LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION FOR EVENTS IN MY WORLD

Hey, maker of Illusions of Loyalty here.

I've put my modern RPG on hold due to it getting so massively overcomplicated that it was driving me bananas. I'm putting it on the shelf for a while and taking my indirect sequel off the shelf.

So here's the thing. I have main characters, I have a beginning, I have a True Ending and some ideas for other endings, I have a few factions and I have a main conflict for the main character. But I don't know what to put in between all of it.

Setting is pseudo-medieval-ish. There are swords, There's magic that anyone can learn (with varying degrees of success), There are actively worshiped gods, guns are slowly becoming more popular, Some monsters are becoming radicaly stronger, and there's the occasional dragon. No elves, no dwarves, no halflings.

The conflict that forms the base of the game is that the main character MUST hunt powerful monsters or he will die. By slaying strong monsters, he buys himself a little more time to live.

Factions include:
One lone madman that crushes any injustice he sees with surprising effectiveness.
A kingdom that has a good king...but a conniving noble structure that refuses to see the bigger picture.
A military council dictatorship that rose up from a corrupt kingdom toppled by above mentioned madman, and values power. Anyone can be a leader as long as they're strong enough to kill one of the current leaders in a duel. (crap, this sounds a lot like Noxus, doesn't it? x_x)
An order of "Vanguards" who have a strict sense of morality and will often interfere with other nations for "the greater good".
And a few minor ones that aren't hugely important to the world, but are important on a personal scale for the heroes.

So I'm looking at this and wondering what exactly I can do with this. There's so many possibilities, and I'm not sure what's feasible, or even realistic to implement. My last game was really short and had one small, self contained conflict that wasn't too difficult to twist into something devious. Now I have so much leeway that filling it is kinda hard.

Part of me wants to make it semi-open world and have you be able to pick up missions from any faction you want and make it a story of "who will you let yourself be used by?", but I worry that's going to be WAY too huge and won't be all that exciting...

So I decided that before I can decide where I want the middle of the story to take me, I want to find some kind of conflict that I can make encompass the rest of the world to provide a background that will influence the hero's actions.

Anyone have any recommendation for places where I can look for ideas? So far I'm looking into the Second Punic War (thank you Extra Credits for that awesome set of roman history videos) and I might be able to use some of it as inspiration, but I feel like I need to cast a wider net.

author=LockeZ
That's what I think. If you're going to make a game about a hero's struggle against fate and his lack of freedom, don't make it an open world game. The entire struggle will ring false.

Definitely. That's one issue I'm working at.

By semi-open, I didn't mean straight up Open World. I mean more like "hey, new chapter, here's a bunch of quests that involve slaying monsters or going into dangerous territory. By the way, you'll get new equipment and semi-renewable items. Get to them. Oh, and some will benefit the various factions, advance the plot, or bring you closer to the True Ending."

author=LockeZ
You said he MUST kill monsters to survive, so build that into the gameplay. Don't make it so the player CAN kill monsters, and don't make it so they kill monsters EVENTUALLY. Make it something they're constantly and repeatedly forced to stop everything else to do.

I considered that, but I think that just making the overwhelming majority of gameplay be a) fighting bosses or other/mobs of strong monsters and b) doing research on how to best kill said monsters would be enough.

FYI, I'm also planning on making most major fights timed. As in: Win the encounter in 5 minutes (IE, go in with some idea of how to kill it and build your equipment sets that give you abilities for that) or the enemy returns to full power and becomes nigh unstoppable.

As for events in the world, in my opinion it would be good if they thematically tied in with this struggle somehow. They don't have to directly tie in, they just have to resemble it somehow. Maybe a main character in each of the factions is also struggling with something they're forced to do over and over against their will, and they deal with it in different ways. A prince could be forced into a marriage, and decides to escape and flee the country, becoming an anonymous highlander or something. A guard captain is forced to kill civilian rebels who are stealing food for their children from the royal stores, but continues doing his duty to the end. Stuff like that.

I am definitely trying to tie fate and freedom in with the other heroes. That was a given from the word go.

author=Desertopa
It might be best if you don't consider yourself too beholden to real life events.

I normally don't. But I figured I might find some good ideas there, given how vast and douchy human history is.

When I have trouble coming up with ideas within a certain scenario, I often find it helpful to look at the circumstances I've set up, and ask "What's the most obvious consequence of these circumstances?" If the situation itself is interesting, interesting consequences should follow naturally from it without your needing to force them.

Actually I kinda wound up doing that on the bus on the way home today. I think I have a good idea of what this situation would lead to and it's not a bad place to start.

As for the country which values power to the point of allowing anyone a position of leadership if they defeat one of the current leaders in a duel, consider just how unstable a form of government this is. Changes in leadership are probably more rapid than its ability to implement most of the directions from the leadership, and the leaders are selected by a process that has nothing to do with skill in statesmanship or command.

Second, the country might fracture into multiple self governing states which administrate their own needs due to the ineffectiveness of the central government.

Third, the country might be toppled by neighboring states which capitalize on the present instability to move in and take over.

Yes, yes and yes. I just thought of that on the way home. XD

This gave me some food for thought guys, thank you.

And thank you Desertopa for reminding me of the golden rule. "When you have no idea where to take things, keep it simple, look for the natural outcome."

I appear to have gotten replies in the days since I set most of my stuff in stone. XD

Since my last post, I've gotten things straight and I think I know pretty much how things will play out. :P

author=Slider
I'm with Jess24 on this one, what is the root cause of why your hero MUST kill monsters to live? Does he do it because he would simply die of boredom, or does he do it because something has forced him into doing it. I think you could play that out well by having him searching for a way to rid himself of this need to kill monsters to stay alive and in turn taking him from faction to faction, city to city based on certain events that point him in the direction of a cure and in turn helping topple the negative forces of the world.

That's pretty much what I'm doing, actually. After a lot of thought, I decided that him NEEDING to slay monsters to extend his life was not only too much, but also unneeded. Taking that out now leaves him free to desperately search for a cure, and the fact that he CAN slay super powerful monsters no one else can gives him a bargaining chip when it comes to getting into "the right places" with the various factions.

Also who is the main villain in the game?

For most of it? Surprisingly no one! The various factions will all have their ups and downs, (some more than others) but until the end, there's no real villain aside from time itself, since the main character only has about 2-3 months before his "condition" kills him.

By the end, of course, plots come to light, and shit hits the fan. HARD.

I think since the majority of your game is going to just be killing monsters you really need to focus on making it a believable and "semi" relate able, or at least understandable, experience for the player so that they just don't get tired of fight after fight after fight. What's the gripping piece of story line that is going to keep them pressing enter over and over and over again? Think how you will want the player to sympathize with your hero and then build out from there.

All things I'm either planning, or have planned. ;) I'm fairly confident in my writing, and in making these characters relate-able.

A lot of people have told me they actually came to care about the characters (aside from Baroque) in my last game. And that one was REALLY short (6 hours-ish, with most of that being combat and dungeon crossing) with very little chance to get to really get to know them, aside from a few short campsite sequences and the main story.