Hey there! This is something I posted on one of the Steam threads for this game, but I figured it would be more likely to get to someone if I posted it here, so I'm just gonna be copy/pasting what I said on the Steam thread in the hopes it's more likely to get around. I really hope this is an idea that can be considered, cause I think it could be really interesting. Sorry in advance if it's something that's already been suggested or gone over before!
I do want to slip in a suggestion I've been sitting on for a while. I saw someone suggest the same in a video once, so I thought maybe I wouldn't have to, but I'll stop lurking long enough to get the thought out there and hope someone sees it. It would probably take some major overhauls, but hey, that's what early access is for, right?
For co-op conversations, I was wondering if it would be possible to do something like the conversations from the MMO Star Wars the Old Republic? Where when someone starts a conversation, it initiates a "ready check" so other people can join in if they want. Then when the conversation is underway, everyone picks which dialogue options they want to say, and there's a roll-off to see which conversation option goes through. In the case of a tie, whoever picked first wins the tie. And there are also behind-the-scenes bonuses given to players that haven't won a check in a while, to make sure one player doesn't happen to run the tables in the conversation. And there's a timer where, if it runs out, whoever has the highest roll gets their option even if someone hasn't picked yet, to make sure people can't be jerks. :P
I feel like that could slip into a d20 system easily enough. Just have every player roll a d20 when they pick an option, displaying which number they got. Highest number wins. If one player wins the roll twice in a row, the other players get like, a +2 bonus to the roll or something. Then, assuming there's more than 2 players, the bonuses will continuously increase, only to reset when one of the players gets their option picked, so everyone should at least have a single dialogue option go through in a given conversation. Then, if someone just wants to spectate and doesn't want to participate for whatever reason, after the ready check has passed and the conversation has started, players that aren't involved can listen in like how it is now.
I feel like this could also solve problems like, say, a forced conversation starting with a character that doesn't have persuasion causing you to botch an important persuasion check. Cause then the person with persuasion could pick their option, and the others could just let it go through if they wanted.
I dunno, me and my friends just get disheartened sometimes when most of the roleplaying in the game boils down to watching each other doing important scenes instead of always actively having a hand in them. I thought this could be a possible solution for it. I feel like from a theoretical level it could work well, but I dunno what kind of programming hell it would require, so, hey, you do you. Just putting thoughts out there.
