[non technical] The Game Story

[SeiferTim]

:beam: Hi everyone!

I’ve noticed that in this forum everyone seems to focus on the technical programming aspect of Game Development, but seem to stay away from some of the other - less technical - parts.

marz has some really great coding tutorials on the forum, and there are other good tutorials all over the place (some of which are linked to from here), but what I’ve seen in all of them, is little to no mention of story development - almost as if it didn’t matter at all…
To me, the Story is what makes the game. It sets the tone for the adventure, pulls the player into the game, and makes them want to keep playing. The player will (hopefully) connect with the characters (playable and/or non-playable) and want to find out what happens. Think about what Metroid would be like with a completely different story. If Samus was the bad-guy, who was murdering helpless innocent creatures to prepare the planet(s) for colonization, and Mother Brain is trying to protect her precious babys from being slaughtered. I don’t think it would have quite the same appeal to players as it does now… the story makes a big difference!

I think I’m lucky enough to have a great Storytelling skill, which allows me to make connections, and build off of details in a way that can make my stories seem real. Some people do not have the same skill, and (surprisingly) several games end up having either no story, or a really horrible story… which makes the game no fun at all, even if the game-play is solid, and well thought out.

At this time, I’m thinking about making up some tutorials - well, I guess semi-tutorials… or just ideas and methods, and things to make you think - about Story Development, if anyone is interested… because I know that most people would rather play a game with a deep, and thought out story than a game that doesn’t make any sense (unless it has some REALLY cool feature, like Magic Pengel: Quest for Color - I STILL have no idea what the story is in that game, but any game that lets you draw your own monsters doesn’t NEED a story :crazy: ). Imagine if Resident Evil had none of the “back story” that was scattered throughout the mansion, that gave details on the incident at the mansion, you wouldn’t have any idea what was going on :h: , and the game would lose a lot of credibility.

I’ve been (slowly, but steadily) writing my own Storyline for an RPG I hope to see finished someday (preferably before I’m 70 :drool: ) So far, I think it has come out pretty good, it still needs a lot of work, and some editing/revisions… if anyone is interested in seeing my incomplete work, visit: http://seifertim.no-ip.com

Let me know if anyone is interested in me posting the tutorials on Story Development, and if you have any related topics, or sub-topics you’d like to see, let me know. I’ll try to post something soon, if I get enough positive feedback.

[system]

[COLOR=darkblue]Part 5: Non-Player Characters and Villians[/COLOR]

It’s time for the 5th installment of my tutorial, and hopefully everyone is learning from it… a little bit… right?
Okay.
Here, we’re going to talk about Non-Player Characters (NPCs), and Villians. as you may have guessed, NPCs are characters that the player does not control, but interact with the PCs somehow. Most game genres will benefit from this section, but, again, due to the in-depth story developments of the RPG type, I’m going to end up focusing on them once again. An RPG will usually have hundreds of NPCs, and at least one major Villian, with lots of henchmen. When I refer to Villians, I’m only talking about the characters that play a large role in the game, and seem to have viscious hatred for the PCs, not just every boss the player faces. The Dragon at the end of the cave who pops out of no where, and is killed by the PCs after a long, and gruelling battle, while considered a Boss, is not a Villian.

For the most part, most NPCs the PCs will encounter are going to be your average townspeople, walking around town, and giving out semi-helpful one-liners of information. They don’t need a lot of details. The NPCs you’ll want to focus on, are the ones that will play some kind of important role in the story. A good place to start with your NPCs is by thinking a little bit about your story in general.

For the most part, you’ll want to build up your NPCs in a similar manner to the way you made your PCs, but you won’t nesecarrily have to go into too much detail… Some good examples of NPCs would be:
[list][]Cid from FFV
[]Regis the Mayor from Star Ocean 2
[]O’aka from FFX-2
[]Red XIII’s Grandfather from FFVII
[/list]
Those are just a couple of good NPCs, there are a bunch others out there.
When building your NPCs, try to give everyone a little bit of history, even if it’s pretty basic. Sometimes an NPC’s history can be turned into a plot line of some kind…

NPCs help to fill your world with life, and add a touch of believability to your story, but Villians add a touch of chaos, and evil to balance out the world. Plus, Villians can be lots of fun to create!!

Creating a Villian can be done in only a few easy steps:
[list][]**Name - ** I tend to start with the name, and build from there… sometimes, though, I change it a couple times before finding something that sticks. Good villian names are very ominous. Lets make our example’s name something freaky, like: Valouse
[]**Basic Description - ** Describe your villian - sketch them out… make them look sinister, and decide what their personality is like on a basic level. I want Valouse to be female, and wear lots of dark red/black armor with spikes, and things.
[]**Obsession - ** All villians are obsessed with something, whether it’s a person, an item, or a location, or whatever - the best villians will stop at nothing to obtain what they are obsessed with. Some good examples: Sephiroth (FFVII), was obsessed with becoming an omnipotent being. Kefka (FFVI), was obsessed with obliterating all life, and the classing Bowser (About every Mario Game) was obsessed with the Princess, for some inter-species breeding… or something…
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to gradually reveal the Villians obsession over time, let the player try to figure it out on their own. For our example, lets make Valouse obsessed with a certain magical item… um… lets see… she’s looking for an ancient relic that will allow her to rule the world. Sounds a little cliche-esque, but, no matter… good enough for me.
[]Resources - A villian can’t be really nasty if they’ve only got the clothes on there back, and $2.40 in change, most every villian seems to have nigh-infinate resources, and loads of henchmen. For instance, our ol’ pal Sephiroth Had a bunch of Followers, and his Mam to help him slow down the heros’ progress… not to mention some backing from Shinra. He wasn’t going to be found easily. For some reason, most villians seem to have a lot of extra cash laying around, it seems to make them more viscious. You’ll want to decide just how powerful your villian’s going to be… and how much they have to spend. Lets make our baddie be in charge of a large group of warriors from a northern countrie. She’s sort of like Ghengis Khan, in a sense, only more sophisticated. She is able to call on her troops for support, and she has a large amount of funds (from their hording) to use as needed.
[]**Mania - ** While this can (and usually is) tied in to their Obsession, most Villians have a level of insanity to go with it. It’s hard to find out where the line is, between obsession and insanity, but it can be fun to play with the line a little… kefka (FFVI) was absolutly insane, and that freaking laugh of his was bone-chilling… even in the days of the ol’ Super NES. Let’s say that our Villian hates wildlife, and wants to raze the forests, and build massive cities of iron and steel to cover the world.
[]**Power - ** Here you want to have fun. Most every major villian has some sort of ungodly power, which gives them the edge, and the terrifyingly strong attacks… Sephiroth sort of had Meteor’s power to call upon, among other powers at his disposal. you never see a villian who is clearly weak, and powerless (at least not unless their faking). Our villian will have the power of (once she locates it) the Acient Relic, but in the meantime, her arsonal consists of the ability to build terrifying robotic, and sentient creations of destruction to do her bidding.
[/list]
And that’s about the jist of it! Try making your Villians someone that wll scare the crap out of you, or try another method, and make them someone you would perhaps idolize, until they show you their ‘other side’… and you’ll be on your way to making worthwhile villians in no time!!

Tune in next installment for: Part 6 - The Plot

[system]

[COLOR=darkblue]Part 6: The Plot[/COLOR]

Now we’re getting to the fun part. The Plot is the Meat of your Game Story, without a Plot, your story has no drive, or motivating force. Your characters have no reason to do anything, but laze about on large sofas watching TV, and eating pork rinds… mmm… pork rinds… :drool:
Ahem.
Anyway, since the Plot is so important, I’m going to dedicate several posts to it. The first post is going to start with some of the basics of developing your story out from start to finish. Now, everyone works differently, and most people find their own way of looking at things, but I’m going to lay out a few different methods that I’ve seen work, and then I’m going to explain the way I do it. We’re going to have fun… :beam:

First off, now you have a bunch of characters, a few locations, and a few bad guys, you need to figure out how to get your story assembled. Now, like I said, there are many different methods to build your story. We’ll start with the Bubble Method. Essentially, the Bubble Method is sort of a way to brainstorm some of your ideas, and bring them together. It’s also a good way to put together a non-linear storyline. It works like this: Draw a bubble in the center of a sheet of paper. Make it sort of small, so you can add to it later. In the center of this bubble, write down an event, or some kind of scene. I don’t really have access to a graphics program now, so bear with me, I’ll try to describe this as best I can… Here’s a crappy example:

[color=pink][Bubble 1: Intro Scene][/color]

Next, draw a line out from that bubble, and draw another bubble:

[color=pink][Bubble 1: Intro Scene][/color][color=blue] -------- [/color][color=pink][Bubble 2: Training Session][/color]

Now, it’s hard to display it very well with these resources, but you’ll continue to add these bubbles, and keep adding more sections of the story, eventually ending up with a whole bunch of bubbles on sticks, with ideas inside. This can help you form a representation of all the items in your game, and when they occur. This is one method I’ve seen lots of times before, but doesn’t work for me very well… Some people like it, so you should give it a shot, and see if it works for you.

The next method I’ve seen is a little bit more like my method, but a little too logical for me… basically, you want to write down each of your events, the people involved, and give each a ranking to determine when they happen, and then apply these events to a timeline. This works for some people. Example:

1: Introduce Characters
2: Tutorial
3: Boss Fight
4a: Find Lock Pick
4b: Find Key
5: Open Door

1----2----3—4—5----

This can be good for those who are very logical thinkers, and who keep track of things through numbers, etc. I find it very hard to keep track of things this way, so my method is a little more straightforward.

My method is simple. I start with several sheets of paper, or to be able to read it later, I will probably use Word, and I start a Numbered List. I start out similar to above, with just a few words to descibe each event:

[list=1]
[]Intro Movie - Lab
[]Intoduce Eta
* Learn how to play
[]Explore Ninja Ruins
[][color=red]Boss: RagMan[/color]
[]Scolded by Sensei
[]Etc.
[/list]

Next, I open a new Word Document, and just start filling in the blanks. I’ll start with a Numbered event in my first list, and fill in the details:

[list=1]
[] [color=blue]Intro Movie: Lab[/color]
Lengthy Description of Intro Movie
[]Lengthy Description of This Event
[*]Etc.
[/list]

—continued later----

[system]

Haven’t had a chance to work on this lately… I’ll try to add some more today. When i get my PC going, I’ll re-type it all, edit it, and send it to K-Man, in the format that he uses for the site, so that it would be easier for him to add to the tutorials. Anyway, lets go ahead and try to continue with the Plot.

—Plot: Continued—

Now, we were talking about my method of Plot Building. For the most part, I lay it all out in my head, and then let my fingers go wild on the keyboard. I know that this method doesn’t work for everyone, but for me, it ends up with me getting a lot of the story done in one go. While I may not yet know the precise ending, I sort of imagine, and act out the story in my head, like a movie…
Anyone who’s seen my Design Doc (Kit ;)) will probably say that it almost reads like a storyboard, minus the pictures. And with a lot of details. Some people will find it easier to leave out most of the details until far later in the process, but for the most part, you want to find a method that works for you. Some people like to work in chapters, or sections, or scenes, and I try to break up my story that way myself, but eventually end up with a long list of events that just keep going, and going. I end up adding the chapters later on, as I re-read the finished product.

Don’t struggle too much just yet with the overall plot layout, we still need to figure out how to create the plot.

Why did I talk about all this crap about bubbles, and stuff? Because I want you to start trying to come up with a method of your own on getting your plot written down, to be converted to real use later. We’re going to start talking about the actual story itself now, and you need to know how to lay everything you’re going to make up out. So there.

Okay, so you have a couple of Good Guys, a Villian or two, a settings, and, essentially, a world in which your Game will take place. Now what? Well, for some MMORPGs, this is it. Your done. Throw in some crazy tasks, and adventures, and a few billion different types of items, and you’ve got your game, and people will flock to it, and stand around all day chatting, and showing off the fact that they played for 6 months straight, at $20 a month, and have just now gotten strong enough to defeat the big bad monster, and obtain the Black Dye they used to make their shirt black. Fun.
But if you’re like me, and require, rather, demand some kind of adherable story, or relish the fact that when you play the game, your actions matter, your’re going to want to come up with an interesting, mysterious, and fun story for your Players to follow, and treat them to a game they can have a good time with.
So the story is going to play a big part. Better not screw it up.
At this point, you should know something of what your story is going to be like… some inkling of an idea, but if you don’t there are some tricks that I have up my sleeve, to help you out.
There are several Key Story Points that we have to discuss, in order to build our story:
[list][]The Quest
[]The PCs’ Role
[]The Villians’ Role
[]The Path
[]The Reward
[]The Consequences
[*]Misc
[/list]
We’re going to discuss each of these items in turn, and hopefully go through a process of getting your story together.

[color=blue]The Quest[/color]

First, what is the purpose of your PCs? Why do they have to do whatever you want them to do? Perhaps they have to find a secret item, or rescue someone, or anything… you should decide why their leaving home. In my RPG, Worlds, our main PC, Eta, is accidently sucked into another world through a portal, and after an accident in the Lab where he ends up, Eta is blown to another world, and lost within the Omniverse. He’s now on a Quest to find his way home. [size=1](See that? That’s like pointing out the key word, that is… oooo… :beam: )[/size]
Now the Quest can (and probably will) change periodically thoughout the game, as more information becomes available… but they should generally stay static through most of the major sections (only really changing ocasionally). Now a quest is the overall goal of the PCs, which is what they’re trying to do in a big-picture type of thinking, a path is sort of like a mini-quest, that only lasts for a short time, until the PCs get to the next Path. Try not to get them confused… :beam: Alright, so you’re having trouble Picking a quest. Well, I’ve got help for you! Anyone who’s familiar with the D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide on Building a Dungeon should know this trick. Get out your d6es (six sided dice) (or made a quick random-number generator), and roll to pick out a quest (roll for each catagory, and then add them together):
Type of quest:
[list=1]
[]Find
[]Destroy/Kill
[]Escape from
[]Steal/Kidnap
[]Free/Release
[]Re-roll
[/list]
Item/Person Involved:
[list=1]
[]Royalty (King/Queen/Prince/Princess)
[]A City/Town/Building/etc
[]Magic Item (Ring/Gem/etc)
[]Ruins
[]Monster
[]Regular Person
[/list]

[system]

It sounds like your talking about the Hero’s Quest Formula, which is something like this:
Hero’s girl/town whatever is in danger
Hero Has to go on quest
Hero meets mentor
Hero is reluctant to go
Hero Goes on quest
Finds magic elixer/cure, whatever
returns home

I don’t remember it exactly, I saw it on a web site alooonng time ago… I’m probably missing a lot of it.