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[TranquilRiverGiant]

I know it's kind of presumptuous to have a wish list, and Tarn probably knows / has his own ideas for dialogue improvements, and is busy with a lot of things, but I thought would add this story here as an example of how things could be improved.

This wish list was inspired by an experience in Adventure Mode. I had generated a world that had a human city with 8000 historical figures in it, about 60% goblins and 40% humans, but still part of a human civilization. I noticed that the leader of the human city was a goblin, Tode, that despite being a goblin themselves had confronted and stopped many goblin baby snatchers in legends mode so I thought that was cool and that I'd go meet them.

Entering the city, there was a lot going on. Each step took 5 seconds, which was annoying but I delt with it. The large town was filled with houses that contained mostly goblins, and many of them were injured, some in gruesome ways. They all said stuff like "Just a moment ago, I attacked me". One goblin had apparently gelded himself. I kept running into goblins that were enraged or were walking away injured from what seemed to be a fight. I wanted to know, what happened, thus leading to my first wish:

1. How were you injured? It would be nice to know, "I got in an argument about morals with Gobbo Gobliner and he broke my leg!" "I got depressed so I gelded myself." "I was randomly attacked by an intelligent undead!" I understand the rumor system is supposed to hand this, but it's not possible to ask about things you didn't witness. I found injured townsfolk compelling story-wise and wish I could dig deeper.

Continuing on this journey I was walking up the street and I found a dead goblin on the ground, holding a book he had written. Another goblin was standing there, frozen, apparently staring at the body. At first, due to the frozenness, I thought this was a programmed-in murder scene (which I found compelling!) but talking with the other goblin, I couldn't find any conversation options to dig deeper. I asked them why they were traveling, they said they were on a pilgrimage to the temple. Using DFHack, I bodyswapped into them so that they could tell my character the rumor that the goblin had been slain there. Then I could bring it up, using the rumor system later. But I wish I could have just asked:

2. What happened here? (Why is this person dead?) They could then answer "I don't know, I found this body here" or "I don't know what happened, but I found Gobbo dead here moments ago" or "Urist McDaniels slew Gobbo here just now in an argument over religion". If they didn't know what happened, it would be cool to be able to go into the adjacent tavern, and say "Gobbo is dead" and get reactions, maybe learn a little more.

I was just curious and wanted to find the murderer. Using bodyswap-rumor I was actually able to get a name, Ado something, but nobody knew who that was.

Finally I went over to the keep, in which every tile had two characters on it. There was a lot of fighting. Honestly it was a little chaotic, hard to tell if what was going on was due to villians-release nefarious plots, or battles, or due to just arguments / tantrums or something. There was a bunch of people fighting, which most of the characters didn't react to. There was one goblin who was repeatedly murdering the people around him with a legendary dagger. I wish I could have asked:

3. Why are they fighting? Responses could be "I don't know, but X randomly attacked Y" or something more detailed "X is in a rage".

I snuck behind the goblin and killed him with my warhammer and took his legendary dagger. I talked to the leader Tode and they called me a "defender of the innocent", which was cool. I then laid low until all the fighting died down. Then, I got bored and decided to leave the town, but as I got away from the keep I heard one of the abbots from the keep shouting "identify yourself" from really far away so I went back.

When I got back I saw that Tode had been killed! I wanted to ask "What happened here?" but I couldn't. I asked people about Tode and all they said was "Tode is dead." Some other faction had taken over the keep. I had no idea what was going on so I started interrogating the people around me, but they didn't respond well to that. Without warning I got my hand chopped off and leg broken, and then my character was stabbed to death.

[Egan_BW]

Hmm. The common thread here seems to be "context-sensitive questions". The ability to point out something like an injury or a fight and ask for more information about it. Maybe there should be a way to "point" at things in conversation and then talk about whatever you're pointing to? Like, you could walk into a shop and point at a shield and either ask the shopkeeper where they got it or how much it costs.

It would probably take a lot of work to actually implement every single thing you could ask about in every situation, but it also seems kind of needed for the player to be able to figure out what's happening.

[A_Curious_Cat]

During one of my adventures, I was pacifying a group of criminals in the dungeons directly beneath the keep.  As I was dispatching them by mindlessly hitting shift-a over and over again, I accidentally lopped off the arm of one of my companions.  Instantly, my (now former) companions turned on me and I was forced to dispatch them along with the criminals.  When I got back upstairs, I started a conversation with the Lady, but was unable to find any option to tell her that my companions had all been killed by the criminals, nor any option to tell her that my “companions” had secretly been in cahoots with the criminals and I had been forced to defend myself when they showed their true colors...

It would be nice if such conversation options existed in the game.

[Ziusudra]

My wish is that any time someone mentions another creature's name it gets added to the list of names you can ask about. Like this:

Jeha Sutadkadi: Oh, where is Imo Cupsclinch?  I cannot give in to sadness.

I should then be able to ask about "Imo Cupsclinch" but that name does not get added to the list when they say that. (I could maybe get them to bring up that person by asking about troubles but that's a crap shoot and a major pain in the ass.)

There are other times when NPCs mention things that don't get added to the lists of things to talk about and some are even more annoying.

[Toboter]

Maybe there could an option to ask what is happening, to get some context when you run into a minor blood-bath.

[voliol]

My wish is that any time someone mentions another creature's name it gets added to the list of names you can ask about. Like this:

Jeha Sutadkadi: Oh, where is Imo Cupsclinch?  I cannot give in to sadness.

I should then be able to ask about "Imo Cupsclinch" but that name does not get added to the list when they say that. (I could maybe get them to bring up that person by asking about troubles but that's a crap shoot and a major pain in the ass.)

There are other times when NPCs mention things that don't get added to the lists of things to talk about and some are even more annoying.

+1

[TranquilRiverGiant]

Toady mentioned this in DFTalk! "There's some hope there."

Let's hope!

[IndigoFenix]

Part of the problem with this is that actions in DF don't necessarily have a single specific cause.  It isn't "X attacked my friend Y, therefore I will attack X", it's "X attacked my friend Y and is also a member of a civilization that my civilization doesn't like, and also I have been in a bad mood lately because of the rain, therefore I will attack X".

People in DF don't actually know why they do the things they do, let alone why someone else did the thing they did, because there are numerous factors contributing to every action.  They could potentially pick one, but it wouldn't always be the most useful one to know.

[Maximum Spin]

People in DF don't actually know why they do the things they do, let alone why someone else did the thing they did, because there are numerous factors contributing to every action.  They could potentially pick one, but it wouldn't always be the most useful one to know.

So, just like people, so I don't really see the problem.