Friday 7 April 2017

The Rousing Speech

The Rousing Speech is not as easy for most people as heroes tend to make it look, as this comedy short demonstrates.

Public speaking is a common fear at the best of times, and improv public speaking doesn’t make it any easier.

I could have actually gone further than I did with my Banquo Award speech in 2013, but I figured a quick joke and running away was a safe bet.

In gaming, a player who would rather not be put on the spot despite playing an eloquent character has some options. They can describe the gist of the speech, make notes ahead of time, plagiarise like crazy...

Prompts for something like this are available, such as Adventure! giving the option to script lines and responses in advance for characters with high Wits.

The best example I’ve seen in a video game is near the end of Mass Effect, which uses the existing gist-based dialogue wheel so that the player picks from a series of dialogue options about the point they want the speech to make and the writing, voice acting, reaction shots and music sell it.

No comments:

Post a Comment