Designing original story worlds / caracter backstories?

[LuminousTyto]

Do you have anything you could show me?

[MasterCrew]

What would you like to see, Maps, characters, weapons, or everything? My camera isn't exactly the greatest, so please forgive the quality. Since my wife and I are going out for dinner this evening, I might not be able to upload any until the morning.

[LuminousTyto]

Take a few shots of all the things you do. I'd like to see. And don't worry about it, take your time.

[Brovo]

Alright, first off I'm going to say that I'm pretty new to role playing, in fact I've only played about a half dozen failed RPs with my friends over chat which you'd probably gauge in quality to be up in par with the "free role play."

That's fine. There's a place for just about everyone here.

Anyways I'm interested in RPing in a slightly more quality environment, although the problem is that few RPs seem to be very original, and the original ones I do come across, just don't spark that much interest for me.

Original in what way? Do you mean using their own universe? Non-canon? I'll take a guess at "creating and maintaining one's own game world." Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Although a quick thing to note is that originality =/= quality by any means. Me? Personally? I'm an originality guy. I vastly prefer creating and maintaining my own game world, or entering a new game world someone else created, over role playing in a canon universe such as a well known television show (Naruto) or a video game (Mass Effect).

Personally I've seen a fair number of people that would have benefited from not using an original universe quite yet.

I'm interested in designing some original content (story worlds / character back stories, etc.) The problem is that I'm not sure how in-depth role players out there actually want the content to be. For instance, if you were to play a Star Wars RP, chances are that you know a lot about Star Wars and you probably know the difference between a regular battle droid and a super battle droid. I'm sure you know who IG88 is too! Corescant is the center of the republic, and the Mandalorian warrior culture has long been extinct, etc, etc. I could go on forever and chances are you'd know 90% of what I'm talking about, which means we'd have a huuuge story world to work with as we RP in the fantastic world of Star Wars. It's not like that with two or three pages of back story and a few character bios when designing a quick RP.

Depends on the audience you are attempting to acquire. From the sounds of it you are likely looking for advanced--they're typically most interested in world building and background information, at least up to a point anyway.

I don't tend on spending the next ten years building a story world for you all, but I think you get what I'm saying.

I do. Man, I do. If you want a tip from someone who's kept an original universe RP going for two years and six months: Obey the rule of K.I.S.S. Also known as "Keep it simple, stupid." Complexity will inevitable come about from the interactivity element of role playing, so starting with something simple so you can attract more players and then gradually developing into a more complex and life-like universe will give you a better success rate. "Interactivity makes complexity?" Yes. Yes it does.

Example: A princess is trapped in a tower with a fire breathing dragon. So a dozen players gather together with a mixture of knights, mages, and rogues to defeat the dragon and a few other creatures (see: Undead, Kobolds, Demons, whatever your heart desires) in order to free the princess. Upon freeing the princess they discover that her homeland has been taken over by a dictator, and there's a couple factions fighting a civil war there who each have their own motivations. A couple of the characters in the group (choose at random or whoever is most appropriate) discover that they have personal connections with important story characters, of which you now have more of them to choose from. Maybe one of the knights is related by blood to the princess who was frozen for, say, two hundred years or something. Maybe one of the rogues was the childhood best friend of one of the civil war faction leaders. You can also start evolving larger long-term goals, like some members of the party fighting for the riches and fame it will bring them to help the princess while others still fight because it's morally corrected or because they're loyal, some staying on because they have nowhere else to go...

...And this is just from one story event occurring from a few actions your players committed to in order to achieve this goal. This is not including the plethora of chances for character development, for evolving and creating more portions of the world through connections to NPC's and players, from battles that could end the lives of comrades and bring tragedy to an otherwise stereotypical action fairy tale.

Simplicity inevitable becomes complexity. So don't be afraid to play it simple, to give a broad outline instead of a detailed one with an easily understood goal, because from a marketing perspective you'll get more players, and from a technical perspective you'll be able to evolve complexity gradually for your players that will be guaranteed to fit what the players want, without sacrificing your own ideas, which creates a well rounded world with well fleshed out characters with a happy GM and loyal players.

tl;dr: Simplicity will serve you well in a world of uncertainty. The simpler it is, the more players you'll have the chance to attract, the more likely your role play will succeed due to the increased number of players and the increased activity generated from it. Complexity will naturally evolve from players who act and react within your role play, causing interactions which demand the development of interpersonal relationships and background in the world, especially if it's related to the characters involved.

Anyways a story world I'd create would detail past and present elements, such as conflicts, social attitudes, histories, etc. But I wouldn't impose any sort of plot on whoever wanted to use my material. What I want to do is design a story world to give the author and his role players a feel for the story world, and then let the author come up with a specific plot of his/her own choosing. This way we can have content that's a little more original than say Star Wars, Final Fantasy, etc, which are all really cool themes, but just a little overdone in my opinion.

Selling a world without a plot is difficult. People who want to use other people's worlds will generally just utilize fan fiction. People who want to use original worlds will generally create their own. You might want to reconsider this long term goal.

I'm also thinking of finding artists to collaborate with to put art into the text fields to give an added visual element to the story world.

Get ready to pay, either with literal money or concessions. Few people give quality handouts.

Actually I'm not going to take a crack at this very soon, I feel I definitely need more role play experience to be able to contribute to this community, but it's just something that's been on my mind.

That is the wisest thing you've said in this entire thread. Having the patience to analyze the community, figure out what they want and what you can provide to fill that want, and then (and only then) providing to fill that want is intelligent. It's much better than being on this site for less than 100 posts and then declaring that "everyone is bad" and creating an elitist fan club where people make incredible confusing arguments that become contests of "who can throw the most meaningless jargon in the air and make it look important!!"

Sorry, tangent.

No seriously though, good for you. Keep up this humbleness, it will serve you well throughout life, not just role playing.

I appreciate any opinions, thoughts or advice you have on my post, and I look forward to keeping this post open for further discussion.

XD

I'll gladly keep replying to assist you in any way I can. Oh right and unlike certain other people who make claims without evidence in this thread...

Legend of Renalta: Reborn.
Author: Brovo.
Date Created: 04-23-2010. (Month-Day-Year)
Date Today: 11-14-2012. (Month-Day-Year)
Age: 30 & 1/2 Months, OR, 2.5 Years. (Rounded)

So roughly two years, six months. If you read the latest posts in the IC thread you'll also see the aforementioned "simplicity turned into complexity via interaction" in motion. Players are working together to collaborate back and forth conversations and actions through chats and then put up the results in posts, taking turns formatting and then posting. The plot is basically "Kingdom burns down due to evil Gods, princess of said kingdom is frozen for one thousand years, thaws out, seeks revenge." Now said princess is going through emotional turmoil in a unique part of the game world created specifically to challenge the players' concepts of morality with themes such as: Slavery, assassination, unorthodox sexuality, sexism, laissez-faire capitalism, etc.

This and a whole lot more is all going on at the same time. It's hard to follow, it's complex, and it started from "princess gets angry and goes to get revenge."

Simplicity. Simplicity simplicity simplicity!

And I'm out of steam now. /End Rant.

EDIT

I'll be back in about 4-5 hours. University now.

[Aragorn]

Yo, thanks for the post. You've given me a lot of useful information! I definitely get what you're saying about "wiggle room," too. Best to give the general flavor and let the role players fill in or simply create what they want during the course of the RP.

As far as art goes, it's not absolutely necessary, but if I can get enough people excited (fat chance?) maybe I could start one of those kick-starter projects and get a little funding for it.

Unless you want completely original artwork, you can get all your art for free. Just find pictures close enough to what you want, and submit it to one of the shops and tell them what edits you want done to it.

[MasterCrew]

Here you go Luminous (Sadly, they're sideways and didn't turn out quite how I would've liked):

Characters:

Spoiler

Weapons and Buildings

Spoiler

Maps: (Grabbed two of from my portfolio, might not be the best, but certainly not the worst; I also have a Island "navigation" map that I'll upload tomorrow)

Spoiler

[LuminousTyto]

Thanks for posting those sketches. I take it you sketch with pencils because you don't have a drawing tablet though?

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Thanks for the post, Brovo. That's a lot to take in.

Like we were (not me and you) talking about in a previous post, I think it comes down to giving the general flavor of the story world, then letting players add or just make up details as they go along in the story, which will reinforce themes and all that.

As far as designing a plot, well, I think it's a good idea, but what I want is re-playability. Nobody wants the same plot over and over. Then again, like you said, players ad info and other subplots and it changes the plot into it's own thing, but working off the same beginning feels like it might get old, no?

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Thanks for the suggestion, Aragorn, but I do prefer original content, because when I design a have pretty specific pictures floating around up in my head.

[MasterCrew]

Thanks for posting those sketches. I take it you sketch with pencils because you don't have a drawing tablet though?

Yes, pencil is my form of sketching. It's funny, I actually do have a drawing tablet, the only problem is, I'm not the best at using it! This might be an impetuous for me to take the the tablet off the shelf and practice with it on a few sketches!

If you have anything you'd like me attempt to sketch out or design digitally, whether it be a map or a character/species, I'm happy to help in any way.


Also, I have created fantasy universe, and have a bit of experience when it comes to forming back stories, histories, species, and things of the like. I know that I needed much collaboration when I formed my world, and noticed that you might desire some help in that area as well.

[Brovo]

Thanks for the post, Brovo. That's a lot to take in.

Like we were (not me and you) talking about in a previous post, I think it comes down to giving the general flavor of the story world, then letting players add or just make up details as they go along in the story, which will reinforce themes and all that.

As far as designing a plot, well, I think it's a good idea, but what I want is re-playability. Nobody wants the same plot over and over. Then again, like you said, players ad info and other subplots and it changes the plot into it's own thing, but working off the same beginning feels like it might get old, no?

Then just come up with a new story in the same world.

[MasterCrew]

Once you're ready Luminous, I'm ready to start designing and writing...