Griftlands

Griftlands built negotiation from its card combat to cut writing cost. Talking uses a card deck like fighting: resolve works like health, gambits like attacks, composure as defence, and arguments act like shields for your resolve and sometimes buff your attacks. Negotiation cards include threaten and segue, while combat uses elbow strike and feint.

Gambits can be diplomatic or hostile. Mark Brown argues one good conversation needs thoughtful writing, interdependent dialogue trees, voice acting and motion capture, costing more than an army of cannon fodder goons, so the abstract system spares writers from building dialogue trees. Klei says a chat then needs "the same design skills and workload as punching them in the nuts."

Reusing combat mechanics makes talking test tactics, not social skill. Because both modes run on card play, conversation tests the same tactical and strategic skills as combat rather than reading people. In Mark Brown's words, "combat and conversation end up feeling pretty similar."

The upside is that talking no longer skips gameplay the way a bare speech check does; it becomes a choice of which type of gameplay fits your character or how you want to play.

Relationships carry into negotiations: allies and bribed characters buff your stats. In Griftlands, people who like you, or whom you have paid off, buff your stats during negotiations.

Mark Brown points to this as an early form of a web of relationships, where kindness to a character's best friend would raise your odds with them, in contrast to most games limiting you to one conversation with one person.