I have no objection about the design documents. But they do not answer how each section is going to be substantiated. (For example, how are we going to fill out the section about timeline?)

Central Questions:

Quote:

Well for me personally the most important question is the ethics of relationships, but that's probably not the same for you guys, so you'll have to answer this question too. Fortunately an RPG has room for exploring more than one big question. :)

In general struggles, changes, tradeoffs, and decision are interesting for a story. The type of questions that I had in mind are like these:
1) If you know that you were about to die, would you let someone you love dedicate his love to you (thus causing him to forgo a potential long-lasting relationship)?
2) Under what circumstance would one give false hope to a loved one? How far would you go to give someone a false hope?
3) How deep or how far would you go into the unknown to search for a lost lover? Would you settle with the one who loves you equally, and had been helping you to find your lost love?

Sample nut house scenario:
The techno master villain (Don) had a girlfriend (Mary) who had been missing (or died) for a long time during a fight. Skew loved Don very much and set out to find (or to resurrect) Mary whom Skew had never met. After some very difficult investigations (or experiments), Skew found that Mary was trapped inside (or had become part of) a human (Kaylin) (or Skew resurrected Mary inside Kayline).

Several situations might happen, for example Kaylin might have already fallen in love with someone else, or Kaylin fell in love with Skew, or Mary might have actually died but Kaylin was pretending to be Mary, because she loved Skew but mistakened that Skew loved her. Skew and Don might end up competing against each other for kaylin. Maybe Don ended up falling in love with Skew. Or Skew ended up pretending to be Mary. Or the three ended up loving each other happily ever after. The player could be playing from Kaylin's view, without knowing the underlying conflict.

To kaylin, Skew and Don were unrelated people along with other potential partners. The personality of Mary and Kaylin might be very different, for example Kaylin might be innocent and selfless and Mary was the ultimate evil. Maybe the two personalities could alternate and date different characters. Maybe Mary didn't even like Don. Maybe Skew liked Kaylin and Don liked Mary. Maybe Skew knew of a way to sacrifice himself to bring Mary out, but Kaylin had fallen in love with Skew, and Skew was torn between helping Don or Kaylin. Maybe Skew told Kayline to pretend to be Mary because Don was old and about to die anyway, but then it turned out that that was not the case. Maybe Kaylin was a guy. or Mary was a guy.

:/

[Edited by - Estok on September 25, 2004 6:31:57 AM]

Okay, so everybody's happy with the outline then? I can confirm it to version 1.0 and start putting content into the 'unconfirmed' areas of the outline?

Quote:

Original post by Estok I have no objection about the design documents. But they do not answer how each section is going to be substantiated. (For example, how are we going to fill out the section about timeline?)

Do you mean 'how' = 'in what order', 'how' = 'with what content', or 'how' = 'by what method'? I was assuming the first simple step would be to gather all the ideas suggested in this thread and file them into the appropriate 'unconfirmed' categories, from where we can vote to confirm some of them.

Quote:

Central Questions: Quote: Well for me personally the most important question is the ethics of relationships, but that's probably not the same for you guys, so you'll have to answer this question too. Fortunately an RPG has room for exploring more than one big question. :) In general struggles, changes, tradeoffs, and decision are interesting for a story. The type of questions that I had in mind are like these: 1) If you know that you were about to die, would you let someone you love dedicate his love to you (thus causing him to forgo a potential long-lasting relationship)? 2) Under what circumstance would one give false hope to a loved one? How far would you go to give someone a false hope? 3) How deep or how far would you go into the unknown to search for a lost lover? Would you settle with the one who loves you equally, and had been helping you to find your lost love? Sample nut house scenario: The techno master villain (Don) had a girlfriend (Mary) who had been missing (or died) for a long time during a fight. Skew loved Don very much and set out to find (or to resurrect) Mary whom Skew had never met. After some very difficult investigations (or experiments), Skew found that Mary was trapped inside (or had become part of) a human (Kaylin) (or Skew resurrected Mary inside Kayline). Several situations might happen, for example Kaylin might have already fallen in love with someone else, or Kaylin fell in love with Skew, or Mary might have actually died but Kaylin was pretending to be Mary, because she loved Skew but mistakened that Skew loved her. Skew and Don might end up competing against each other for kaylin. Maybe Don ended up falling in love with Skew. Or Skew ended up pretending to be Mary. Or the three ended up loving each other happily ever after. The player could be playing from Kaylin's view, without knowing the underlying conflict. To kaylin, Skew and Don were unrelated people along with other potential partners. The personality of Mary and Kaylin might be very different, for example Kaylin might be innocent and selfless and Mary was the ultimate evil. Maybe the two personalities could alternate and date different characters. Maybe Mary didn't even like Don. Maybe Skew liked Kaylin and Don liked Mary. Maybe Skew knew of a way to sacrifice himself to bring Mary out, but Kaylin had fallen in love with Skew, and Skew was torn between helping Don or Kaylin. Maybe Skew told Kayline to pretend to be Mary because Don was old and about to die anyway, but then it turned out that that was not the case. Maybe Kaylin was a guy. or Mary was a guy. :/

Why does that get a :/ ? I liked that example. Here are some additional examples of relationship ethical dilemmas that I thought of:

- If someone is in unrequited love with you, but you've not interested in them, would it be ethical to pretend to love them? What about if you don't love them but you are attracted to them - would it be ethical for you to persue a physical relationship with them and hope you fall in love with them later? What if you get tired of them and want to break up with them - is it ethical to do this if you know it will break their heart? What if they seem likely to try to commit suicide if you don't love them?

- If you are in unrequited love with someone, what methods would be unethical to use in attempting to gain their love? Bribery? Kidnapping? Threats? Intoxicants? Magic? Is it ethical to try to seduce someone if you are not their preferred gender? If you know they are on the rebound from having their heart broken by someone else? If you suspect they would severely freak out about what they had done on the morning after? If you know a relationship between the two of you is considered 'forbidden' and would cause your beloved to have fights with their friends and family, and suffer angst because of this?

- What if you and your lover have different political alliances? Should one join the other's side? If so, which one? If not, what happens when you end up actively working against each other? Would you sabotage your own side's efforts if you thought they would endanger your lover? Have you then betrayed all your friends on your side? Is romantic love more important than friendship, or vice versa? What about family, what if your lover wants to kill one of your family members or vice versa? Who do you side with? If you side with no one, have you betrayed your relationships with both of them?

- For a best friend: what if you think that doing something new would be really good for them, but they are afraid to try it? Is it ethical for you to push them into doing it? If you are constantly pushing your friend into doing things, is this abusing your friend and damaging your friendship? Otoh, is it ethical to not help your friend if you have a way to help them?

- Matchmaking is it's own whole can of worms - the book _Emma_ is all about the ethics of matchmaking. If we definitely decide we want to have matchmaking as part of the plot I'll come back and list in detail the ethical dlemmas of matchmaking.

By 'how' I meant 'how do we come up with the content'.

it got an :/ because it was a mockery version. The questions you listed are compatible with the scenario, adding one more characer Joe, who is the ex-boyfriend of Kaylin. From Joe's view there was something fishy about Don and Skew seducing Kaylin. Joe was jealous and tried to find out the secrets behind the plan. He found out that Don and Skew were only going after Mary (symbolizes sexuality), not Kaylin. He tried to tell Kaylin the truth, but slowly he found that maybe Don or Skew changed and started loving Kaylin for real, but at the same time he believed that if he showed Kaylin the proof, it would end Kaylin's relationship with Don or Skew painfully.

Matchmaking
Skew can be seen as a matchmaker. Joe can be seen as an anti-matchmaker. In some sense Joe is a protagonist, but he can also be seen as a villain. None of the characters are really detestable actually.

Best friend
It is somewhat like Joe's situation. Joe knows about the secret, and had all the rights to uncover them at the risk of having Kaylin hate him forever. But maybe Joe would end up helping Skew and Don. Sometimes Joe can't tell whether he was helping Kaylin or screwing her up. He could be also confused on whether he was just jealous or that he really loved kaylin. (I left out the "something new" factor in your question)

Different political alliance
In a scaled down version Skew is caught in between two sides. If is unclear whether Skew is helping Don more or Kaylin more. Skew might end up deceiving Don or sabotaging Don, when he realized that Don was just obessed. The second resurrection process might require Mary to completely takeover Kaylin's mind (thus killing Kaylin). Don was determinded to sacrifice Kaylin but Skew was un willing. Maybe deep down Don was also confused whether he loved Mary or Kaylin more. Maybe Don was regretful and end up trying to match Joe and Kaylin back together.

Methods to seduce
This can happen with all characters. Joe seducing Kaylin, Joe seducing Kaylin, Mary seducing Skew and Joe. Maybe Mary would seduce Skew and Joe just to torture Don. Skew seducing Kaylin for Don. Skew pretending to be Mary to seduce Don. Kaylin's hard could break several times, because all three guys have evil causes to seduce. (I left out the forbidden love topic)

Pretended love
Maybe Kaylin's crush on Don or Skew was only temporary (due to a recent broken relationship with joe), but at the same time she didn't want to hurt Don, who was on the verge of suicide and such. Maybe Skew was candid about the situation after some time, he told Kaylin that Don was about to die soon anyway, but his last wish was to see Mary again (or to have Mary forgive him or whatnot). So Kaylin agreed to pretend to be Mary, but at the same time Joe's investigation was getting in the way. Maybe Kaylin still loved Joe, but Joe was just too much of an idiot to cooperate with the acting, so she was forced to lie to and reject joe. How long could Kaylin last? Would she be able to fix everything? Maybe Kaylin ended up slapping Don on his face to wake him up from his self-victimization.


Skew as a villain
Maybe Skew looks and talks slick and all but his magics really sucks. Maybe the first time he resurrected Mary he failed, ending up the weird situation in which Kaylin and Mary coexisted. (maybe after joe and kaylin broke up kaylin was committing suicide and skew thought that kaylin was already dead). At first Skew just tried to suppress and seduce Kaylin to bring Mary back, but it was too difficult with his mediocre abilities. So Skew devised a scheme to seemingly confess to Kaylin about the truth to get her cooperation. The idea was to buy some time before he could perform a second resurrection, which would kill kaylin. But things got complicated.

[Edited by - Estok on September 26, 2004 12:51:55 AM]

Okay, since nobody objected I finalized the design document outline as version 1.0. So now please everyone pick a category, go through this thread, and sum up all the suggestions relevant to that topic. I'll start with races. When all the categories have been done We can check over each other's summations to see if anything was missed, then we can start voting what to confirm. Does that sound ok?

Some more questions:

How many hours of gameplay are we aiming? How much of the game world should be affected by the story? (What is the scoope of the conflict?) Do we want the PC required to travel to different places in the world like adventure role-playing games? Or do we want a confined setting?

What are the influences of the optional romances? Are the subjects that can be loved a form of resource (like you have to gain their trust/loyalty before they will help you or join your party)? Or is attaining someone's love the goal of the game?


Sample larger scope scenario:

There were unknown enemies that have been attacking different places in the world. You were a lowly janitor in a military organization. One day, the villain launched a massive surprise attack that destroyed most of your organization and all the highlevel fighters. All there were left were a bunch of misfits (including you). Your task was to unite the many different scattered forces, and in the meantime meet new and old friends throughout the world to defeat the villain and to uncover the secrets behind the attacks.


Sample smaller scope scenario:

You were a poor student in a magictechno academy. There had been strange items missing in the academy. The cases seemed too random and trivial that no real detective would investigate. Being curious (and bored to hell) as you were, you set off a self-assignment to uncover the truth, with old and new friends you met along the way and such.

Jeez, you leave for a few months, and look what you miss! Right now I'm getting to page four, and the one thing that I really like is...

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow Ooh, I like that idea. How about: the spiritual race can be dualistic - they can be all about the balance of opposites and symbolism, like male and female, hot and cold, etc., while the techno race can be all about moderation and functionality - androgyny, room temperature, blurred lines and grey areas?

Yay! Sometimes the homosexual/bisexual/transsexual/etc and what 'normal' people are. Basically, it merges sunandshadow with mainstream :)

Oh - it took me forever to find this stupid thread... but it has some interesting things in it: Characters to Fall in Love With (which I posted in a lot as my old name, but only three of the posts remain. And I'm not sure why I left those three...)

Anyways, I'll post more once I catch up on the thread. But its an awesome idea! Yay for having a group writing thread that lasts!

edit. something else on that thread interesting from s/s: kseh - actually I think that's a very useful observation - that sometimes the thing that makes a character appealing is not the character herself but a character dynamic she's in. I can think of another example of this - a trope that crops up regularly in fanfic is 'love thy enemy', where you get a stormy violent romance between two characters who start as rivals or actual enemies. And you get funny dialogue like: "I hate you" (Kiss grope) "I hate you too." (Kiss bite suck)

Hi Avatar God! :) *waves*


Here's the races summary, as proposed to be put in the 'unconfirmed worldbuilding' section of the game design doc. (I probably shuld have done it yesterday, but I just finally got Sims2 to work so I was busy simming the night away. ;)


Proposed Races
1)Humans
- The PC and one or two major NPCs are of this race - no more than that, because we want to create the feeling that the PC is marooned among foreign races and cultures. (There should be more minor NPCs though, enough that the PC could concievably found an all-human community.)
- The Humans have a modern culture more-or-less the same as ours and near-future technology.
- The Humans have been artificially brought into the game world, by means technological, magical, or mixed. (Specific suggested methods: Cryogenics, Physical Summoning, Possession Summoning/Necromancy)

2) Technos <<Change This Name>>
- Technology: The technos have futuristic technology, often integrated into their bodies. (See CLAMP manga for examples such as mechanical wings.)
- Biology: The technos may be hermaphroditic and androgynous-looking. Either they are humnoid with cybernetic enhancements, or possibly they are androids or holographic forms created to embody people who have stored their personalities in computers.
- Cultural Appearance Themes: Urban tribal circuitry and abstract tattoos, wierd hair including mohawks, shaved heads, dreadlocks, and cornrows, metal accessories such as tiaras and mechanical wings and claws.
- Philosopy: The technos are the opposite of the magicals. The technos thus may care about moderation, practicality, comfort, equality, blurred lines, and grey areas. The techno culture would be individualistic, almost anarchic, with relativistic morality. So they are very unprejudiced, but tend to have problems with wonderng whether life is meaningful and becoming decadent and jaded instead.
- Economy: Techno culture is supported by an automated technological base which provided the basic needs and tools for all members of the race. Maybe they have credit instead of money, and credit is like karma, earned by creating artwork or performances that please other community members.

3) Magicals (was spirituals) <<Change This Name>>
- Technology: The magicals have fairly low-level technology (Renissance - 1700s England, perhaps) but they make up for this with magic.
- Biology: This race is humanoid with anthrpomorphic accessories: traits like animal ears and tails, wings, fangs, claws, hooves, etc. They have stronger sexual dimorphism than humans, making males look like muscular jocks and females like curvy barmaids.
- Cultural Appearance Themes: Leather, fur, metal, stone, wood, feathers, and other naturlistic materials, celic knotwork, physical combat weapons such as swords, bows, and staves, heraldic shaped edging, embroidery and beadwork. They tend to decorate their towns with magically modified bits of nature such as frozen waterfalls, enlarged flowers, perpetual rainbows, fish ponds, and topiary.
- Philosphy: The magicals may have a dualisic philosophy, focusing on opposite-element pairs such as male-female, fire-ice, day-night, good-evil, etc. Their culture is very community-oriented and each town is a bit isolationist from their neighbors. The magicals might have some form of organized religion with temples and a mythology explaining the existence of magic and why people have anthro traits. The magicals are probably prejudiced against many things including homosexuality and inter-racial romances.
- Economy: There is a dual economy, the standard capitalistic gold/scarcity-based economy and an economy based on units of magical effort, such that one unit of magic is equal to one gold coin, and magical artifacts cost the magical labor invested in them + the rarity * quantity of the materials.

4) Spirituals <<Change This Name>>
- Technology: The spirituals are mysterious and don't seem to live in communities at all, so it's difficult to observe their technological level, but they have some sort of magical/technological/spiritual powers that make any spiritual as powerful as the most powerful technos and magicals.
- Biology: Sprituals are asexual. Maybe they can shapeshift, or summon anything without a pentagram or ritual. Probably they are immortal.
- Cultural Appearance Themes: Flowing cloaks/robes, silk...?
- Philosophy: As immortals, they tend nt to concern themselves with the doings of the other races, but instead wander around doing experiments and archeology, creating works of art or science and abandoning them, etc. They are motivated mostly by boredom and curiosity. Some of the are more social and benevolent and may become the 'grandparent' of a community of mortals, while some are more sadistic and like to creatively manipulate or curse mortals. They're somewhat like Gandalf and the other maiar in _The Lord of the Rings_.
- Economy: Emotional. Spirituals will only do what someone ese asks them to if the action is inherently interesting to them, they are curious to see the result, or they are trading for an artifact that has aroused their curiosity.


So, please everybody either state that you approve this as-is or state your suggested changes/additions. Once everybody has responded to any of these summaries I will add them to the design doc.

I'm going to do characters next, I guess. So if anyone has a character idea now would be a good time to post it. :)

[Edited by - sunandshadow on September 28, 2004 5:59:17 PM]

Quote:

Original post by Estok Some more questions: How many hours of gameplay are we aiming? How much of the game world should be affected by the story? (What is the scoope of the conflict?) Do we want the PC required to travel to different places in the world like adventure role-playing games? Or do we want a confined setting? What are the influences of the optional romances? Are the subjects that can be loved a form of resource (like you have to gain their trust/loyalty before they will help you or join your party)? Or is attaining someone's love the goal of the game?

I was assuming (and again, these are just guesses that may not turn out to be the best way to do what we want to do) that there would be about 10 well-developed confined settings that the player could travel between only when the plot allowed. One setting would be a magical town, one would be a techno town, one would be the villains' stronghold, one would be some archeological ruins, and that's all I can think of at the moment, the others would depend on the plot. Maybe a place that could become the all-human village if the player persued that plot objective. What would you add? Does anybody object to confined settings? IMO they're necessary for a story-driven game.

Gameplay... maybe 40 hours? It would depend whether we wanted to have FMVs, and whether we made it optional to turn fighting off, and whether the mini-games took up a lot of time. If you took 70% of the fighting out of FF7 how many hours of gameplay do you think would be left? How many hours of gameplay does it take to play a game like Sanitarium or one of the other major adventure games? I don't know I don't keep trck of how long it takes me to play a game unless the game keeps track for me, but as a really rough estimate 40 hours sems good to me. What do you all think?

The optional romances are essentialy subplots, and what you achieve in them will effect the options for what you can do in the main plot. For example, if both villains hate you you can't join their side. Attaining someone's love is a sub-goal of the game, the main goal is to decide your own fate and place in this world, e.g. convince the villains by force or persuasion to quit harassing you, become a magical, become a techno, found a human town, or even send yourself back wherever you were stolen from.

[Edited by - sunandshadow on September 28, 2004 3:33:12 PM]

Summary of Current Characters:


Name: Skew (Skewbald)
Type of Love: Passionate
Story Role: Minor Villain
Race: Magical (Could be changed to a techno if necessary to balance the cast)
Gender: Male

Appearance: Patchwork colored skin, one blue eye and one yellow eye, a slender and somewhat feminine male, which is not common for spirituals and the cause of much derision, other spirituls calling him a half-man and saying that he should go live with the technos where he belongs, which is how he gets invlved with th techno major villain.

Personality: Skew has a passionate temper and feels jaded and alone because of his rejection by the other spirituals (and he's not really accepted by the technos either). He is bitterly lonely, believes that no one will ever love him, and has a love/hate relationship with anyone he gets a crush on because he resents the fact that he would give his whole heart, te most precious thing he has, to them but they don't want it or care about his feelings. He likes hanging out with the androgynous major villain because at least zie doesn't provoke any emotions of desire or jealousy in him, and zie values him for his magical abilities.

Abilities: Summoner - sculpting monsters and bringing them to life with ritual magic (pentagrams drawn on the floor and that sort of thing.) He is as much an artist as he is a mage. The major villian uses his ability to create boss monsters (if we want to have those). Or, if the humans are summoned from the past rather than woken from cryo units, Skew would be the one responsible for summoning them, a good initial reason for the PC to dislike him.

Purposes: Skew is the one who doesn't fit into his society and has been mistreated because of it, also effeminacy issues to oppose Lion.



Name: Mivonistova
Type of Love: Selfeless
Story Role: Guardian?
Race: Spiritual
Gender: Asexual
Appearance:
Personality: Wise and kind.
Abilities:
Purposes: Use Of Power Issues(?)



Name: Lion (rename)
Type of Love: Lust/Casual Sex
Story Role: The guy on the 'good' side who has bad ethics
Race: Magical
Gender: Male

Appearance: A jock: tall, broad shoulders, muscles, hair shoulder length or shorter, masculine jaw shape, handsome. Maybe lion-like.

Personality: He is cocky, arogant, and charismatic. Chummy or flirtatious with anyone he likes, he is a bully to anyone who doesn't fit his idea of what a person should be (Skew, Technos). He is largely lacking in philosophy, ethics, empathy, and the ability to look at things from someone else's point of view, as exemplified by his various prejudices and the fact that he doesn't value other people enough to want to have a deep relationship with one. If the PC joined the villain's side, this character would then be his new enemy. If this character's sub-plot went really badly I could see him becoming a rapist or a leader of a fascist movement, but if it went well he would realize that other people have real feelings too and would become more caring and thoughtful, ready to try a deeper relationship.

Abilities: Physical combat and physical magic. Perhaps he's always been bad at healing spells but if he has his epiphany about caring for other people he will suddenly become better at them because now he actually cares about the other person's pain and wants them to feel better.

Purposes: He exemplifies masculinity in the game, how it can be destructive or consructive.



Name: Angel (rename)
Type of Love: Friendly
Story Role: Sidekick/Helper
Race: (Not Spiritual)
Gender: (Female or Androgynous)

Appearance: Cute, big sparkling eyes, maybe looks like an angel whose appearance especially wing color could change to refect how their plot was going: white/silver metal for innocence, black/tarnished metal for loss of innocence, gold and gem colors for maturity.

Personality: Bouncy and vivacious, this character loves people and is friendly to everyone. She, zie, or it is naive about the fact that people can be mean and evil, and is not very responsible, organized, or purposeful. If this character's subplot went badly they could end up used, abused, or emotionally broken by the evils they had seen, but if it went well they would become more mature and steady, emotionally supporting the other characters, exemplifying loyalty, and adoring their leader.

Abilities: Maybe something involving tinkering, luck, charm, quickness...

Purpose: This childlike character shows that innocence can be a strength or a weakness.




Character Cast Summary:


Characters By Race:
Humans:
- PC
Technos:
Magicals:
- Skew
- Lion
Spirituals:
- Mivonistova
Don't Know What Race:
- Angel


Characters By Gender:
Male:
- Skew
- Lion
Female:
Androgynous:
Asexual:
- Mivonistova
Don't Know What Gender:
- Angel


Types Of Love
Passionate - Skew
Friendly - Angel
Selfless - Mivonistova
Shallow Lust - Lion
Seduction -
Contemptuous Of Love -
Misanthropy -


Roles In The Plot
Protagonist: PC
Antagonist(s):
Contagonist: Skew
Sidekick:
Guardian: Mivonistova(?)


Purposes In The Story
? - Human Representative of Humanity/the Past
Skew - Magical Dissatisfied With That Culture, Effeminacy Issues
? - Techno Dissatisfied With That Culture
Lion - Typical Male Magical, Masculinity Issues
? - Typical Female Magical
? - Typical Techno, Meaningfulness Of Life Issues(?)
Mivonistova - Benevolent Spiritual, Use Of Power Issues(?)
? - Malevolent Spiritual, Abuse of Power Issues(?)
Angel - ?, Naivety Issues
? - ?, Jadedness Issues
? - ?, Femininity Issues




This is messy and I don't think I should try to put it nto the game design doc until it's more complete and everyone has sumbitted at least one character.

[Edited by - sunandshadow on September 28, 2004 5:41:15 PM]

The gameplay time can be viewed this way: If it is a movie, how many hours should it run for one path? 2 hours? 6 hours? 9 hours? I am guessing that it would be 6 hours, like a short 15 episode anime series if all the views relevant to that path are revealed. If we make the player replay different characters in order to reveal fully about the SAME PATH, then I would expect the it to run for 2 hours.

For me the story has started to look like an alphabet soup. With separate characters that we would have to string together later on to get the meaning.

Sunandshadow: When i posted about the character Haku from Naruto, I added the catagory "purpose" to show how the character Haku is related to the main character in order to present how a character serves to raise questions about the central conflicts. The purposes are not stand alone like how you descibed Skew, Lion, and Angel. Because Haku was raising a question about the central conflict, his would have to exist in the story in one form or another. On the other hand, characters like Skew are modular and detachable because they do not serve a main issue (a main issue does not exist at this moment). My view of a character always go second to the story. The story comes first, and then characters are designed to present the story.

For example, in a collaborative writing project, each writer could bring one question that they would raise, then the game world and characters could be designed to accommodate all the questions. In general, the central questions are not linked to individual characters.

Right now, the characters are more modular. They are like different dishes on a restaurant menu. It is a different strategy to assign purposes to individual character. Hopefully the different dishes make a coherent meal when put together.

More questions:
What mood should the story be in general?

If the goal of the game is to settle (either as a magical, techno, human, or go back to where the PC is from), what type of opposition do we want to show? What is the reason for needing a new settlement (assume that the PC is raised in some initial settlement)? While choosing among the new settlements should be a preference of the PC, what are some tradeoffs for each decision? Why is the choice between different settlements significant? What underlying questions are raised as the PC make decisions?

The situation sounds similar to that faces an immigrant. Some normal conflicts include expectation of fellow immigrants (expecting you to stick with them, usually), preserving traditions (I would expect that the human won't have much sense of tradition actually), being exploited, maybe also some identity problems, and conflicts on leaving one's past behind.

The situation can also be seen as a rebirth, which deals with how would you live differently if you had a second life. If you had previous experience about some types of relationships, how would you use your knowledge to help those with problems. If you were to help, do your solutions still apply in the new world? Are the relationships fundamentally the same?

In a lighter tone the situation can be seen as a welcome to neverneverland. In a nutshell, has this new world solved problems in your old world? Do the problems only get escalated? Do the same problems recur in one form or another? In what ways do the world progressed and in what ways do the world regressed? What if what you have always wanted can be realized in this new world? What if you can only have a glimpse of the new world? If you had to return to your old world, what would you bring back from this new world? What would you give in this new world?

[Edited by - Estok on September 28, 2004 9:12:10 PM]