My rules to writing a story for RPGs

[Jusfury]

Well I was just thinking about how I would come up with ideas for RPGs.  That I want to share with everyone.  Maybe everyone knows this already but here goes:

(This is just MY opinion.  So I'm not telling anyone to do anything)

1st Rule:  The Main Villain never dies on the 1st kill.

Of course this sets up the sequel for the revenge or whatever makes the main bad guy to come back for a new plan to destroy the world and what not.

But after the bad guy dies on the 2nd kill.  He/She/The Creature should stay dead.  Assuming you're going to part 3.  If the Main bad comes back for the 3rd.  

Then you should have a really good reason for it to come back.  But to bring a bad guy back to a part 3 becomes corny imo.  Basically it's time to find a new threat

to fight.

2nd Rule:  The Main Hero should only do Part 1 & 2.

Yes!  I think the same rules as the main villain should also apply to the hero.  Unless you can come up with a good reason for that character to come back.

My reason behind this is that maybe the Main Hero in Part 1 & 2 gets old.  You are going by a time period.  So I'd suggest making another hero to take his/her/creature place.

3rd Rule:  You can do rule 1 & 2 in all in Part 1.

I guess this is self explanatory.  And set up Part 2 for something different.  Make a descendant of the Hero from part 1.

Make another form of evil etc. etc. etc...

4th Rule Limit yourself to the maximum of 2 WTF moments!

Again self explanatory.  1 should be enough. But it would be good to add another but if you plan on making a load of them it becomes BS in my opinion.

Unless you can come up with a good reason that flows with the story.  That people will accept and still be interested in your RPG.

So that's it.  If you have any thoughts please post.  Maybe you thought of something that I haven't.  And I'm always open to honest criticism.  Thanks for reading.

 

[Milennin]

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but anyway...


I don't agree with these rules. It's perfectly fine for the main villain to die in the first battle, especially if you're going for a shorter kind of story.


I don't understand the reasoning behind the second rule. Why should the time gap between the parts be so huge that the main hero isn't able to participate in part 3? What if the time between parts is only a couple of years? Also, if you're going to make a new main hero, why not start a game in a new universe? Why should it be part of the first of the first two games?


Rule 3 is unnecessary... like, what?


Rule 4 heavily depends on your type of game. A comedy game can easily get away with a lot of WTF moments as long as they're funny and fit the style of your story telling.


I feel these rules don't fit any purpose and would only limit the things you could do with your characters/story in games.

 

[Simon D. Aelsi]

What...? These aren't rules!  These are just Trope-y cliche musings!

A good RULE would be "check spelling and grammar." and "Let your events be consistent, flowing smoothly from one to another."

Or, perhaps... Don't give away too much, too soon.  THOSE... might be story-writing guidelines.

If you want good ideas for an RPG Story, try actually writing a story first! THEN make it into a game.  Read some fantasy or sci-fi literature. Or perhaps, horror? Whatever genre suits your fancy.

Don't always make the hero a male.

Don't always make the sister younger, and captured.   Or... older brother and the villain.

Sorry if I sound ticked. I assure you I'm not!

 

[whitesphere]

I don't think all RPGs can ever have hard and fast rules on their stories.

In most RPGs I've played, the Main Villain DOES die on the first kill.  If I wanted to make another RPG in that world, it's quite easy to say "Well, when you killed off X, that let Y take the stage."

In the Dresden Files series, for example, in the novel Changes, well.  To avoid massive spoilers, Harry DOES successfully kill the Main Villain.  And he stays dead.  Buuut, that sets in motion MAJOR changes which have severe consequences through the rest of the series.

And that is very realistic as well, as we can vividly see in history.  And it's a good way, in story to have heroes win huge battles and, those victories in turn cause plenty of dominoes to fall.  Which setup a sequel without leaving a downer ending.

I think rule, I think "black and white," and good storytelling is never a black and white thing.  I think it's a good guideline to avoid exposing the entire plot up front, but there are probably superb RPGs which do exactly that.  Say it's an action adventure RPG, where the challenge is in accomplishing the goal, rather than uncovering it.

Of course, the trick is it's a lot harder to tell a good story than it looks.

 

[Tsukihime]

1st Rule: The Main Villain never dies on the 1st kill.

The main villain ALWAYS has a second form. And then after you defeat the second form and you're down to your last 1/5 HP, the villain then reveals the third form.


Anxiety.

2nd Rule: The Main Hero should only do Part 1 & 2.

Yes. Remember in disgaea when laharl disappeared after his main feature? Well he gets some cameo appearances in later games but that's about it.

4th Rule Limit yourself to the maximum of 2 WTF moments!

I feel that the player must be constantly bombarded with WTF moments so that they cannot relax and take a breath.


Think you're safe? Think again.

 

[Nathan Frost]

I never have any rules for making a game. This is why I have 3GB's worth of empty projects with different resources on my computer. I'm a rule breaker. After seeing tons of different RM projects I'm pretty sure anything I come up with at this point would reference to close to something else.

 

[Celianna]

I've moved this thread to general discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

 

[Jusfury]

What I meant by Rule 2 is saying for example lets say you win the main battle and beat the game.  Then let's say the hero is 20 years pass.  Then 80 years pass by.  So will he fight when he/she/creature is 100?

I guess I was being too realistic in terms of real life when I said that.

But I think rule 1 makes sense to me.  For example,  has any of you seen Walking Dead?  If you have then maybe you'll understand what I meant.  Okay the Governer who I thought died when they 1st fought over the prison.

Only to come back and try again.  Then the samurai girl(I know her name I just don't know how to spell it)with the Katana sword killed him for good.

Now what would you say if he came back?  I guess he cheated death for the 3rd time.  And in my opinion if they brought him back after that.  It's BS.  I guess that was how I was thinking about that rule.  But that's just how I feel.

So I guess in a way I was applying television to RPGs.

But now that I seen some opinions I think there is room for multiple wtf moments.  I was completely thinking about FFVII.  And we all know the greatest saddest moment in that games history is when of course Aeris died.

When I played the game there was not any more moments that was great as that.

I hope to come up with something that great.  (Not the same)  Just great!

All you comments are helpful.

But yeah an RPG can be whatever you want it to be.  All of your responses are helpful.  And I will give some deep thought into them.  Thanks!

P.S. To Moderator

Sorry about posting in Tutorial Forum.  I'll be more careful in the future...

 

[Tsukihime]

So different parts of a story should span several decades at a time?

 

[Jusfury]

So different parts of a story should span several decades at a time?

I guess you can make the time period or the span of time between parts anyway you want to do it.  But I guess I meant you can make the RPG the way you want to make it.  As long as the story is believable to the player.  For every twist and turn that comes out of any creation.  Just make it believable....

 

[whitesphere]

If you are trying for an episodic set of RPGs, or you're doing something like Issac Asimov's Foundation series, which span a 1,000 year interval between the Fall of the First Galactic Empire and a Rise of the Second, it is reasonable to have decades or even centuries between episodes.

However, unless you make the Hero something very special (immortal in various ways, time traveler, whatever) s/he cannot take part in all episodes directly.  In the case of the Foundation series, each episode had its own arc, and independent characters who knew of the previous ones through historical documents/etc.

I think everything in terms of storytelling has been done already, at least at a broad level. 

And I think that, nowadays, there are many more people being creative than there ever have been before in human history.  Why?  How many people here have some measure of free time, with which they can create art?  Granted, it's a self-selecting sample, but I think those of us who have enough free time to create AND the resources and knowledge to do so, are far greater in number than there ever have been. 

Contrary to popular belief, medieval people had a LOT of free time --- but they lacked the education and resources to create much long-lasting art.

The end result is I'm sure you can find more and more close parallels in different works because there are so many more of us creating games, even if they're just for our own consumption.

 

[Jusfury]

If you are trying for an episodic set of RPGs, or you're doing something like Issac Asimov's Foundation series, which span a 1,000 year interval between the Fall of the First Galactic Empire and a Rise of the Second, it is reasonable to have decades or even centuries between episodes.

However, unless you make the Hero something very special (immortal in various ways, time traveler, whatever) s/he cannot take part in all episodes directly.  In the case of the Foundation series, each episode had its own arc, and independent characters who knew of the previous ones through historical documents/etc.

I think everything in terms of storytelling has been done already, at least at a broad level. 

And I think that, nowadays, there are many more people being creative than there ever have been before in human history.  Why?  How many people here have some measure of free time, with which they can create art?  Granted, it's a self-selecting sample, but I think those of us who have enough free time to create AND the resources and knowledge to do so, are far greater in number than there ever have been. 

Contrary to popular belief, medieval people had a LOT of free time --- but they lacked the education and resources to create much long-lasting art.

The end result is I'm sure you can find more and more close parallels in different works because there are so many more of us creating games, even if they're just for our own consumption.

Okay!  Maybe I went overboard with this topic.  This is just another example of what I mean.  Superman died in DC Comics.  Doomsday kill him. So DC was working a way to bring Superman back.

At which point the made a half robot/half man Superman.  But DC kinda painted themselves into a corner.  They couldn't come up with an excuse to bring the real Superman back.  Until,  they came out with an issue. And he was back.

Nothing brought him back,  no special dimension, nothing!  He just came back.  Which is the point I was trying to make.

However you use your characters good,bad,neutral or whatever.  Just make whatever they do believable to the player.  Okay if you want to use the same Hero, or Villain  however many times you want to use them.  Make a good reason (within the game) for it.  Whatever time period is used past, present, future.  Just don't make it fell like BS to the player.

That's all I really meant.  I like all of your criticism.  But maybe I should've just said this in the beginning.  Cause an RPG can be whatever you want it to be.  Once again thanks.

 

[Milennin]

However you use your characters good,bad,neutral or whatever.  Just make whatever they do believable to the player.  Okay if you want to use the same Hero, or Villain  however many times you want to use them.  Make a good reason (within the game) for it.  Whatever time period is used past, present, future.  Just don't make it fell like BS to the player.


That's all I really meant.  I like all of your criticism.  But maybe I should've just said this in the beginning.  Cause an RPG can be whatever you want it to be.  Once again thanks.

Some games don't need a reason, though, and still get away with it. Mario games have had Mario as the main character and Bowser as the main villain in countless of titles and is still going strong. Same goes for Sonic VS Dr. Robotnik (Eggman). Granted, those games aren't RPGs, but point still stands. Not every game needs to have their character ages clearly defined, not every game needs to have a clear timeline of events, and not every game needs to have a reason behind everything that happens.


Zelda games have had Link and Ganondorf in it since the very beginning and that series is still well alive after I don't even know how many games. And for the longest time they never even bothered to explain how the Zelda universe really worked - until they finally released that weird timeline thing with all the games on it. Even then, it's still vague ****. But all that matters is that the games are good and fun to play. The story in each individual game still stands well on its own, despite continuously recycling the same hero and villain over again.

 

[Tsukihime]

However you use your characters good,bad,neutral or whatever.  Just make whatever they do believable to the player.  Okay if you want to use the same Hero, or Villain  however many times you want to use them.  Make a good reason (within the game) for it.  Whatever time period is used past, present, future.  Just don't make it fell like BS to the player.

It is difficult because I believe in parallel dimensions and just use that to explain away anything related to time, but some do not accept this because it offends their beliefs.

 

[Jusfury]

It is difficult because I believe in parallel dimensions and just use that to explain away anything related to time, but some do not accept this because it offends their beliefs.

That's a real deal point!  Didn't see it that way!

 

[Wavelength]

I don't necessarily see why following any of those rules will lead to a better story than breaking all of them.

 

[gRaViJa]

Said before, but these rules don't make any sense.