A Good Story Idea for an RPG?

Started by
11 comments, last by EyeTrack 9 years, 3 months ago

Gambit, as Aardvajk stated, ignore Krios as he is just a troll from the dark corners of the internet. His sole purpose was to start an argument or make someone doubt themselves.

Now as for the ideas, parts make me think of several games right off. Final Fantasy, Elder Scrolls, Suikoden, just to name three. There is nothing wrong with using old tropes, after all a lot of games use the damsel in distress trope and many other tropes. Manveer Heir, of BioWare, even says using the same old tropes is lazy, but I disagree to an extent as I think if you know the tropes well then you can think of ways to make them fresh, flip roles, or find fun ways to use them. After all, look at Mario or Zelda, several games in both series and use basically the same tropes, but everyone loves them. I'd say focus on making the story interesting if you plan to use numerous tropes.

Advertisement

Tropes work well when you're conscious of them in some regard. For example, a deliberately retro game can pull tropes off well precisely because it isn't 'trying' to appear new. In essence, I believe there are levels of 'recognition' in game design and these aid in the ultimate goal of immersion or suspension of reality. I like getting lost in games myself, so adding 'depth' to an already avowedly linear system should be the design challenge if you ask me.

But I do like the ideas you've got. You just need to get 'hooks' in there as said, and this is often done with linear narratives by making the characters super compelling. The plot might be 'linear' but the characters should breathe well within this context. That being said- you have a 'trajectory' for the plot which is what is good. A lot of the time people have good ideas but don't know how to link them together properly so you get something messy as a result. I don't see that here. with a bit of tuning and so forth you could get a story that really works: think of the 'purity' of Secret of Mana. Simple but great.

Lover of Death Metal and lampooning Hegel.

Seems like a good starting point and I think your next step should be to really give your characters some depth.
One criticism I have at the moment is that possibly your story feels a bit male heavy. The females in your story, while they do have important roles to move the plot forward, do all feel like supporting cast. Perhaps it could be an older sister looking after her little brother? Something like this would play against traditional fantasy tropes and could make the game more engaging.

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement