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[DoPo]

Vampire the Masquerade - Bloodlines

A lot of times you will need to convince people to do something, while your social skills help, so you can Persuade them, it's not always the case of "choose the blue/pink/green option" (Persuasion is blue, Seduction is pink, Intimidation is green) - if you have more than one social skill levelled up, say Seduction and Intimidation, you will get both, although one of them may be useless - some people aren't really fans of trying to be scared. Other times, having the relevant social skill only allows you to try to persuade them. You'll get their attention but it's still a manner of you choosing your words carefully. Literally.

 

[Quellist]

Alpha protocol to some extent. Aside from the a to b, select the right kind of dialogue of this person to get monies/intel/fewer enemies/ whatever, there's a bit with a fellow named Conrad. You have to read up on his dossier to figure out what pushes his buttons, then select appropriate dialogue to be able to get him to so pissed he stands and fights instead of running away. This is over the course of several encounters before the showdown, and if you don't so it right, he'll bail when he's out of health.

Also theres Marburg, if you learn everything about him you can open his eyes to the mistakes he's made. When his boss tells him to fight you he just walks away, disgusted at how he's been used. And Marburg is argueably the toughest bossfight in Alpha Protocol

Man, i love that game!

You're talking about the same guy (don't know if you know that though). While in rome you can make him dislike you enough to try and kill instead of escaping after a boss fight. If you don't you have to fight him later on or convince him to leave his boss.

OT
Yeah I would say alpha protocol and Deus ex human revolution aswell.

Oh Doh! forgot his first name was Conrad. Nice to know yet another way he can be messed with, in fact i think that game needs a replay

 

[Phoenix1213]

Integration the Stranded Light [http://www.moddb.com/mods/integration-the-stranded-light] seemingly does the impossible... turning something like the Elder Scrolls into a Dialogue puzzler... It's a quest mod for Oblivion with ton's of skill checks, convincing, recognition, diplomacy, and character building among many other things.

A number of other mods do a pretty good job with dialogue challenges and real difficult interaction between people, but as someone else has said it has kind of fallen to the wayside in modern mainstream games.

Some good games that have been mentioned already are: Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and Alpha Protocol

Phoenix Wright is also very good, but is linear, and lacks a good roguelike vibe to it.

In my opinion a good dialogue puzzle/negotiation requires that it is possible to fail/lose/get a bad result, etc. without it being a game over or redo. You need to at least have the potential for failure and being forced to deal with the consequences. Also a simple win/lose based on one known factor like a skill check is boring. it's much more fun when you have to get a read of the situation, think ahead, get inside the person's head, read body language, etc. and put all of that together into how you overcome the challenge. That is a good dialogue puzzle!

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Planescape Torment is an RPG that you can finish it with dialogue only, the combat being optional if you want to take that route.

It is very heavy on that and the "puzzle" part of that is based on how high your Intelligence and Wisdom stats are. It has a fantastic story and I would recommend it if you are interested in that.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

My only problem with dialogue puzzles is that in a game like L.A. Noire, you never could really tell just how Cole Phelps was going to act out each option. I thought he was going to go on a rampage some of the times I hit Doubt and was like jesus, that's not how I wanted him to act at all, leading to the perp tightening his lips.

 

[RJ 17]

Knights of the Old Republic had a couple of these in it. My favorite one being where you have to settle a dispute between two rival farmers. If you play your cards right, you can get them to set aside their differences and live happily ever after as peaceful neighbors, there's even going to be a marriage between their kids!

Play your cards the other way, and you can have both families completely kill one another with absolutely no survivors and you don't have to lift a finger to see them all dead. God I loved being a Dark Sider in those games, the stuff you can do is just so outlandishly evil that it's hilarious.