do most of the dialogue choices mean anything

[I STAPLE TAPEWORMS ON MY]

or are they just for roleplaying

[AestheticallyOP]

Different outcomes I guess?

[chinese_hackers]

I dunno. I'm rp'ing a character who doesn't talk to anyone.

[Bored Peon]

Depends on the dialogue conversation and what is in the dialogue tree.

Take the Drumlin Diner quest for instance, it has multiple outcomes.
- Trudy lives
- Trudy and Wolfgang live
- Trudy lives Wolfgang runs away
- Trudy lives Wolfgang dies
- Trudy dies and Wolfgang lives
- Trudy attacks the player failing a charisma check
- Wolfgang attacks the player failing a charisma check.

Diamond City Blues is another complicated dialogue tree with multiple outcomes.

Unfortunately most of the conversations have a pretty limited dialogue tree so the dialogue choice do not mean much. Most of the time the difference is failing a charisma check to get a bigger reward.

[wtiger27]

As Bored Peon stated, depends on the dialog conversation. Getting the max affinity from a companion, your choices matter a lot.

[Zekiran]

They're extraordinarily important, yes.

If they weren't, they *wouldn't have bothered giving you options*.

[Bored Peon]

Taking the best choice in a dialogue based upon your companion affinity response is for suckers.

Companions earn points for just spending time being an active companion with you.
With the exception of Strong most have really easy activities to gain affinity.
There is also an affinity bonus (on a timer) for swapping companions, the one being swapped to gets a bonus.

Take it form someone who has thousands of hours played, that when it comes to the conversations it is nice to pick the irregular options and nice to fail charisma checks sometimes just to have something different.

[Zekiran]

(they have 2 hours in this game. They've got a long way to go before they're gonna be ready for the consequences of that :D )

[Duneman]

They mean more than most people would give credit. Obviously not all of them. I mean, pressing for more caps in dialog tends to be fine, although some companions will grumble. Don't worry too much about that though, as mentioned, as long as you earn a bit of XP during a 10 minute interval your affinity with companions will increase naturally.

That being said, in many instances the dialog choices are just some form of: yes, sarcastic yes, info first then yes, and no for now but yes later.

In some cases the dialog checks get smaller added benefits. E.g. successfully pretending to be the mayor when you enter the library causes the Protectrons and Turrets to treat you as a full ally, instead of a neutral party. It can also have a drastic outcome in a conversation with someone named Sinjin, which can lead to some unique rewards*.

* - these rewards open up additional dialog options when used; perhaps worth checking out if you do a second playthrough

[Xenon The Noble]

most of the choices don't make any difference at all. Some are small potatoes.
Like Trashcan Carla: You can rob, ask directions to diamond city, trade or get smart mouth and get a undetectable discount.
Ask Dr. Amari to say "Igor, bring me the brain" and it makes no difference at all.
Most are no difference. It's like a stupid ren-py game. You follow the script. Don't follow the script, even if it looks like Bethesda will let you like you do the theater first in Kiddie Kingdom (Nuka World) and it gets screwed up.

[Yellowbeard]

Gameplay and roleplay wise the dialogue options are meaningful...despite seeming utterly worthless on the surface.

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/1235/

[Sabaithal]

Well if a dude is on edge pointing a gun you, and you choose the "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" response its more likely than the other choices to trigger a firefight.

[Iron Knights]

There are outcomes and consequences, although sometimes the menu is meaningless as in you want to do this quest or NOT ? Answer: Yes, No, Come Back Later, Sarcastic No/Yes.

[DouglasGrave]

Originally posted by Iron Knights:

There are outcomes and consequences, although sometimes the menu is meaningless as in you want to do this quest or NOT ? Answer: Yes, No, Come Back Later, Sarcastic No/Yes.

Sometimes also "Information", depending on the conversation.

[Iron Knights]

Right, info gathering and other discussions or barter & companions CHA checks.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Birdo Plush:

or are they just for roleplaying

They're not even from roleplaying.

Yes/Yes/Not Yes but not no/Sarcastic yes.

They're not even consistent in tone or character so you can't pick a personality type like in Mass Effect.