Hi everyone,

So I'm developing a TPS set in the present day, in which you play a criminal. I know what will my game look like, but I have trouble creating a good story. My first concept was:

"After a heist you have been betrayed and left to die. With last bits of strenght, you manage to call your girlfriend, who helps you and takes you to the doctor. After spending several months recovering, you begin searching for person who betrayed tou, and your money."

I have a problem developing a story after this point, because I don't want to create a cliche, or just another stupid crime plot.

So I need your help and advice to make this a good story,

Thanks in advance,
Noddy92

To be honest, what you have is rather cliche. Countless films have this plot as do several video games. With this genre, it's ALL been done before, and t's not too interesting as it's presented here. One way to keep players/readers interested is to not tell the story chronologically. It will require more careful storytelling from you because you have to decide what will be revealed at certain moments in your delivery of the story. Some enemies can be revealed to be allies and vice versa. Some "lies" are really truths" and vice versa. If you do it right, you should be able to keep players/readers immersed in your characters.

How many days/weeks/months/years does the story span?

Another thing that will also help is to develop character relationships and stating their motives and personalities and backgrounds. Don't info dump. Spread this information out along the course of the story, but personality is one thing that should be established early on. This is the best part of storytelling because it allows you to take characters completely out of their comfort zones and mix things up a bit for them. This ultimately drives any good story. Then, ask yourself what kind of shady character would play a part in a scheme to betray a guy and leave him for dead?

Do you want all of the mayhem to have a surprisingly peaceful resolution, or would you want all the characters to go all out on each other? Is it a story simply about revenge, or is it a story about seeking the truth? What if the guy who is betrayed did the job out of desperation but he's really a softhearted guy? What if he was someone who knew better than to get involved with such behavior due to his upbringing? What if he was always meant to just be the fall guy? What if the one person who really knew him (his girlfriend) took major risks to help him escape police custody? What if it all boiled down to this guy simply wanting to know why he was betrayed? (This would really only work if he knew the person or people who betrayed him.)

One convincing way to push this easygoing guy over the edge early on is this: A trusted friend who tags along with him in the early part of the quest. In a heated but tender moment with someone connected to the heist, the friend is shot. It can be a tender moment because this guy wants one thing anyone who is stabbed in the back wants to know; why? He's very calm and rational, no guns or anything. After a threat from the lead, the unarmed friend is killed. This incident is reported as a domestic dispute, but of course it's much more than that. This is a key moment because this very likable and peaceful guy is finally broken. If he remains at the crime scene, introduce some law enforcement characters that might become allies.

What physical locations will his quest lead him to?

Start the story on focusing on minor characters like the group leader of a small group of professionals or small time thugs who organizes the heist. On the heist, no real names are used; you're just playing as some hired hand. Then, after we see the heist unfold, the attention falls onto the guy who's been left for dead. The leader who could also be betrayed appears later on and teams up with the main character to find answers. What if a player could follow both of their story paths? Both characters would have different intentions and what they both discover on their joint but separate quests leads to a different conclusion for both of them? What if intentions change for one of them? Surprise the audience with this.

IT DOES MATTER WHAT THE HEIST IS FOR. If it's for money, is it for the group to share amongst themselves, or is it for a debt that needs to be settled? This list can go on for a while. What happenings in a character's life would make him/her so desperate to turn on someone else? How well do the characters know each other?(applies to below as well)

If it's diamonds or gold or something high tech, how much do the main characters know about their employer? Would they want it for themselves? Who else is after it and what is their connection to other main characters?

I've never actually written this type of story myself because it's so run-of-the-mill, but the above should help you out.

OK, thanks for the advice. In the begining I though, to make a story that would just be the excuse plot to start shooting, but after reading this, I really got some ideas.

And I thought story to be about the money to pay of debts, like in the Payback.

I have to agree that those two ideas in themselves are cliche and already on the edge of loosing my interest (because I've seen that so many times in movies, games, rap music and real life). If you are really determined to go with the idea of being a criminal who needs to get dirty to pay off some debts you will need something ground breaking to make the story interesting in the least. Sorry to sound so harsh but in my opinion it's truth that needs to be carefully considered towards the overall story design.

Your're not sounding harsh, any advice is welcome. I'm still working on that ground breaking thing in the story.

*raises hand* I have an idea!

What if, your character is the traitor who screwed over the rest of the heist gang, and has to spend the duration of the game evading revenge plots from the other members of the heist?

That could be a slightly more original take on the genre, i mean shows like Breaking Bad and Dexter prove people enjoy following the 'bad guy'.

Hm... that's actually not a bad idea, considering how many games have player do good things through the game.

OK, so I've been thinking a lot about a story, so starting from scratch, how about this:

You play a criminal who ownes a lot of money to the boss of the family, so you and your friend come up with a plan to hot a payroll van.

The job goes smoothly, but as just as you are about to take the money, your friends tells you that he has been hired by the boss to kill you and take the money. He then shoots you, take the money and leaves you to die.

I just came up with the beginning, and I need your criticism to improve it. I know I never wrote a crime story, so any help will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Noddy92

I like Got_rythems Idea about you being the traiter.

Could it have dynamic trust system ?
Where you have teams of criminals on your side and teams that are out to get you. But depending on the players dialog choices and their actions with those different teams he can influence the size of his army and even turn teams against each other. You could create a really nice back stroy with intergang wars using a family tree and timeline.

That could make for a dynamic story and interesting player choice based on greed and moral delemma.

What you have here, is called a premise. It's not a plot, or a story yet, just the beginning of one.

The way I get it - you just want to have a background story, so you can have a reason to start shooting baddies.

Well, that's nice and all, but your story will need some kind of progression between levels.

How about his:

You play a small-time crook who decides to rob a mob-boss to get ahead in life. You get your best friend to help you with the job, since he's already employed as a driver for that mob-boss. At the end of the heist, he betrays you and shoots you, to gain favor with the boss. You drop into a coma.

Years pass. You wake up from your coma, bent on revenge. Your loving girlfriend, who has taken care of you all this time had also took the time to gather all the information you need in order to get to the boss.

In turns out, that during your coma, your best "friend" is not the boss'es right hand man. But in order to get to any of them, you'll have to find them, and the road to them goes through their henchmen, and loyalies.

So you start your journey. You get a gun (or whatever) and goes after the low-level crooks in the mob. As you finish off each of them, they reveal a detail that gets you to your next target, or closer to your real target - the boss, or your friend.

From this point, there's a lot you can do. For example, you could reveal during the final showdown with your "friend" that there was no way out of this, and he shot you and put you in a coma cos that was the only way to save your life (otherwise, you'll both be dead). You can have the girlfriend kidnapped by the mob, when they start getting angry and fearful. There are many options. Let your imagination fly.

Start writing down the story. It may take a while, but it's the basis for your entire game.

Oh, and one last thing: the fact that a story is a cliche doesn't make it bad. Many great games/movies have been based on cliched stories. It's not the premise that counts, but the execution, so don't be discourages if you don't have the MOST original idea.