STORY LINE BULLET POINTS

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I hear that story is a must have with a RPG. Story is not my strength, but here is what I have come up with. There are 5 areas for chapter 1. Here are the bullet points, so there's not much reading. I try to make questions and unsolved issues that will roll into future chapters.

CHAPTER 1
- You wake up alone at an inn with 2 beds.
- There is a letter on the second bed.
- The letter smells of perfume and tells you to show up at a cabin at midnight. Come alone and make sure you're not followed.

- You show up alone (leaving your party behind). The cabin is empty.
- Accomplish a puzzle.
- A woman enters and falsely recognizes you.
- She wrote the letter yes, but you weren't the one that was supposed to receive it.
- Mercenaries enter the cabin.
- The girl has been hiding from their wizard lord. She stole a crystal.
- She doesn't have it on her
- Running away spares your lives.
- She threw it in a dangerous swamp for safe keeping.
- She joins you to get the crystal (or not, that's the beauty of the game, you can get it without her)

- Either gather your party or rejoin your party or go alone (depending on how you play the game)
- Visiting the swamp reveals that the crystal was discovered by a local.
- A swamp diving old miser found it and it's his now. He doesn't realize its power.
- Do what it takes to get the crystal back. Bargaining, killing, stealing (branches appropriately placed).
- After you exit with the crystal, the mercenaries are there and after a fight, they take the crystal for their boss.

- At a nearby village, you find out where the wizard's lair is.
- Visit the lair and as per usual have a fight first against the mercenaries.
- The wizard is the king's personal assistant. He has a master plan.
- Then fight against the wizard.
- Once the wizard loses round 1, he caps off the round by using the crystal to magically transport you to another land.
- He would kill you, but he refrains from doing so for a specific reason.
- Chapter 2 stars, I will need to think up more for 20 areas.

Any thoughts on the bullet points?
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
This would probably be better as a blog post.
Well, I don't think it can when the game profile isn't uploaded.
But this is a bigger plateau to hear constructive or destructive criticism. Plus with my last game it had 3,000 downloads where as this forum post might get 100. I'd rather not ruin it for people in a blog post.
post=204204
This would probably be better as a blog post.
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
post=204217
post=204204
This would probably be better as a blog post.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
Sounds like a typical story outline. None of the bullet points look monumentally stupid at a glance, I guess. So who cares? It's impossible for anyone to get emotionally involved in bullet points. Bullet points aren't important. The writing is what's important. You can make any story outline become amazing or horrible, as long as it generally makes sense.

That said, getting these bullet points written down before you start the game is a good idea and probably something I should do, instead of just thinking up the main plot twists before I start and letting everything in between flow from my head as it goes along...
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
What sort of puzzle are we talking about for the cabin?
Obviously key goes in lock puzzles, only replace key with dick and lock with vagina.
Block pushing puzzles. Definitely.
If it was a push puzzle I'd say it.

Thanks for the comments Lockez :-) If I wrote out all the dialog and posted it, people wouldn't read it.
Decky
I'm a dog pirate
19645
Honestly -- and don't take this the wrong way -- bullet points don't really strike me as necessary for a straightforward RPG. I also generally find that it's not a good idea to restrict yourself to an outline -- you might find a better way to do something or a more fun way of presenting things overall.
post=204219
post=204217
post=204204
This would probably be better as a blog post.
Story points are a great tool for development. They tend to keep you from derailing the story.

post=204717
I also generally find that it's not a good idea to restrict yourself to an outline -- you might find a better way to do something or a more fun way of presenting things overall.

I disagree that an outline is restrictive. It's more like a game of go or chess, in that you start with many options, but as you progress (by fleshing out the outline), those options are narrowed down towards something more focused and coherent, and finally leading to a logical conclusion. Also, by documenting your process using multiple iterations, you can always go back and try out other ideas. In fact, a first outline should allow alternatives to be considered without involving major rewrites.

Not to plug my project or anything, but I've also posted my story points to show the process that I'm going through. I'd say more than half of it was revised due to planning alternatives.
I could understand bullet points for yourself in a notepad file for reference but when I see someone else's list of their plot it pretty much diminishes any effect for the story on the player's side of things. But yes other than that it's a noteworthy idea to keep your ideas and story structures in check.

*Crippled thumbs up*
Well my last game barely had zero storyline. People told me I needed one. Plus the last game divided itself where you really made the game your own.

An outline helps to keep it clear and remember what the heck you intended on. It also prevents you from wasting time like if people shot down my bullet points I would have come up with something different.

I managed to make a game continent in 2 weeks and get compliments on my mapping. Then it takes me a month to come up with a story. Uggg.
I spotted one bullet point that can be problematic by itself.

- Once the wizard loses round 1, he caps off the round by using the crystal to magically transport you to another land.

Action was going on at one place and now you're sending the player away from it. There is a chance you lose the player's interest and you should immediately re-hook her/him. I would suggest that you quickly show to the player that there is a connection between this new place and what was going on before, even if you don't intend to reveal what that connection may be until later. What I'd definitely would advice against is making that new place just some sort of exile the player has to escape from.

Other than that, your story leaves a lot of unanswered questions. While it's good for the audience, do you know the answer to those questions? Have you decided what power the crystal and the wizard lord has as well what said wizard lord's goal is? If you don't, there's a chance you give the wizard lord a power later on which would have been useful earlier, only he didn't use it for no other reason than that you hadn't thought of him having that power at that point. Likewise, if you at a later point give a character a goal or knowledge you haven't thought of before, said character may have earlier not properly acted on that goal or knowledge.
The rehook is a bigger landmass, and the story continues with the wizard's plot. I could immediately give the connection, I've actually plotted a changing connection. The best way I can think of to describe it is you find the wizard in the toddler stage of his plan before you meet who it affects.

You will meet the wizard later where his plot is focused instead of his hideout.

I will message you the answer to the questions :-)

Thank you very much for your feedback!
You may also want to answer these questions, if you haven't already.
Sent to Crystal Gate.

Thanks for the link BD. I'm sure everyone can bennefit from it.

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