Picture this: the setting is a dark corrupt modern city filled with sketchy politics, a warlord-like leader, and constant struggle between law and crime. The city is considered one of the biggest in the world, so there isn't always violence and destruction on the streets. The action usually happens in low key places or in more secluded areas. Now, let's say there's this police officer who has been on the force for many years in this city. To him, all he wishes to do is keep as much peace in this city as he can. He's a modern paladin, just with less "SMITING." However, he suddenly decides to leave the force because he found out something terrible that has destroyed his fate in humanity. So, what do you guys think that something is in this type of city to have made a passionate officer who loved his job suddenly quit? Normally, if it was devastating, wouldn't he have been able to solve it through his job? Since the answer to this is no, then that means this something isn't the normal thing that an officer can just go and fix. Throw me some ideas if you can.

That he is atheist and, off the record, the system does not promote atheist "paladin".

Quote: Original post by Wai
That he is atheist and, off the record, the system does not promote atheist "paladin".

Awesome.

@OP: The obvious choice is corruption. Police officer discovers that his commissioner is knee-deep in corruption, and said commissioner forces him to leave in disgrace before he can rat the commissioner out to higher authority.

Unfortunately, being the obvious route, it is something of a cliché.

Quote: Original post by swiftcoder

Quote: Original post by Wai
That he is atheist and, off the record, the system does not promote atheist "paladin".

Awesome.

@OP: The obvious choice is corruption. Police officer discovers that his commissioner is knee-deep in corruption, and said commissioner forces him to leave in disgrace before he can rat the commissioner out to higher authority.

Unfortunately, being the obvious route, it is something of a cliché.

I lol'd at Wai.

But you're right in that it would be cliche. Let's try something a bit different. Even if we go with the corruption route, there needs to be some details that make it more unique. After all, even cliches can still be used.

I think the corruption works for a rookie but it's not good for a veteran. I'm thinking the cop is like Gordon from Batman, he knows the system is corrupt but still tries his best. To get someone like him to quit you really have to rattle him. Which brings us to the question what can really rattle a cop who probably seen a lot of bad things over his career?

How about he finds out that the whole city is just a big experiment/game? he finds that everyone in the city is a clone/genetically engineered human created to be controlled/manipulated. Another country/place controls each inhabitant via I dunno maybe special waves or something (perhaps a chip in the brain). A "player" can log on the system, select any person in the city to control and does want he wants with them, doing either good or bad things. Kinda like a mix between WoW and the Sims but your actions affect actual people in another city.

Then he finds out he is being played by a long line of people maybe he finds he is one of the most popular "characters" to play. This makes him question his motives, whether his feelings of protecting the people is just because of the commands of the player or his own beliefs. He thinks about all his failures whether he did his best or the player merely got bored/made a mistake...

Sounds like he lives in Hong Kong... Oh! I know! Someone kidnapped his sister in LA and he finds out it was a governement scam to make him a fall guy. Que bullet riddled massacre of the city. :)

All kidding aside, if you want someone that dedicated to break, you are going to have develope something in his past (advice from a parent, a memory from his childhood, corruption in the department). I can't think of anything specific. It will have to come the area this character is from and the nature of his devotion to the department. I hope some of this helped!

Quote: Original post by Mason IM1519
if you want someone that dedicated to break, you are going to have develope something in his past (advice from a parent, a memory from his childhood, corruption in the department)

Good idea - first decide what his motivation is for being dedicated in the first place, then betray/corrupt that original motivation.

E.g. if his father was a role model of justice, inspiring his paladin-like nature, then reveal father was actually a rapist, destroying faith in his teachings. Main character is then free to develop their own notion of justice.

This is an interesting story, so I'll try to think of more ideas later.

Just quickly, he starts waking up from black-outs with a smoking gun and a dead body at his feet. This slowly progresses to where he is blacking out for longer periods, then finding himself in more complex and lethal situations. Maybe he starts getting contacted by criminal overlords about the things he's done while unconscious. Be it either killing their men, or doing missions for them. With this idea, you could go with a blackout 'personality' that is either working for the criminals and is evil, or is so committed to stopping crime, that it is going to the absolute extremes to stop it.

Either way, he feels that it is too dangerous to give this new personality the powers and rights that come with being a cop (as well as the fact that he is having a mental break down), so he leaves the police force.

@yapposai: Though nice, I don't want to take a Matrix route with it, since it's far from that type of story. My story is an inspiration composed from Sin City, Cowboy Bebop, Megami Tensei, and other similar settings. You can say even Gotham is similar to Millennium, but I don't want to make such a close reference.

@Mason IM1519: Something from his past is a good hook, but I want this to be something that is sudden and makes a powerful impact on him.

@Hodgman: I like that because it mainly tied into my decision after thinking some more throughout yesterday.

How about this. The senior cop finds out that at the academy, which is being ran mostly by the city government, that they're using criminals from the prison as live training targets for their students. This disrespect to humanity is so powerful that even he doesn't want to do this job again. Even though he tried to stop it, his word was little in comparison to the justifications they put up and mainly supported by the city council. Though, this isn't known to the public.

I think you should focus on the goal of the game. You have a protagonist, so maby you should make an antogonist and just consider what's most logical. What is the protagonist fighting for/against? I'm sugestiong you might go the outher way to solve this problem.

This is a sugestion of how it could be solved from the outher way.
Let's say the antagonist is some guy/girl who's family was killed by the violence on the streets. There hade been a lot of violence for a long time, but the polise was payed to turn a blind eye. He/she seeks vengance against both the crimials and the polise/goverment/whatever and in his/her mind, all people are the same. He/she is an absolut genious and manage to get money from invetions(could be the source of cool weapons in the game) and using this money he/she has the protection of the govorment. Secretly he/she's plotiong to develop a virus that is to wipe out the city and all it's inhabitats. Some of this information is leaked though, and the protagonists hears of this. The antagonist has protection form the govornment because of his money. Thus the protagonist leavs the force to stop him/her.(Side note: The antagonist would prabably want to know why the protagonist would go through so much trouble to save the people who have done nothing for him.)


^This was just to show how the problem could be sloved from the outher way, not a real sugestion.^