How to Say More: Dialogue in MMOsBecause of the nature of the medium, roleplay in MMOs is necessarily dialogue-heavy. We have a lot of how-to guides on this forum, but nothing that really addresses how to RP within the unique constraints of a dialogue-rich format. The trick to creating dialogue is not simply saying what your character would say, but conveying how they are saying it. Mood can be just as important as the statement your character is trying to make, and when you are working only with text, that can be very difficult. Many retreat exclusively to the realm of emotes to comment on their character's tone, or will display anxiety by having their character pace instead of trying to include vocal ticks. Still, dialogue is an excellent way to show instead of tell, once you've gotten the hang of it. Finding your voice Dialogue can be challenging for some people because RP typically requires formal writing. MMOs tend to be a more casual environment specifically because they privilege dialogue over action, and people have a more laid back way of speaking than they do writing. It's important to find the voice of your character. Factor in their social status, their race, their sex, their personality and how they wish to present themselves when you are looking for a voice. An elf of high social standing would speak very differently from a human peasant, just as a bandit speaks much differently from a politician. When you are speaking as your character, you must be constantly aware of their mood. In addition to being aware of their mood, you have to be aware of how they are presenting themselves. Dialogue is about presentation, and sometimes your character will be self-censoring. It's simple enough to say something that reads as though your character is exasperated. It's harder to convey that your character is hiding their exasperation. You don't necessarily need to expose yourself, but the longer a conversation drags on, the more likely your character is to let a tell slip by. Choose your words When you've got some idea of how your character should speak, you can start to construct speech patterns. There are tricks to making your character sound a particular way through text. Listen to yourself talk for ideas - notice where you slur and form casual contractions of words. An example is fusing "I don't know" into "Iunno." Try to notice patterns about "fusion points," where you combine two words. You also don't form sentences in the same way that you would when you are writing. People often speak in sentence fragments and end sentences without completing their thoughts. Examples of common speech peculiarities: • When tacked on to something else, "you" often becomes "cha" (what'cha doing?) You should also consider your character's vocabulary. It's difficult to overshoot your level, so I wouldn't recommend it, especially because alt-tabbing between WAR and thesaurus.com will get tedious after a while. If you do want to play a character with a much stronger vocabulary than you, figure out what they're likely to be talking about, and go and research a few new words to pepper your speech with. You should never saturate your speech with words you don't quite grasp, but picking and choosing just a few ones that can serve as substitutes for more common words can make your character look the way you want them to. What also sometimes works to portray a precocious character is replacing common words and phrases with uncommon, but still known substitutes. For example, rather than "That's good," your character can say "Most excellent" or "what exhilarating news!" You should always consider all the different ways to express something. Different phrases give an entirely different feel to your character. Let's say your character is asked a question to which you wish to answer "Yes." You could also say: Indeed, affirmative, indubitably, naturally, of course, you got it, that's right, absolutely, aye, yup, exactly, precisely, or even, did you figure that out by yourself? Each way of answering sends a different message about your character. "Absolutely" comes from a positive, affirming person, whereas a sarcastic response comes from someone who cares much less about the self-esteem of his or her comrades. "Affirmative" has a military feel to it, whereas "precisely" might come from an eccentric academic. You don't need to check for alternative phrases for every single sentence you ever write - a little bit of flavour goes a long, long way. At the same time, you should never be content to choose the words that you use most often. You are not your character. Implementation A good rule of thumb is that if your character is of lower status or has a devil-may-care attitude about their own presentation, you should use more slang and contractions. Conversely, if you want to play a character who is eloquent or wise, avoid contractions - change those "don't"s to "do not"s. Some people try to make their character sound more serious or eloquent by plumbing the depths of their vocabulary - I have to advise heavily against this. The end result is often clumsy and makes the character come off as arrogant and self-important (note, then, that this might be a good tactic to make a character annoying deliberately). Examples: "I dunno what'cher talkin' about." The first sounds loose, informal, spoken by someone who is perhaps slumped in a chair over a pint of booze. The other evokes rigid posture, formality, and seriousness. Usually what you want is something in between - Too much of the former and you'll sound perpetually drunk. Too much of the latter and your character will sound stuffy and oppressive. A word on accents - if you choose to do them (and I don't recommend this either way), do not get caught up in them. Many players get lost in their accents. An accent is usually not sufficient to portray a character, but many players put so much effort into their accent that they forget to add distinctive speech patterns and get lost in the sea of dwarves/orcs/whatevers. When you're doing an accent, it's almost always best to go light, because instead of obsessing over how to twist words into what you want them to sound like, you can focus on supplementing your light accent with appropriate word choice and an understanding of dialect. Emphasis and Vocalization Just like you can break rules of grammar, it's alright to play with rules of capitalization when you're working with dialogue. I'm not saying that you should run around typing in all caps, but understanding emphasis can help you with dialogue and capitalization can be a method of emphasis when you have no italics (another is closing the words in /slashes/). When your character is getting upset, or particularly condescending, or trying to make any kind of point, seek out the operative word. For example, if your character is saying: If it's an argument where your character believes another person is overstepping their bounds, perhaps you would emphasize the "YOU." If you want to draw attention to the fact that the father of said child is standing right next to you, you might emphasize "HIS." If the context is that the child in question is being sent off into danger, you might choose to emphasize "CHILD," because with the emphasis on that word comes the implication that children are to be protected or are unfit for dangerous situations. If it's a paternity debate, you might emphasize "IS," thereby making your character sound insistant. Another thing that happens in casual speech: Words get stretched out. Whether it's "Whoa" or "No" or "Yes" or "What" or "Waaagh!" words are commonly stretched. I think most people have an intuitive grasp of when to do this, but you must always stretch the vowel. We cannot properly stretch out consonents, except for Ss, and unless your character is a snake, I don't think that's what you want. Just something to bear in mind. Another flavour trick is throwing vocalizations along with speech into the mix. These are things like "ugh" and "ack" that can actually be very, very expressive. An "Ugh" combined with a sneer shows great disgust. "Mm" is a very warm noise that can indicate thought or comfort with another person. "Nn" is almost a whimper, a noise to be used when you're uncomfortable or unhappy. "Feh" is defeated. I'm sure you can come up with more. General Tips 1) Speech is imperfect. When you make a wording mistake, acknowledge it in character rather than trying to write it off. It can often add an element of realism to have your character reacting to their own flubbed line. 2) Avoid written formalities. Very, very few people speak as formally as they write. 3) Moderation is key to everything. Don't oversaturate your dialogue with accents, emphasis, slurring, contractions, fancy vocabulary or anything else. Eventually, it becomes distracting, and unless that is the point of the character, you don't want to distract. 4) Shorter is often better. Unless you're playing a character who is specifically long-winded, a normal reply in a conversation shouldn't exceed the chatbox's character limit. 5) Watch your slang. If you're anything like me, you're going to find it hard to get an exasperated substitute for "Christ!," but that kind of thing just doesn't fly in this setting. 6) Practice. Talk to people IC a lot. Write stories with only dialogue. Or, be like me, do the lazy thing and go over it in your head. Not every character's voice emerges right away - sometimes it takes some persistence. Keep trying until it feels natural. 7) Speech changes with emotion, occasion and audience. Just as an anxious person speaks differently than someone giving a motivational speech, someone speaks differently around strangers than around friends. Be aware of how your character wants to present themselves - Intimidating, or not looking for any trouble? Rich or poor? A fool or a wiseman? |
