what if I narrowed it down. Say there is a civil war but only two or three people have emerged as leaders ?

Quote: Original post by murdock
Well, the "civil war" comes about due to the absence of a king and the fact that the only heir is no where to be found. Henceforth, various people are fighting each other for the throne.

i understand that, i was just wanting to know why various people have claims. who are they? why do they think they have a right to be king? does some faction want a new form of government? etc..

Well you can set it up so that there are different powerful factions of outsiders who want to control the Kingdom and you get to choose who you align yourself with. You could start it off as you being a nobody and moving up in rank and later finding out that your are the rightful heir. Then you can split off from the faction you're with and attempt to take over the Kingdom yourself.

There are many different ways that you could go.

What style RPG is it going to be is there a type of game similar to what your thinking?

If you wanted to keep the son as the PC and maybe make the story a little more viable, you could have the king killed (perhaps murdered?), and the son stolen away in hiding by one of the former King's close friends. Its almost the same thing, but instead of saying "he is too young to rule" it is more like the advisor is afraid that one of the King's enemies will kill the prince and try to take the throne. Instead, the friend of the king goes into hiding with the prince, and has to assume a life out of the public's eye in order to remain safe until the prince is aged enough to return to claim the throne.

The story is almost the same as the one you proposed, but in my mind it makes more sense as to why the prince was taken from the castle/court/etc, and gives a good motivation as to why the prince would be fighting to reclaim the throne.

If this is a little too dry for you, you could even add in some sort of twist that the prince was young enough when he went into hiding that he doesn't even remember his life as royalty, and slowly discovers his destiny as the story unfolds.

I like that idea. I think I'll use it. Thanks for all the great input. I think I'm going to move on to character ideas and then rework the premise from there.

I think I might have missed something, but in ye oldy days, kings could be rather young. Im sure there were kings in the age range of 14 years old and perhaps younger. Although I suppose the young boys inexperiance and immaturity would perhaps lead to other "factions" or nobles with significant power seeing this as an oppurtinity to take the throne.

I liked the idea in Gothic where the play had a choice with factions to choose depending on the style of play etc, like if the player is a "dark" character then perhaps join a faction which would best suit the players needs etc

Another idea which I saw in a snes game once called (i think) "Romancing Sa-Ga" was either 2 or 3, anyways basically you could select your character and where he came from, and if he was nobility or not, if you were a certain character you ahd the options of running your country and you could develope your forces by simple dialogue choices through a "advisor" type person.

The battles were pretty good, where every so often the advisor would tell you the local happenings such as Orks were attacking peasents, thus you would take your army out if you chose too and battle them in a side scrolling type affair with your army on one side and the other on the other, you could learn different formations and attacks which would aid your battles at certain points.

So basically working towards moving up in a faction once you have joined one implementing a simple roleplaying type rts side to it might be viable. Although I think I have gone off writing and more on gameplay, but I thought the idea might help somewhat.

(sorry if I have rambled, on a bit there)