You choose your own adventure

I get you, I was thinking the same myself, no one really seems to be interested in a plain slice of life right now so I was thinking of removing those for now, but what else would you say should be removed from the poll. This is my first time doing all this but I want to get a feel for what everyone wants still, some I added to the poll were mentioned in comments and that’s why they are there. Really though I want to finish any story, I love games, books, movies, anything with a good story, and even if I’m writing stories for others I’m still putting myself into the stories and enjoying it. :smiley: Also if this came out rude in any way I’m sorry but that was not my intention, thank you for taking the time to read through that admittingly large wall of text haha, and for commenting.

Edit: I thought you were talking about the first and third medieval fantasy story like everyone else so I’m sorry for that, but still, do you think I should remove some of those from the poll till they are mentioned or just remove some for my own sake. :smiley: I’m also curious, did any of the slice of life or medieval stories stand out the more than the others for you?

I’m totally fine with people voting as much as they like because this is for everyone, but I do agree, please try to limit it for now cuz this is my way of making myself finish something and I need guidance, :smiley: and remember, I will get to these other stories as well in the future.(More for everyone then just you by the way) You time now, oh don’t worry about that, I really can’t stand playing any game with choices and not being able to define my own character, and perks of the third medieval story is that you aren’t locked into any hero role at all, you are just an npc that gets to do what they want, so this story would literally be your defining moment. Oh I agree, that would be a good little tidbit to throw in from time to time. I have a question for everyone, including you, would you rather just be some npc or like a boss that is freed from their role, at first I had this as a raid boss that is freed, but I could also do multiple stories, like maybe they intersect and you can see how these choices affect the story on both sides.

Oh my gosh, that would definitely be fun to mess around with, a question though, would this be other players or an actual in-game npc, it might be fun to do both honestly. Maybe the hacker is making it so quests are a one time thing or something like delays, which riles up players, while the in-game hero or heroes get worked up like you said, because some random nobody npc is taking on the quests scripted for them to take. Let me know what you think :slight_smile:

Hey, well, i think being good or evil should be a player choice, most of the time anyways, and to your second point, would love to read your vampire story, i think is interesting and i love vampires, and i like that they are not the stereotypical bad vampire. One of my favorite vampires are from the World of Darkness because most of them are not “evil”, it depends on the individual, not the race.

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I think the NPC having a Specific special in game role is important to give them the power to seriously impact the game.

A boss is a particularly interesting option, as a more well known Raid Boss showing up in a village could be misinterpreted as a special event resulting in multiple players attacking him.

I’ve come up with two other NPC base builds I think would be interesting.

The first is an elite raid specific companion character, who is supposed to die at the end of the raid. It could serve as an interesting and dramatic character moment if the character were to hang around long enough to witness “himself” “die”

The second is guild trainer/quest giver NPC. You could have him retain the ability to assign quests and generate equipment. The impact of a free NPC with these abilities would be Immeasurable.

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I find many ideas interesting, but the genderlocked to male are all a big “nope!” for me.

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I think it would work better with characters we assume to be players, so your basic “hero” type. However, to avoid being too meta, maybe ignore the implication of people sitting in front of their computers. Unless, of course, you want to go that route with the whole hacker setup: Say, our hacker’s main goal is actively messing with a specific group of gamers. That’s why the hacker is stealing their quests and ruining their leaderboard score.

That said, NPCs could still play a role. Who knows, maybe our MC inspires some random NPCs to go on an adventure? They could become companions and potential love interests. However, of course, they are not really hero material. That’s why it hurts the other heroes even more when suddenly a group of random “noobs” takes over the game.

Something to think about: How does the hacker appear in-game? How relevant are they to the main plot? Will they be revealed as a hacker to the MC (who, then, would be aware that they are only existing within a game)?

I think it could be really tough to pull off the godmode!hacker angle without giving players the feeling that you’re robbing them and their character off their agency. How much of it is actually their own adventure if the hacker is making up all the rules? Wouldn’t it be more fulfilling if they managed to beat the other heroes due to their own dumb luck/skills/teamwork?

Sorry for the TL;DR. I just find the whole idea exciting. :sweat_smile:

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Yeah i don’t have them planned to remain that way, for some of the stories where you are genderlocked would have you be able to play as other characters who are female, or gender fluid, to see other sides of the story from their view and how actions from that person could change things. For the others, they started out as just stories, not choice based ones, so i would probably just do that in the start then transition and change dialogue and such for it to make sense for female characters or gender fluid ones, but i want it to be meaningful as well and that’s why it would take me some time. Still though i am sorry if the former type wouldn’t interest you, i totally understand not wanting to play as someone you aren’t, that’s me with online games. Thanks for giving a read and commenting :slight_smile:

Yeah i get you on that, was just curious if you were interested in seeing a more evil or good race, but yeah, anyone can be good or evil. Also, to anyone interested in slice of life, I really cant give evil choices as a moral standpoint, considering its supposed to be more like real life. Back to you though, i would be more than happy to share this story, i’m unsure of where to use it though, like should this be in supernatural genre, or would it be okay to use in medieval fantasy or even something like a space story haha
Thank you for introducing me to World of Darkness by the way, I’ve never heard of it before and I’m definitely looking forward to checking it out more considering I’m a fan of D&D myself.

Yeah, as i was thinking about it i was thinking the same thing, originally with my idea of the character being a raid boss I was thinking it would be really cool for them to develop skills or abilities that only they have, but I totally glossed over the fact that yeah, this would be a huge thing to players and other npcs, I had thought I’d have attacks on the group at certain points cuz this would feel like an in-game event to gamers, and interaction with certain npcs being significant but I’d definitely have to do more than i originally was thinking.

Oh, that would be really interesting as well, taking a character meant to die and letting them continue beyond that, it could be taken many directions depending on what I do with consciousness, the hackers role, and the significance of the raid to that character in the game script.

Hmm, I like the idea of generating equipment, maybe skills in like blacksmithing or something could lead into quests as well, or maybe it can be used to equipment a whole bunch of npcs with arms to fight, and being able to generate quests could work really well if the hackers presence is disrupting many things in the game world, leaving the player to fix everything with the quests they make. Thanks for the ideas, I do think if I do this story I will without a doubt have to make separate playable stories for all these ideas and more cuz its way too much fun to think about haha :smiley:

I getcha, leaving the possibilities open, yeah i was thinking of just having little comments that brought up the meta stuff, I don’t have to though if people don’t want that, I did have an idea sort of similar to that with the hacker messing with another group at some point but that’s why I’m thinking of doing multiple stories now, it would be cool to see how they cross and affect each other. Also don’t worry about length, I hate getting into a story and it being super short, if I do this I will make sure it is long enough to satisfy me, unlike some similar story, I’m looking at you SAO, seriously though they could have done so much more with just the first game in that anime

This is to the 3rd paragraph - I’m still unsure if I want some or all of the npcs to have awareness, or if they gain it because of the hacker’s presence. The hacker revealed themself to the MC in my original idea, but if i do multiple stories the hacker might never even appear to other playable characters. The hacker in that story looked just like a normal player, and they were, the hacker just wanted to do something crazy and released their favorite raid boss to journey through the game as level 1 characters together. Might seem plain but who said I was revealing everything :sunglasses:

Back to 2nd paragraph - Just yes, really though I was thinking along the same lines, as I mentioned in another comment, there could be some disturbances in the game world because of the hacker’s presence, this could lead to other npcs being freed, or triggering some other in-game content never seen before. I also have in mind a possible main quest line for the original story idea I was working with, maybe other characters will try to do the same and others don’t care for that. And if awareness is only in some npcs then the release of one could explain why other npcs with awareness are released as well.

Oh, I definitely understand that that’s why with my original idea I was avoiding that, sure the hacker is there but all they were really doing was trying to have fun with the character whose lore they loved haha :smiley:

Haha, no need to worry about that, have you seen my own TL;DR :joy:

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Yeah i would like to play as a race that is seem as evil by the others races, i think it would be interesting and different, wherever you try to fight the stereotype or not and stuff like that.As for the setting medieval is pretty much okay but I have a soft spot for characters with firearms so I would choose a modern setting, but that is just me.

If you are interested in World of Darkness I can’t recommend enough the PC game Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines, it introduced me to the World of Darkness and is a gem of a RPG, truly an awesome game.

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I will endeavor to create a worthy original and evil monster race haha, oh yeah i definitely wish more games took on that challenge, we barely have any play as the monster games, let alone ones with choices. I think i’d do medieval but i love steampunk as well so i really don’t mind putting guns into the mix as well.

Oh i have heard of that game, I’ve seen it before a couple times, I’ll definitely have to get it and check it out, that’s the thing about games, you might see one many times but never check it out and then get sucked into the hype of a new game that’s just like, :expressionless: I hate you, haha

Oh, for the NPC one, I think something a bit more interesting is if you, the NPC, are doing your normal commands and then all of a sudden, something/someone would destroy your home/village, forcing the NPC to go on an adventure in a world where they don’t understand anything. Having the hacker in the story turns me off since it seems like it’s kinda realistic, but not at the same time. Removing the hacker makes it unbelievable enough to where it’s easier to play along, for me at least. And plus, if you make it more forced, like you have no other choice, you can make the world a lot darker and scarier, which seems more interesting to me. Also, don’t make the NPC overpowered or anything, it’d be kinda fun to be barely surviving in this strange world, just trying to rebuild your own life, but to do so, you’re forced to undergo a journey (also a lot of potential for using Campbell’s Hero’s Journey :grin:)

I personally voted for the 3rd medieval fantasy! I remember being super into WoW, so it brought back all the memories. I would be terrified though if an npc just went rogue. I feel like it would try to kill the programmer for making it do the same thing over and over! :joy:

So would this be an in-game event that triggers everything, that wouldn’t really be giving a player the choice either, or do you mean the character has awareness and wants to save their village that is constantly being destroyed, cuz that’s how it would be for an online game you know, I’ve never seen a whole village destroyed in an mmo where it never returned to normal, but it would be awesome if that did happen haha. I know the way I worded it made it sound like the player has no choice but to go on an adventure, but the playable character I was talking about has reasons of their own to go places, you can decide to not hang out with the hacker and adventure but that wouldn’t stop the hacker from following you even without hacking. I personally think that game can be way scarier and darker if the hacker’s presence is disrupting the code throughout the game and making things happen that have never happened before, I know that wouldn’t be known to the player, but it would be known to the characters with awareness if they always saw the world one way and it starts becoming something different. But back to what you were saying, how would the world be worse if you were just an npc, would it be only because you are some nobody npc, curious? Yeah, I definitely get you with that, I hate overpowered characters, I’m gonna try making the playable character or characters as cool as possible without actually making them overpowered. I also want to mention that I have commented with others about this story the most on here and I’m thinking of doing multiple stories in the same world, not separate games, i would be interested in doing some, but all of this would be in one game and you can play from the perspective of different npcs, please take a look at some of those cuz they might help you understand what im talking about, I can definitely do the world without a hacker though if thats what the majority want, if that game gets voted for the most i will ask everyone whether they want the presence of a hacker or not, along with some other things. Thanks for giving my thread a read and commenting, if I sounded rude in any way that was not my intention, I’m really just interested in getting a better understanding of what you want from the story, so that means give me more to read haha :joy:

Haha, it would be amazing to witness if you were a gamer though, imagine joining up with them to free the game world or something, that’s something anime storyline worthy, too bad most of the game world anime stories are just about some amazing gamer and not about the world within the game. I’ve got ideas for many playable characters for the game so if people want all the different story ideas I have then you’ll definitely see some characters with similar desires :smiley:

Steampunk would be truly amazing, think of the possibilites! I cant wait to see your evil ones hahah!
I wish more games lets you play as the monsters too, most games force you to play as the human and even the ones that have moral choices forces you to play as good, because the evil ones are cartoonish evil, retarded or both. Few games let you play a magnificent bastard manipulating everyone to do your binding hahah !

When you check the game dont forget to use the unofficial patch to fix all the gamebraking bugs and add more quest and stuff! Cheers!

Yeah there are tons of options with steampunk, thanks. :smiley: Yeah especially in games where you are supposed to be a hero, you only end up a jerk not a villain yourself, there is no threat of your party members leaving you or finding evil party members instead of the usual good or neutral ones, and I think it would be cool as well for a game to allow you to corrupt or bring someone good to the dark side, while others would end up hunting you or something later on. I never play evil myself but I’ve seen in games like fallout that even if you are evil and doing terrible things, there aren’t really any consequences or reasons not to be evil, it doesn’t feel real, especially with theft, in games its like everyone either wants to kill you for stealing or it seems to just go unnoticed and accepted, like “I’m the hero so i can take everything you own” haha
If i was playing an evil person from the get go i wouldn’t mind making the evil choices, but when i get to define who i am it’s like there is no possible way for me to be evil, I’ve even loaded old saves just to avoid that one jerk comment I made cuz I thought it was going to be said differently. I will make sure to label how conversation choices are going to be said without just being like “good” vs “evil”, and even though I cant play an evil person I guarantee i can make the evil choices for others to choose haha

Thanks, I’ll make sure to download that as well

Yeah, this one personally wasn’t the one I voted for because I thought the Napoleonic one seemed more interesting (Napoleonic Age is one of my favorite history topics!) but so what I meant by making the world dark and scary is making the world seem that way from the NPC’s perspective. I believe the phenomenon is called the uncanny, where you make something familiar, a normal RPG world, into something strange from the NPC’s point of view. I feel that writing a story like that is much more effective than just making the world scary by adding scary stuff. The added layer is definitely worth it in my opinion. As for about the initial reason why the NPC is forced to adventure, I guess that is true that villages just reappear in MMOs, so maybe making an error occur in the code that deletes their village would work? Then again, a hacker would be an easier explanation than that, but I just think the hacker might act as baggage, being useful in setting up the conflict, but not being so good for the rest of the story. But hey, remember who’s writing the story! If you think you can make it work with the hacker, but I just think it’s not as interesting personally. It’s up to you though, man :grin: