Story Concept Brainstorming

[Nomatika 0]

I got RPG Maker VX Ace recently and was wondering where to start. I found some books to teach me how to use the engine and I bought resource packs for more graphical options. But I am stuck on how I should go about making a story for my role-playing game. The top three genres I would like to start with are Sy-fi, fantasy, and war. I want my game to take place in a universe that combines magic and ultra-technology together. Where humans are forced to leave there planet and find a new one to colonize. And when they find one, they launch an attack on the inhabitants. That is where I would like to start, but do not know how to elegantly manifest it into a strong opening.

 

So, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas on how I should go about this and if they have anything to contribute. I would very much love the help ^_^

[Capt_Elfimis 55]

My solid advice and opinion on this is to literally sit down just write. Much like every other aspect of game design, story concept and story board are crucially important to flow and determine the over all development pipeline as well. Just practice. Write some short stories that fit the narrative of your idea and don't be afraid to have people critique it and give feedback. 

99% of the time, no developer sticks with the original story and script, it is often modified and revised numerous times for balance, cohesiveness, flow, and narrative. 

TL;DR Practice, write some stories.

[That One NPC 187]

On 10/13/2020 at 7:36 PM, Capt_Elfimis said:

99% of the time, no developer sticks with the original story and script, it is often modified and revised numerous times for balance, cohesiveness, flow, and narrative. 

 

 

If you're good at plotwork, it should be balanced, cohesive and flowy from the start. The problem is slapping together an outline and charging forth based on that rough outline.

 

Perfect your script and plot, and you won't have to worry about bending it around the game you're modeling after it.

 

When it comes to story telling, even in game format, remember that the rules are always meant to be taken as guidelines. NO game has a perfect flow, or a prefect narrative. Even the all-time greats (as chosen by popular opinion) have sloppy parts, poor translations, or just times when the nature of the things happening could be interpreted by any given player as being a bad spot in the flow of the story or narrative.

 

Always make sure you have a solid, sound cast and plot before you start charging around the editor with a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. It will always be better to wrap your game around your plot, rather than wrapping your plot around your game. That's practically common sense when talking about an RPG. The story is the lifeblood of an RPG. The whole point.

Edited January 10 by That One NPC

[PhoenixSoul 1,295]

If all else fails, gain inspiration from reading whatever you're inspired by, and then completely change all of it. lolz

Also, try not to gain too much inspiration from large followings...
Examples:
JK Rowling
Marvel && DC Comics
Disney (AVOID THIS ONE)
Square (avoid this one too)
Wizards of the Coast (not specifically talking about MtG)

[That One NPC 187]

33 minutes ago, PhoenixSoul said:

If all else fails, gain inspiration from reading whatever you're inspired by, and then completely change all of it. lolz

Also, try not to gain too much inspiration from large followings...
Examples:
JK Rowling
Marvel && DC Comics
Disney (AVOID THIS ONE)
Square (avoid this one too)
Wizards of the Coast (not specifically talking about MtG)

 

 

How do you avoid that list, though? It's virtually everywhere. It's impossible to do anything in the super powered genre without drawing inspiration from them. They defined that genre in terms of what works, what people are expecting when you boil it down to concepts. So I think DC, and Marvel by proxy are the exception there, as Marvel has been taking ques from DC for decades.

Edited Monday at 06:08 PM by That One NPC

[PhoenixSoul 1,295]

It's one thing to use tiny bits of another's fictional setting, after all, more often than not, those tiny bits often reflect tiny bits from someone else's fictional setting and/or tiny bits of something that actually exists. That is not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about avoiding large direct copies of source material.

With Disney in particular, using references even is something I would avoid because these days, they're some really litigious and copyWRONG loving jerkwads.

Saying your story is inspired by another's work, and shares in their title, is grey area stuff, and I assert caution there, but I'm not talking about that. I mean, 'Final Fantasy' in itself is a name that most people know, but the two words are also very common words in the English language.

Anyway, I'm mostly talking about anti-plagiarism.

[Kayzee 3,856]

All this is is fine and all, but I feel like there is an important factor that is sort of being ignored here. Before you get too deep into story brainstorming it's worth asking: What about the gameplay? I mean, how is this story going to unfold through the game? I mean do you want to make a typical JRPG style game? Then it's probably best to focus on a ragtag group of characters that travel from place to place and grow powerful before confronting some kind of final boss or other challenge. On the other hand you might want to make it more like an interactive movie where you have more freedom to tell the story however you want at the cost of having less gameplay options. Or if you learn how or find someone who can do it for you, you can go the other direction and script the heck out of everything and do something crazy like making a RTS or something. It's possible! Just... don't expect much help with that last one. It's really a looot of work.

Edited Monday at 10:54 PM by Kayzee