This is not a post about lying in fiction or games
May 19, 2024 6:20 AM Subscribe
Some say that lying non-player characters can motivate player characters, at the cost of paranoia. Some say that characters in crime fiction may be justified in their dishonesty. Marvel comic books are full of liars. Psychology experts have advice for you about how to spot liars. Some recent research has addressed factors associated with designing video games with falsehoods.
A relevant previous Ask.
About the "research" link:
"Lying and deception are important parts of social interaction; when applied to storytelling mediums such as video games, such elements can add complexity and intrigue. We developed a game, “AlphaBetaCity”, in which non-playable characters (NPCs) made various false statements, and used this game to investigate perceptions of deceptive behaviour. We used a mix of human-written dialogue incorporating deliberate falsehoods and LLM-written scripts with (human-approved) hallucinated responses. The degree of falsehoods varied between believable but untrue statements to outright fabrications. 29 participants played the game and were interviewed about their experiences. Participants discussed methods for developing trust and gauging NPC truthfulness. Whereas perceived intentional false statements were often attributed towards narrative and gameplay effects, seemingly unintentional false statements generally mismatched participants’ mental models and lacked inherent meaning. We discuss how the perception of intentionality, the audience demographic, and the desire for meaning are major considerations when designing video games with falsehoods."
Yin, M., Wang, E., Ng, C., & Xiao, R. (2024, May). Lies, Deceit, and Hallucinations: Player Perception and Expectations Regarding Trust and Deception in Games. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-15).
About the "research" link:
"Lying and deception are important parts of social interaction; when applied to storytelling mediums such as video games, such elements can add complexity and intrigue. We developed a game, “AlphaBetaCity”, in which non-playable characters (NPCs) made various false statements, and used this game to investigate perceptions of deceptive behaviour. We used a mix of human-written dialogue incorporating deliberate falsehoods and LLM-written scripts with (human-approved) hallucinated responses. The degree of falsehoods varied between believable but untrue statements to outright fabrications. 29 participants played the game and were interviewed about their experiences. Participants discussed methods for developing trust and gauging NPC truthfulness. Whereas perceived intentional false statements were often attributed towards narrative and gameplay effects, seemingly unintentional false statements generally mismatched participants’ mental models and lacked inherent meaning. We discuss how the perception of intentionality, the audience demographic, and the desire for meaning are major considerations when designing video games with falsehoods."
Yin, M., Wang, E., Ng, C., & Xiao, R. (2024, May). Lies, Deceit, and Hallucinations: Player Perception and Expectations Regarding Trust and Deception in Games. In Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-15).
Don’t Trust The Skull.
I’ve worked on a couple game stories that are pretty infamous for their player deceptive twists (Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, though I was more involved in story for the former vs design for the latter), and I’ve written… god, dozens of pages by now on Metafilter about recursive agent-state prediction being the immediate precursor to subjective human consciousness.
Recursive agent-state prediction in plain English: how will my target react to a lie? What will that deliberate misinformation lead them to tell others? How will those others react? Does that indefinite-length chain of reactions match my goals?
It requires maintaining in-context models of multiple interacting minds, similar to the mind doing the modeling, in a series of theoretically-infinite regress (though IIRC in practice humans typically stop after 4 or 5 predictive steps).
It remains the killer app of hominid mental activity and I am convinced it will be the final domino to fall before true Turing-level AGI. I have no idea whether it is even possible without both embodiment and a continuously retraining AI model, but gun to my head I’d guess that you need a fair amount of time with both, first. I would be deeply surprised to learn there was any success at sustained, intentional deception by automated systems for some time to come. It very nearly the cognitive antipode of what the current LLM explosion excels at.
posted by Ryvar at 8:02 AM on May 19 [25 favorites]
I’ve worked on a couple game stories that are pretty infamous for their player deceptive twists (Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite, though I was more involved in story for the former vs design for the latter), and I’ve written… god, dozens of pages by now on Metafilter about recursive agent-state prediction being the immediate precursor to subjective human consciousness.
Recursive agent-state prediction in plain English: how will my target react to a lie? What will that deliberate misinformation lead them to tell others? How will those others react? Does that indefinite-length chain of reactions match my goals?
It requires maintaining in-context models of multiple interacting minds, similar to the mind doing the modeling, in a series of theoretically-infinite regress (though IIRC in practice humans typically stop after 4 or 5 predictive steps).
It remains the killer app of hominid mental activity and I am convinced it will be the final domino to fall before true Turing-level AGI. I have no idea whether it is even possible without both embodiment and a continuously retraining AI model, but gun to my head I’d guess that you need a fair amount of time with both, first. I would be deeply surprised to learn there was any success at sustained, intentional deception by automated systems for some time to come. It very nearly the cognitive antipode of what the current LLM explosion excels at.
posted by Ryvar at 8:02 AM on May 19 [25 favorites]
I mentioned NPC lying in a recent thread, I might as well mention a few examples....
In TTRPGs, this falls under the category of tavern or village rumors. Many early D&D modules offer a table of rumors that players may receive, sometimes even rolling for them. Some of these rumors are true and some are false; it's left to the players to discover which are which. These serve an important function of giving players a possible lead on surviving (or falling victim to!) specific threats, finding hidden treasures, or filling in parts of the backstory that might not be learnable otherwise.
The textbook example in video games is the NPCs in Castlevania II, which frequently offer confusing or incorrect statements like "GET A SILK BAG FROM THE GRAVEYARD DUCK TO LIVE LONGER." Two possible interpretations of this statement are incorrect: ducking doesn't improve your chances of survival in the graveyard, and there is no duck in the graveyard that offers a silk bag to you. There is a Silk Bag it the game, but you get it from an NPC who appears if you drop garlic there, and it does help you survive indirectly by increasing your capacity for carrying Laurels, which offer invulnerability. Castlevania II is old enough that it seems likely to an English player that these statements are translation errors, but they're not! The townsfolk are just as unhelpful in Japanese! These work much like the tavern rumors I mentioned above. A few required actions in the game are obscure, requiring doing X for several seconds while holding Y, and without the hints from NPCs, liars some of them may be, the player would have no idea at all what they must do to progress.
Nethack has a whole system for giving the player false information. The game has "fortune cookies" as an item; when one is eaten (or simply read if one doesn't want to eat the cookie for some reason), it'll report a random game hint. Nethack is so full of things that there are game features that are only tipped off to the player in this way, although they tend not to be essential facts. But some fortune cookies lie, or just provide information that isn't helpful. In typical Nethack logic, whether the cookie is true or lies/is unhelpful depends on its blessed/cursed state: blessed cookies always tell the truth (comes from a text file names rumors.tru), and cursed cookies (rumors.fal) never do. (Those two links are technically spoilers, BTW.) If it's a beatifically-undecided cookie, the rumor could come from either file. The Oracle, in the game, if asked for a minor consultation, always gives rumors from the true file.
All of these systems, as well as Dragon Quest XI's setting that lets NPCs offer wrong information, are valid. It doesn't make sense that villagers or random inebriates are infallible sources. Sometimes Zadok Allen doesn't have a direct line on the machinations of town patriarch Old Man Marsh, but instead is just a drunk. While it's possible to think that Castlevania II goes too far, what is important is that some of the townspeople tell the truth. Leaving it to the player to determine which statements are worth following is an often-overlooked, but important, aspect of both play and worldbuilding.
posted by JHarris at 8:07 AM on May 19 [12 favorites]
In TTRPGs, this falls under the category of tavern or village rumors. Many early D&D modules offer a table of rumors that players may receive, sometimes even rolling for them. Some of these rumors are true and some are false; it's left to the players to discover which are which. These serve an important function of giving players a possible lead on surviving (or falling victim to!) specific threats, finding hidden treasures, or filling in parts of the backstory that might not be learnable otherwise.
The textbook example in video games is the NPCs in Castlevania II, which frequently offer confusing or incorrect statements like "GET A SILK BAG FROM THE GRAVEYARD DUCK TO LIVE LONGER." Two possible interpretations of this statement are incorrect: ducking doesn't improve your chances of survival in the graveyard, and there is no duck in the graveyard that offers a silk bag to you. There is a Silk Bag it the game, but you get it from an NPC who appears if you drop garlic there, and it does help you survive indirectly by increasing your capacity for carrying Laurels, which offer invulnerability. Castlevania II is old enough that it seems likely to an English player that these statements are translation errors, but they're not! The townsfolk are just as unhelpful in Japanese! These work much like the tavern rumors I mentioned above. A few required actions in the game are obscure, requiring doing X for several seconds while holding Y, and without the hints from NPCs, liars some of them may be, the player would have no idea at all what they must do to progress.
Nethack has a whole system for giving the player false information. The game has "fortune cookies" as an item; when one is eaten (or simply read if one doesn't want to eat the cookie for some reason), it'll report a random game hint. Nethack is so full of things that there are game features that are only tipped off to the player in this way, although they tend not to be essential facts. But some fortune cookies lie, or just provide information that isn't helpful. In typical Nethack logic, whether the cookie is true or lies/is unhelpful depends on its blessed/cursed state: blessed cookies always tell the truth (comes from a text file names rumors.tru), and cursed cookies (rumors.fal) never do. (Those two links are technically spoilers, BTW.) If it's a beatifically-undecided cookie, the rumor could come from either file. The Oracle, in the game, if asked for a minor consultation, always gives rumors from the true file.
All of these systems, as well as Dragon Quest XI's setting that lets NPCs offer wrong information, are valid. It doesn't make sense that villagers or random inebriates are infallible sources. Sometimes Zadok Allen doesn't have a direct line on the machinations of town patriarch Old Man Marsh, but instead is just a drunk. While it's possible to think that Castlevania II goes too far, what is important is that some of the townspeople tell the truth. Leaving it to the player to determine which statements are worth following is an often-overlooked, but important, aspect of both play and worldbuilding.
posted by JHarris at 8:07 AM on May 19 [12 favorites]
how will my target react to a lie? What will that deliberate misinformation lead them to tell others? How will those others react? Does that indefinite-length chain of reactions match my goals?
W/r/t TTRPGs, the more players at the table, the less capable the DM is of making remotely-accurate predictions along these lines.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 8:13 AM on May 19 [7 favorites]
W/r/t TTRPGs, the more players at the table, the less capable the DM is of making remotely-accurate predictions along these lines.
posted by CheesesOfBrazil at 8:13 AM on May 19 [7 favorites]
This is a great followup to yesterday's post about LLM-based RPGs.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:22 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 8:22 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
Power differentials abused necessitate; considering Polyphemus'
Οὖτις
posted by HearHere at 8:51 AM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Οὖτις
posted by HearHere at 8:51 AM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Ain’t Nobody got time for that.
posted by chavenet at 8:55 AM on May 19 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 8:55 AM on May 19 [5 favorites]
This is not a post about lying in fiction or games
You sly dog.
posted by Phanx at 9:14 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
You sly dog.
posted by Phanx at 9:14 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
Ain’t Nobody got time for that.
Genuinely.
Talking about table top RPGs specifically, the GM cannot reasonably present a realistic world that provides information to players in a neutral way.
By mentioning something, the GM has spotlighted it over everything in the setting that is merely implied. The PCs can only respond to things you have brought out. (Some games allow for players to develop the setting in a collaborative way as well, but that makes the action even more PC focused.)
By having NPCs give information to the players, you are saying "this matters". Punishing the players for following up the lines you drop to them, because they should have realized in universe most peasants don't know anything meaningful about the vampires lair is going to be bad for your game longterm.
It gets you players who nit pick your setting and plots, rather than immersing themselves in the narrative or just straight up ignoring any bread crumbs that don't come from sufficiently vetted sources.
The one exception I am fond of is when an NPC provides information that is very obviously wrong as they are providing it, but contains some element of truth the PCs can use later on. In a cosmic horror story, the players can probably figure out they aren't going to encounter the benevolent ghost of a young widow, regardless of what folklore says. But now they know people are seeing something weird near the old lighthouse on moonless nights.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:11 AM on May 19 [6 favorites]
Genuinely.
Talking about table top RPGs specifically, the GM cannot reasonably present a realistic world that provides information to players in a neutral way.
By mentioning something, the GM has spotlighted it over everything in the setting that is merely implied. The PCs can only respond to things you have brought out. (Some games allow for players to develop the setting in a collaborative way as well, but that makes the action even more PC focused.)
By having NPCs give information to the players, you are saying "this matters". Punishing the players for following up the lines you drop to them, because they should have realized in universe most peasants don't know anything meaningful about the vampires lair is going to be bad for your game longterm.
It gets you players who nit pick your setting and plots, rather than immersing themselves in the narrative or just straight up ignoring any bread crumbs that don't come from sufficiently vetted sources.
The one exception I am fond of is when an NPC provides information that is very obviously wrong as they are providing it, but contains some element of truth the PCs can use later on. In a cosmic horror story, the players can probably figure out they aren't going to encounter the benevolent ghost of a young widow, regardless of what folklore says. But now they know people are seeing something weird near the old lighthouse on moonless nights.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:11 AM on May 19 [6 favorites]
In a TTRPG, or when you have multiple players in general, what you want is to have the players lying to each other, not The World (DM) lying to the player. But I think this is different in a video game. A video game is much more like an interactive book than a TTRPG, and I've read plenty of books with unreliable narrators.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:25 AM on May 19 [2 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 10:25 AM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Ryvar, I came in here thinking of Bioshock, thank you for that, the lie was the best thing that ever happened to me in gaming.
posted by Iteki at 10:50 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by Iteki at 10:50 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
With TTRPG's the GM has two obligations with regards to the truth:
1) They must represent what the player characters perceive truthfully unless there is some in game mechanic causing them to see falsehood. But if you tell the players "you enter the hotel room, there's a king size bed, a nightstand with a clock radio, and a desk with a swivel chair" you can't then attack them with the dragon that was sitting on the bed that you just didn't bother mentioning.
2) They must represent NPC's and be sure that the players are aware of when the GM is speaking as an NPC who might, like anyone else, not be entirely honest and when they're describing the things the player sees and experiences.
It's fine to say things like: "The Bartender says 'Well, I ain't never heard of anyone named Whately.' he finishes polishing the glass he was holding and goes on: 'so, you gonna buy anything?'"
The bartender may or may not be telling the truth and that's fine.
But if the GM says: "The bartender tells you he's never heard of anyone named Whatley" and the bartender in fact HAD told them he knew someone named Whatley it's a problem. Again, unless maybe the PC's are under a curse that makes them hear the opposite of what people say about the Whatleys or something similar.
So yeah. In computer games things are actually easier on that particular aspect of honesty because the game engine handles presenting the world to the player(s) so therefore any dishonesty must either be explicitly coded (as part of an illusion, hologram, curse, etc) or be deception on the part of an NPC.
But modern gamers, used to skipping past conversations with NPC's to get the quest marker on their compass and a quest description in their log, are NOT going to be happy if it turns out that when the helpful traveling doohicky salesperson told them they'd seen a mysterious light at the top of the hill it turns out they were just mistaken and there wasn't actually a light up there.
You maybe could get away with that in Oblivion, back when people had to read the damn quest text and pay attention and there wasn't a compass with quest objectives you could follow. But today? You'd need a disclaimer at the beginning that says "PEOPLE LIE IN THIS GAME" and even then it wouldn't be enough to keep them from griping.
posted by sotonohito at 10:59 AM on May 19 [8 favorites]
1) They must represent what the player characters perceive truthfully unless there is some in game mechanic causing them to see falsehood. But if you tell the players "you enter the hotel room, there's a king size bed, a nightstand with a clock radio, and a desk with a swivel chair" you can't then attack them with the dragon that was sitting on the bed that you just didn't bother mentioning.
2) They must represent NPC's and be sure that the players are aware of when the GM is speaking as an NPC who might, like anyone else, not be entirely honest and when they're describing the things the player sees and experiences.
It's fine to say things like: "The Bartender says 'Well, I ain't never heard of anyone named Whately.' he finishes polishing the glass he was holding and goes on: 'so, you gonna buy anything?'"
The bartender may or may not be telling the truth and that's fine.
But if the GM says: "The bartender tells you he's never heard of anyone named Whatley" and the bartender in fact HAD told them he knew someone named Whatley it's a problem. Again, unless maybe the PC's are under a curse that makes them hear the opposite of what people say about the Whatleys or something similar.
So yeah. In computer games things are actually easier on that particular aspect of honesty because the game engine handles presenting the world to the player(s) so therefore any dishonesty must either be explicitly coded (as part of an illusion, hologram, curse, etc) or be deception on the part of an NPC.
But modern gamers, used to skipping past conversations with NPC's to get the quest marker on their compass and a quest description in their log, are NOT going to be happy if it turns out that when the helpful traveling doohicky salesperson told them they'd seen a mysterious light at the top of the hill it turns out they were just mistaken and there wasn't actually a light up there.
You maybe could get away with that in Oblivion, back when people had to read the damn quest text and pay attention and there wasn't a compass with quest objectives you could follow. But today? You'd need a disclaimer at the beginning that says "PEOPLE LIE IN THIS GAME" and even then it wouldn't be enough to keep them from griping.
posted by sotonohito at 10:59 AM on May 19 [8 favorites]
I recall that one of Morrowind's quests points the player the wrong way to find a dungeon, by accident, and it became slightly infamous. Oblivion did have map markers but Morrowind didn't, so any direction from an NPC had to be exactly right otherwise you'd end up completely stuck (and you might get turned around anyway).
posted by BungaDunga at 11:07 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 11:07 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
Am I a bad person because that explanation makes me want to upset players who don't read the quest text?
How about if the quest text tells the player the person is probably lying to them, but only if you read it?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:08 AM on May 19 [4 favorites]
How about if the quest text tells the player the person is probably lying to them, but only if you read it?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:08 AM on May 19 [4 favorites]
A good lie for a videogame is something like an NPC quest giver turning out to have his own agenda and not the Guild's, or something like that- and you can kind of play with that, giving the player dumb fetch quests that players are used to, but then have it turn out that the guy was just asking you to do his dry cleaning or something instead of Vital Guild Business.
posted by BungaDunga at 11:10 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 11:10 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
I think one of the reasons players have gotten so used to skipping the quest text is because it doesn't matter. Within the context of the game, it's just useless fluff. But it seems to me the correct response to that is to make it matter, by putting information in there that the players need to know, such as rumors that the NPC down the way is a known liar.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:12 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:12 AM on May 19 [3 favorites]
The bartender may or may not be telling the truth and that's fine.
Yeah, that is a good point. There is a difference between characters in a murder mystery lying about their whereabouts or a town full of cultists hiding their secrets and random NPCs telling PCs plausible but false things about a fantasy scenario.
These days we have so little time to game, I am quick to cut out red herrings or anything else I can to get to the meat of the adventure.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:43 AM on May 19 [4 favorites]
Yeah, that is a good point. There is a difference between characters in a murder mystery lying about their whereabouts or a town full of cultists hiding their secrets and random NPCs telling PCs plausible but false things about a fantasy scenario.
These days we have so little time to game, I am quick to cut out red herrings or anything else I can to get to the meat of the adventure.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 11:43 AM on May 19 [4 favorites]
But it seems to me the correct response to that is to make it matter, by putting information in there that the players need to know, such as rumors that the NPC down the way is a known liar.
And you do that, but then from day one of player testing the response is uniform -11 rated hatred. Because a significant number of players just want to get to the "good stuff" of shooting Nazis or zombies or sky racists or whoever we've deemed it acceptable to kill-on-sight this cycle, and your narrative is in their way.
The second most important skill in game design is counting to ten before flipping the table.
posted by Ryvar at 11:59 AM on May 19 [5 favorites]
And you do that, but then from day one of player testing the response is uniform -11 rated hatred. Because a significant number of players just want to get to the "good stuff" of shooting Nazis or zombies or sky racists or whoever we've deemed it acceptable to kill-on-sight this cycle, and your narrative is in their way.
The second most important skill in game design is counting to ten before flipping the table.
posted by Ryvar at 11:59 AM on May 19 [5 favorites]
By having NPCs give information to the players, you are saying "this matters". Punishing the players for following up the lines you drop to them, because they should have realized in universe most peasants don't know anything meaningful about the vampires lair is going to be bad for your game longterm.
I mean, I disagree, but I already said why above? Misinformation is a classic tool of TTRPG design, going back to the very start. Whole adventures have been written where the player's cluelessness is the point of it.
Right now I'm looking at page 7 of In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr, Special Instructional Dungeon Module B1, designed for beginning players and DMs. It has a table of 20 rumors the players can learn, and specifically marks which ones are false, including among others: [spoilers for an adventure first published in 1978]
"The treasures of Zeligar and Rogahn are safely hidden in a pool of water," "An enchanted stone within the stronghold will grant a wish to anyone who chips off a piece of it and places it within their mouth," and "All treasures of Zeligar and Rogahn are cused to bring ill to anyone who possesses them."
Some rumors are just random static, lending mystery to the setting, but sometimes they're specifically there to cause credulous players to make bad decisions. The clue about the pool of water is there because later in the adventure there is the Room Of Pools, and one of those appears to have treasure in it. But the treasure is an illusion. There are other adventures where the rumors actually suggest things that could be harmful or even lethal to players.
If you don't want to use misinformation in adventures you run that's fine, but it can be a very useful trick in a DM's toolbox. What's important is, while the DM is narrating the adventure, that information must be accurate, at least according to the understanding of the players' characters, because it's all they have to go by in establishing the reality of the game world.
posted by JHarris at 12:03 PM on May 19 [5 favorites]
I mean, I disagree, but I already said why above? Misinformation is a classic tool of TTRPG design, going back to the very start. Whole adventures have been written where the player's cluelessness is the point of it.
Right now I'm looking at page 7 of In Search of the Unknown by Mike Carr, Special Instructional Dungeon Module B1, designed for beginning players and DMs. It has a table of 20 rumors the players can learn, and specifically marks which ones are false, including among others: [spoilers for an adventure first published in 1978]
"The treasures of Zeligar and Rogahn are safely hidden in a pool of water," "An enchanted stone within the stronghold will grant a wish to anyone who chips off a piece of it and places it within their mouth," and "All treasures of Zeligar and Rogahn are cused to bring ill to anyone who possesses them."
Some rumors are just random static, lending mystery to the setting, but sometimes they're specifically there to cause credulous players to make bad decisions. The clue about the pool of water is there because later in the adventure there is the Room Of Pools, and one of those appears to have treasure in it. But the treasure is an illusion. There are other adventures where the rumors actually suggest things that could be harmful or even lethal to players.
If you don't want to use misinformation in adventures you run that's fine, but it can be a very useful trick in a DM's toolbox. What's important is, while the DM is narrating the adventure, that information must be accurate, at least according to the understanding of the players' characters, because it's all they have to go by in establishing the reality of the game world.
posted by JHarris at 12:03 PM on May 19 [5 favorites]
I recall that one of Morrowind's quests points the player the wrong way to find a dungeon, by accident, and it became slightly infamous. Oblivion did have map markers but Morrowind didn't, so any direction from an NPC had to be exactly right otherwise you'd end up completely stuck (and you might get turned around anyway).
So I ended up annoyed a lot of the time at Morrowind's quests, too. But that one quest is the exception that proves the rule, because when each time I checked, the NPCs' directions in Morrowing were quite accurate - far better than World of Warcraft's, for instance. Something that was said to be due East was in fact due East. However, the designers for Morrowind made the map essentially a maze of winding valleys to disguise short draw distance and make the island seem larger, so actually going due East was more trouble than it should have been and that is probably what made things frustrating in the end.
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:04 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
So I ended up annoyed a lot of the time at Morrowind's quests, too. But that one quest is the exception that proves the rule, because when each time I checked, the NPCs' directions in Morrowing were quite accurate - far better than World of Warcraft's, for instance. Something that was said to be due East was in fact due East. However, the designers for Morrowind made the map essentially a maze of winding valleys to disguise short draw distance and make the island seem larger, so actually going due East was more trouble than it should have been and that is probably what made things frustrating in the end.
posted by Zalzidrax at 12:04 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
But if the GM says: "The bartender tells you he's never heard of anyone named Whatley" and the bartender in fact HAD told them he knew someone named Whatley it's a problem.
Or, the bartender could wink as he says he's never heard of Whatley. "Naw, I ain't never heard of him." "But you just told us...." "Me? Not me friend. You must have talked to my brother. No one can tell us apart."
posted by JHarris at 12:08 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Or, the bartender could wink as he says he's never heard of Whatley. "Naw, I ain't never heard of him." "But you just told us...." "Me? Not me friend. You must have talked to my brother. No one can tell us apart."
posted by JHarris at 12:08 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Darn it, I meant Morrowind, I typed Oblivion.
posted by sotonohito at 12:52 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
posted by sotonohito at 12:52 PM on May 19 [1 favorite]
Not sure if lying-by-omission counts here, but The Illusive Man of the Mass Effect trilogy (in particular in the second game) does a lot of it, and in one mission in particular Shepard and the squad find out about it in the middle of the mission. ME was very much driven by the intersection of different personalities and personal histories; the middle game's "loyalty" missions are based on them. Knowing that the guy running the show has his own hidden agenda makes a big difference in the story overall.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:01 PM on May 19 [3 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:01 PM on May 19 [3 favorites]
Coincidentally I'm early in a Morrowind playthrough right now so I'm seeing some of these things firsthand. Haven't yet run into any outright wrong directions to a quest objective but a couple have been confusing or ambiguous (and as Zalzidrax says, the map is not your friend at times).
One basic instance of NPC lies is a predictable one -- someone accused of murder denies it and says someone else did it. Crucially in this case, the someone-else is an Argonian, a lizard race often subject to racism by the more-humanoid races of Morrowind. The Argonian denies it also, obviously. Even when confronted with eyewitness evidence the original accused sticks with his denial, and if you serve justice against the Argonian instead and come back to him, he'll say "Thank you for trusting me." Is he actually innocent? Possible but very unlikely, the eyewitness had no reason to lie. The game considers the quest complete once one of them is brought to justice, whatever you choose to believe, and it's not until later that you may regret choosing the Argonian (he's a much more useful NPC than the other guy).
A better example is a guild steward who gives tasks to the player as they rise in guild rank. At first the tasks seem like pretty straightforward guild business, but eventually it's clear that some of them are more about settling scores for the steward, up to the point where the player is asked to kill someone who you're told is guilty of a serious crime against the guild. You can choose to just go straight to the person and kill them as requested, but if you investigate further (talking to other people about the accused, searching them or their belongings) you find no supporting evidence, and talking to them instead of killing them outright gives you the missing context of why the guild steward wants them dead.
Coming back to this game in 2024 is a trip. It's dated obviously but there's a huge collection of mods available that improve the experience. More importantly, coming from a time without a crowd of map markers pointing directly to every possible POI, where you actually have to pay attention to directions and deal with ambiguity, it feels much more like an *adventure* than later entries in the series. Morrowind will happily allow you to get lost and die in the wilderness, or kill a critical NPC that breaks a quest, or let you sell something to a vendor that you really should have held onto, and that's fine because these are exactly the kinds of mistakes an outlander like the NPC would constantly be making in these situations. So you save the game a lot, and you pay attention, and you explore and investigate carefully, and you plan ahead, and it leads to a much richer and more nuanced experience than the current model of "go HERE, follow the line, press X to complete quest, follow the line back to get the next quest".
(Also the writing is phenomenal. Not sure anybody makes games like this anymore and it's a real shame.)
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:35 PM on May 19 [6 favorites]
One basic instance of NPC lies is a predictable one -- someone accused of murder denies it and says someone else did it. Crucially in this case, the someone-else is an Argonian, a lizard race often subject to racism by the more-humanoid races of Morrowind. The Argonian denies it also, obviously. Even when confronted with eyewitness evidence the original accused sticks with his denial, and if you serve justice against the Argonian instead and come back to him, he'll say "Thank you for trusting me." Is he actually innocent? Possible but very unlikely, the eyewitness had no reason to lie. The game considers the quest complete once one of them is brought to justice, whatever you choose to believe, and it's not until later that you may regret choosing the Argonian (he's a much more useful NPC than the other guy).
A better example is a guild steward who gives tasks to the player as they rise in guild rank. At first the tasks seem like pretty straightforward guild business, but eventually it's clear that some of them are more about settling scores for the steward, up to the point where the player is asked to kill someone who you're told is guilty of a serious crime against the guild. You can choose to just go straight to the person and kill them as requested, but if you investigate further (talking to other people about the accused, searching them or their belongings) you find no supporting evidence, and talking to them instead of killing them outright gives you the missing context of why the guild steward wants them dead.
Coming back to this game in 2024 is a trip. It's dated obviously but there's a huge collection of mods available that improve the experience. More importantly, coming from a time without a crowd of map markers pointing directly to every possible POI, where you actually have to pay attention to directions and deal with ambiguity, it feels much more like an *adventure* than later entries in the series. Morrowind will happily allow you to get lost and die in the wilderness, or kill a critical NPC that breaks a quest, or let you sell something to a vendor that you really should have held onto, and that's fine because these are exactly the kinds of mistakes an outlander like the NPC would constantly be making in these situations. So you save the game a lot, and you pay attention, and you explore and investigate carefully, and you plan ahead, and it leads to a much richer and more nuanced experience than the current model of "go HERE, follow the line, press X to complete quest, follow the line back to get the next quest".
(Also the writing is phenomenal. Not sure anybody makes games like this anymore and it's a real shame.)
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 1:35 PM on May 19 [6 favorites]
The thing about the Lie in Bioschock (which I loved) is: believing the lie did not prevent you from playing the game. Games have conventions because we can't play them if pressing the buttons don't do what pressing the buttons is meant to do (or whatever mechanic we're talking about). So if the lie had told you your objective was to do a thing literally impossible in the game (like "build a submarine" and you were neither able to gather parts, nor use tools) then it would be frustrating and bad game design and cheap.
But if the lie tells you to, e.g., go to the inner sanctum and open the safe for the key to the escape hatch and you can go to the inner sanctum where you learn there's no safe, no key, no escape hatch but a completely different objective, it might be frustrating and bad game design and cheap, but only if it's bad storytelling and only if all your prior effort is wasted.
I love a narrative to lie to me, when it does it well and cleverly and does not waste all the time I've invested up to the reveal. It's not easy to do and I'm impressed when it comes off.
posted by crush at 1:38 PM on May 19 [5 favorites]
But if the lie tells you to, e.g., go to the inner sanctum and open the safe for the key to the escape hatch and you can go to the inner sanctum where you learn there's no safe, no key, no escape hatch but a completely different objective, it might be frustrating and bad game design and cheap, but only if it's bad storytelling and only if all your prior effort is wasted.
I love a narrative to lie to me, when it does it well and cleverly and does not waste all the time I've invested up to the reveal. It's not easy to do and I'm impressed when it comes off.
posted by crush at 1:38 PM on May 19 [5 favorites]
Something I’ve learned from 45+ years GMing is that red herrings, misleading clues, etc seem interesting from a scenario-creation point of view, but, in practice, the players will confuse themselves naturally, misunderstanding your brilliant plans, and make a hash of things without them. So din’t use them.
That’s a bit different from NPCs lying, which PCs can reasonably figure out and react to. One of my favorite mechanics is the Carved from Brindlewood system from The Gauntlet where searching for clues uncovers evocative bits of information which the players use to concoct answers to questions. This ensures that the game always moves towards resolution (sometimes with setbacks) and pretty much never dead ends. It also makes scenarios very replayable and shares agency between GM and players. It’s very clever.
As for computer games? I don’t play them anymore, but I enjoyed the meta-lie at the start of the PS1 FF7, where you play through the recollections of an unreliable narrator. That was fun.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:13 PM on May 19 [3 favorites]
That’s a bit different from NPCs lying, which PCs can reasonably figure out and react to. One of my favorite mechanics is the Carved from Brindlewood system from The Gauntlet where searching for clues uncovers evocative bits of information which the players use to concoct answers to questions. This ensures that the game always moves towards resolution (sometimes with setbacks) and pretty much never dead ends. It also makes scenarios very replayable and shares agency between GM and players. It’s very clever.
As for computer games? I don’t play them anymore, but I enjoyed the meta-lie at the start of the PS1 FF7, where you play through the recollections of an unreliable narrator. That was fun.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:13 PM on May 19 [3 favorites]
One of my very favorite games, Ice Pick Lodge's The Void, brazenly lies to the player in the tutorial section.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:53 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:53 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Since no one else has, I’m just making a note here, there really was a cake (audio).
posted by Pryde at 6:28 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
posted by Pryde at 6:28 PM on May 19 [2 favorites]
Two unicycles and some duct tape That ambiguity is a delightful feature of Morrowind and I loved how they worked it into the big final quest and question: are you the Nerevarine or not?
And you don't know. Not even at the very end. Maybe? Maybe not? Is walking the path the same as being the person?
Compare to Skyrim where you're just plain the Dragonborn, no questions, no ifs, you kill dragons and a big explosion of magic soul stuff gets sucked into you proving it from the very first.
There's advantages to both approaches, and while ambiguity and leaving things up in the air is a slightly riskier artistic choice and can come across as just unfinished or lazy if done right it's SO bloody good.
We need more Morrowind style ambiguity in modern games.
posted by sotonohito at 5:20 AM on May 20 [5 favorites]
And you don't know. Not even at the very end. Maybe? Maybe not? Is walking the path the same as being the person?
Compare to Skyrim where you're just plain the Dragonborn, no questions, no ifs, you kill dragons and a big explosion of magic soul stuff gets sucked into you proving it from the very first.
There's advantages to both approaches, and while ambiguity and leaving things up in the air is a slightly riskier artistic choice and can come across as just unfinished or lazy if done right it's SO bloody good.
We need more Morrowind style ambiguity in modern games.
posted by sotonohito at 5:20 AM on May 20 [5 favorites]
It was excellent. And wasn't it presented like "you're not the Nerevarine, you're just some schmuck who could pass for it, and we want to exploit that"?
posted by Hermione Dies at 5:34 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Hermione Dies at 5:34 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
To sort of follow-up on my post in the recent LLM thread (where I said the purpose of game NPCs is to provide information, and that information needs to be accurate) -- I didn't mean that an NPC can never lie, but if they do, it needs to be done with intentionality. That is, if an NPC lies to the player, they can still be accurate, in that they're being accurate to the game-world-fact "This NPC is a liar". An NPC should never accidentally lie, which is where LLMs become unuseable.
If an NPC says there's a cave full of treasure in the nearby woods, and the cave actually contains bandits waiting to ambush unwary fools who were taken in by their confederate -- that's awesome. If an NPC says there's a cave full of treasure in the nearby woods, and there's no cave in the woods at all -- that's garbage.
posted by rifflesby at 6:29 PM on May 20 [3 favorites]
If an NPC says there's a cave full of treasure in the nearby woods, and the cave actually contains bandits waiting to ambush unwary fools who were taken in by their confederate -- that's awesome. If an NPC says there's a cave full of treasure in the nearby woods, and there's no cave in the woods at all -- that's garbage.
posted by rifflesby at 6:29 PM on May 20 [3 favorites]
(Also ideally, the player should be told or given the chance to realize for themselves fairly early on that they're playing a game where NPCs can lie. Because that's become relatively rare in games, and requires playing with a different mindset than players are generally used to.)
posted by rifflesby at 6:31 PM on May 20
posted by rifflesby at 6:31 PM on May 20
What about the space between always having correct information and intentionally lying? Can NPCs simply be wrong? Maybe there are a dozen people in town who've heard of that cave full of treasure, and all have different opinions on whether it's real or not.
Also, back to lying - I can't believe I forgot Zozo, the town in FF6 where everyone reliably lies to you, and there's a puzzle where you have to figure out the correct time by removing all the answers you get from them.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:41 AM on May 21 [3 favorites]
Also, back to lying - I can't believe I forgot Zozo, the town in FF6 where everyone reliably lies to you, and there's a puzzle where you have to figure out the correct time by removing all the answers you get from them.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:41 AM on May 21 [3 favorites]
« Older That's Hommy, not Tommy | The real life Lady Whistledown scandalised... Newer »
posted by es_de_bah at 6:54 AM on May 19 [5 favorites]