Making the player unavailable for force-greet initiated conversations.

[MSM_Alice]

Hello!

In my mod, I  have some sensitive portions of time where the player should not be available for conversations in general, but random NPC traders/passerby force-greet ruin this.
Is there a way to temporarily flag the player as "unavailable for convos" so the engine knows not to initiate any dialogue with anyone while flagged in such a way?
This is not about disabling player controls or activations.  I am not worrying about convos initiated by the player. 
I just don't want external entities from the sandbox to initiate any dialogue with the player, including force greet, (unless manually allowed by a papyrus script that might clear /set this unavailability condition)

More specifically, this is mid-AAF animations, if using a different camera than the default AAF fly cam.
| The Flycam itself blocks new conversations from starting, but I want the subtitles from nearby voices to be visible on screen, so I am not using the usual AAF Flycam. 
But the side effect of that is that force-greeting NPCs that might be nearby start their dialogue now, mid AAF scene, causing all sorts of headaches. 

Is there a keyword that I could add to the player or similar?

[Franco Cozzo]

I just vibecoded most of my SA-Arousal Helper with googles AI tool, it gave me these as options, sorry for AI-posting (I know a lot of people don't like this type of "help" but I see you doing constant updates to your mod so maybe you hadn't solved this yet + haven't tried leveraging newer tools.) 

 

#3 looks like it could be the winner, change their distance to 0 or 0.01 during the scene and then reset it to whatever the default is, 4 looks promising as well.

 

While there isn't a single "invisible" flag to stop all dialogue globally, you can achieve this through Papyrus scripting or Creation Kit setup using a few reliable methods.

 

1. The Scripting Method (SetPlayerAIDriven)

The most direct way to stop the player from being a valid dialogue target is to toggle the PlayerAIDriven state. When the player is set to "AI Driven," the engine treats them as unavailable for standard dialogue prompts and greetings. 

• Function: Game.SetPlayerAIDriven(true)
• Effect: Disables the player's ability to initiate conversation or be "pulled" into greetings by NPCs.
• Warning: This will also lock player movement controls unless you specifically re-enable them (e.g., using Game.EnablePlayerControls). You must call Game.SetPlayerAIDriven(false) to return to normal gameplay.

 

2. The Creation Kit Method (High Priority "Silence" Quest)

You can create a "Dialogue Blocker" quest that overrides the generic greeting system: 

• Quest Setup: Create a new quest with a high Priority (e.g., 90–95).
• Conditioning: Add a condition to the quest like GetGlobalValue [YourCustomGlobal] == 1.
• Dialogue Misc Tab: Under the Hello or Greeting sub-tabs, add a blank entry (no voice, no text) with a condition like GetIsID Player == 1 or simply leave it as a general override.
• Result: Because it is high priority, the game will try to play this "silent" dialogue instead of standard NPC hellos/greetings. When you set your Global variable back to 0, standard greetings will return. 

 

3. Modifying Game Settings (Greeting Distance)

If you want to stop NPCs from "barking" at you or greeting you automatically as you walk by, you can temporarily modify the game's detection distance settings: 

• Game Setting: fAIGreetingTimer or fAIMaxGreetingDistance.
• Action: You can use a script to set fAIMaxGreetingDistance to 0.
• Result: NPCs will only greet you if you literally bump into them, effectively making you "unavailable" for casual greetings as you pass. 

 

4. Detection Toggle (Sneak-like Behavior)

If you want to be completely ignored by NPCs, you can toggle Detection: 

• Console/Script: tdetect (Toggle Detection).
• Effect: NPCs will no longer "see" the player, preventing them from initiating any greetings or combat-related dialogue. 

 

Summary Table

 

Method	Ease of Use	Player Control	Global Effectiveness
SetPlayerAIDriven	High	Limited (Movement locked)	Very High
High Priority Quest	Moderate	Full	High (Dialogue only)
Greeting Distance	Moderate	Full	Moderate (Barks only)
Toggle Detection	Low	Full	Complete (Combat & Dialogue)

 

[Reginald_001]

On 11/29/2025 at 8:10 AM, MSM_Alice said:

Hello!

In my mod, I  have some sensitive portions of time where the player should not be available for conversations in general, but random NPC traders/passerby force-greet ruin this.
Is there a way to temporarily flag the player as "unavailable for convos" so the engine knows not to initiate any dialogue with anyone while flagged in such a way?
This is not about disabling player controls or activations.  I am not worrying about convos initiated by the player. 
I just don't want external entities from the sandbox to initiate any dialogue with the player, including force greet, (unless manually allowed by a papyrus script that might clear /set this unavailability condition)

More specifically, this is mid-AAF animations, if using a different camera than the default AAF fly cam.
| The Flycam itself blocks new conversations from starting, but I want the subtitles from nearby voices to be visible on screen, so I am not using the usual AAF Flycam. 
But the side effect of that is that force-greeting NPCs that might be nearby start their dialogue now, mid AAF scene, causing all sorts of headaches. 

Is there a keyword that I could add to the player or similar?

1) Make a quest that starts when your scene stops, at priority 95

2) Make sure it grabs all close by NPC's and just pauses them (add a package to stand still at their alias)

3) Stop your quest once you are done.

 

I use this all the time now for important dialogs with Ivy. It just makes all nearby NPC's stand still and wait patiently until the convo or scene is done. All the methods described above will introduce other unwanted effects. You want to make your mods clean, not dirty.

 

(edit) I said that wrong. You want to make your mods dirty, but keep your code and quests clean.

Edited January 7 by Reginald_001

[MSM_Alice]

Thank you!
Both of these are super useful. 

 

I did not have a solution for it yet. 

Will definitely try these.