Dialogue Options Or Why Am I The Only Dishonest One

This blog is going to be all sorts of a mess, because I have two very similar yet differen ideas about what the hell it is I am about to blog about. I'll start where the idea came to me, as these blogs that I write once every other year seems to. Recently got back into PS Now and saw that they had added, among other things, Greedfall. A game I was curious about but not really willing to buy at full price because I have learned the hard way that I rarely, if ever, finish Spiders's games. I do think they are pretty damn fun for a few hours though, because something about the way they feel reminds me of playing old Ultima games on my PC as an early teenager. They are also ambitious to the point of failure, which is some kind of admirable.

But I digress. Something caught my eye while playing this game, because this game does it so bluntly that I couldn't ignore it. But it's by no means limited to this game or Spiders's games specifically. The first thing that caught my eye was the sense that your main character seems really naive. I'll try to be vauge as to not spoil anything but it's a tiny mission in the first hour so it's not a huge plot point. Basically, you are tasked to look up someone that is selling a product that is fake. Upon meeting them and figuring out that it's very much the case you confront the persn. They in turn give an explanation that is meant to put them in a better light. Despite all evidence showing that this person engages in acts of complete dishonesty your main character's reaction is basically to accept them at their word. You can decide to still turn them in, but the overall vibe of the conversation is pointing you toward turning him in being the 'renegade' option and letting him go is the 'paragon' option. But I was just sitting there wondering why my character would be so quick to take him at his word, he had no evidence nor did my character ask for it.

Once back to the mission giver I lied about him getting away. And that's when it dawed on me. Why am I the only one lying? Or are the other ones lying or believe they are not lying and my character is just gullible?

I found myself pondering if I have ever played a game that dealt in deception of the player by a character you are built to trust. Sure, there have been left turns in some games but most of the time it feels as though those moments are in some way telegraphed ahead of time. And more often than not, in those games I still have no agency over calling them on their bullshit before that time comes because the narrative is on rails. When it comes to games like Greedfall I do have agency, but the writing makes it so obvious what they want you to do depending on what type of character you play. And even when they do give you broader options, I still feel guided to feel some kind of way if I stray too far off their hero's journey.

My gripe I suppose is that I rarely feel decieved by someone because the ones I am supposed to dislike are so often clearly defined as antagonists. But that is the nature of games overall, well defined honest goals. Which leaves me as the only person truly engaging in deception. Lying to achieve my goals when I am trying to stay true to my morals whithout burning every bridge that has a clearly defined point of view but who is also useful.

This is why it was so fascinating to go from Greedfall to Observation. That narrative is a stright line for the most part, but up until the end it kept me on my toes about who or what to trust. At a certain point in that game, I didn't even trust myself by way of who I was playing. It's perhaps a bad example because it's not a game about dialogue options at all. But the point remains the same and the did give me the option to not trust someone based on my own hunches (even though that game also telegraphs a bunch of stuff, so the impact is a bit soft).

So what's my point here, my TLDR summary, well I think my general curiosity is why games seem so hard coded against deceiving you, why our heroes are so fast to believe the words of someone without so much as a hint of actual evidence. In fact, our heroes do a lot of quests based on nothing but someone asking them to without much justification. And why are we seemingly tasked with being the inventors of lies in a lot of games with dialogue options when seemingly no one else lies since they can all be taken at their word?

Thank you for reading this rambling mess, I hope my thoughts are at least somewhat coherent. If not, ask away and I'll clarify.

Ps. If you have played a game that fits the concepts of deception of the player, feel free to suggest I give it a shot.