ARE VAMPIRES OVERDONE?

I wouldn't say vampires are overdone at all, I'd say the "Beautiful romantic vampire" trope is overdone to hell though. Proper scary vampires that are decrepit cold creatures of the night with hypnotic powers have been missing from modern media for a while imo. Modern media has become way too focused with the romantic beautiful vampire idea, even though vampires are anything but that. They are creepy, eery beings, devoid of any compassion or love, mere mockeries of humanity.

Regardless, vampires are still incredibly varied in media, anywhere from the original from Bram Stoker, to Castlevania to Twilight. You can take the core idea and base it more on it's origins within folklore like Darken said, or try and come up with your own little twist. Heck, look at JoJo's bizarre adventure, it has it's own version of vampires that are completely different than what we are used to.

Now, how to come up with an original idea? I wouldn't know really. You could perhaps focus on a specific aspect of vampires that you find specifically cool. Maybe their aversion to flowing water? Maybe UV light doesn't work and only actual rays from the sun work because they are just that supernatural? Going back to what Darken said, you could also look for the vampire equivalent of different cultures and mix and match what you like.

In my country for example, we have a very unique take of the werewolf. Our werewolf, called Luisõ, only appears on nights on Tuesdays and Fridays, where it'll shed its human form and turns into a monstruos looking dog. He goes to cementaries where he digs up corpses and feeds on them, at midnight, he'll try and scare unsuspecting men that walk about and run under their legs, cursing them to turn into Luisõ as well. Luisõ is also seen as a tormentor that torments souls in the afterlife and is seen as the most evil of creatures. We have a very unique take on the werewolf idea in my country, now imagine what other countries have for vampire equivalents. Do some research, or just apply ideas you'd really like to see in a monster and go from there.

author=Strak
Having said that, it's good to know that the darker, more monstrous and scarier vampire trope isn't considered overdone, and I like the idea of drawing from various regional folklore as opposed to pop culture. That does give me some more material to work with.

Back when Twilight was this massive juggernaut of a YA series, I'd maybe say to avoid vampires, but this isn't 2007 so you're probably safe.

author=Strak
And that begs the second question, if mechanics and gameplay are original, how much originality is necessary for a story to have?

Plagiarism is bad, but being original is overrated. Don't start thinking that just because a similar story has been told before that yours isn't worth reading.

I'm so focused on gameplay and mechanics that I haven't really figured out a story or a villain in any way.

If your primary focus was gameplay and mechanics, then start by constructing a villain that would provide a hearty challenge using those mechanics and build your lore from there.

A simple trick you can use is to remove the label "vampire" entirely from your game and build up the monster as its own thing. Vampires have had so many iterations over the course of pop culture that the label itself is going to invoke a wide variety of images in a player's head, including those you may not want. You can replace the label "vampire" with something else if you want, but the intent here is to keep players from assuming what they know about vampires and assuming what their weaknesses could be. This frees you, the designer, up to give your notVampires abilities that could defy player's expectations as to what a vampire is supposed to do.

author=Strak
And that begs the second question, if mechanics and gameplay are original, how much originality is necessary for a story to have?

*resisting violet urge to rant about story/gameplay synergy*

This question is built on two very flawed assumptions:

1) That there is some objective measure of "originality" that must be met in order to quality as "good." I can invent a type of vampire that farts gold dust and pisses honey from 4 different reproductive organs on each of its limbs. While that certainly counts as original, that doesn't mean that would make for a particularly threatening vampire-like enemy. A basic story can still be engaging if it's told well with likeable characters and/or story beats that take advantage of the gameplay mechanics you're creating.

2) That originality for originality's sake is, in any way, a good approach to storytelling. The questions you should be asking instead are "what kind of story do I want to tell? What are the themes I want to work with? What kind of emotions do I want to invoke in the player? What are some key plot moments I'd like to see realized?" and others that put the onus on your desires as a creator and not on some nebulous goal of "originality." Whatever you end up with, that's your story, regardless of how "original" it may be.

If you're struggling to come up with a story to justify your gameplay, then start from the gameplay mechanics and build your characters and villains around them first. Not every story has to be a grand, 80 hour epic spanning across multiple continents with complex character development and branching paths with multiple endings. A simple story told well is perfectly acceptable regardless of how "original" anything else is.

Everything Red nova said is right on the money! I like to focus on what I want people to think and feel when they play my games. Originality can be fun and cool but it's really not the end all be all of how much ppl enjoy something. After all, ppl look for things in a genre they like because they LIKE the repetition of at least some elements.

When you're making a game, you can start with game or story you just have to make sure they're both supporting each other.

As for vampires in particular, I heard this one concept around them that focused on how the human mind perceives time to be going faster as it gets older. Since vampires live forever, their perception of time is probably aggressively different from a human or even a very young vampire. The youngest vampires would be the most human and at the bottom of the vampire society hierarchy. The oldest vampires have personalities and motives that don't really compare to humans and are at the top of the vampire society hierarchy. Very old vampires would have shifted their language to be slow and deeply layered with meaning to the point where talking with humans and young vampires is very unfulfilling and they are more like ants than people they can relate to. It was a fun concept! I tell you this because the more that you think about your monsters and fill their shoes the more you can think of interesting ways to relate to them and portray them!

author=Darken
I mean I've never seen Selkies (people who turn into seals) for instance being super prominent in a video game before and there's tons of scottish tales about them that are a treasure trove for ideas. There's no such thing as originality, just stealing from obscure sources and hiding it well.

I didn't know this about selkies but they might be my favorite creature now??

author=benos
You can't stop Germany.

watch me

If you reference something related to Earth on a non-earth setting that generally communicates it's related in some way. You could lean into that! Make your world descended from earth or in a parallel universe or something. Finding fun ways to explain the tie ins, and what culture survived and what didn't could be ripe grounds for you to tell whatever story/message you want! If we end up forgetting the USA existed but keep Dracula that's pretty intriguing. An entirely new world gives you more freedom for suspension of disbelief but more work. More fun too imo!

You can do whatever you want man. I don't think any direction is going to prevent you from making a vampire fiction work. There's not really a barometer for how important historical accuracy is or what even is appropriate. It depends on what you value and care about. Do you want to read up on the 1800s for research? Or do you just care about like the one cool thing that you like vampires for. There are many directions to pivot from.

Honestly, the old "Dark Mage out for world domination" trope has been collecting dust for so long that you could probably twist some hat and use it to good effect. If you're doing a real-world setting then Vampires can be cool if you integrate them into history, but in a more generic RPG setting they're just another monster-type. Liches are way cooler masters of the undead.

You don't have to be original to make a good story. Nothing is truly original, every single aspect of every single story uses numerous tropes that date back all the way to ancient times and mythology. What really matters when writing a story is the actual writing. You can have generic "Vaaah I will svuck youvre bvlood!" vampires and still have a compelling plot or try doing something more "original" and yet have an awful plot. It really depends on the writing. But in JRPGs, no, I don't think vampires are overdone. Heck, I think they're UNDER done. Not many rpgs have vampires as a major antagonistic force. Usually it's FPS games so they don't have to used tired zombies as enemies and vampires are close enough and gritty DMC-styled action games. Mermaids are also underdone in RPGs in spite of their insane popularity, probably because of the complications of creating separate underwater areas and swimming controls. But that's besides the point.

Now, for some inspiration. In my games vampires exist, but I tend to portray them a lot more sympathetically/neutrally being a more so lawful-neutral race who aren't just pure evil, though they are heavily ostracized by society. They are powerful wizards who uncovered the secret to eternal youth using dark magick, but this came at the cost of them being weakened by sunlight and needing to drink human blood to not go insane and start eating people. They aren't undead, just wizards caught up in an unfortunate curse/blessing based on how you look at it. Many people willingly become vampires knowing the risk, either for their own vanity/fear of getting old and/or to gain further magickal might. Many vampires make pacts with the local people groups to willingly trade the people's blood (which is medically extracted and shipped to the vampires domain, no neck biting) for the vampire's protection, which is very important when the world is constantly being besieged by incredibly powerful monsters 24/7 and civilization is constantly under threat, requiring powerful magick wards to protect towns from attacks.

author=KrimsonKatt
IDK about the ReDeads in ToTK as they're clearly a lot more biological there, but in OoT/MM/WW ReDeads were specifically made out of cursed clay and were not the living dead like people claimed.

I think that comes from the Super Smash Bros Melee ReDead trophy.

Seven years after Ganondorf took control of Hyrule, ReDeads roamed the ruins of Castle Town, moaning. At first, Link was shocked at the state of the town, and the apparent lack of survivors. He later learned that the townsfolk had evacuated to safety, and that the ReDeads were just magic animated into hideous humanoid shapes.

If it's canon to Zelda, then it's definitely a retcon. This ain't clay.