作者：Guy Hasson

对话比其字面意思要复杂得多。视觉对话（游戏邦注：你可以看到角色并听到话语的对话）与纸上对话并不相同。后者只能通过呈现在二维书面或屏幕上的词语来完成，而前者直接由对话双方呈现。视觉对话原本就能比纸上对话承载更多的内容。

因而，创造视觉对话的规则也有所不同。当然，结果也有所差异，其丰富性也能超过纸上对话。为让视觉对话内容丰富，我们需要理解它的工作机制。反之，忽略工作机制会使得对话显得空洞和单维（游戏邦注：即便有些对话可能在纸上会让人感觉很棒）。

Mass-Effect-Images-dialogue(from problemwithstory.com)

在讨论对话时，我们需要借鉴戏剧的知识，其对话及对话工作理论已有2500多年的历史。戏剧理论的要点在于可以不断在活生生的观众身上进行测试，有效的理论得以发展下去，无效的理论会瞬时销声匿迹。因而，现存的戏剧理论都是经过几千年测试的，肯定能够发挥作用。

我们曾经说过，对话不只是词语。事实上，词语只能算是“行动”的缩影。角色进入场景都带有自身的目标，比如她要某些东西或想要去某个地方。这些角色努力实现目标的方法就称为“行动”。

将角色目标转变成向量

今天我们继续讨论角色的目标。毫无疑问，多数人都有些许物理学或数学基础知识，因而也懂得向量的含义。从本质上来说，向量就是表示力的大小和方向的箭头（游戏邦注：此为物理学中的含义）。接下来，我想让你把目标当成向量。它也有大小（游戏邦注：如强烈、微弱、适中、极度强烈等）和方向（游戏邦注：即目标指向的人或物品）。

这些属于简单的向量。你也可以将不同的两个向量融合成一个。现在，尝试想象下去完成角色的目标。你不但可以这么做，而且还必须这么去做。

愿望和障碍

在生活中，只要我们有个愿望，障碍也会同时出现。比如，酒吧中有个男人看到一位美丽的女人正坐在另一张桌旁，他想过去搭讪。然而，他却没有这么做，因为内心某些想法正阻碍他做这件事。一个向量让他朝某个方向努力，另一个向量却朝向相反的方向。同样的例子还有，想要钱的人没有打劫路过自己身边的人，对老板感到异常愤怒的员工并没有马上将老板杀死等等。

对每个愿望而言，都存在着对立的障碍。作为故事设计师，你必须同时考虑到这两个方面，对角色的行为做出相应的调整，考虑这两个向量的大小和方向。

两个同时存在的愿望

有时某个角色可能同时有两个愿望，比如杀死那个恶棍或得到某个女孩。然而，角色每次只能做一件事情。他的行动便取决于这两个愿望的相对大小。

想法的作用

如果你习惯了在场景开始时为每个角色确定愿望，习惯审查障碍和同时存在的愿望，习惯将愿望融合成更为复杂的愿望，那么你就会知道如何将愿望转变为场景中的行动，行动将自始自终贯穿于场景之中。

这是这些根据愿望、障碍和同期愿望开展的行动使得对话更为强烈，更具真实性、深度和人性化。

这些行动和行为不仅会改变对话的内容，而且还能改变角色移动、交谈和行为的方式。（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, Part II

Guy Hasson

Dialogue is more than it seems. A visual dialogue (where you can see and/or hear the characters) is different from dialogue on paper. The latter is written only with words on a two-dimensional paper or screen. The former is written on human canvas. As such, human canvas can hold a lot more than a page does.

The rules of creating visual dialogue are therefore different, and the result is different, as well – allowing richness on many levels at the same time. To reach that richness, we need to understand how it works. However, ignoring how it works makes the dialogue (even one that would seem great on paper) seem vacant and one-dimensional.

What we’re doing in this series of Story Design Tips articles about dialogue, is borrowing knowledge from the theater, which has more than 2,500 years of theory about dialogue and how dialogue works. The nice thing about theater theory is that it is constantly tested on live audiences – if it works, the theory survives; if it doesn’t, the theory is dead in the water. So this is theory that’s been tested and retested. And it works.

Last week, we talked about how dialogue is much more than words. In fact, the words are mere shadows of something called ‘actions’. Whenever we have a scene with characters, each character must enter the scene with a purpose. There’s something she wants, something she will try to get, someplace she’ll try and get to. The way the characters try and achieve those purposes are called ‘actions’, and we covered them last week.

Character purpose translates to vectors

Today we’re going to talk about the purposes of the characters, the desires, the needs. Most of you no doubt know enough about rudimentary physics or math to know what a vector is. A vector is, basically, an arrow representing a force (in physics) that has both a direction and an intensity. Now I want you to think of a purpose like a vector. It has intensity X (strong, weak, medium, unbearably strong, etc.) and it also has a direction (a person or object at which this need will direct is directed).

Here’s the neat thing about vectors. You can take two different ones and mash them up into one vector that is somehow a sum of the two. Now try and imagine that you can do the same thing to a character’s purpose. Not only can you do that, you have to do it.

Desire and impediment

In life, to each desire we experience, there is also an impediment we experience simultaneously, something that blocks us from immediately letting loose and trying to get what we want in the most straightforward way. For example, if a man sits in a bar and sees a beautiful woman sit at a table, he may want to jump her right there and then. However, he won’t do it, because something in him (the impediment) gives a push in the opposite direction. One vector (desire) leads him one way, while another vector (the impediment) leads him the other. A man who needs money won’t rob the man who passes him by (desire vs. impediment), a man who feels momentary anger towards his boss won’t murder him right there and then (desire vs. impediment), etc.

To each desire, there is an impediment. You, as the story designer, must be aware of both, and must tailor the character’s behavior accordingly, taking into account the intensity and direction of both.

2 simultaneous desires

It’s also possible for a character to have two simultaneous desires, for example: kill the villain vs. get the girl. However, the character can only do one thing at a time. His actions will be determined by the ‘sum’ of both desires, taking into account the relative strength and intensity of each.

How is this useful?

Once you’ve gotten used to checking each of your characters in the beginning of every scene for a desire, once you’ve gotten used to checking for impediments and/or simultaneous desires, and once you’ve gotten used to summing them both neatly into one complex desire, you’re going to have to remember that now you have to translate that desire into actions in the scene, actions that will be carried out from the beginning of the scene to its very end.

It is these actions, carried out according to a human set of desires, impediments, and simultaneous desires, that will lend your dialogue strength and reality, depth and humanity.

Lastly, not only do these actions and behaviors change the content of the dialogue, it also changes the way the characters move, talk, and behave. Next time, we’re going to talk about what to do visually with characters as they perform these actions. (Source: Gamasutra)