A Fantasy CRPG

[Reshbj]

I've been making computer RPGs since seventh grade (hey, I never said good ones) and want to start a new project. Any ideas? Anything I can think of ends up being generic.

[Science Officer]

Maybe this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147846)thread could give you some ideas.

This (http://seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=storygen)is also fun for, as the site itself says, "brain-surfing".


Out of curiosity, what method are you using to make these games?

[Reshbj]

I started with RPG Maker, then moved on to a whole range of other things, including actual coding. RPG Maker is definitely the easiest to use, but it's pretty limited, especially the provided battle system.

I think I might use it for this one, actually. It cost me $60, so I intend to milk it for all it's worth.

[Darklord Bright]

If you can successfully make a story about a fantasy world which gets nearly destroyed by demons, but their tech level reaches high enough to create spaceships fueled by magic which they use as Arks to a new planet, but crashland on a mostly desert-planet, and lose all their future tech save for what could be salvaged and reverse-engineered, causing a science-fantasy western, I would be all over it. :smallwink:

Edit: The above was said mostly with the idea of how cool it would be to play an elven sharpshooter and rob a train carrying gold bars and defended by shotgun-wielding orc guards.

[Reshbj]

Well, I was going to go with a generic fantasy setting, but not medieval, maybe 16th century. And I was going to focus on making the characters original. No angsty kid heroes or rebellious princesses, or an enemy spy turned good. Maybe a pragmatic, middle-aged bounty hunter and a researcher for the local mad scientist?

[Domochevsky]

Aw man, you sure about the Generic Fantasy bit? That's kind of a turn off. :smallfrown:

[Vitruviansquid]

Roughly inspired by the plot of Demon's Souls: Overnight, every plant, animal, and person in the world becomes sterile. Without reproduction, food production comes to a grinding halt and society breaks down as everybody seeks to secure enough food for themselves. Cannibalism becomes common, and life becomes nasty, brutish, and short. The themes of the setting are scarcity, competition, and solitude, its tone is subdued and depressing, interspersed with episodes of intense and disturbing violence.

The protagonist is a jaded mercenary who has no problems with killing people for a meal. However, he comes across something that suggests life could be brought back to the world, and he has to fight to protect it and himself.

[Pronounceable]

And I was going to focus on making the characters original.

Focus on making the plot original too. Enough with all the epic world saveage crap. You're not a company that's investing millions of dollars, so you can actually be creative.

[warty goblin]

Focus on making the plot original too. Enough with all the epic world saveage crap. You're not a company that's investing millions of dollars, so you can actually be creative.

No, focus on making the characters and plot good. Do not, whatever you do, focus on originality. That usually ends up being arty in a bad way, shallow because the only thing anything has going for it is how it is not like something else, and generally nearly as cliched as a plot that doesn't care.

Tell the story you want to tell. If you do it well, it'll be good. If not, it won't, regardless of how chip-off-the-old-block your characters may be.

[Dust]

Roughly inspired by the plot of Demon's Souls: Overnight, every plant, animal, and person in the world becomes sterile. Without reproduction, food production comes to a grinding halt and society breaks down as everybody seeks to secure enough food for themselves. Cannibalism becomes common, and life becomes nasty, brutish, and short. The themes of the setting are scarcity, competition, and solitude, its tone is subdued and depressing, interspersed with episodes of intense and disturbing violence.

The protagonist is a jaded mercenary who has no problems with killing people for a meal. However, he comes across something that suggests life could be brought back to the world, and he has to fight to protect it and himself.
Run this for me. :smalltongue:

[Reshbj]

Focus on making the plot original too. Enough with all the epic world saveage crap. You're not a company that's investing millions of dollars, so you can actually be creative.

My working plot is sort of original. It does involve "world saveage", but it's hardly epic. Well, maybe the ending. I was gonna try and make the player feel cheated as much as possible. In a good way.

[Comet]

My working plot is sort of original. It does involve "world saveage", but it's hardly epic. Well, maybe the ending. I was gonna try and make the player feel cheated as much as possible. In a good way.

Saving the world is a perfectly good story, nothing wrong with that. And I personally prefer my stories as epic as they can get (which definition of 'epic' are we going with here, anyway? Dramatic? Grandiose? A long, continuous tale?)

And you gotta be careful when trying to make bittersweet endings and having the player feel 'cheated'. Nothing ruins a good story like an unsatisfying ending. There has to be some sense of closure and victory.
But I'm sure you know that already, hence your 'in a good way'. It would certainly make for an interesting twist, if done right.

[Reshbj]

Aw man, you sure about the Generic Fantasy bit? That's kind of a turn off. :smallfrown:

That...came out wrong. I didn't mean generic fantasy. I meant a setting that one would expect to be generic, but isn't. I will attempt to defy all conventions of the genre.

I'll give the protagonist a bow, for starters. And he'll have a strength penalty when wielding swords. And I'll give the female protagonist the huge swords. And the aloof third member will have a staff. And it won't be for casting magic. I will have a three-person party! Take that, Final Fantasy!

Fire magic will be used for smokescreens and support spells!
Wind magic will do damage!
Earth magic will not be boring!
Water will inflict debuffs!

The Empire will be good, and the Kingdom will be evil!
The barbarians are friendly and not stupid!
When the villain dies, it's permanent!
You can win that first battle at the beginning of the game!

I won't go too overboard with originality, but if it's been done 50 million times before, I will go out of my way to avoid it.

[nooblade]

I doubt that anything exists which cannot possibly be construed as generic. Scribbling on paper, homemade kitchen utensils as deadly weapons, tin foil hats, faerie magic, betentacled chaos gods from beyond the stars, teenagers dueling with enslaved monsters, trying to go against the grain, 5-to-7-point Calvinism, saving the world, emo freaks, character development, press X to not die, politics, these things and much more are all pretty common.

It's pretty depressing. How do you deal with it?

[warty goblin]

I doubt that anything exists which cannot possibly be construed as generic. Scribbling on paper, homemade kitchen utensils as deadly weapons, tin foil hats, faerie magic, betentacled chaos gods from beyond the stars, teenagers dueling with enslaved monsters, trying to go against the grain, 5-to-7-point Calvinism, saving the world, emo freaks, character development, press X to not die, politics, these things and much more are all pretty common.

It's pretty depressing. How do you deal with it?

Dealing with it is simple: you don't filter stuff in a way that equates cliched or generic with bad. I really only find cliches bad if they are exceptionally lazy, that is the element is cliche because the author clearly can't be fussed to take anything but the path of least resistance. If the story you are telling ends up being cliche that is entirely different than telling a story that is cliche simply because that's all the effort you put into it.

[nooblade]

Dealing with it is simple: you don't filter stuff in a way that equates cliched or generic with bad. I really only find cliches bad if they are exceptionally lazy, that is the element is cliche because the author clearly can't be fussed to take anything but the path of least resistance. If the story you are telling ends up being cliche that is entirely different than telling a story that is cliche simply because that's all the effort you put into it.

But I like stories that are lazy. It's much worse when someone tries very hard to make an engaging and epic story that I absolutely can't stand.

[Mewtarthio]

But I like stories that are lazy. It's much worse when someone tries very hard to make an engaging and epic story that I absolutely can't stand.

Incorrect. Nobody likes lazy stories. They're just bland. What you probably like are simple stories.

Unless, of course, you mean that you only play games for the gameplay and find stories distracting, in which case disregard the above.

[Vitruviansquid]

That...came out wrong. I didn't mean generic fantasy. I meant a setting that one would expect to be generic, but isn't. I will attempt to defy all conventions of the genre.

I'll give the protagonist a bow, for starters. And he'll have a strength penalty when wielding swords. And I'll give the female protagonist the huge swords. And the aloof third member will have a staff. And it won't be for casting magic. I will have a three-person party! Take that, Final Fantasy!

Fire magic will be used for smokescreens and support spells!
Wind magic will do damage!
Earth magic will not be boring!
Water will inflict debuffs!

The Empire will be good, and the Kingdom will be evil!
The barbarians are friendly and not stupid!
When the villain dies, it's permanent!
You can win that first battle at the beginning of the game!

I won't go too overboard with originality, but if it's been done 50 million times before, I will go out of my way to avoid it.

My understanding is, the problem with cliches is that people follow them and do things without thinking of why they're doing it. People give their protagonists swords because all protagonists have swords, people make the love interest chick the healer because all love interest chicks are healers, and so on.

Now, if you're just going to just reverse every cliche you can think of, you're going to fall into the same trap, that is to say, the world you construct would not be as rich and interesting as if you went into every decision thinking about why you'd make them. Now, you could reverse every cliche in order to make a parody of the genre, which is something a game like The Bard's Tale (the one for Xbox and PS2) does quite well, but that's something you probably had to be thinking about from the start.

Perhaps what I really mean to say is that being original doesn't mean defying cliches, it means making something as if you were never aware of the cliches.

[Comet]

That...came out wrong. I didn't mean generic fantasy. I meant a setting that one would expect to be generic, but isn't. I will attempt to defy all conventions of the genre.

I'll give the protagonist a bow, for starters. And he'll have a strength penalty when wielding swords. And I'll give the female protagonist the huge swords. And the aloof third member will have a staff. And it won't be for casting magic. I will have a three-person party! Take that, Final Fantasy!

Fire magic will be used for smokescreens and support spells!
Wind magic will do damage!
Earth magic will not be boring!
Water will inflict debuffs!

The Empire will be good, and the Kingdom will be evil!
The barbarians are friendly and not stupid!
When the villain dies, it's permanent!
You can win that first battle at the beginning of the game!

I won't go too overboard with originality, but if it's been done 50 million times before, I will go out of my way to avoid it.

All that sounds kind of cool, actually. As long as you can make them a natural part of the story and don't put too much emphasis on how your world functions differently to all the others.

While we're on the subject of originality, I have to add that the 'protagonist with a bow' part has been done before, quite possibly multiple times, especially in the RPG Maker scene. Can't remember the name of any of the games, but I have a distinct feeling that someone else has had the same thought before.

But you know what? That doesn't really matter. You have a set of cool ideas, now you just need a cool story to bind them all together.
You're using RPG Maker for this, right? Some of my favourite RPGs have been made on that platform, you know. It definetly needs some good writing to keep the game going, though, unless you're good at tweaking the engine to perform in unexpected ways or at making your own, flashy graphics.

[Reshbj]

My understanding is, the problem with cliches is that people follow them and do things without thinking of why they're doing it. People give their protagonists swords because all protagonists have swords, people make the love interest chick the healer because all love interest chicks are healers, and so on.

Now, if you're just going to just reverse every cliche you can think of, you're going to fall into the same trap, that is to say, the world you construct would not be as rich and interesting as if you went into every decision thinking about why you'd make them. Now, you could reverse every cliche in order to make a parody of the genre, which is something a game like The Bard's Tale (the one for Xbox and PS2) does quite well, but that's something you probably had to be thinking about from the start.

Perhaps what I really mean to say is that being original doesn't mean defying cliches, it means making something as if you were never aware of the cliches.

I'm not going to be that extreme. I'm just going to build the world and the plot, and I'll try to avoid the common cliches of the genre. I don't want it to be so different that nobody will play it, nor do I want it to be so generic that people won't choose my game over any other one. I also want to enjoy it. If I don't like it too, what's the point?