A screenshot of the docks at sunset from my Oblivion modification, Port Umbra.

One common problem in the development of role-playing games is creating concise and effective dialogue that keeps the player’s attention. In order to write successful dialogue, I used my playwriting experience from undergrad, where I learned to create natural-sounding dialogue that carried layers of meaning.

I created optional conversation topics to give additional information about a quest, person, or location, but all required information fit within the quest dialogue. I also gave the player the option to end the conversations at any point if they are disinterested in the topic