对话源于“行动”

我们用“行动”在戏剧中的含义来定义游戏中的“行动”。

无论角色何时在游戏中出现，在特定场景下她必然有自己的目标。她想得到某些东西，需要某些东西，或许她想要获得快乐，或许想要吃东西，或者想窃取情报，或者想找到炸弹等。每个角色在每个场景中都带有某种目标，即便路人亦是如此。

每个怀揣目标的角色都有自己的个性，这种个性会影响角色实现目标所采取的方法。有些角色会通过巧言令色或美人计来骗取情报，有些可能会通过暴力手段。对每个角色的目标而言，不同性格角色会以不同方法来努力实现目标。

在游戏的每个场景中，角色可能会有以下四种结局：实现目标；尝试失败；离目标更近；离目标更远。

现在，把场景分解成各个小步骤，每个步骤是角色为实现目标而做出的行动。每个场景都由许多此类步骤组成，这些步骤称为“行动”。做出行动既可以使用词语，也可以不使用。

接下来，让我们看看这些由诸多行动所组成的场景中的角色。对每个角色来说，行动为目标服务，然而却为角色性格和所发生事件所制约。于是，对话就成为总体行动和重复行动的结果。

如果角色在场景中期便可能实现目标，那么就应该重新为其定义个更大的目标。在此等大目标中，场景中期实现的只是个小型子目标。

下面我们将讨论如何通过行动构建对话。

mystery_cookbook_dialogues(from blog.gameglamour.com)

对话规则

戏剧导演、演员和剧作者需要历经数年方能掌握构建对话的技巧。你也必须通过自身经历才能精通此道。以下两条规则可视为捷径，只要你遵从就足以将事情做好。

对话规则1：角色永不具体说出自己的真实行动。

比如，假设角色想要某本书，她绝不会说“我想要那本书”之类的话。你必须设计角色以某种与其性格相符的方法拿到她想要的东西，而不是把这个想法大声说出来。

这项原则还萌生了另一种传达方法，如果角色说出他的行动或目标（游戏邦注：比如杀手对英雄说“我要杀掉你”），那么他的真实行动或目标必然与所说的不同。杀手说这种话可能只出于恐吓目的，因为他当时很虚弱，这是个掩盖真相的方法。或者杀手只是为了满足自己的自负心理，或许他说这番话只是为了让其他人听到，其实是想背叛派他执行任务的人。或许杀戮根本不是角色真正想做的事，他说的话有更复杂的含义。

刚开始，规则的局限性可能会让你觉得自己在做数学题，需要去解答各种谜团。但这种感觉终会过去，规则将成为你的设计本能。

对话规则2：不可编写毫无行动的对话。

游戏中多数对话并不包含行动，它们只是个必要信息的传达系统。这使得内容无趣且平淡，就如同忽略构图规则的艺术师所做出来的画。

假设你想要传达某些信息，而且这些信息只能通过词句传达，这完全是合情合理的。然而，为使角色话语符合对话规则，你必须为角色设计包含此等信息的行动，这样他才真正有理由说出包含你意图传达的信息的话语。角色只会说出已通过行动证实的信息。

由于角色有行动和目标，她就必须带着目标进入场景，否则行动将毫无意义。行动必须为目标服务。所以为了实现传达信息的目的，你必须解决的问题包括角色的需求、目标、性格和行动，保持角色行动的前后一致性。这些行动或许会导致角色给出玩家想要获得的信息。

假设你开始利用这两项规则设计对话，多数情况下肯定会有些障碍。此时你要澄清的是：“让玩家知道信息”不是种行动，“告知他人信息”也不是种行动，任何与这两类相似的都不是行动。角色必须完成传播信息的任务，除了通过自身言语表达外，还需要以适合自身性格的方式开展行动来完成个人目标。

对话规则的作用

遵从这些便捷对话规则可让你营造出由行动构建的对话，这种对话传达的不是信息而是角色的性格。由此创造出的不是信息化场景，而是戏剧化场景，场景中有紧张感、人性和戏剧性的故事。用更具深度、更现实的行为产生场景、角色和互动。

你越自然地遵从这些规则，就越能发现它们带来的好处，包括：保持故事的一致性；让故事更加真实；通过游戏对话传达比想象中更多的信息；使对话变得有趣，不再乏味单调。

学习如何恰当使用行动以及如果通过行动传达信息的过程很艰难，而且需要数年时间才能掌握。然而，这种付出是值得的。正如我所形容的那样，我希望这些规则能帮你找到此过程中的捷径，在更短的时间内制作出较好的对话。在真正开始设计游戏之前，先努力练习下场景中对话设计。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Story Design Tips: The Art of Dialogue

Guy Hasson

Games borrow from many arts: From more than a century of cinema, from thousands of years of art, and from thousands of years of storytelling in prose and in the theater. In spite of thousands of years (literally) of theory about dialogue that has developed in the theater, the art of the dialogue in game design is often overlooked.

Few game or story designers come from the tradition of the theater, and so important aspects of the art of dialogue is lost on them. We’re going to try and begin and rectify this in the first of four columns about the art of dialogue.

Dialogue isn’t words

Start thinking about dialogue as a canvas, rather than as a vessel for words and information. A single picture on a canvas can hold many things, and only one of them is the basic information of what you see (a banana, a monkey, an alien gutting a warrior). There’s also composition, mood, the use of color, etc. – aspects that deliver an experience beyond the simple information that is on the canvas. If you only deliver information through a picture, you fail to use the entire set of tools at your disposal, you make unwitting mistakes in composition, and you appear amateurish.

It’s the same thing with dialogue. Thousands of years of tradition in the theater teach us that the text itself is the least important thing about a dialogue. Dialogue is only a shadow (a result) of something called an ‘action’.

Dialogue is made out of ‘actions’

Let’s define ‘action’ as it’s defined in the theater.

Whenever you have a character appear in the game, that character has a purpose in a specific scene. She wants something. She needs something. She needs to get something. Maybe she wants to feel good, maybe she wants to eat, maybe she wants to steal information, maybe she wants to find a bomb, etc. Every character has a purpose in every scene, even passersby.

Next: Every character with a purpose also has a personality. That personality influences the way that character will attempt to achieve her purpose. One character will try to finagle information through coaxing or being sexy, another will do it through being loud and obnoxious, and so on. To every purpose that a character has, a different personality will have that character try and achieve that purpose in a different way.

Now, in every scene that you have in the game, your character will either: reach her purpose; fail to reach her purpose; be a step closer to her purpose; or be a step farther from her purpose. (Note: It’s always bad dramatically to start a scene and end it at exactly the same spot, which is why that option does not appear).

Now, break down your scene to little steps. Each step is one deed the character does to achieve that purpose. Each scene is made up of many such steps. Each one of these steps is called an ‘action’. An action can be done using words but also without words.

Start looking at scenes in which characters appear as a scene made out of many actions for each character. For each character, the actions serve the purpose, while being subject to the character’s personality as well as the events that occur. Dialogue will then be but a small shadow of the overall actions and re-actions that take place.

(Hint: If a character reaches her purpose in the middle of the scene, then redefine her purpose so that she has a bigger one. In that bigger purpose, a smaller sub-purpose is achieved in the middle of that scene.)

Now: how to construct dialogue through actions.

The rules of dialogue

Here’s the thing that takes years for theater directors, actors, and writers to get master. You’re going to have to learn this through self exercise. The following two rules are built as shortcuts that will force you to do things right, as long as you follow them to the letter.

Dialogue Rule #1: A character must never say her true action in words.

For example: if the character wants a book, she’ll never say “I want the book”. You must find a way for her personality to try and get what she wants without saying it out loud.

This also works the other way around: If a character seems to say his action or purpose (“I want you dead,” said the killer to the hero), then her action or purpose are different from what he says (Perhaps the line was said out of a need to intimidate, when the killer is weak and hiding it; or it’s bravado, when the killer wants to stroke his own ego; or he’s saying it so someone else will hear and wants to betray the one who sent the killer; or maybe killing is not the thing the character really wants, and what he’s saying is more complex; etc. – there’s a million of other options).

In the beginning, fitting yourself into the constraints of this rule will feel like you’re doing math. You have to solve a puzzle (what’s the action, how to get it, how not to say it; or: if I said it, what’s my real action, then?) It’ll pass and become second nature.

Dialogue Rule #2: You must never write a line of dialogue that has no action

Most dialogue lines in games have no action. They are simply a delivery system for necessary information. That’s boring, bland, and one-dimensional. It’s a painting in which the artist ignores the rules of composition.

Now suppose there’s information you want delivered, and this is information you can only deliver in words. That’s completely legitimate. However, to make the character’s lines fit into the rules of dialogue, you must make up an action for the character with the information that gives him a real reason to say a line that also includes the information you need delivered. The character will only speak because her action justifies it.

Now, since the character has action and a purpose, she must enter the scene with the purpose, otherwise her actions would make no sense. The actions must serve the purpose. So, in order to deliver information you actually have to solve the character’s needs, purposes, personality, and actions, and to make sure that she performs these actions consistently from the beginning of each scene to its very end (and not just during the line you need information delivered). These actions will then appear, as if by coincidence, to also result in the character giving out information that the player needs to hear.

Let’s assume for a second that you started playing around with these rules. You’ll almost certainly stumble upon something that shouldn’t be done. So let’s skip ahead and clarify: “Letting someone know” is not an action. “Informing” is not an action. Any thesaurus variation of these two phrases is not an action. The character must have a vested interested in conveying the information, in addition to needing a good selfish reason to say it the way she says it, and she needs to do perform the action (and fulfill her personal purpose) in a way that fits her personality.

Why do we need this?

Following these short-cut dialogue rules will force you to create a dialogue that is made out of actions, which is a dialogue not of information but of personalities. Rather than create an informational scene, it creates a dramatic scene, with tension, humanity, and a dramatic arc of a story behind it. This leads to scenes and characters and interactions with more depth, more realistic behavior, and more drama.

The more you’ll learn how to follow these rules naturally, the more you’ll see that they’re actually helping you in a) making the story consistent; b) making the story more real; c) delivering even more information that you thought you could deliver through game dialogue; d) making the dialogue interesting rather than tedious.

Learning how to use actions properly and how to convey information through action is hard and takes years to master. It is, however, necessary. I hope the rules, as I’ve phrased them, will help you make shortcuts in the process and allow you to reach better results quickly. Try to give yourselves a few exercises in dialogue in scenes before you start working on your real game.

This is the first of four articles about improving the art of dialogue in games. Next week, we’re going to take a more complex look at actions and how they work. We’re going to look at actions as vectors. (Source: Gamasutra)