One of the feedback we picked from the Driftmoon preview was that some players (me) didn’t like the way the plot of the game started. I’m looking for a way to improve the beginning, and while we’re at it, we could make the player character more interesting. If you have an idea for the plot, don’t read any further before posting it to the comments, or you might forget your unspoiled idea.
So now that you either don’t have an idea or you’ve posted it already, I can tell you my ideas. Looking at the current setup, the player is just a general chap who’s father was the baron of Driftmoon, and the player didn’t know this. Someone said he’d preferred playing Paul the Librarian, and I would have preferred playing Bobby the Skeleton. Often RPG characters are weak nobodies who just happen to be at the right place, such as in all Fallouts and Oblivion. The argument there is that it’s easier for the player to feel sympathy for characters similar to themselves. Also that allows character development, the player can mold the character as they will. Call me crazy, but I’d like a my character to be a little more interesting, perhaps even have a background of their own that I could learn while playing.
My favourite example of RPG player characters is The Nameless One from Planescape: Torment. The protagonist was handed an ugly tattooed character with an unknown background, only the knowledge that he lived forever and had lived many different lives in the past now forgotten. You could develop him while playing by getting him to remember some of his past lives, and you learned quite a bit of his past. He was an interesting character from the start, it was cool playing him and you wanted to learn about him, but since he had no memory of his past the character itself didn’t force your choices. Unfortunately the forgotten past is one of the most used game elements today, but this was ten years ago when it was still nearly new.
So here’s my initial ideas for the player character. I don’t want to completely redo the starting levels, but I could for example start the player in Driftmoon and turn Samuel (the professor with the teleport) into some sort of a wizard or sage, and move his house there.
- The player is the baron himself, come to the past to stop himself.
- The player is a golem created by the wizard.
- The player is a dwarf trying to escape from the mines, mistakenly tunneled into the wizards house.
- The player is the king of Driftmoon from a thousand years ago, woken from his grave by the wizard to stop the Curse.
Or something like that. I’m very eager to hear your ideas so if you have none, make something up right now! 
A good idea (I think) would be to have the player ‘build’ it´s backgroud at start, I mean, asking you a few questions of ‘how’ they would like their character to be. For example: Is he rich, or a home-less guy?, How much does he knows about his past?, a lot?, nothing?… Maybe what he knows is fake?. Is he a chaotic criminal, or quiet and law-abbiding citizen?… Well that goes for idea #1.
Idea #2: The player has a past, althrough he only knows the gist of it. It could start similary to the current plot: He is the adoptive (or depending on race, true) son of the Baron, who is still in Driftmoon trying to end the curse, while Samuel was ordered to (and was able to barely) escape with said son. However, the player gets to chose (in a rogue-like style) the profession and race of the character. This could affect the ‘starting equipment’ that he gets at the beggining (I mean, lying across Samuel´s house).
Both of the above cases can be used to affect the player´s initial ‘stats’ so for example, he gets an extra point of an stat, e.g. strengh or intelligence; in similar fashion he could gain a penalty to such stats (-1, -2, etc.).
I know it could be a bit (Well, highly) complicated, but this could provide a lot of room for character development. Well, it is an idea… Hopefully it helps in a small way.
Just a little remark. I’m not sure on Morrowind or Oblivion (never played enough of those games), but in Fallout, you were not just “someone at the right place at the right time”. In both Fallout 1 and 2, you were the best and most cunning of your community, sent on a mission to find the object (purifier chip, geck) that will help the tribe survive. In Fallout 3, you were the child of one of the most influential scientists in the Wastelands. The fact that you can customize the character doesn’t change the story. Also note that those backstories where just the lower layer, for example in Fallout 1 it turns out it was no coincidence the water purifier chip has broken – Vault 13 was a scientific experiment to see what would happen when the chip broke and someone had to go out for a new one.
Add multiple layers to the story. Try to recognize these quotes (spoilers incoming) for examples:
* “The Polito form is dead, insect”
* “What is this? What are you doing, my son?” “Succeeding you, father.”
* “Would you kindly?”
* “What can change the nature of a man?”
* “Congratulations. The test is now over. All Aperture technologies remain safely operational up to 4000 degrees Kelvin.”
* “I will not be stopped. Not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss, or anyone.”
* “I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. The Ring is mine!”
* “We all need memories to remind ourselves who we are.”
* “Execute Order 66″
All powerful quotes. All reveal a hidden layer. Betrayal. Unknown facts. All come from narratively strong games/books/movies. You want that. You don’t want a single narrative from start to end, where the main events are set in stone from the beginning. Think about what happens in between. Suspension, relieve, suspension, relieve, on all levels. On the lowest combat level (kill, loot, kill, loot). On the quest level (enter big dungeon, return to town). On the story level (start to conclusion of story arc). It’s what makes entertainment tick. You don’t want the suspension-relieve cycle to only happen once.
Now. The “going to the past to stop yourself” idea is a bit hard to execute properly I think, it’s too hard to suspend disbelief on something like that. The golem thing could be done (Bioshock is similar in a way). The dwarf idea sounds lame.
The king of a thousand years ago… Could be rather good, if you manage to use this to your full benefit. Think about this: in Planescape:Torment, the player was on the same level as the PC, basically knowing nothing and discovering it along with him. If you do this idea (or any other), the player needs to be set up like the PC, thinking about how Driftmoon was 1000 years ago, say you let the Curse be first arise and banished back then. Let the player play that last fight, destroy the evil first inventor of the Curse, think everything is safe. Let him have knowledge of how it was 1000 years ago, then cast him into the current Driftmoon.
I’m not a storywriter, I couldn’t find you better ideas. Perhaps others will.
Amarth: But in any of the Fallouts, do you know anything about your character to really matter in the game. I’d still say these were general enough for them to be categorized under the “just a general character” -category.
I think I recognize Planescape: Torment, Portal, Halo, Lord of The Rings and Star Wars. Nice quotes.
DRL: I think I’m looking more for the story of the character than the race or the profession. Of course the race could be important for the story. As for profession, I think selecting that should not be in the start of the game where you don’t know the first thing about the game.
Any more ideas for the plot start and especially the player character? It doesn’t have to be good or well though out or fit into anything we have.
…Also System Shock 2, Warcraft 3, Starcraft and some that I don’t know.
2 Ville: have you already checked out this http://www.theinspiracy.com/Current%20Rules%20Master%20List.htm ?
About the plot, I kind of recall how character was molded in Notrium. Depending on initial quite simple choice the background was revealed DURING the game, being different for each of the characters. Having this, I ask myself, can such thing be done for non-beforeprogrammed classes with some algorithm to define character’s background judging by his/her stats or whatever… (see point “Emergent Complexity”) This will be great for adding replayability too.
hmmm…
Well how about one of the God make love with queen and take a shape of king
so when king realize he went mad order his man to kill a baby but he knows his god would not allowed it so he switch side and make pact with demons who marked a baby for death, country is now worshiping daemons but some secretly old pray to old god ( mother of child ).
So the twist is a women assassin who had to kill the child had a visit to old god and decide to spare his life and rise him like her own, he offer to give a evidence of killed baby in form of some orphan who died to satisfy king.
But real one have mark of death on his self and who he progress and make stronger ,
the higher daemons are attacking him
So he have blood of king, god and daemons in self
prophet child
For your personality and/or your stats, maybe you should ask some question like (or maybe even play those scenario !) :
Your friend is badly injured, what do you do ?
1) Call for help.
2) You carry him to the nearest town.
3) You try to heal him.
4) You let him here, and go search for help.
A beggar ask you for money….
1) You ignore him.
2) You run away. (hmmm)
3) You give him XX $. (the player choose)
4) You give him your snack.
@Vynzs: That is how I pointed it out in ‘Idea #1′.
Regarding the plot, well, I agree with Amarth´s point of view.
However, since you asked ideas for the plot ville, here are some:
1)You are the Baron, but a spell (cast by the Curse´s creator) teleported you out of Driftmoon and made you forget who you are. Now Samuel, your friend, told you that your son (yeah, he also tells you that you have a son) did not make it out as planned, and tells you the only way to find him is to travel to Driftmoon. Then the monk there tells him he too, is infected… Now you go on a quest to end the Curse and save your son. [The player discovers more about his past and who he really is along the way...]
2)You are a nobody, just some random guy that is a flunk at school. However, you have a power that not many other humans have – the power to understand, as well as use, magic. But you do not know this – you are just someone. Then one day, a mysterious man, by the name of Samuel Shipwright (Hopefully I wrote this correctly) comes to you and tells you that he needs help to end a terrible evil that plagues his homeworld (or ‘homemoon, he,he…) and tells you that he is assembling a team of young people who will help him free his world. Of course you do not believe him. But then he takes out his ‘Elemental Stone’, and as soon as the stones touches you, it starts to shine stongly. He tells you that you, along a few other individuals, are capable of learning how to use magic, and he will teach you how to do so if you agree to help him. (You there, of course, agree…)
Then, he takes you (and the others) to Driftmoon, where you start to learn magic. Soon, however, the Curse reaches the town you are staying at, and you are forced to disperse (and then gather togheter again) by the order of Samuel the Wizard.
So, your quest to gather your companions (and to end the Curse after that) begins…
Possible plot additions to this are:
*One of Samuel´s students falls under the influence of the Curse´s creator and, opposite to his/her original goal, becomes your enemy and tries to stop you.
*Samuel IS the curse´s creator. However he needs to sacrifice several selected individuals (proficent in magic) in order for the Curse to gain it´s complete power. You discover this near the end and try to stop him (you do so along any still-alive student that came with you from Earth, who depending on how long the fight lasts, might be ‘sacrificed’ during it).
*YOU are the Curse´s creator. However, some unknow force (gods, wizard, spirits, ect.) gave you a second chance to correct your wrongs. Your memories are gone, as well as your power. But soon you start to recover both and, at the end, you must choose to either end the Curse or take control of it.
Well, those are some ideas… Hopefully something can be made out of this.
Dwarf one isn’t so bad as long as he ends up outside the house and reason for his escape is related to the plot like curse being a product of a monster that attacked the mines, causing the dwarf to go on a quest for revenge without having much interest in the curse. So maybe monster should be product of the curse or whoever made curse so that dwarf would go after it after defeating the monster.
Thousand year old king would allow for him to have a opinion on the current state of the world which might provide some interesting dialog. But how would being a king make him more qualified to stop the curse instead of any random dead person? Why would the wizard except him to even want to stop the curse unless he was famous for loving his kingdom and being ready to help it in any way possible. Being a king isn’t necessarily very enjoyable. But if he had just decided to go explore the world for a while(why would powerful people die of old age?) and then returning to find his home in trouble then it’d be much more reasonable.
Golem seems like the best idea and would definitely be interesting and allow all kind of cool things. Being simply made by the wizard isn’t necessarily that interesting. Being made thousand years ago by some great person who ordered him to guard something for hundreds of years and developing some level of self awareness while at it and then someone coming and taking whatever he’s guarding and damaging him badly in the process and then being fixed by a curious wizard who found him laying amidst junk and rubble would be interesting. So after waking up the golem would have no idea how long has it been and what to do except that the item that gave him a purpose and spent many long years together with is missing. This would leave the player quite free to decide what he wants to do and be in different situations even more so than if he was some random person. Also meeting “old friends” who he met before he out of boredom started developing personality and paying attention to unnecessary things unrelated to his tasks sounds neat. In addition golem’s physiology should allow all kinds of interesting modifications and other stuff.
The golem idea might have more merit than I would have thought initially. Thinking back about P:T, the fact that you couldn’t die (a rather unique PC trait) was central to a whole lot of things. It was important in gameplay, as you could experiment. It was important in the story, in various sorts of ways (explore your previous lives, find out why you are immortal), it was used in at least one puzzle, … Making the PC a golem (or, well, any slightly abnormal idea might work) might give you a lot of interesting options to put in the story, gameplay, combat, puzzles and, well, everything.
To be frank I never thought of the golem idea much myself, but you do make it sound pretty interesting. It could really affect gameplay in ways that have never been used before in an RPG – just a matter of thinking what a golem can do. I think I’ll investigate this further.
Up until now I was thinking about the king plot. I know it’s a bit traditional, but it would go something like this:
-The player is on his way to his crowning and wedding with the princess BBB, Baron Asrald as a child, brother Bobby and his trusted Wizard AAA.
-After they reach a mountain pass, Suddenly AAA turns on them and apologises. The baron runs, and AAA taunts him.
-The player and BBB are turned into stone by AAA.
-AAA turns to pronounce the reign of his evil invisible master CCC.
-30 years pass.
-The good wizard Samuel unstones the player.
-The player can ask Samuel what has happened: -Baron Asrald has just brought him here and left to capital to find BBB. Capital city is plagued by a curse.
Holy crap, some of these responses are enormous.
Personally I didn’t dislike the plot in the demo, although I was a bit unclear on the whole portal thing, especially the relationship between where I started and the world on the other side of the portal. Maybe I skipped over some important exposition so I could get back to dragging thing around (I love the physics in this game!).
Personally I would have the plot start the same, but then take a twist. For example, your starting character could die or get The Curse part-way into the game. Then your control could switch to another character, taking up the original mission or maybe even working against it. Like this short film: http://vimeo.com/5510477
I’d like to see Bobby the Skeleton in the actual game, too. Maybe you could sail by his island at one point, but never actually interact with him. That would be cool.
“Capital city is plagued by a curse.” That gives me an idea. Phearps you can add some way to measure the current power of the Curse, so the player knows how strong it is. Initially, it is only in the Capital city, then it starts to spread to nearby towns, cities, farmlands, ect. corrupting/taking control of everything there. Maybe one way of losing the game could be when the Curse grows strong enough to take control of you, but you can delay this by becoming stronger (for example, gaining levels) while as the Curse becomes stronger this time shortens (of course, for the ‘Curse takes control of you’ stuff you need to be in a place controlled by the Curse). The player can stop the advance of the Curse in some places if he is present there and fights it´s minions (zombies or whatever they are, but they are under the Curse´s control thus they help to spread it). The more the areas controlled by the Curse, the stronger it is, and so stronger are it´s minions, and thus it becomes harder to defeat. (For a nice twist, the Curse´s minions should not weaken as the Curse does. So the player has to think it 2 times before letting the Curse take over a town).
Well, I think it is an original idea, though given how I explained it, I am quite sure that it would not be in the actual game. (But if you can make a mod with a “while you are there, in other places stuff does happen” ability then I think it would be cool. Maybe even I could do it?)
Anyway, the King plot seems interesting enough that way ville, althrough you may agree with me that there is allways room for expansion/improvement.
Maybe you can explain why Bobby is a skeleton with something like “Bobby tried to stop AAA, who after taking some damage, cast a spell upon Bobby, turning him into a skeleton”.
I say this because you mentioned “Brother Bobby”, which to me at least, seems to be an human.
That’s a pretty interesting approach. I haven’t really started working on the town yet, so I don’t know how ending the curse will go. But it will just be a step on the way towards the real goal, so it could very well be a game mechanic like that.
Hi,
Well, I quite like the Golem idea myself.
I can’t remember the name of the book, but it was one where there was a golem – the protagonist – and he had some quest to do… aided by his friends and being chased by his enemies. It all turns out that he was an experiment, and that the whole thing was a sham. Everything was set up to see how it would react…