IGN - It's How You Say It, Part 2

Part 2 of IGN AU's surprisingly good article on RPG dialogue is online.  This time they look at some upcoming titles and offer their own idea for a new dialogue approach.  Not so keen on these but at least they are thinking about it:

This idea for an RPG dialogue system is difficult to describe, but here we go. Imagine that each cut scene or conversation interaction took place without any actual input from the player apart from agreeing or disagreeing with what your avatar is doing/saying. So, if we imagine the game being played on an Xbox 360 console, the A button could represent Agree and the B button could represent Disagree.

This system works a little bit like the Political Debate Worm – you know, where each member of the audience has a buzzer and they press it when they like or dislike what's being said. The worm moves up or down depending on consensus. Well, our imaginary conversation system works a little bit like the worm. At several points during the beginning of the game, the main character may try some morally dubious approaches. If you agree with this and would like to see him continue down that path, you'd obviously be hitting the A button while the scene is playing (or holding it to strongly agree). If you don't want your avatar to be evil, you'd tap or hold down B to show that you disagree with that path. Over several conversation interactions, the system would presumably reach a moral stance that suits the player. Further complexity could perhaps be introduced in the form of real-time Agree/Disagree actions – such as dictating whether or not the avatar kills a character.