The PCs' Role
We're going to talk about the role that the PCs
have in their quest. While this is sometimes something
you want to come up with before you make up the
Quest, you can usually base it off of what the Quest is,
which is why I wanted to bring it up after the
Quest. Generally, what is the PCs overall role in this
adventure? Are they trying to save the world? Save a
country? Find a particular item? Are they good guys?
What? This is going to be the overall general thing
that's going on in the game.
Example (continued off of the last example):
Our heroes are going to eventually go on a quest
to find a secret, magical item to save the world with,
and keep it from the villains.
If you look at it in sort of a hierarchy of how the
story breaks down, the PCs' Role is at
the top, which is made up of slightly smaller
Quests , which are each made up of even smaller
Paths .
You can go ahead and roll for your Role, if you want,
but I would recommend looking for a bigger connection to
the whole thing yourself. If you want, you can save the
Rold for last, and put everything together then.
The Villians' Role
Just like the aforementioned PCs' Role
, the Villians' Role is what
the overall goal of the Villians in your story. Make it
simple. Why do they want to stop the PCs? Or what goal
do they have that the PCs are interfering with?
Lets bring out our Villain again from the earlier NPC
section.
The Villians are looking for the same magical
item, to bring total chaos and darkness to the world.
They are racing against the PCs to locate the item
first.
Short and sweet is all you really need.
The Path
Really, I should call this "Paths", and this is
where things start getting complicated. You'll want to
create several mini-obstacles for the PC to navigate
through. You may want to simply make a list of simple
things for them to do:
- Investigate Duke's Mercenaries
- Infiltrate Duke's Castle
- Find plans for world domination
- Run into Dukes warriors
- Escape from Castle
...and then expand on these:
- Investigate Duke's Mercenaries
- Find 3 Mercenaries outside your house.
- Defeat Mercenaries
- Find note with Duke's Seal on it
- Infiltrate Duke's Castle
- Locate Supply Route to Castle
- Bribe Guards for entrance
- Sneak inside Castle
- Find plans for world domination
- Run into Dukes warriors
- Escape from Castle
And so on and so forth...Anyway, just add whatever
seems natural to the story. And take baby steps from
point a to point b. It should be pretty simple, so don't
try to over think things. (For those, like me, who think
better in a narrative way, go ahead an just explain the
whole story between paths, and it should work out fine.)
The Reward
So what are the PCs going to get out of their
Quest(s)? If they win, do they save the world? Become
rich & Famous? What motivation do they have to go
through with it? Come up with a logical jump from their
quest, for instance, if they're on a quest to locate a
magical item, then don't have the reward have something
to do with the cute girl down the street....
A logical jump would be to say that once they find
the item, they can use it to rid evil from the world,
and live out their days in blissful peace. Sure, why
not?
The Consequences
What will happen if your PCs fail? While this won't
necessarily be used for an "alternate ending" type thing
(though it could ), you still want to come up
with some kind of threat to hold over the PCs heads, to
help keep them moving. In this case, we want to say that
if they don't find the magic relic before the villains,
then the world will be plunged into darkness. You will
most definitely refer to this consequence often
throughout the game, in a manner that the player will
want to try and make sure that they do what they need to
do.
Using FFVII as an example, the 3rd disc, with Meteor
hanging over the horizon was an ominous reminder of the
consequences of failing, as well as a push to kind of
get the player to keep moving. Who knew when that thing
was going to land... scary...
By now, you should have everything put together, in
many, many different files, and sheets of scrap paper.
The last thing you need to do is Type it all up in a
coherent, easy to follow document, called the
Design Document .
So the next section, is going to be all about that
Document. Tune in!