The journal trying to become topic error message is most likely caused by having a series of deleted topics at the top of both the topic and journals list (and they do crop up, even if you haven't deleted any topics or journals!). It's easily cured - open the dialogue editor, check for EMPTY - DELETED entries at the top of the list, re-load the plugin, and save. The empty entries should be gone. If any persist, load and save again.
The 3 most likely reasons for your problems with the choices are
- you've put the choice responses - ie the answers you expect to get when you select one of your choices - BELOW the entry that gives you the choice. The game reads responses from the top down and selects the first condition for which all conditions are met. In the list of entries for a topic, the responses to the choices offered must be entered ABOVE the entry giving you the choice
- you have not indexed your choices correctly, the game cannot find the response you want and defaults to one for which the conditions are correct
- you have attached conditions to the choice responses which are not fulfilled. Again, the response you want is not given, and the game defaults to the first one it comes across for which the conditions are correct, which would be the entry giving you the choice
Dialogue bugs can be a nightmare to trace - good luck