[triptych]

What I mean is - do you build up a storyline from start to finish in a linear fashion, or perhaps work backward from the ending? I'm curious as to how convoluted RPG storylines get created/evolved.

[Hajo]

It depends.

If the story is there to explain something to the player, I work backwards, from the fact that needs explanation through a series of ideas that make the fact look sensible to the player.

If I'm just creating a story, without constraints, I start at the beginning and let it evolve in my mind.

[DeveloperX]

I usually approach story writing like this:

* Decide the primary protagonists and antagonists (good and bad guys)
* Decide the first major event that starts the story
* Decide the possible major events that the story can end with
* Think of some supporting characters either protagonists, or antagonists.
* Decide on at least three major events that happen around the middle of the story
* Think of a way to twist the plot around with minor events and unexpected happenings between the major events

Once I have the above, I then try to start writing the actual "chit-chat" dialogue that my characters will say.

The first three steps are usually the hardest for me, though once I do get the "big bang" idea in my head then it just starts flowing.

I sometimes ignore everything I said here, and just start immediate with the dialogue, and let it grow from there.
I did this with WiTCHHUNT story, and the story for SAWD, and well as the extremely long story for an RPG that I have in my personal game design binder called...LONG. The letters each have a meaning, but I'm not disclosing that until I am ready to develop the game. The story is at least 1200 pages of single-spaced printed 8pt text. There are 64 characters with in-depth backgrounds. ONE day I eventually want to have the resources to develop the game...maybe once I'm financially stable I'll have the time to find some dedicated developers..hmm../rant

Yeah, so I'm no expert on the subject, but the first part of this post is what I would call a good method. Its based off of various things I've read on game design.
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[Nodtveidt]

I generally start with a basic concept, and everything sort of "designs itself" around the concept. New ideas are injected into the developing "soup" at the proper places. Things get tweaked and moved around as I see fit. There is never any solid structure to the development. Life itself is more chaos than order and that is usually represented in my storylines. A "professional" story writer would probably laugh at my method, as it tends to take longer to put together a good solid story, but the end result is 10x more interesting and free than the laughing professional's stories.

Rumor has it that Squaresoft has an "RPG Machine" in the back room of their main office that they turn on over the weekend that writes new stories for them..."Oh it's Friday night, time to go home..." "Wait! Origato needs a new story!" "Oh ok, let's just fire up 'deetashorikikai' and make it do its thing!" "Great idea, we'll have a new story Monday morning! And people will buy it because hey, we're Squaresoft and we rule!".
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[tcaudilllg]

Here's my theory on how the professionals do it.

They start with a theme. Especially in JRPGs, the theme is a commentary about modern society. No explicit conclusion is reached by the writers either way; instead, the writers create characters who have an interest in and who can grapple with the theme. The protagonist in particular is modeled after this method. The antagonist takes the position opposite the protagonist and offers the worst possible answer (in the writers' estimation) to the theme. It is the protagonists' duty to explore the theme -- which is the theme of their life -- and implement the correct solution in spite of the antagonist's ambitions. In this way their personal triumph emerges as a heroic feat. The purpose of the hero's journey is to explore the meta-narrative surrounding the present crisis (also the hero's) and reach a suitable conclusion. There is something truly magnificent about this process in that it simulates, in the mind of the writer, a real discussion about modern day issues. For example, FFVII dealt with the environment and man's responsibility to it. Cloud's personality was perfectly suited to lead the exploration of those questions. In a sense, Sephiroth was the ultimate extreme of man's subjugation of the environment: to achieve ultimate power, Sephiroth was willing to destroy the planet's environment and even life itself. He was a being created by his environment who desired to encompass it into himself utterly, to revolve it around him the greatest extent possible. The remarkable thing about this process is that because the characters are realistically modeled and realistically held in conversation with each other, the conclusions drawn even from the design of the story are at least somewhat applicable to real life situations. Part of this is due to the fact that the writers and character designers work very closely together, and the events of the story become the basis for the characters' design.

Now this is the most interesting part: the pivotal points in the story can only be executed by characters, so there must be characters of such persuasion as to carry them out. The character designer provides characters to fulfill certain points in the story, giving them such traits as are required as to make the choices they do in the context of the metanarrative. Given a set of information available to a character, they have a variety of options available to them which they will select on basis of their personal preferences. Although back stories are often given, a character must still yet be shown to be vulnerable to transformation by a given event. They must also be similarly vulnerable to any other event of that kind, which permits the designer to flesh out a back story for the character by using their "purposed decision" as a guideline for their previous behaviors.

There is one more detail of interest: the actual physical appearance of the character. A lot of a person's visual appearance is a factor of their self-image: persons who have contempt for themselves, for example, are like to project this contempt onto others and these emotions are manifest in a severe, hard expression. People who are idealistic, rather than practical, may seem aloof, off in the clouds, and must have such an appearance as to convey that impression to people who meet them or else such thoughts would not be had about them. (inattentiveness to the environment is a key indicator). Practical persons, in contrast, are more alert to what's going on in front of them because they aren't as interested in what could be accomplished as in what is feasible. People in the former USSR have known about the idealistic/practical divide for years, and every professional character designer keeps a "first-hand knowledge" of which emotions correlate to which traits which they build by creating an inventory of the people they see and how people who have similar traits have other things in common. People who make similar decisions simply have some physical characteristics in common... most likely because of similar genes. But hey, "inspiration" must come from somewhere, even if it's an unacknowledged imitation of another individual. I think it's an issue of few people really understanding character on the one hand, and possibly a problem of those persons having difficulty articulating the demands of their art on the other.

[DeveloperX]

[Malignus]

Character-driven storylines are currently very much in vogue in the world of serious fiction. It is thought that knowing your characters and allowing their behavior to drive the plot provides the most organic progression. I'm sort of an idea man myself, though, so I tend mostly to use that method for filling in the blanks once I've got my big concepts.

Oh, and forget writing in a linear fashion. Even if you could power through writing your story out in chronological order, you'd have to go back and revise it piecemeal anyway. You're better off treating it like a jigsaw puzzle: work on the parts you've figured out, then go back periodically and make sure it's all fitting together into a coherent picture. (That's my method, anyway.)

[Rainer Deyke]

I tend to take a top-down approach. First I start with the main conflict and select the champions for each side (heroes and villains). Then I decide on the beginning and the end, followed by the major plot points. Then I use these major plot points to subdivide the game into chapters and decide on the plot points within each chapter.

Sometimes I run out of ideas for a chapter. In that I case I either change the concept of the chapter to something more promising, add a new subplot to the chapter that doesn't fit into my original plan, or drop the chapter from the game entirely.

[tcaudilllg]

I remember that in the making-of video for Shining Force EXA, it was mentioned that Emperor Ragnadaam was designed with a "haughty" look about him, because being a person driven to empire it was natural for him to have such an attitude. That he makes the choices of a haughty person, he must exhibit such expressions as to befit his haughty nature.

[mixzed]

[RampantCoyote]

I don't know if it's the best way, but I work best in a totally non-linear fashion. I may start with a situation or characters - and the story comes together in my head as a series of vignettes. I then figure out the overall plotline to join them together.

Even more amusing, by the time it's done, I've generally weeded out most of those cool vignettes that I started with in the first place.
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[Nodtveidt]

I don't personally believe that there's any "best way" to write a story; whatever method works for you is what works for you, and not every method will work for every writer. There are, of course, plenty of "worst" ways to write...
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace

[js71]

My approach is pretty similar to Nodtveidt's, I think. I will write manuscripts and story outlines in a linear process but there are ideas, concepts, scenes, visualizations, conversations and snatches of random dialog floating around in my head and random .txt files that inevitably get drawn on to construct the final script.

It's a little like having a mental instruction manual and then using an assortment of miscellaneous parts, not always the originally intended or 'right' ones, to build the final thing and polish it up to make everything fit smoothly.

~Josiah

[Mattias Gustavsson]

I just make mine up as I go along. Maybe that's why they all suck :P
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[tcaudilllg]

So there are two basic approaches: directed, and undirected.