Your View: Making A Successful Storyline

[Wretched 2075]

Be sure to read through this post before responding:

 

 

Not much more needs to be said than what is in the title. What makes for a successful series of events that make a storyline and how would you like to see something like that implemented on the server?

[Pixel_Wings 30]

Foreshadowing is always good. I've also always liked sort of 'mystery' storylines, where you need to figure out what's going on. (Also I liked the plague of 1526. That was fun. Maybe something with unanticipated delayed effects of the plague?) (also, first)

[mmat 7460]

Any story like ours always needs an antagonist. I don't like the view that central antagonists are bad just because they haven't been all amazing in the past. 

 

Get good people on the job and it'll be a good experience. 

 

 

[__WaterFox__ 636]

I love a villain whose "villanous" status can actually be debated. Only I could see this happening is if the baddie manipulates the good guys (aenguls,servants, normal people against the baddie) into becoming the enemy (those magic wielding 'cultists' were actually innocent people). I'd also love if the main villain would be more charismatic (maybe using their magic to help people) and had a philosophy that people may actually want to follow. Basically I think the classic cult leader would be great.

[Malaise 1570]

Being a player of multiple event villains and a pretty large, low-key one currently, I'll be taking notes from you all. 

 

There's beauty in clever evil. That's what I love to see and love to provide. Maniacal, chaotic evil is bland without perfect reason. I think a 'why' is the most necessary factor in a stort.

[Archbishop 1784]

A storyline that includes everybody. And I mean everybody. Too many times have I seen storylines that literally only include clerics or paladins and nobody else.

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

1) No more all powerful ancient god-beings please. My character can only live through so many apocalypses caused by so many mad sealed-away evil powers before my suspension of disbelief is shattered

 

2) "I want to take over the world!"

Come up with a better motivation than world domination/world destruction please. It's very bland and cliche. 

 

3) "Only [this group] can defeat me!"

 

No more golden lance-esque groups please. Story wise, any officially designated server antagonist feels forced and artificial enough without a designated good guys group too. Please don't make your villain the yin to a holy groups yang, no main characters in this story please.

 

4) Main antagonist? Why not just main story?

 

Do we really need to prop up some super/dark/magical entity or group and say "THIS IS THE VILLAIN, GUYS!"? That's why I despised Setherien as a villain because he was forced, he was bland, his motivations were vague (unless you knew all the fancy hidden lore I assume) and his events were so, so boring because it all boiled down to good V evil because it was OOCly decided for us: "This is the server antag!"

 

I liked the ash-fall event when Gaza-whatever was toying with the Aenguls and certain patron groups were being played off one another. We evolved beyond the stupidly simple and cliche "good mortal descendants V BIG EVIL GOD" narrative into something more refined and complex. Let's keep it that way please.

 

[Altiak 1648]

Let players make and develop their own storylines. While black and white, textbook definitions of villains are easy to hate, they just get boring. Characters with shades of grey are much more interesting to interact with. 

[TeaLulu 1783]

To clarify, I am defining the main initiator of the storyline as the "Antagonist". This doesn't necessarily define them as a villain; Gaz was the main Antagonist for the Ashfall/harvester/whatever junk despite not necessarily being evil.
1) Foreshadowing

This is the number one thing that is often lacking in storylines; There is nothing or VERY little leading up to the unveil of the antagonist or storyline. There should be a number of things, several events, spread out throughout the world, with opportunities for groups of all kinds to find them and interpret them.

2) Internal storyline and well-written characters

The antagonist characters, if there are any, should, imo, never be "Regular" characters. They should never be the characters that people already play as, or be the characters they DESIRE to play. The characters behind the scenes responsible for whatever the storyline is should have their own internal character build, relationships, etc. This should be available to be discovered and be something intended to add depth to the story or to provide an opportunity for players to influence the story by manipulating these relationships.

3) Interesting and good integration of lore.

Knowledge is power; this should be taken into consideration. However, it shouldn't be powergamed- touch on that later. The fact is, if there is a villain or some sort of group behind the storyline (which there sort of has to be), they should actively be seeking out power; They shouldn't have all the power to begin with. They should be seeking to become stronger and offer opportunities for the players to either hinder or help their progress in this quest. If they want to get a power that is restricted to a few people, they should have to actively go after these people or members of these groups to try and get access to this magic or knowledge. No, "Lol we can do all magics whatevs."

4) Not necessarily a centralized 'antag'

The world is large and every group has something different in terms of RP that they enjoy. As an ET I have learned that not every group enjoys PvP, not every group enjoys PvE. Not every group enjoys combat RP, not all of them are good at or enjoy riddles, some groups really love expedition style things and some people just want action.  Different groups enjoy different things.
Unfortunately it is impossible to engage the entire server with 1 style of events. Instead, the "Antagonist" as it were should be de-centralized; Possibly a large number of different groups enacting different plans to reach their ultimate goal. Why would a villain attack the orcs with magic? Why not pit them against each other as a way to occupy them rather than give them a common enemy? Divide and conquer. That applies for groups beyond the orcs, too.

5) Subterfuge and subtlety

This has ALWAYS been lacking in storylines. There is nothing really hidden, and if it is hidden it's discovered after not long, possibly due to metagaming, but usually just due to people talking too much. I feel like antags are always too focused on "Conflict leads to combat". That's not necessarily true, and I don't think it should be. iMattyz was going a semi-good way with the Drakaar, sinking himself into different groups and acting as if he was there to help them and using that reputation to conceal himself.

6) Motivation, Cause and Effect

The storyline should have a purpose, a motivation, an ultimate goal, and a method for reaching that goal. The method NEEDS to be flexible so that it can fit into the multiple different RP groups and what they enjoy. The Goal needs to be specific and have consequences if reached. Example: 1) Not necessarily bad group forms, they want to bring back something or another 2) They work to reach this goal to bring back the thing, maybe thinking they are in the right the whole time (possible religious cult) 3) If they succeed, worse **** happens that people have to deal with. 4) if they don't succeed, thats it. They don't. Maybe it can be picked up again later.

7) Effective use of atmosphere and the world

Storylines need to integrate the world to be effective and immersive. That means there has to be some areas of the world that are between settlements that can be altered or changed without pissing the players off, or alternatively, there needs to be some system of reclaiming abandoned or inactive towns for use in the storyline.

8) Clear communication and player involvement

This means TALKING to players if ANY of your event or storyline will involve their settlements, projects, or work.  Do NOT just use "i'm staff its storyline durr" as an excuse to taint or set on fire somebody's ****. Seriously. Look for volunteers who want their settlements to be involved in the events and who accept that it may be physically changed if so.

9) Lay off the taint.

Goddamn I think we're all sick of the default storyline and evil being "taint taint undead because of necromancy taint explosions OH NOES SEND IN THE HOLY FOLKS ONLY THEY CAN FIX IT." I'm a paladin and even I am sick of this.

Doing things that alter the environment is perfectly fine; But instead of "taint", use alternatives; Even if it is taint, make it cleansable by normal people. Maybe the taint is only in the area because of "tethers" nearby? Normal players fight some **** or do an event and destroy the tethers. Taint gone! No holy folks needed!

10) Be careful about making player groups a target.

If the storyline involves utilizing a single specialized magic, and the storyline has antagonists who are actively violent and evil, the consequence is that ANYONE who practices that magic will be targetted. You need to balance that out, if you're going to utilize primarily already-existing lore.

11) don't let storyline/eventline lore/magic be warped.

do not do not do not allow repeat of past mistakes. Do NOT allow storyline magic to EVER be utilized by normal players outside of the storyline. Magic is already bloated as it is and I highly doubt any storyline magic would be interesting enough to be unique.

 

 

I will be updating this more later its lunchtime ok bye

[Reeg_ 75]

I've seen a few villainous guilds set up on forums. They were shut down within a matter of weeks. Gee, I wonder why. 

 

The reason the government had such a difficult time with the Italian mafia was that it was so hard for them to work out the group's structure; who was the boss? For an antagonist or antagonist group to stay around long enough to be engaging and fun, they need to keep certain things quiet, in RP as well as OOC. Metagaming is a thing, whether it be conscious or unconscious.   

[The Real Burger 20]

Something that changes the world and makes it not seem like it's in it's own little bubble, as far as I am aware there are other people living elsewhere in LoTC's world, why don't we hear from them a bit? Maybe they get pissed off at a particular nation for not sorting something out. 

Dunno, thought I'd say something different other than repeating whatever one else is saying.

[Vasemir 16]

Definitely no artifical antagonist like "hurr durr, this guy wants us hurt, oh noes".

The most important advantage of online roleplay is that it makes plausible conflicts (thus politics, history and by it also culture etc.) and I believe there is the greatest fun. I don't mean simple battles or "conflict" in that straightforward meaning, but the one that stimulates politics, diplomacy, subterfuge and trades.

 

I believe it is very, very simple technique and as such very effective - show limited resources to players, amount that is needed to achieve "Prize" and is not sufficient for everyone. That "Prize" may be parts of machinery needed to activate an ancient golem factory, magical crystals-keys used to lock crypt of long-dead hero, magical artifacts that needs to be once again filled with energy so that a great ritual may be performed. It does not have to give some nadnatural powers to "the winners" - it may be prestigious location, great symbol or even a interest from some nation from overseas.

There are very, hm, crude examples, but I believe you get the idea. There is fine example of it in cRPGs mades by Piranha Bytes, both in Gothic and Risen series - a player had to collect 5 Focus Stones in Gothic 1 (and get Uriziel, fill it with magic), slay 4 dragons in Gothic 2 (and repair and fill with magic Eye of Innos) and in G2: Night of the Raven had to collect five ancient stones, in Gothic 3 had to collect 5 artifact of Adanos (and earn trust of few factions on the way), then in Risen there were ancient stones once again... It was, of course, made for single-player, but in the background you had different factions wanted those items for different reasons.

 

Something like that have also different virtues - for example, it is very easy to spread it to different regions, nations, realms and cultures. And that is another thing i expect from story in online game - a chance for everyone to participate. Of course it doesn't have to be events made by GM to every single player, but as there are factions involved, game almost "play itself" - faction's officials make orders, write new laws and there are many players participating "just because" (because that's how faction works, is it not?). Good story does not require gamemasters to be directly involved and make narrow plot; it's enough to simply stimulate players and care that things done by one group affects others.

[mmat 7460]

1 hour ago, TeaLulu said:

iMattyz was going a semi-good way with the Drakaar, sinking himself into different groups and acting as if he was there to help them and using that reputation to conceal himself.

 

Scandalous accusations miss Lulu... :)

[TeaLulu 1783]

1 hour ago, iMattyz said:

 

Scandalous accusations miss Lulu... :)

don't tote your boat, i said "semi-" good.

[mmat 7460]

30 minutes ago, TeaLulu said:

don't tote your boat, i said "semi-" good.

 

From you to me that's a flattering compliment.