I can see that you're a bit confused and tensed up at what I'm making here, and I further can understand the frustration. I didn't give as much information as I should and further planned to put down even more details when I ever posted again. All the points you made have been pretty much answered in what I go so far as a story. Every thing that happens in the story is for a reason, as I understand all about leaving things unexplained and further things pertaining to open plot holes. I'll cope with what you've given so far, as I'm always open for criticism and answering questions here and there.

Quote: First off, what does it mean for this world to be civilized? Why would that rid the world of nature? If anything, a civilized world would put more of an emphasis on preservation. Was this an alien-like earth that was terraformed? Or did you mean the world had become much more industrialized?

What exactly is a "contemporary time"? Do you mean a present time in relation to where we are now?

It might be the wrong wording, but when I say this, I mainly mean the entire world is basically industrialized, like you said. There's hardly anymore tribes or anything of that sorts. If you point to one place on the map, it will likely have a city and all that other good technological advances, if it's not a natural reserve. When I say contemporary, I mean modern time, like where we are now in the real world, but with a few more scientific advances in addition to pretty much bringing the the entire world into a further tight network. This world is mainly an image of what would happen if everyone holds an average standard of living that pertains to where we are in technology. Some areas may have greater advances and others a bit less, but think of it as a futuristic place that isn't quite futuristic yet. There's no flying cars or anything of that sorts.

The story of the game takes place in a single metropolis called Millennium that is reminiscent of your comic-book stable "crime city" that tries to look good on the outside, but is clearly corrupt in its niches and crooks.

Quote: The "A cop that's been pushed too far... plays by his own rules" is a very very well worn cliche. In most cases, simply stating that he is that type of character hurts the story unless you're going for some sort of parody. You can introduce him as a bounty hunter and gradually reveal through the story that he is an ex-cop. I am assuming he is the protagonist of your story, and yet i know very little about him. Why did he leave the force? Has he fallen from grace? Was he a good cop that was set up because he refused to give into corruption? Did he kill a child during an assignment and think that he couldn't change this town being associated with such a corrupt organization? What type of person is he? You say he plays by his own rules, is he a Punisher like character? Has he learned how to "play the game" and bend the rules every now and then? Or is he Mr. Boy Scout that refuses to be corrupted in any way and follows the rules to the T no matter how shady the situation becomes? You say he's popular and well known, unfortunately in a story in this kind of setting just stating he's a popular guy is a contradiction. How much of this city is corrupt? Who exactly is he popular with? If he's busting people on both the rich and poor side he's bound to be making a lot of enemies, not to mention among the corrupt cops and mafia.

There are two characters the player will first be introduced to: Larry, the main character and a bounty hunter who had quit the force a year ago and Gerall, his so-called mentor and an ex cop who was moreso fired due to being framed for associating himself with the mafia. Both guys were ex cops, only they had come from this occupation for different reasons. I was thinking the same thing that I'll reveal gradually that they were both cops at one point, otherwise I lose some information I could provide plot-wise as the story progresses.

Larry quit the force due to his growing obsession for revenge. During a burning at his brother's workplace, the city's labs, he was helping get his brother out until he ran into Syne, his old partner who also quit the force some years back due to being sick of the bad habits he was witnessing by his own colleagues. Syne was carrying out a briefcase of important lab serums, which had Larry's brother Chest run to try to grab them but ends up getting shot by Syne. After that, Syne disappears with Larry unable to pursue him due to the building coming down. Since then, Larry has been attempting to do as much as he can to finding Syne and getting payback. This ended up having him neglect his work, which led to his superiors getting on him about it. This eventually had him quit so he could go after Syne on his own time. His secondary reasons was that he, too, didn't like the corruption that he was seeing in his department, yet he was attempting to not let it worry him. As long as he did his job, he felt he was making up for the bad habits of his brethens.

Quitting the force was a bad decision since he still needed a way to make money. That is when an old friend of the family, Gerall, came into the scene and offered Larry the life of a bounty hunter, something he himself was doing. And thus, they came to form their own little agency called "The Outcry." To Gerall, this was a way for him to still bring down his "paladin" justice onto the city while to Larry it was a way to make money while he could still track down Syne. Larry isn't a Punisher type character, really. He's more of a guy who got fed up with the city and threw away his obligation to bring any justice. He joined the police force in the first place only because he knew how to use a gun well (his father owned a gun shop, so he had the resources to practice with one whenever he wanted to), and just wanted to be a badass. Saving people was only a benefit of doing this. But he always felt protective of his brother since Chester wasn't the strongest of people, so when he was killed by Syne, it struck a heart string. As for Larry's connection to how the city works, being a cop has really helped him understand how things worked. And further becoming a bounty hunter has allowed him to peer into more of the inner workings of the back-street crimes. He has come to both sympathize and dislike the "other side of the story," aka the criminal underworld, but to him, neither the law or the criminals are considered right to him. This is ironic because before when he was still a cop, he was partners with Syne. And he disliked how Syne showed no compassion toward "good" or "bad" as he held this sense that "neutrality" was the true peace, and that neither order or chaos are considered better than the other. So what was once a hate has now become Larry's own sense of feeling. Just internally, he doesn't want to admit it, so uses the job as a bounty hunter to disprove that he has become soulless. While at the same time, he puts on this face that he doesn't care. This creates his "internal conflict."

Gerall was once the popular guy, but ended up having a lot of lose interest in him after hearing of his scam. As for Larry, no one knows him. Not yet, anyway. But in the game, the player will be able to take bounties. The more bounties he complete, the more his reputation will increase. And with this reputation comes things such as scaring away enemies in battle, giving advantages in negotiations, and even drawing out stronger ones who are attracted to Larry's reputation. Thus, I tie in story with gameplay with this element.

As for the scale of the corruption in this city, the mafia has gotten their hands into a lot of the big businesses, thus, you can the corruption reaches from the government all the way down to the small slums. With all this deception and other bad happenings, Larry is bound to get caught up in many conflicts from both sides of the law. That's the meat and fun part of the game's story.

Quote: I actually really liked the idea of the natural reserves and the Uriel. To me, the natural reserves feel like neutral zones in a very chaotic world. I thought the Uriel could be the guardians of the reserves, protecting them from any invaders. Like their territory, they too remain neutral oberservers to any events going on outside. Their single goal is to preserve the last bit of nature from anyone who they feel is a threat whether they have good or bad intentions. I see no reason why they cannot be a single race in tune with nature.

It's still up there to what I want to do with them. I figured since there will be non Uriels out there who would feel the same way, they would all create a national group that is composed of both Uriels and non Uriels. However, even being neutral, I want to show that the most extreme of this group will do anything to return nature to the way it is. And thus, the plot I want to introduce is that Syne gives them the resources to make use of animals to bring their revenge against society, starting with Millennium City. His attack on the labs was so he could obtain the laboratories secret experiments involving mutating animals. With them, he could bring about his own attack on the city that has brought so much distaste to him. Clearly, Syne has a motive to destroy the city and "cleanse" it, and this was mainly caused by a traumatic childhood event, which I haven't really solidfied yet. I came up with the idea that he and his mother were from a different country that had a different religion that believed in the "true neutrality" that he admires. When his mother got killed in a gang shootout, he showed a great resentment toward criminals and thus became a cop. It was after he saw that the police were just as bad that he decided to embrace his religion fully and become this "savior." He's basically a terrorist, only know one knows that he's really Syne. And Larry is mainly caring about finding him and getting his vengeance rather than wondering why he was at the labs that day in the first place.

Anyway, Syne uses the Uriel's hatred toward society to convince the upper elders, the extremities of the group, to adopt the resources he obtained. They can make use of the animals in their reserves to strike back, thus the mututated animals will become enemies probably 2/5ths into the game once they start attacking. No other but the upper echelons of the nearby Uriel natural reserve know what this plot is, as to protect the group from being alientated from their causes and to keep peace, mostly. They're embracing the "must do evil to destroy evil" attitude.

Quote: Bounty hunters and mercenaries are also a pretty well used idea. Not that it's a bad thing for this type of story. I'm not sure why the whole fiscal aspect was brought up. It didn't make a whole lot of sense and seemed pretty misguided. To begin with, i didn't get the vibe that the police couldn't handle the work because they were low on money. To me, it seemed more likely that they were just spread too thin, which is usually the case in a corrupt city with an equally corrupt police force. I thought the whole mention of bounty hunters being at a disadvantage because of something about not being able to bribe was quite comical. You know, it costs a pretty decent amount of money and power to bribe, but it doesn't cost anything to threaten or cause bodily harm. A bullet speaks louder then paper. You don't run around hiring a butt load of bounty hunters and mercenaries giving a badge to anyone with a gun, that's not how it works. An organization, in this case the police, put bountys on certain individuals which is what bounty HUNTERS use to find their targets. You don't pay a hundred guys to hunt after one guy, you put a price on the guy's head and pay whoever catches him and brings him in first.

I was clumsy on this concept. I got rid of the mercenaries aspect. There won't be a call for more arms or anything of that sort. The only new thing that will come up is hunting the animals when they swarm onto the city. This will be different missions called Monster Hunting and are mainly introduced once a wild game hunter called Mirage comes to the city upon hearing the greater challenge of hunting. She will become a party member eventually. Nevertheless, this will be the part of the game where the mutated animals will be somewhat common as normal thugs you fight in the wrong parts of towns. Thus, the encounters of this RPG.

Quote: Regarding the inclusion of psychic powers... why? Why do they have to be psychic powers? If you feel uncomfortable with them being pyschic based, why not just make them something else? Honestly, I thought your story made much more sense when it was just the daughter of a rich family who had been experimented on instead of the "Cerebral 12". Especially considering you are going to have to give each of those children some sort of back story. Who are they? Why are they there? What are their powers? What importance do they have to the story? Your story has absolutely no flow, it feels like things just happen. First you have an ex cop that plays by his own rules then suddenly there is a girl with psychic powers but not really then suddenly there are monsters then suddenly there are 12 kids with powers then suddenly one of them is put in a mental hospital then suddenly there are 11 kids then suddenly there's a completely new character who is the rival of the first long forgotten character then suddenly one of the kids kills her parents and becomes leader of their company then suddenly then suddenly then suddenly... Your story is too complicated, every time you add something new part of your old story is forgotten or no longer makes any sense. Is the story about some bounty hunter trying to save the world or is it about a psychic girl or group of psychic kids? Your protagonist has absolutely no relation to this story. Does he encounter the girl and tries to save her? Is she an enemy he must stop? Is he an obstacle she or they must stop? At the end of your last post you had over 8 different factions: The cops, the ex cop bounty hunter, the uriel, the rich, the poor, the cerebral kids, the religion, the guy that kidnapped the crazy kid. None of which have any relation other then loose affiliations.

Here, you were mainly looking at the brainstorming I was doing. This part of the story wasn't completed yet. Truthfully, I'm just as edgy in having this part of the story, since it throws a very large curveball in the direction I am trying to achieve. Having this project will very well change the entire story into a sci fi, and I don't want that. I want to keep the feel as down to earth as possible. The only exceptions are the mutated animals and one of the prospective party members being a psuedo vampire/zombie person named Jean. Jean was the girlfriend of Chester, which larry knows nothing about, who was caught in the lab fires. This resulted in the chemicals in her department exploding and sort of transforming her into what she is now, an energy draining mutant. Internally, she is losing her sanity, but preserves what she has left to try to find a way to reverse the effects.

Then comes the psychic story. I introduced this into the story in the first place because I wanted a "mage" to be in this game, someone who can use more spirit-based powers that'll add more to the game than just guns and martial arts. Jean is an answer to this, and so was Gabriella, the character the player will get to use, while Ariel is mainly her sister who took over her dead parents/guardian's company. This allowed a good chance to hook the labs into the story in exposing the stuff they were doing in their labs in the first place from another direction, mainly from the generation of scientists before Chester ever came there. There are two ways I can go about this: doing the orphan plot or going about with just Ariel and Gabriella being part of a little experiment composed by a scientist. Furthermore, Zion, the psychpath locked up in a mental hospital, was also part of this experiment, only he initially was deemed failed, then later shows signs of great psychic abilities. Might decide to make Zion like their brother who ends up becoming a villain that breeds even worse monsters with his reality-bending powers as revenge against what was done to him, and further have it be that it was Syne who convinces him to do this. As you can seem, we go back to Syne. Syne is pretty much the main villain of the game, only he's doing all of these things from the background in order to carry out his plot of destroying this city as a test before he takes on other cities around the nation and soon the world. The player just doesn't realize it until later on, though they will occassionally run into Syne here and there to keep reminding the player that he is present as someone important that will cause something important later on.

Eventually, Larry will encounter Gabriella and will end up having to help her probably fight off her bodyguards who are trying to get her back after she attempts to run away in order to get away from the troubles she experiencing at her home (constant pressure by scientists to keep her powers in check, other medical procedures she has to endure, and then coping with the fact that her sister killed someone and transformed into a more tyrannic woman). It won't be long before the story wraps around back to the labs, where then Larry will feel some connection with her since his brother was part of the same organization. So you see, it will all work itself out.

Quote: At the end of your last post you had over 8 different factions: The cops, the ex cop bounty hunter, the uriel, the rich, the poor, the cerebral kids, the religion, the guy that kidnapped the crazy kid. None of which have any relation other then loose affiliations.

It's more like: The Outcry (Larry's and Gerall's organization, basically the PC group), The Uriel, The Rich, The Poor, The Mafia, The Labs, The Church, The Government, The Cops, Nova (an ally group later on in the game), and finally Syne.

The Outcry is in relation to all the PCs, who each have their own relation to a certain faction.

The Uriel is connected to the Outcry through supplying a PC from the Uriel group, they despise the Government, and secretly are affliated with Syne.

The Rich is connected to the Government through taxes and influences, the Mafia through back-hand helpings, through their unappreciation of the Poor, and through assisting the Labs with fundings. The cops also give them better treatment.

The Poor is connected to the Mafia in terms of people going to the gang for better opportunites, they resent the Rich, resent the Government for not helping them, and use the Church as a way to pray for better days. The cops give them worse treatment.

The Mafia is connected to the Outcry through supplying a former Mafia member as a PC, through the Rich in terms of helping out some businesses succeed while being rich themselves, through helping out the poor in giving helpless people opportunities to be someone, some members are members of the Church as part of their religious culture, in relation to the government in that they helped the current mayor become the mayor, and the Cops in bribes and other underhanded tactics.

The Labs are directly funded by the Government and the Rich, but are resented by the Uriels due to their cruel mistreatments on animals, while giving a former lab scientist as a PC.

The Church supplies a PC, caters more to the Poor than the Rich, has members of the Mafia as associates, and resents terribly the Labs (science vs. religion).

The Government is in opposition with the Uriels, caters to the Rich, is influenced somewhat by the Mafia, funds the Labs, and funds the Cops.

The Cops dislike bounty hunters due to their differing views, thus they dislike the Outcry, cater the Rich but treats the Poor badly, and are always being bribed and influenced by the mafia to turn their heads.

Nova is a group that Gerall is secretly a part of (this group is composed of individuals casted out by the corrupt years ago, which is the backstory of the game), so supports The Outcry, dislikes the Mafia due to their influence in bringing about the corruption, dislikes the Labs for being also part of this corruption, wants to re acquire control of the Government (aka the former mayor is part of this coalition), and dislikes the current state of the Cops.

Syne is using the Uriel for attacking the city, wants to hurt the Mafia, wants to destroy the Labs, believes the Church is useless, dislikes the Government, and hates the cops naturally.

In summary

I hope that clears up a lot of issues. I'm mainly showing that I'm not going about this amateurishly and that I'm really thinking about the flow, the flexibility, and the plausibility of the story. I'm mainly trying to express some morals while throwing up questions for the more attentive players to think about Of course, a lot of players are going to want to care more for the gameplay than the story, but I want to at least tie in the gameplay and the story as much as possible so that the player can play the game while still being informed of what the story is. Again, I'm always open for criticism and would love to smooth some edges out, mainly with the psychic deal.

Since credibility starts from the beginning, I'll discuss only the foundation of this setting: a large city with
1) a large gap, and a strong geographical segregation, between rich and poor social classes;
2) an awful lot of secrets to uncover;
3) a lot of corrupt businessmen and organized crime (as you list it separately, I suppose what you mean by "mafia" are the violent and blatantly illegal low-tier gangster activities rather than the more important white collar crimes);
4) cruel, aggressive police (against the criminals, I suppose);
5) a sudden appearance of monsters that presumably represents the starting point the main plot.

Item 1 needs an explanation: are the rich unusually rich, the poor unusually poor, or maybe both? What's the history of your city?
Cities don't have castes, they have a continuous distribution of wealth levels and strong relationships across different social classes: adding a couple of billionaires there or a hundred refugees there doesn't change social balances significantly. Only masses can cause changes, but they are usually small changes like building favelas rather than apartment buildings, having one more jeweller and one less drugstore, a few percent swing between left-wing and right-wing parties, and so on.
Real cities are also well mixed, and segregation by census tends to be radial (the city center has expensive old buildings and important locations, the extreme periphery has room for large mansions, the intermediate zones tend to fill gaps and replace old buildings with less expensive housing) and very imperfect (buildings of all types and costs are scattered everywhere, from decrepit buildings in the center to old farms).
What's so special about the northern and southern districts to cause a strong polarization? Why don't the rich concentrate in the normal locations for expensive houses?
Also important: why does it matter? How is a divided city better than a normal one for the purposes of your game? Your strangeness and implausibility budget is limited, spend it wisely.

Item 2 needs history. Current characters like the mentioned Leese, Sampson, Syne and Venice family, and other current factions, should have deep roots to avoid feeling like something that "just happens", as rem3017 has explained very well, or that doesn't belong together (e.g. sinister experiments with psychic powers vs a focus on police/mob violence).
Characters can be exceptional heroes (e.g. a girl who openly uses psychic powers) that can make a difference because they have no precedent, or instances of common, well represented character types like the nihilist violent cop anti-hero or the power-hungry conspirator that have already occurred, and been dealt with, in the city's past: in both cases only possibly distant history can make them meaningful rather than arbitrary.

Item 3 is just a normal situation. Why does this city have more crime than otherwise similar cities? It is, again, an historical issue.
Keep in mind that corrupt businessmen and "mafia" are usually part of the same self-organized system, not different factions.
Another problem with crime is that if it is unacceptable people can simply leave and/or fight back: what do these criminals really do? What's the level of violence against common citizens? Are there bad neighbourhoods?
From another point of view, is the crime an outgrowth of economy (more money, more criminals to get their share) and social forces (more poverty, more desperados), or a consequence of geographical factors (like drug smuggling routes and illegal immigration), or the result of a deliberateconcentration and relocation of criminal activities (like U.S. mobsters colonizing Las Vegas)?

Item 4 assumes a motivated and effective government that wants to fight crime: very, very unlikely. Criminal organizations tend to put their men everywhere they have interests to protect and to avoid attracting attention (and law enforcement budget) with unneeded crimes.
You need to decide how corrupt the police force is; corruption doesn't seem very compatible with being "ruthless and cruel".
Police-aligned mercenaries don't make much sense (apart from Pete Michaud's fine but strictly economical analysis, if there's money for them there's money for more controllable and more legal police instead); on the other hand if the place is unlawful enough there can be a large market for privately employed "security consultants", "private investigators", "bodyguards", and so on.

Regarding monsters, why should a lonely hero be particularly concerned with them unless they are known to be linked to some other plot? As soon as monsters appear, everybody (including criminals, with the sole possible exception of the party who created them) would be very scared; there would be police patrols and volunteer teams, gangsters and all sorts of violent people would hunt them to show off, scientists would investigate, and so on.
A particularly bad monster problem would cause a large-scale evacuation followed by a climactic battle; a modest monster problem would rapidly become an hazard of daily life like the dangerous wild animal visits (e.g. bears), earthquakes, strong winds, predictable flooding etc. that many cities have grown used to.

Quote: Characters can be exceptional heroes (e.g. a girl who openly uses psychic powers) that can make a difference because they have no precedent, or instances of common, well represented character types like the nihilist violent cop anti-hero or the power-hungry conspirator that have already occurred, and been dealt with, in the city's past: in both cases only possibly distant history can make them meaningful rather than arbitrary.

I kept re-reading this but I am having trouble getting what you mean. Can you detail this a little more?

Quote: Original post by Zido_Z

Quote: Characters can be exceptional heroes (e.g. a girl who openly uses psychic powers) that can make a difference because they have no precedent, or instances of common, well represented character types like the nihilist violent cop anti-hero or the power-hungry conspirator that have already occurred, and been dealt with, in the city's past: in both cases only possibly distant history can make them meaningful rather than arbitrary.

I kept re-reading this but I am having trouble getting what you mean. Can you detail this a little more?

A good story depends on the social context around your characters, which needs an historical foundation and a lot of coherence; a bad story takes place in a vacuum, with arbitrary characters doing arbitrary things to each other for arbitrary reasons.

I suggested two opposite story development patterns among many: disrupting the status quo of a certain setting by introducing exceptional characters and events with permanent consequences or telling of interesting instances of typical characters and situations that have no chance to cause significant changes.

The point is that without a detailed development of your setting and its history these opposite directions cannot be distinguished (nothing really happens) and the potentially interesting characters you describe remain hollow bundles of skills and knowledge.

Is the psychic girl a really new occurrence? If she is, what are her acts and public knowledge of her existence likely to affect in the long term? If she isn't, what happened the other times, who's ready to deal with psychic girls, and what could be different this time? Do some families have a tradition of "improving" children in the labs, or the psychic girl's father is a deranged abuser?
Such questions are important, even if they have no impact on the girl's powers and the rationale that she has been deliberately altered by her father as a child.

Your response answered a few of my questions, but it also raised a few more.

First, your main character Larry has a slightly contradictory personality/back story. So you've established that he only joined the force because he knows how to use a gun and wants to look bad ass, with helping people only being a perk. But once his brother is killed, he becomes bent on revenge and neglects his duties as a police officer. But at the same time, he's fed up with the corruption of the police and works extra hard to make up for his wayward brethren. So he leaves the force because his sense of justice could not tolerate how dirty the police had become. But at the same time, he throws aside his sense of justice and abandons his duty as an officer leaving the force to pursue Syne. I am having trouble trying to determine what type of archetype Larry falls into. On one hand, he is the anti-hero bent only on revenge for his murdered brother. On the other hand, he is a frustrated ex-cop wanting to cure the city of it's corruption.

Syne falls into the same blurry category. For someone who claims to worship neutrality, he is a pretty emotional guy. I think his role is confusing due to a vague religious affiliation. Being a neutral person means you are usually impartial to any side and generally refuse to get involved. This guy, however, is involved in every shady doing in your story. The church's teachings and beliefs need to be developed much further if you plan to make it an integral part of the story (the game xenogears is a wonderful example of creating and spreading a religion throughout its world). What exactly is Syne's roll in the religion? Self-proclaimed god? Enforcer? Martyr? Is the religion dead or active either underground or publicly? You said he and his mother came from a nation that believed in the "true neutrality". Is this nation still intact or were he and his mother survivors or refugees from this fallen nation?

This may sound a bit odd after so many posts but... what exactly is your game about? It really does sound like you have quite a few different plot points veering every which way ranging from a story about an ex cop looking for vengeance to a supernatural romp against a religious fanatic bent on "neutralizing" the world.

I know you want to get as far away as possible from scifi, but it looks you keep adding more and more that keeps pushing you into the genre. Monsters, Zombie/Vampires, Mages (fantasy i guess), Spirit Abilities, Psychics, Evil Religions, etc. Is it really necessary to cookie cutter your story with labels? Just let it be what it is.

While we're on the topic of mages, let's discuss character classes. In fantasy games you have classes such as the mage, the warrior, the paladins, the healers, etc. These types of games usually put a very large focus on the differences between the character types. Some can attack but not take damage, some can take damage but not attack, etc. For the game you are trying to make, it might make more sense to differentiate by archtypes and specialties. The classes are usually split into character specialty's such as the sniper, the assault guy, the melee specialist, the grenadier, the medic, etc. If you really wanted to have a mage type character, you can look at games like Bioshock. In that game, the character injects himself with "Plasmids" to give himself extra abilities such as freezing, fire balls, launching hornets, etc. Archtypes are split into things such as burliness, gender, the types of clothes the person wears, etc.

The last thing i wanted to mention were the loose affiliations. "He hates", "They like", "You get a PC from them", etc. Those are all loose affiliations, superficial relationships if you would. If you don't understand what i mean, take the relationship between a couple groups and ask yourself "Who, what, where, why, when, and how". For Example:

"The Government is in opposition with the Uriels, caters to the Rich, is influenced somewhat by the Mafia, funds the Labs, and funds the Cops."

Who: The Government, the Uriels, the Rich, The Mafia, The labs, The Cops

What: The government is in opposition with the uriels. The government caters to the rich. The government is somewhat influenced by the Mafia. The government funds the labs. The Government funds the cops.

Where: (Not always crucial unless talking about specific situations)

Why: Because the government is in opposition of the uriels? Why are they in opposition? That doesn't really explain anything.

When: How long have they opposed the uriels? How long have they been influenced by the Mafia? Etc.

How: What are they doing to oppose the uriel? How do they cater to the rich? How are they influenced by the Mafia? Etc.

LorenzoGatti made a lot of really good points. A lot of what your story lacks at the moment is depth. I'm sure there is more to your story then you've told us, but from what I can see a lot of the events look very one dimensional. What I find helps me to develop a story is to break it up into smaller pieces. First develop your characters. I usually get a notebook and write as much as i know about every character in their own seperate sections. Personality, traits, looks, clothes, anything you can think of, you might even add a quick sketch. Then repeat the process for both the story and the setting. Your story does have a lot of promise, just keep at it.

Hope that helps, good luck.

I'm glad that you guys have given me such input as it has me see a lot of weaknesses that my story has. But that is why I came here in the first place, to get this criticism. Also, you both are right in that I haven't given you a lot of information because really I have worked on more than just what I've placed in here, including giving each character a backstory complete with their motivations.

One thing Rem said that caught my attention was the contradiction of Larry Leese's personality: how on one hand he threw away his job so he could go after his brother's killer and on the other hand, he showed a dislike toward the police's corruption. I can understand this fully. The main reason for this was to show that although Larry isn't a motivated cop, was anyway, he has certain morals, and some of the things he saw happening in the department disgusted him. But unlike Syne, he didn't care much for it to make it have him quit himself. Only when he wanted to live by his own rules did he decide to leave, finding no other reason to stay. I might have to reword it a bit more to make it more plausible, but his main personality is that type of guy who tries to act laid back, but also tries to follow somewhat of a moral code, which was something adapted from his father, an ex-soldier of the military.

I've made another change, since it's coincidental that Rem brought this up. I've decided to drop the entire psychic storyline. Since making it I didn't feel right about it, and have been having loads of trouble of trying to incorporate to the point that it doesn't destroy the integrity and structure of what I am going for, so I decided to change Gabriella, the psychic, into an inventor. She will still be part of the wealthy family of the Venice, only she will be a mechanic-type of girl who just dresses up because she has to. Think Violet Baudelaire from the Series of Unfortunate Events series. She was a young girl who was a great inventor, yet had the manners and raising of a proper girl. That is what Gabriella can be, and thus, she will have inventions that will "simulate" magic. So in the game, she will be able to use the elements of Fire, Cold, and Electricity through use of her inventions. This way, it fits with the contemporary setting I'm making while also allowing me to no longer have to deal with the over-the-top psychic story.

It seems like at this point I may have to write up a chapter-based document of the entire backstory of this game that I can put together, then post it here for you guys to critique in its pure form.

Quote: This may sound a bit odd after so many posts but... what exactly is your game about? It really does sound like you have quite a few different plot points veering every which way ranging from a story about an ex cop looking for vengeance to a supernatural romp against a religious fanatic bent on "neutralizing" the world.

The story is about a bounty hunter who goes after the city's bounties in order to keep food on the table while looking for his brother's killer. This is considered the "hook", or the premise. Everything else just happens along the way, but this remains the main focus for Larry and for good reasons since the killer is affliated with the many conflicts that with occur throughout the game. Not all of them, but some to make him more significant in the grand scheme of things.