Brainstorming - RPG

[papillon]

As an insane game developer, I never have just ONE idea being plotted... I usually have sketches and designs for at least a handful of games, any one of which I may eventually pick up and run with.

One of them is an SLG/RPG, for which I have many detailed ideas about gameplay, but pretty crappy ideas about story.

(Please don't post anything if you will be upset if your ideas are used in one of my games - or if you will be upset if your ideas are NOT used! This is just all to get my mind going.)

The game is set in a not-too-advanced town. The PC is from another town and has just traveled there. This is the seat of the kingdom and there is a castle - you will meet the king, queen, and prince at various events during the game. You will also discover that there *was* a princess - but she was somehow tragically lost/stolen a few years ago.

There is also a very convenient multi-level dungeon right by the town that the player gets to go monster-hunting in.

So, the story questions are...

Why is there a dungeon full of monsters right next to the town? Did it just mysteriously appear one day? Why hasn't anyone done anything about it? Has it been there for a while? Why doesn't the town LEAVE? Who really wants their seat of power to be right next to a monster-infested ruin? What reason can I come up with for there being a big dangerous dungeon so close by?

Somebody kidnapped the princess, probably with EVIL INTENTIONS. Obviously, I want it to be possible for the PC to find and rescue her. So - who would kidnap a princess and then keep her conveniently near to the town for multiple years without killing her? (SHe doesn't *have* to be in the dungeon itself, there could be an event where the PC finds her, but she has to be nearby.)

[Grey]

Maybe it's only an entrance that appeared, and the dungeon is somewhere else entirely? If there were multiple entrances all over the world then the likelyhood of a lot of monsters plaguing the town isn't so high.

Maybe the monsters just don't like the light above the ground so they don't come out much at all to pester people.

This being the case that it doesn't spew many mosters out means that while it may make people uneasy it doesn;'t actually hurt anyone. Aad leaving the town would mean leaving their comfortable castle and homes for an uncertain place and future, possibly somewhere poorer, or somewhere they'd have to build themselves. Maybe plans are already underway for a new place, and the council is umming and ahhing over the time and cost it would take to build.

Meanwhile if the town is fortified then this might make townsfolk feel more secure.


Some people might be more unconfortable with the idea of the dungeon and may have already moved away (could have people mentioning that the village population is going down as this happens), or gone in to try and exterminate the monsters, or get some kind of idea of their activity. Some may have returned while others haven't.

The kind may have declined any action so far, like sending the army in because he fears retribution on his town due to the proximity, or because he's got borders to guard or wars to fight.


Princess kidnapper. Hmm is there any magic in the world? If so then maybe the local area will not physically let it's princess be taken beyond its boundaries against her will.

Maybe there will be some profit in the future for the villain to keep her there? Or he's arrogant enough to do so, or he's just a sadist and enjoys letting the princess know she's so close but no-one knows?

Can't think of so many ideas for this one...

[PyTom]

What reason can I come up with for there being a big dangerous dungeon so close by?

Well, the conventional idea for solving this is to have the dungeon entrance an unspecified distance from the town, and use a transition to eliminate the time spent moving from one place to the other.

But that's boring.

I like the idea of there being a part of the city where the cops/guard simply refuse to go. The idea is that a weak force will go after monsters when they leave the hellmouth/poor section of town, but won't go into that section of town in numbers. The result is a sort of truce between the people in charge and the monsters. This isn't a situation that's too far removed from reality.

For bonus points, have the princess, ignoring the advice of the police/guards, be helping out the people in the poor part of town. This makes her seem more sympathetic than your average princess, and gives her an excuse for being captured.

I'm not sure how to justify a multi-year wait. I'd probably have the hero coming as soon as he could... perhaps after a few other people had tried and failed.

[papillon]

There is a reason that it has to have been years ago - has to do with other plot elements I'm not currently mentioning.

Yes, there is magic in the game.

The idea of having the dungeon actually inside the town is kind of neat. Make it a bigger city, then, and less of a little town... There was an earthquake, and the ground in the poorer part of town (worse paving) cracked, and bad things got in... Big cities are pretty hard to move, so they could have just posted guards and ignored it. After the princess is lost they might have used some magic to try and make the protections stronger - this might require the hero to pass some tests in order to get magical permission to cross the barrier and go to the bad place...

[RedSlash]

Why is there a dungeon full of monsters right next to the town? Did it just mysteriously appear one day? Why hasn't anyone done anything about it? Has it been there for a while? Why doesn't the town LEAVE? Who really wants their seat of power to be right next to a monster-infested ruin? What reason can I come up with for there being a big dangerous dungeon so close by?

Oh come on. In every RPG, there's always some big huge dangerous dungeon near the town without much reason. The reason for it is usually "Hmm... monsters have been increasing in the area lately", or "Monsters have taken over the forest and are preventing us from doing our work, we are waiting for some badass hero to come along and save us". Sometime you can even do, "I'm hearing weird noises in the basement of the Church" and upon investigating, you discover the big huge multi-level dungeon is actually beneath the church in the middle of the town.

How about warp gate that warps you to some other world filled with monsters. Since you convieniently have the "pendant" in order to use the warp gate, monsters don't disturb the town.

[Megaman Z]

First off, most of my abandoned projects were RPGs, and they didn't last long, so I'm probably not the guy to ask about stuff like this, but I'll try...

What reason can I come up with for there being a big dangerous dungeon so close by?

maybe it used to be the hideout of very dangerous criminals and it got overrun by migrating monsters? (wait, that doesn't make a lot of sense... oh, well)
or a bunch of monsters with high intelligence (dragons, maybe, but that's -just- a little cliche', isn't it?) decided to settle there and the town was built before that and... ("train of thought" derailed... fifty people died )
just whatever you do, try not to get the "let's place the hostage in a castle full of traps" syndrome. it's just too obvious.