How do you come up with your story?

The hardest part of every RPG Maker game I've ever attempted to make has always been the story. When I first started using RPG Maker over a decade ago, I used to start a new project, make things up as I went along, and eventually quit and start over because I didn't know where to go with it. They were never very good, I had a lot of trouble breaking free from standard RPG clichés. It always starts in the small town, the teenage protagonist gets involved in some minor conflict, and from there the story expands.

So I would like to ask the people here, how do you come up with your story? Where do you get your ideas? And when you do reach a story concept, do you write everything out in advance or make up the details as you go along?

Story has never been an issue for me. Converting the stories into game friendly materials and proper execution have been the harder part.

I am 45 now. I've been writing stories and building its lore ever since I was late-teen whenever I felt like it. Fast forward 3 decades, I have loads of stories, characters, and its lore files, and so on.

How I started my stories was an inspiration from a manga called "Five Stars Stories". I loved the author's passion toward dedicating one third of his manga book into writing down lore materials. I wanted to create my own world and that's how I began.

Looking back, I have a certain style. When I write a story or an arc, I already have an ending in my mind. The progress, however, is made up as I go.
I set up a character and its background. Once that is done, I attempt to think in his prospective and then drive him or her toward the ending I had planned.

Drinking has a part in my writing as well. Whenever I happen to get stuck hard in story progress, I drink and..., well, let it fly. It helps.

I usually think about the whole story first, from start to finish. I tend to write everything down, from minor ideas to bigger ones, this covers characters and main plot. Once I see that the story looks solid, I can go on to make it happen through events. The ideas that don't work I just discard, or if I come up with better ones as I move forward with the game, I just replace the ones I don't like. I get my ideas from my wild imagination, by the way.

@Bridgeman As for me, a brief history of the Downfall FES series going from random weird concept, to pet project, to my life's work.

Downfall FES was sparked from a just a weird random concept I had one fateful night in the shower four and a half years ago of "A Fallout or BioShock game, but what if it was a family-oriented (E10/T Content) JRPG/WRPG instead?" Flash-forward a year, I eventually nutured the concept by telling my friends on message boards and social media apps like Miiverse, SwapDoodle, and Google+ of my ideas. There, I gained a invaluable ally in Dr. Alola, a good friend from Miiverse who is now mostly inactive due to school and time zones. He helped partially invent the cast, most notably naming the main antihero, Septemus. I proceeded to take these discussions and made a prototype of the game on RPG Maker II for PS2 (which for the record, is now codenamed "Downfall Zero", and is much like how YuGiOh Season 0 is to the actual YuGiOh series). Flash-forward another three years- RPG Maker Fes was announced and I, without hesitation, pre-ordered the Limited Edition. After receiving the pre-order in the mail one day before launch due to a shipping error on NIS America's part, I then spent the next 99 hours and 57 minutes creating the true original entry. Being made on Fes, I decided to call it Downfall FES, much like how many 3DS remakes of old games have 3D in the name. When I finished it, I had uploaded it to the Fes servers. Within a week of launching it, it had soon became one of the few critically acclaimed Fes games on the server (right alongside the other few Fes greats like The Thirteenth Helloween, Apartment 412, and Coexistence), who, along the other greats I mentioned, helped ushered in a new era of Fes games, back when the servers were only filled with one-tenth-baked demos, complete unplayable/buggy trash, and completely unoriginal IP rip-offs (like one guy tried to recreate FF7 BY ITS ACTUAL NAME, which was copyright infringement). Now flashing foward to December 25, 2017- RPG Maker MV went on sale on Steam, and I had just recieved 2 $50 Steam cards for Christmas. I soon began to work on the remake, Downfall FES Re:Boot, now with the creativity barriers Fes had present removed (I am still working on Re:Boot, mind you- 200+ hours of owning RPG Maker MV).

The Downfall FES series I have planned as a whole is now my main focus in RPG design.

tl;dr It went from random concept, to pet project, to my life's work (and probably the only thing I leave behind when I'm dead for others) in about a 4 1/2 year timespan.

Basically, I just start the story...in word. Forget RPGMaker just try to write it out from start to finish. I've been doing that pretty much every summer since I was 14, just writing stories in my free time during the summer, and then after I graduated, during some weekends or holidays.

Usually I start out with a basic idea of what I want to happen, but some of them I only knew how I wanted it to start, and had the rest to figure out as I went. I got some good stories and some really bad ones that way, but that was the point of the practice. Besides, I knew no one was going to see most of these but me so if it gets a tad silly or ridiculous, that's fine.

Of course, you will get some that are so bad you just end up nuking it. Case in point, I had a story I did that was a take on Lord of the Rings which was so bad that after a couple weeks at it I knew it was bad, so I just decided to make the next line "And then aliens invaded...". Yep, I figured since it was so bad, why not just go for completely crazy while I'm at it? And now it's become a joke with me that when a story I'm writing is bad I'm going to just have the aliens invade and wipe it all out.

Short version: Just practice. Constantly.

Story always takes a backseat for me, and rather work on characters and their motivations, and let that drive the plot forward. I just prefer to have the focus on characters and gameplay mechanics than have a big story. If the story ends up being for the heroes to kill the big bad evil who threatens the peace in the world, that's good enough for me.

Basic story and plot ideas are easy if you write often. Creativity is like that, you tend to have ideas coming out your ears the more you focus your creativity on executing one idea. What I tent to do is pick out one idea that I think would be fun to play and just expand out my ideas and systems around that idea. The first game I'd ever created was based on "What if the Mage healer was the main character?". One idea was based entirely on rebuilding a town (kind of like Soul Blazer, but I came up with it before I'd heard of it). Another was about "How could I make a romance plot work as an RPG and still keep it the central point?" The basic idea doesn't even have to be all that creative as long as the execution is solid enough. Typical JRPG hero gathering the crystals of power to stop the evil overlord that destroyed his humble happy home village? Yep, totally possible to get a good an interesting game out of that. I like to focus on a single point of interest though, taking one small element and using it to color the normally overused plot. For example, hmm, what if there was a prophecy, but the chosen hero was actually born a girl and she has to hide her gender from everyone her entire life? Or everyone knows she's a girl but completely refuses to interact with her like one because they're afraid to mess up the prophecy? Even better, what if her being female is key in actually making a positive end to the prophecy, just no one realized it? Huh, you can see a small bit of how my process works in those three lines. I just take a point and brainstorm out until I have enough to thread it together into a cohesive whole.

BTW, I've never actually finished and released anything yet, so I might not be the best for advice on finishing. For the things I've finished, though, I've only ever managed when I was super focused on keeping things simple and not adding in new features. Feature creep will kill you every time.

If good writing is really important to you to have in your game, but you don't have it, why do it yourself at all? This is what project recruitment is for. Jack of all Trades tends to be a Master of None, why not let someone be your specialist while you focus on mastering the stuff about game making you really enjoy? Just make sure you actually do have at least one specialty, no one wants to help the guy whose only skill is "management".

That's a good point to also remember. We have a famous saying here: "A titanic list of features is a great way for your project to end up like the Titanic". Focus on the story. Not just the neat features that you want to shove in with it.

I only have two short games under my belt and the first one was almost entire focused in mechanics. The story was just a backdrop to give the game a little cohesion.

My latest game actually started out with the idea, "I want to see if I can make an action game using Galv's Map Projectiles plugin". I started out thinking that you'd be a Mage shooting stuff with fireballs and ice bolts and such but then didn't want to do another traditional fantasy setting so I switched to making it about angels and demons. Did some research on the historic lore (Hebrew and early Christian). Because it needed to be small on scale, I crafted the plot after the angel Eremiel who watches over the gate between Heaven and the Abyss. I wanted to bring a more humanly identifiable aspect to the story which went beyond just rescuing souls from the Abyss so started thinking about a relationship between the protagonist and a fallen angel. That's when I gender-swapped Eremiel and used the more feminine looking version of the name. Plotted out four key moments in the relationship that takes you from when they first meet to how it ended. It was my IGMC game so everything had to be compacted quite a bit to fit within an hour of game play. Made my game, delivered the story as flashbacks between the stages like old action games like Ninja Gaiden did and that's that.

For game idea that I have planned for the future, it usually just starts with a "wouldn't it be cool if..." type idea and then I'll jot down the main plot points I want to cover. I usually won't think too much about what my characters are going to be like until I decide to really work on it. I mostly fear that by the time I get to that point, I might have to chuck all of that because now I'm in the mood to make a different kind of character. I do probably wing it a lot more than I should but when I really start working on something, I usually can't think of much else so I get most of my best ideas, and do most of my research, at that point. Before crunch time, I just want a general story idea and a reason why this game exist.

I think a lot of times, people will make a game with the characters in mind but not put enough thought into what the main plot is and why it matters and end up falling back on overly generic tropes. While characters usually are important, I feel it is just as important that the world around ties into their lives in a meaningful way. If it doesn't, you're probably going to end up with a "chosen one" for no other reason besides not having any other way to make them important to the story and the world around them.

My writing process is very analytical. It's not for everyone. I write books and self publish them, so coming up with the ideas isn't an issue and I believe your question relates more to how to develop the story ideas you have. Please note; I don't believe any ideas are 'bad'. Cliches can be good if you give the reader/player a different perspective on an old idea.

How I write out my stories...

First, I brainstorm for a long while, jotting down notes as I go. Even in later stages, I can still continue to brainstorm - there's no limit to that part of the process. Then, I write out a few paragraphs of general story line and then I break down each section and elaborate into what I call a "Time line".

For my games (I've just started using VXAce last October), I've examined what I like/dislike in other rpgs I've played and tried to refine or adapt things to my quests. As for lore, or other information within the game world, like books the player can read or notes from different characters, I use my outline method.

As I said, it's probably not for most people, the way I do it, but I hope it helps.

James

Stories are my strong point. There's a lot of good advice in this thread, but I'll add my two cents just because I do things a bit differently.

I start with a concept.

The concept I start with is usually something like, "I know this hasn't been done before" or "it's rarely ever been done". I'm a fan of stuff like that. Mostly, because it's a challenge. But, you must start with a concept.

So, for my current project, the initial concept on a story was, "What if the hero was actually dead? The goal being to save his immortal soul instead of the world?". You don't see a lot of stories that start with such a concept. Hey, you already lost the main game. From there, I kicked around a bunch of ancillary ideas. I outlined the basic premise and goals of the story and swapped things around while also adding detail. Okay, the main character meets Death and is in Purgatory, now what? How'd he actually die? What's the world he came from like? I used other characters to help inform me of the world he came from. I decided it was a "low magic" setting and only special people could wield it. Okay, so what kind of people are they? How would that actually affect a setting like Swords and Sorcery? Might make them outcasts. Okay, so if they're outcasts, how does that work? I'll give them their own kingdom and make them a power in the world. So what does that mean? Is the world big or small? I decided on a small world. An Island Continent. So, it turns them into a massive superpower that nobody trusts. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

From concept, to characters, to world building. I add in details. I change things that no longer sound interesting or that no longer work with other ideas. I eventually changed my magic users to simple "Elementalists" because I was trying to think up a slur for mages. "Elems" (pronounced Eh Lems). When I added in a "love story" between two factions of the world, the hero and his soon to be wife, I decided to change the Elementalists to be a single gender. Only women could obtain the powers. That lead me to be reminded of the old "witch trials" where women were accused of sorcery. I incorporated that lore into in game implications. "Burning at the stake" destroyed the soul of the magic user and prevented resurrection of the soul as a new magic user. That, itself, tied back into the main theme of "the hero is already dead". It gave me a place to explore a mystery in the "You are in the afterworld".

Those decisions informed every other decision about the story. I just kept asking myself questions and then answering them. "How did everyone arrive on the island?", "Why does magic only exist on this island?", "Who else does our main character know?", "Why is my hero the only one who isn't sent immediately on to the afterworld, but instead gets a chance to save his soul?". Etcetera. I just kept asking questions and answering them. Building my design document as I went.

I do the same thing with every story. Basic concept. Build a main character. Use that main character to inform me about the world and the people in it. Build his party or group of friends. Let those people help inform me of what the world is like. Use their ideals and goals to inform me of the direction the story would take. What villains they'd encounter. Or rather, what antagonists. Use the antagonists to inform me even more about the world. Build the whole world. Outlines, concepts. Rewrites. 7 or 8 total drafts of a "rough outline". Then, the beginning of the story. Opening chapter or two. Rewrite as necessary and redesign of the document. Once those first two chapters are refined enough (I don't like to refine forever, I'd never get anything done)... I proceed with the rest of the "First Draft" and no more "rewrites". After the first draft, I read it a couple times. Straight through. A second draft allows me to add in more detail, change things, etcetera. The same concepts tend to work with making a story for a video game. But, you do it with a Design Document instead of a book.

I only have one completed game along with a couple others that aren't finished yet, but...

I usually start with a small concept. My first game's was something like "A party climbs a tower filled with deadly monsters" or something like that, can't remember for sure. That's a very small concept, but when you think about it, it's easy to expand on with questions like:

Who are the party? What are their motivations?
Why is the tower there? What does it look like? What's in it?

so on, so forth... You can expand on almost every word in the sentence.

My second game's concept, to name another example, is "A knight falls in love with a witch while saving the world". I wrote a rough outline for this concept (I didn't for the first), then refined it as I began working on the game. I save the minor details for when I'm actually working on the game.

My current project is based on an old table-top rpg game I invented/ran for friends. I'm taking the basis of the mythos I developed there and translating it to my game. As for the core story, I played around with several variations of the "heroes summoned to help save the world" trope. I then made a world map, letting it be fun and just trying to create a "world" that seamed natural. From there I stepped back and looked at my map; why was that continent there or that island there? I re-tweaked several elements and the story comes to life. From there I make broad points to follow, creating the rest as I create each town and dungeon.

My brother and colleague ask me the same thing and I tell them the same thing. "I read a lot of books, play a lot of games, talk to a lot of people, and see a lot of movies". It all boils down to exposure.

The biggest problem with "standard RPG clichés" is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with them. It is when you fall back on them that things start to go south because clichés do not stand the test of time. There is actually a specific game series from an AAA that is notorious for releasing "standard RPG clichés" stories with your standard cringe moments, however, they never fall back on it. As a result, the company has never released a "bad game", to this date, with 10+ games in the series so far. Most of them are classics even twenty years after release, while other companies who attempted to avoid clichés altogether find their stories lacking.

My advice:
More experience allows you to deal higher damage. Embrace the cringe.

Most of the stories I create tend to be made as I listen to music. To me, music helps boost my creativity when it comes to making a story. Hell, sometimes before I sleep, I would think what would be a good way to link this plot point to another plot point. I have been working on a rather ambitious project because of this thought.

I write everything down first. I can add a few little things in the dialogue boxes, but 99% is ready before I start in the maker.

My ideas are kept in a notebook. These ideas are not game-specific. When I think of a character, an event, a monster... anything interesting, I write it in there.

When I choose which game to work on, I look at my ideas notebook and gather what can be used.

I'm more of an emotional creator. I choose a story according to a mood, a genre, a message that matters to me. Stuff like that.


It can be easier for you if you start with a smaller story. You'll get to practice the start, middle and end. It doesn't have to be made into a game, just a short text to help your mind organize ideas.


It's really difficult to write a beginning if you don't know what the "quest" or main plot will be. How to start a game is something I plan later, after I know what needs to happen.^^b

Good luck with your games.
And everybody has their own techniques anyway, it depends how your creativity works and how you enjoy making games. :)

Plots unlimited + story structure architect + some dice = rando story exercise XD
But in all seriousness I've been writing for years and my weirdo stories easily come to me.
Sometimes I do roll up a random plot and such and see where it goes. Fun times...

Definitely take the time to write stuff down outside of RM. One thing I find really useful it to keep asking questions of your story and characters (as your fictional characters would probably do this, and other players certainly will!). Why would A do this? How does event B play out in the history of this world? For what reason would C want to do/say/ask this? The answers to these questions can give you new ideas and help flesh out the story. Sometimes I've felt the story was writing itself, like I was discovering this world which was kind of exhilarating. Don't be afraid to backtrack and rewrite sections

While I'm not a professional by any means, I find that I tend to start off with a list of things that I want to happen. Maybe a few plot details, a basic premise, some features of the world, an idea of gameplay elements, an event here and there and maybe the ending if I'm really lucky. From that I write the string of events that allows for each of those things I want to happen with reasonable context.

From there I begin building it from the beginning, or at least from wherever I feel I want to start with, which allows the idea to grow and evolve over time, while trying to keep the scope manageable.

...

I have yet to complete a project.

I write down a basic idea and then run with that. My current WIP is just a fantasy rpg I wanted to do in the style of the old SNES games (Final Fanasy, Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana specifically) with a rather stereotypical fantasy origin.

Usually, my story starts out as a very basic plot line of things that I need to have in the story. A, B, C, D, etc and then a general idea of the ending. From there, I write in pieces of various things in small chunks (and not necessarily in order either). Between writing and designing my maps, things change or I add on to it or completely remove things altogether. I always have a notepad file in my main game folder just so I can add things.

It's the same way I write in general. I can't write in a linear fashion to save my life but things generally come out as a coherent story. Mind you, I also take things slow and don't stress too much on whether this story is done exactly right now. I've been working on Starshard for just under a year and while I don't have 100% of the story written out, I know exactly where I want things to go.