Creating a back and forth dialogue with a "voice in the head" entity.

[MSM_Alice]

Hello!

In my mod, I want to have a dialogue flow with a voice in the player's head. 
For one-liners that the inner voice might say,  the issue is largely solved. I am using Saycustom and Custom topics, and a marker as the talking entity. 
The voices play, subtitles are seen, enemies don't shoot at an invisible NPC, everything is peachy.

However, at times I want more than just one lines said with Say custom, I want an actual flowing conversations, with the occasional dialogue choice wheel, but without locking the player in place the entire conversation. This is when things get complicated. 
I could just use the one liner system, and when a choice comes, spawn a UI MSG Message type object with multiple choices, but that pauses the game and breaks the flow.
I would want, if possible, to use the proper dialogue UI and Scene system for this. 

I  have found a semi working solution that requires some odd settings to work, but I want to check that there is not a more established/elegant way to achieve the same. 

For longer dialogues where there is no dialogue wheel needed, just a predetermined sequence of replies, I would either use multiple one-liners, OR  I would take inspiration from the vanilla Holotape scenes, and I just use a player+ holotape voice scene that
A.  only has the player as a participant (only one track) and
B.  player lines use Dialogue-type actions in their phases, and the "voice in the head" lines use a Radio-type action in their phases, with the speaker set up as a "Holotape" actor (just like it is for Holotapes). 
All works okay. player is not blocked, can walk around, conversation flows, enemies don't shoot at an invisible NPC, everything is peachy.
However, there is an odd aspect:  after each player's Dialogue Action ends, the first following "radio action" in the next phase is always skipped by the engine. Why, I have no clue. The other phases with radio actions that come after work, okay.  So if I add a dummy radio-action player track phase that only says a tiny bit of silence after each player Dialogue player track phase, as an offering to appease the Bethesda engine gods, and only after it, I put a phase with the actual content in the radio action, then I can make it work, but it seems odd.

Is there a better way of doing this?

 

 

If I additionally want an actual dialogue wheel there too, then it gets a lot more restrictive. In that case, I do need extra set-up work: 
- an initiating topic for the scene needs to exist (even if I start the scene in Papyrus and not with the initiating topic)
- A valid second NPC in the scene needs to exist nearby 
- The "player dialogue" multi-choice Action needs to be on the track of the NPC, not on the player track.
- The NPC nearby needs to be detectable (setting the undetectable flag makes the dialogue wheel never appear), so probably doing so while sneaking with enemies around will be problematic, as the invisible dialogue partner cannot be invisible, and will now be a combat target for nearby enemies that the player managed to sneak past. 

Is there a better way of doing THAT?

Thank you so much!

Edited November 29, 2025 by MSM_Alice

[viskanmai]

Really restricts RPG elements and user input because every thing has to be voiced so less options means less ways to talk and find or complete quests. Really doesn’t add anything for me it just takes away more