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[Lladar]

Remember when RPGs relied on a beautiful, well defined, story to make a great game? Remember the EPIC of FFIV? Today's RPGs have been relying on pretty graphics and movie sequences to distract the player from a bad story. Not saying ALL modern RPGs are like that, but quite a few are.

My project is going to redefine the RPG story. It's time to go back to the roots of what TRULY made a story epic. Here are some quick notes I've jotted down from some "research" I've done to name a few...

• Epic Hero
• Hero's Inner Battle
• Memorable Characters
• Memorable Bosses
• Prophesy and Destiny
• Good Vs. Evil
• Betrayal, Strife and Redemption

Are there any thoughts, opinions or ideas? I really want to flesh this out not only for myself but for anyone wanting to create the epic RPG story-line. Some resources would also be welcomed.

-= Discussed Thus Far =-
Scope and proper Scaling are important!

For example, once you bump the scope up one notch, you can't go down from there. Otherwise, the player would lose interest, and wonder why they're doing menial tasks when there are bigger tasks at hand. Likewise, the scaling of scope matters as well. Keep the player in the same town for three hours, and they'll wonder if they're making any progress. However, ramp the scale up to unreasonable levels too early, and the player will become disillusioned and wonder if there was any point to their actions at all. Plus, once you're at the top, you have nowhere to go.

Non-Generic World Building

Make the setting have an interesting conceit so that no one who's playing is "used to it" - e.g. not a standard medieval fantasy world. Whether you're playing as a germ or a super powerful god, there are no crazy ideas, only undeveloped ones.

Fleshing out Characters and Characterization

In my personal opinion, fleshing out the characters is by far the best thing you can do to make a story epic. That's because when they get into "epic" situations, you feel like you're in their shoes. The situation can be as expansive as it gets, but it won't "feel" epic unless the story is character driven.

As a side effect of detailed characters, you will have the emotional issues such as betrayal, love and hate that make it interesting.

Detail character in epic situation should not react in predictable way, yet be logic and consistent. If you have insanely great character but the girl with the staff is doing magic and will sacrifice herself for a greater good mis point, the grumpy guy warm other the course of action and the green haired girl switch/betray her camp, you loose everything you had build up.

The reason they must be detail is to open backdoor to interesting behavior, put an interesting stake on their head sometimes is better than giving them overdetailed background and psychology "just because". Great character and great situation are all about conflicting stake both personal than external.

What if the main character must birth the god of salvation in a world broke beyond repair but can only do so by mating with a girl he don't like at all, knowing that if he mate without love its the god of destruction that will be born? You have social pressure, psychological pressure, relationship pressure, moral pressure and ultimately a seemingly unsolvable solution, exploring the problem is worth a thousand story with a thousand character because they will all react differently and the event that lead to a solution or any conclusion have a great chance to be interesting.

Make it Genuine

Just make it either well written in general or make the characters interesting.

There's no magic formula, just make it have genuine impact on people instead of making it so high fantasy you lose contact with the audience.

[SundownKid]

In my personal opinion, fleshing out the characters is by far the best thing you can do to make a story epic. That's because when they get into "epic" situations, you feel like you're in their shoes. The situation can be as expansive as it gets, but it won't "feel" epic unless the story is character driven.

As a side effect of detailed characters, you will have the emotional issues such as betrayal, love and hate that make it interesting.

Another thing that helps is some non-generic world-building. Make the setting have an interesting conceit so that no one who's playing is "used to it" - e.g. not a standard medieval fantasy world. Whether you're playing as a germ or a super powerful god, there are no crazy ideas, only undeveloped ones.

Also, it helps to avoid one winged angel super ultra final forms and swords bigger than the protagonist's body.

[Hangedman]

Just make it either well written in general or make the characters interesting.

There's no magic formula, just make it have genuine impact on people instead of making it so high fantasy you lose contact with the audience.

[Lladar]

Thanks for the advice guys! This was the right place to go to

[noah!]

It's time to go back to the roots of what TRULY made a story epic.

Ho boy...

So, first of all, I'm gonna assume you're using the term "epic" in the modern usage, which now roughly equates to that feeling you get when you slather your balls in Icy-Hot...

Really, though, "epic" is all about scope. Take any RPG. Almost all of them have you starting out fixing problems in a small town, and by the end of the game you're traveling among the stars. That's your "epic" model. That's all there is to it.

Now, the cool thing is that this whole thing of gradually increasing the scope of the story, over time, is a naturally engaging story model. After all, everyone likes to see their actions gain significance! However, when you get down to it, doing this correctly involves a pretty vicious balancing act. For example, once you bump the scope up one notch, you can't go down from there. Otherwise, the player would lose interest, and wonder why they're doing menial tasks when there are bigger tasks at hand. Likewise, the scaling of scope matters as well. Keep the player in the same town for three hours, and they'll wonder if they're making any progress. However, ramp the scale up to unreasonable levels too early, and the player will become disillusioned and wonder if there was any point to their actions at all. Plus, once you're at the top, you have nowhere to go.

Finally, here are some games you might wanna look at for inspiration and whatnot.
* Even though it's not an RPG, go watch Gurren Lagann. If anything, the show scales in scope extremely well.
* Also, go play Star Ocean (SNES). This game commits the fatal mistake of dragging the scope up to space early in the game, and then dumping you back on your own piddly little planet for the next few hours.
* Radiant Silvergun is known as one of the first "epic" shmups, and somehow it is able to pull a compelling story using as little dialogue as possible. Definitely worth a look.
* Finally, the Golden Sun series might be interesting, not just because it scaled up well through the first two games, but also because it shows what happens when you decided to make a sequel yet are left with nowhere to go.

Also, all of this fall flat if the story itself is garbage, so keep that in mind. :-)

[Lladar]

So, first of all, I'm gonna assume you're using the term "epic" in the modern usage, which now roughly equates to that feeling you get when you slather your balls in Icy-Hot...

I like people with a sense of humor. LOL

Really, though, "epic" is all about scope. Take any RPG. Almost all of them have you starting out fixing problems in a small town, and by the end of the game you're traveling among the stars. That's your "epic" model. That's all there is to it.

Now, the cool thing is that this whole thing of gradually increasing the scope of the story, over time, is a naturally engaging story model. After all, everyone likes to see their actions gain significance! However, when you get down to it, doing this correctly involves a pretty vicious balancing act. For example, once you bump the scope up one notch, you can't go down from there. Otherwise, the player would lose interest, and wonder why they're doing menial tasks when there are bigger tasks at hand. Likewise, the scaling of scope matters as well. Keep the player in the same town for three hours, and they'll wonder if they're making any progress. However, ramp the scale up to unreasonable levels too early, and the player will become disillusioned and wonder if there was any point to their actions at all. Plus, once you're at the top, you have nowhere to go.

Finally, here are some games you might wanna look at for inspiration and whatnot.
* Even though it's not an RPG, go watch Gurren Lagann. If anything, the show scales in scope extremely well.
* Also, go play Star Ocean (SNES). This game commits the fatal mistake of dragging the scope up to space early in the game, and then dumping you back on your own piddly little planet for the next few hours.
* Radiant Silvergun is known as one of the first "epic" shmups, and somehow it is able to pull a compelling story using as little dialogue as possible. Definitely worth a look.
* Finally, the Golden Sun series might be interesting, not just because it scaled up well through the first two games, but also because it shows what happens when you decided to make a sequel yet are left with nowhere to go.

Also, all of this fall flat if the story itself is garbage, so keep that in mind. :-)

This has a lot of good information and I've completely forgotten about the Golden Sun series. It was so damn good... That bit about scaling is definitely something to keep in mind when writing this story. I'm going to update my OP with the current information gathered in this thread for future viewers.

[moi]

The problem with RPGs fantasy is that everything has become so mundane.
"push X button to kill dragon
"your health is low, push LEFT TRIGGER to drink healing potion"
"MAGIC MISSILE, MAGIC MISSILE, MAGIC MISSILE"

There is no more the thrill of discovering these fantastic things, the player spends his time micromanaging shit instead of travelling to a fantasy land and being amaze"

[SundownKid]

There is no more the thrill of discovering these fantastic things, the player spends his time micromanaging shit instead of travelling to a fantasy land and being amaze"

That brings up a good point, even mundane things can be epic if they are developed enough. For example, instead of saving the world, saving your town or learning to cast Fire 1 can be equally as epic as long as the journey is fraught with enough danger. That doesn't mean that large-scale plots shouldn't be done, but in games they are the default, whereas in films and books they are less prevalent.

[gimymblert]

Detail character in epic situation should not react in predictable way, yet be logic and consistent. If you have insanely great character but the girl with the staff is doing magic and will sacrifice herself for a greater good mis point, the grumpy guy warm other the course of action and the green haired girl switch/betray her camp, you loose everything you had build up.

The reason they must be detail is to open backdoor to interesting behavior, put an interesting stake on their head sometimes is better than giving them overdetailed background and psychology "just because". Great character and great situation are all about conflicting stake both personal than external.

What if the main character must birth the god of salvation in a world broke beyond repair but can only do so by mating with a girl he don't like at all, knowing that if he mate without love its the god of destruction that will be born? You have social pressure, psychological pressure, relationship pressure, moral pressure and ultimately a seemingly unsolvable solution, exploring the problem is worth a thousand story with a thousand character because they will all react differently and the event that lead to a solution or any conclusion have a great chance to be interesting.

[Wireless Mouse]

You must read the best. Read real epics by Virgil, Milton, and Joyce.

[anonymous]

I'm going to go into the weird because I am and because I can and expand on good and evil: 

Good and Evil in a shallow story typically is represented by the colors black and white.  as in white is good, black is evil. 

But to expand on the color analogy further, in an involving story, nothing ever stays white or ever stays black, we have also a whole spectrum of colors being worked in, and including their cold/warm counterparts, and saturation levels. 

I like to think about this when watching films, or playing games, or listening to music, associating colors with scenes, characters, mood.  I think fundamentally we already do this on a subtle level and associate feelings and thoughts to color.

And without acknowledging this, we choose a palette for the scenery and for the characters, according to how we perceive feelings/thoughts as colors.

--------

Along with any great story is a wonderful score as well.  Which seems to say the pacing of the story is important, so pacing is in line with a great melody or what have you, colors are follow that melody, becoming vibrant when score builds up, becoming dull when the score flattens out.

-------

huh huh I don't know I pulled that out of my butt but think it's true.  it's all interconnected man, solid music makes a solid story makes solid graphics makes solid music -> 

[Lladar]

Woah... that's deep bro.

I'm going to go into the weird because I am and because I can and expand on good and evil: 

Good and Evil in a shallow story typically is represented by the colors black and white.  as in white is good, black is evil. 

But to expand on the color analogy further, in an involving story, nothing ever stays white or ever stays black, we have also a whole spectrum of colors being worked in, and including their cold/warm counterparts, and saturation levels. 

I like to think about this when watching films, or playing games, or listening to music, associating colors with scenes, characters, mood.  I think fundamentally we already do this on a subtle level and associate feelings and thoughts to color.

And without acknowledging this, we choose a palette for the scenery and for the characters, according to how we perceive feelings/thoughts as colors.

--------

Along with any great story is a wonderful score as well.  Which seems to say the pacing of the story is important, so pacing is in line with a great melody or what have you, colors are follow that melody, becoming vibrant when score builds up, becoming dull when the score flattens out.

-------

huh huh I don't know I pulled that out of my butt but think it's true.  it's all interconnected man, solid music makes a solid story makes solid graphics makes solid music -> 

[anonymous]

I provide ample opportunity to be the butt of jokes

[SundownKid]

While the color analogy sounds like synesthesia to me, I feel like moral alignments could be what you mean. It works on the same principle, albeit simplifying it somewhat. Most characters are not "pure evil" - if they have a goal, it can be vastly different. Same for "good" characters.

[C.D Buckmaster]

Personally I feel that there are already to many "classic" rpgs to the point that most of those notes you took are now clichés. 

To me, a more interesting rpg would take these notes and then expand and subvert them.

[1982]

Personally I feel that there are already to many "classic" rpgs to the point that most of those notes you took are now clichés. 

To me, a more interesting rpg would take these notes and then expand and subvert them.

Good and classic formulas becoming a cliche is a problem in any area of art. Either you don't mind it, or then try do something different. I think this is matter of taste eventually.

[ANtY]

Go play Chrono Trigger and Planescape: Torment for some epic story references

[helgravis]

Add multiple endings, missable secret items/chars, etc. Make the world really variable. That's the main reason why the pen, book and paper version of D&D is so much more expansive, because literally -anything- can happen, and no one knows what will happen during the next game session.

[Percon]

I think a linear RPG adventure can also be done tastefully; it's all a matter of execution. I feel that two best ways to make the story of an RPG engaging are developing the characters and developing the world. Character development generally benefits more from a non-linear approach while world development is benefited more from a more open-ended approach.

Of course, this is all just my personal opinion.