Mood:
not sureTopic: General
I've been lending a little informal input into an RPG-development group (they're in a VERY formative stage and aren't ready to advertise at the moment, so I won't be specific about URL's). It's a 'labor of love' project, and profit ain't a possibility.
Also...
It isn't a very productive project, and will likely fold soon (many people are jumping ship, and I probably won't stay on much longer, either). Part of the problem is the head honcho's scope. I answered their 'ads' to help write a plot for a postapocalyptic sci-fi story.
Oh me, oh, my: if there is one thing I can do, it would be that...
But the head-honchos in the group happen to be 'player's-choice' friendly... the leader is a HUGE admirer of the Fallout RPG series, and that's fine, but he wants to EMULATE the extraordinarly open-ended type of gameplay found in that series.
The problem started when he asked his writers to draft the main game plotline...
I submitted one... I worked kinda hard on it, too...
but I didn't put major BRANCHES in the skeletal plot, itself: I submitted a cut-and-dry story of good guys versus bad-guys in a story that united them all together with sporadic points of scripted events in an otherwise dynamic world...
That ain't what they were lookin' for...
While I admire a video game that allows the player significant input on the overall plot, there are MAJOR disadvantages to this approach. For one, it's FRIGGIN' HARD TO DO if you've never put a game together before (none of these guys have...) and in such an open-ended world cohesive dialogue and cogent events are given a MAJOR backseat to runnin' and gunnin' (IE: you shouldn't put 'ads' out for WRITERS if your plot is a nebulous black hole...)
I think the group leader and his guys may doubt the possibility that an RPG can still be quite open-ended and enjoyable even if it has a centralized plot line at its core.
I'd beg to disagree...
Well, however long this project lasts (and it likely won't be long) it has given me something important: a pretty spiffy plot outline for a story. This baby wouldn't be NEARLY as long as my 'Typers' series, just one little book, but the possibilities are appealing:
Spiffy title, huh? The naked lady's wrists are tied with a milk snake, a harmless serpent that's infamous for being routinely mistaken for the deadly coral snake ('red-n-yellow, kill a fellow... red 'n black, friend o' Jack', if you need a refresher... don't feel bad if you can't remember: I just happen to live in their affective range, that's all). That's relevant because the story would be centered on an organization with GROSSLY misguided aims, bound by a determination to eliminate a certain 'threat' that is, in fact, not something that should be targeted for destruction (and yes... there's an obvious religious angle to using a serpent in the artwork).
...and part of the plot involves a woman named Nous (rhymes with 'mouse') who spends most of her time naked, but coated in a sticky film of crude oil (in which she routinely bathes)...
...best not to ask at this point...
...if I had better graphical skills, I could've coated the body in that picture with the equivalent...
eh, nevermind.
