Hello,
i advocated for a similar to SWTOR-based dialogue system in the past but i wanted to start the discussion again and hopefully reach someone at Larian to give it a thought.
Baldur’s Gate 3 set a new standard for cinematic storytelling in RPGs. However, in multiplayer, dialogue often feels one‑sided: the first player to trigger a cutscene becomes the sole speaker, while others watch passively. This limits roleplay opportunities and reduces narrative engagement for the whole party.
To enhance immersion and cooperative storytelling, I propose a Shared Dialogue Roll System, inspired by SWTOR.
SWTOR:
For people who did not play SWTOR: When you play in multiplayer you enter a cutscene together and chose to answer for yourself. A dice roll decides then which you of the member in the party gets to answer.
There are also light and dark side options and even if for example the light side options get picked the one who chooses the dark side options get dark side points. They also have a hidden system to increase your roll chance if you didnt get to speak in a longer period.
With this they try to give a fair equalization for each player. Also you have to option to not chose an answer during the cutscene the other players chose to roll or their answer gets picked. The benefit of that is that you as a group can decide if you want a certain person to handle the dialogue.
Core Mechanics:
When a dialogue begins, all players can select a response.
The game performs a random roll (or vote) to determine which line is spoken aloud.
Even if a player’s choice doesn’t win, their character still receives approval/disapproval, alignment, or narrative flags tied to their selection.
Players have the option to not chose an answer at all in order to give other players the spotlight / let them handle the dialogue / reflecting their character.
This means every player has a voice and is engaged into the game at all times. It also creates fun situations and a certain kind of unpredictability. Additionally, it feels very immersive because all people participate at all times.
You could also have different variants for the system. For example the option to give charisma / persuation a bonus to dialogue selection or instead of a dice roll system just a vote system. There should be also an option just to select "shared rolls" or "first speaker gets to talk" if you want to have it like BG3 is at the moment.
This would be a huge step from a "spectator mode" into a collaborative roleplay game which closely aligns with a basic DND encounter.
This would make games like Divinity and Baldur’s Gate feel even more refined than they already do.
