Voices & Cultures

A voice is a set of parts and frames for one way of speaking. Every villager speaks with the common voice, townstead:common. A culture pack can add a voice for its culture. For example, a fisherfolk culture pack could add the voice examplepack:fisherfolk, with greetings such as “Fair tides!” and farewells such as “Calm water.”

A villager uses the voice of their culture, then every voice that it extends, and always the common voice at the end. Parts from all these voices can fill the same slot. So a fisherfolk villager can say “Hey there!” from the common voice, or “Fair tides!” from their own.

Which Voices a Villager Uses

For each line, Townstead makes the speaker’s list of voices:

1. Persona. A villager who is a Persona uses the Persona’s voice first. Its ID is the Persona’s story ID, such as townstead:persona/village_builder. Write lines for a Persona with that ID in voice. A Persona voice needs no voice file.
2. Culture. A villager with a mixed culture has a share of each culture. For each line, Townstead picks one of these cultures at random, by share. A villager who is three parts fisherfolk and one part another culture uses the fisherfolk voice for about three lines in four. A villager with one culture always uses it.
3. Subculture. When no voice lists the culture, Townstead tries its parent culture, and then the parent’s parent. When no culture in the chain has a voice, the villager uses the common voice.
4. Extends. Townstead adds every voice that the culture voice extends, and then the common voice.

The culture voice, not the Persona voice, sets flavor and children.

File Location

data/<namespace>/dialogue_voice/<name>.json

The file ID is the voice ID. Line files and frames name the voice with voice.

Example

{
  "schema": "townstead:dialogue_voice/v1",
  "cultures": ["examplepack:fisherfolk"],
  "extends": "townstead:common",
  "flavor": {
    "grief": 0.05,
    "ambient": 0.2,
    "social": 0.25,
    "humor": 0.25,
    "commerce": 0.4,
    "civic": 0.55,
    "intrigue": 0.55
  },
  "default_flavor": 0.2,
  "stage_flavor": { "child": 0.15 },
  "flatten": [
    { "context": ["mood:low", "need:hungry", "need:tired"], "max": 0.05 }
  ],
  "children": "simple"
}

Fields

Field	Required	Description
schema	Yes	Must be townstead:dialogue_voice/v1.
cultures	No	Culture IDs that use this voice. A villager uses the first voice that lists their culture. A subculture that no voice lists uses its parent’s voice.
extends	No	A voice to add after this one. The default is townstead:common. A chain of voices cannot loop.
flavor	No	A map from register to the share of lines with a marked part, from 0 to 1.
default_flavor	No	The share for registers that flavor does not list, from 0 to 1. The default is 0.2.
stage_flavor	No	A map from life stage, or life stage ID, to a share from 0 to 1. It replaces the register share for speakers at that stage.
flatten	No	Rules that lower the share. Each rule has context, a list of context facts, and max, from 0 to 1. When the speaker has any of the facts, the share is at most max.
children	No	Which marked parts children can use: simple (the default), all or none. See Children.
mods	No	A mod gate.

The common voice needs no file.

Marked Parts

A marked part uses the culture’s own words or assumptions, such as “Haddra to you.” or “You brought the boats in before the storm!” Mark it with "marked": true. An unmarked part in a culture voice speaks plain language with the culture’s attitude.

The share in flavor is how often a line from this speaker has a marked part. Townstead keeps each speaker close to that share over a conversation:

• Each line adds the share to a running total for the speaker.
• When the total reaches 1, the next line tries to use a marked part, and the total goes down by 1.
• A line never has two marked parts.
• Two lines in a row with marked parts only happen when no plain part fits.

So with a share of 0.25, about one line in four has the culture’s phrasing. With a share of 0.05 for grief, the culture’s words rarely appear in grave news.

Children

A child speaker can use marked parts as follows:

children	Marked parts a child can use
simple	Parts with "simple": true, and parts with stages.
all	All marked parts.
none	No marked parts.

Use simple for words a child would know, such as a greeting. Write lines just for children with "stages": "child".

Writing a Culture Voice

1. Make the voice file. List your culture in cultures.
2. Write line files with "voice": "<your voice>". Use the pools that Townstead ships, so your lines fit the existing frames. See Built-in Vocabulary.
3. Mark the lines that use your culture’s words with "marked": true.
4. Set flavor for each register. Use a low share for grave talk and a higher one for talk that suits your culture.
5. Test with a village of your culture. See Testing.

Guidelines for a culture voice:

• Write each line so that it works without the culture’s word. One marked word is enough for one part.
• Show the culture through assumptions (“You brought the boats in before the storm!”). Do not explain the words.
• Give every question an answer. A question in your voice needs parts with the same answers, in your voice or in the common voice.
• A line that names a building needs a requires entry, such as here.building_tag:townstead:market.

A frame with "voice": "<your voice>" is only used by your speakers. Use it to give your culture its own line shapes.

Cultures change over time

A villager with no culture gets one when they next load: from their parents, else from their home village, else from the culture bias of their Root, when it has one. A villager can keep the culture they have, but it does not stay fixed. Every day, their mix of cultures moves a little toward their home village, their close friends and, for a child, their parents. An adult takes about three years to move most of the way. A child moves four times as fast. The culture with the largest share becomes the villager’s culture, and their voice changes with it.

So after you install a culture pack, existing villagers take time to speak with its voice. To test a voice now, make a new village. See Test a Culture.

Building Talk

An extended building file can have a talk block. It gives the building talk tags, so lines can require that the village has such a building.

{
  "talk": {
    "name": { "translate": "building.examplepack.bakery.talk_name" },
    "tags": ["townstead:bakery", "townstead:food_shop"],
    "interests": { "food": 0.6 }
  }
}

Field	Description
tags	Talk tags for this building type. The requirement here.building_tag:<tag> is true when the village the speaker is in has a building with the tag. home.building_tag:<tag> checks the speaker’s home village.
name	A name for the building in conversation, as a string or {"translate": "<key>"}. Accepted. Townstead does not use it yet.
interests	A map from interest to a weight from 0 to 1. Accepted, but not used yet.

Townstead gives these talk tags to its buildings:

Tag	Buildings
townstead:market	Market
townstead:mill	Mill
townstead:tavern	Inn, and the taverns, taprooms and brew halls from supported mods
townstead:smithy	Blacksmith, armorer, toolsmith and weaponsmith
townstead:cafe	The cafes and tea houses from supported mods

A well is a decoration, not a building. Lines about a well require here.decoration:townstead:well.

Caution

No building or decoration has the tags townstead:bridge, townstead:orchard or townstead:quest_board yet. Lines that require them only appear when a pack gives a building those tags.