I've been writing design documents for things I would like to make for many many years. Here's how I go about creating a story:

First, I come up with an overall goal of the game. Something non-cliche (yes there are goals other then saving the world out there) Once I come up with this I then make a list of cliche items the game is not allowed to have. (This step is optional but its my preferred method). For example:

-hero cannot have a troubled past
-destiny cannot be mentioned ever
-there is no ancient prophecies/artifacts/evil's

etc. By limiting yourself it helps you think outside the box and get a much better, more original storyline.

Once I come up with the general story idea I then add my plot points and twists etc (this is writted down in outline form usually) and from those plot points more characters and bosses develop. (Never make every character before you make a story, let your story create the characters.)

Once the general outline is done I walk away. For weeks. Why? Its necessary trust me. When you come back you will see so many things you want to change/make better. You then start working on the outline points one by one to fully develop them and make them flow in your story. Remember, keep walking away from your project for a little bit. You will rewrite major parts of it many times.

I repeat this process of developing a story and I often listen to music while doing it because for some reason music helps me think better. Once its all said and done I like to make illustrations to place in whatever document I am making my story in so that I remember the scenes I had in my head.

I hope this helps.

Yes, that does too. Thanks. It'll be hard to walk away, but I guess that'll be a good time to develop my custom-made C++ game framework. Then I'll finish the story and design document and start the game.

Don't worry, walking away will help you pop up better ideas then when you were sitting, staring at a blank piece of paper/screen. All of my best plot twists popped up when I was taking a breather from a project :)

I think I know what you mean, a lot of the time that's how I come up with sudden understanding of code and how to do things like inventory, equip systems, etc.

So I typed up a basic story plotline, is this all I need?
1- Basic training – Walk around, do a few quests, learn how to play, meet starting characters
2- Wake up in room with someone waking you up (IDK, family member, important character) and telling you the city is burning down. Have a level with the burning city; find him at end with another important character.
3- Leave with two other members in party to go to other town, make obvious 2 characters are the different sides
4- Find town with disease, have to go to next town, tension building, and make it a hard decision.
5- Get to next town and go to inn to talk to someone. Has cure to disease in last city, quest to go back to city and give cure, then come back to talk to man and get some money
6- After that, have an important scene to choose side with whatever you chose (pending ,I use evil for now), have a boss battle, and other member gets help and escapes, find out he was a spy to bad side
7- Find yourself with the money and an urge to get back at other character, start plotting to get to the good side capital, and start quest through the world, heading to the next town down.
8- Go through world meeting up with him and having problems, make it to capital
9- Fight him at the end, and figure out you were on evil side. When you believe him (possibly another choice), he says he does not trust you and you become neutral (possibly, depending on your character’s personality, it will decide whether or not to trust you), and you end up killing your partner. Then, he believes in you and you both go out and go back through, raid bad capital and win
10- Game over, possibly a little cool down, and a free roam, depending on how everything turns out in the game

As in, from here, can I walk away? Or do I need to make the characters and finish all theose little details I smudged over as I kept getting further? Thanks for your help so far.

I would say walk away and think about your game. Think of some things you could add to the plot, and think of twists to add as well. Walk away for a week or so and just think about how the game plays out in your head and make changes as you see fit.

Yeah. I ended up getting someone to do it for me. This is still good knowledge though. You may see him in this section, his name is yoshiko. Teach him how to do it, I want him to make a good story. He has a good beginning.

Quote: Original post by Jedimace
2- Wake up in room (...) the city is burning down.

cliché.

Writing for games is pretty easy. It's simple writing that you learn in 2nd grade really...

Who is your protagonist?
Who is your antagonist?
What is the setting?
What's the basic plot? (why is the protagonist the protagonist; why is the antagonist the antagonist)

Then, you do an outline, which basically is as far as you need to go with game writing because the outline is basically the levels and what happens in the levels. You have levels that lead up to a climax, and then a resolution. See how simple it is?

That would be a good start. However, there's a lot of room for improvement. First, there's a general observation from improvisational theater about what makes a story: personality and interaction. In improvisational theater (and matches, in particular) actors are given more or less the following as part of their coaching:

• An archetype. This could be something simple, like a soldier, a blind man, an old woman or an IRS collector. Or, you can go for something more complex, like a noble flower merchant with a penchant for shiny things.
  
  
• An objective. This is what the character initially wishes to accomplish. This ranges from mere survival (escape that maniac with the axe) to everyday topics (go out and buy some beer) to large projects (find a cure for cancer, preferably involving napalm).
  
  
• A need. This is the "or else" part of the objective. Things get fun when you realize that you don't have to choose an obvious need behind an objective. Your character might run away from the maniac with the axe not because he wants to live, but because he has to distract him long enough for his friend to make an escape. Your character might need beer to fuel his new frankenstein-like donuts-and-chips creation. Or perhaps he's a retired Air Force sargeant and his pet hamster has breast cancer.
  
  
• A trait. This affects the external outlook of the character and pervades his everyday behavior. This can be physical, mental, or both. Perhaps he's got a wild eye, or he believes children are a waste of sperm cells, or he's overly cynical. This does not need to be permanent. Your brutal military throat-slicing soldier-brute barbarian warrior might have a penchant for doilies.

Once you get these down, let your characters interact and tell the story in a non-linear fashion, perhaps inventing things about their past to explain present acts (or imagining their future in this way as well). Storytelling is having characters behave in a real fashion in an imaginary situation.

Another part of book storytelling is the private joke effect: things you notice on the second reading of the book, but not the first. For instance, in the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", a lot of the events at the beginning of the movie become clear as you reach the end. In the same way, you must be able to deal at any given point in time with "what is happening" versus "what the player or reader knows". Never let the two equal each other, or you'll have a perfectly predictable deterministic plot that will be quite boring. Don't drop surprises either: everything that happens by surprise should have a rational explanation which can be inferred by collecting the right clues from what happened before (even though predicting it would have been impossible).

This is what makes the difference between "Zomg Ann betrayed Bob, thus is unbelievable!" low-grade plot twists and "Zomg Ann betrayed Bob, this explains so many weird things in the past!" high-grade plot twists: the fact that they make sense when compared to what happened before. This is also a major difference between, say, Tolkien or Eddings (which have fairly linear plots which introduce few backtracking elements) and Jordan or Asimov (which tend to have fairly convoluted "oh, now I get it" twists).

Also, avoid clichés, both RPG and fantasy novel ones.