Role Play Into Game?

[Ghost]

But you managed two posts with good grammar, structure and vocabulary, why not doing that each time?

Allow me to introduce two good friends of mine: The Plot Octopus and the Reverse-Engineering Approach To Plots.

Plot Octopus (also known as The Mind Map): Take a blank sheet of paper and write down a central word that sums up your story. Then let it all out, write everything you can relate to any aspect of the story. Make groups: Cast - Good Guys - a) Hero A, b) Hero's Love Interest...
Put that sheet of paper away for a while. Then come back to it, re-read it, and add to it. Try to find elements that duplicate, and remove them. For example, if each good guy is countered by a bad guy, things seem to be a bit out of balance.
This is just a pretty antique way of getting your ideas sorted, but it hardly ever let me down.

The Reverse-Engineering-Approach (aka Dungeon Keeper Method)
Take some important parts of your story and reverse them. This is a pretty radical  way of getting rid of clichee and come up with "fresh" ideas. For example, in a typical dragonslayer fantasy, it's "save damsel in distress from dragon". Reverse it, and you get "save dragon from damsel". You don't need to create total opposites, but it helps to find new approaches to hackneyed plots.

Apart from that, I wish you luck. RPG and Adventure don't mix too bad IMO, and with a better plot I dare say you will attract some followers  .

Ghost out. Need coffee now.

[Vince Twelve]

I think making an adventure game based off of the story developed by your MSN role plays is a decent idea.  Hopefully everyone involved in the role play will be interested in helping out and you have a team right there.

I wouldn't worry about people saying your plot is derivative or unoriginal.  Especially don't be bothered by Enkerro's rather rude and unhelpful post in which he summarizes your story and adds question marks after each line as if they prove his point.  As long as you love the story, it will be evident in the game that you create out of it.

Your story has a workable starting point, and now you need to develop it into something suitable for an adventure game (if that is, indeed, where you're intending to go).  That means finding parts of the story where challenges, characters, and events will become gameplay.

With what you've shown of the story so far, I would mostly be worried about making it too epic.  You should absolutely not set off to make a game with vast kingdoms and lots of characters.  You should plan something small first.  Maybe four or five rooms.  Let it serve as an intro to your story world, rather than a epic sweeping tale.

First, take a small part of the story.  Perhaps the part that you've talked about where the mystic impersonation orb infiltrates Sen's palace and finds it's way, unnoticed, to the king's chambers.  Make that small part into a game.  That way you have something that you actually can finish with a reasonable amount of work, instead of jumping in and dedicating yourself to something you may never be able to finish.

After you finish this smaller game, it can serve as an introduction to the world for players as you work on something larger.  Or, maybe you'll decide not to do something larger, but at least you'll have something to show for your efforts.

Find out how much your friends are willing to help.  Agree on the jobs that you each will do.  Take on some responsibility yourself, be it writing, programming, or art.  And start working.  If you don't have anyone who is a stellar artist, don't let that stop you.  You're probably not going to be able to find an exceptional artist to work with you until you've proven yourself a bit.  Just make your game with simplistic graphics.  It doesn't matter how it looks, it can still play well and have an awesome story.  If it does.  I guarantee you'll find someone who will want to work with you to either redo it with better graphics or help you with the next one.

As for your posts, at least make an effort to place periods in between sentences so that we know when one ends and the next begins.  It will make a world of difference.

Good luck on it and let us know when you have something to show.

[lo_res_man]

I've recentlly played a chat room rpg and they are quite a lot of fun if you get into them.
Badside? MAJOR time waster.

[The Hero]

The role-play itself is  more less complete all i would need is a team with enough interest to help turn it into a game all the logs are recorded and we plan to turn it into a series of novels but we dont need tp do that if i can make it into a game

[space boy]

Using fullstops is really not that hard.

[LimpingFish]

Oh, this is based on chat room rpg? I've always wondered how they work. Turning it into an actual game is an interesting idea, but, as people have said, it sounds like an awfully ambitious project.

Vince XII and Ghost have pretty much summed up the most workable approach in dividing your story into more managable bite-sized chunks, which will help enormously when constructing the overall plot.

A solidly made short game, containing introductory elements from your story's universe, will definitely go a long way to generating interest in your project, and might prove a far more effective calling card.

EDIT: Are you sure AGS would be the best option for making this game?

[Ghost]

The role-play itself is  more less complete all i would need is a team with enough interest to help turn it into a game all the logs are recorded and we plan to turn it into a series of novels but we dont need tp do that if i can make it into a game

You know, I would start smaller. We've seen all kinds of decent ideas going down the drain because the plans were too ambitious. Take it from me, I know what I'm talking about (hint). Let's see what you got: An RPG-style plot.
RPGs are epic. I mean, like Morrowind-epic. Adventure games are usually more linear, smaller, more compact.
RPGs allow free character development. Adventure games (usually) don't.

So even with a team, you'll have to make some serious decisions. AGS is a great vehicle to transport a lot of games and game types (look at all the abuse in the Non-Adventure section; some of that stuff is brilliant!), but they usually require advanced, skilled scripting. The amount of time you'll have to put into that game- your first game- might wear you out, and you'll have some hard time finding a team with no game on your slate.

So why not take that setting of yours and use it as a background for a small, first game? Show us the world. Make it take place in a capital city with a few, well-crafted locations. Show us some characters. Make a small adventure game.
Then, elaborate.
Then, talk about a series of novels: You can write them, or make them a games series.

All this in good advice: I wish you luck!

[The Hero]

Thanks for the great advice however Even a small game for me is hard my strong suit is not art  mine is story design and SO the last thing i want(due to experience with other attempts). I hate to have this great epic idea and not have the art skill to accurately represent the world
LimpingFish:
Yes I'm sure becayse all thiygh it will be and is a vast world it will focs on one main charter and his views abd whrm i wrote itO wrote it im adventure style

[Khris]

Art is my strong suit.
I have no idea about lighting, composition or color theory.
We'd be a great team.

scnr.

[The Hero]

I assume those who offer help are sarcastic

[Nikolas]

That is most interesting!

When entering this thread, I'm asked for login information to enter www.thexiis.com ! This is fascinating as I know nothing about this site, nor I can get in, no matter how much I'd like to. Furthermore this is the ONLY thread that this is happening, so I have to assume that there is a link somewhere in this thread to that site...

Any ideas anyone?

Or am I going nuts?

[CodeJunkie]

It's Vince's site, and I'm getting it too.  How strange.

[Nikolas]

No it's not Vince's site. vince's site is www.xiigames.com , nothing like thexiis. At all! and I should know about vince's site, having worked with him

EDIT: Why, it is actually! although xiigames works as well, he's linked his avatar to thexiis.com! Weird... Sorry Simb

[LimpingFish]

It is vince. It's his avatar file. http://www.thexiis.com/media/kissattack1.gif <--- This

[The Hero]

On topic please XD

[Vince Twelve]

Sorry guys.  No idea why that was happening.  I have three websites, and one, for reasons I won't get into, is chained to a different, extremely crappy host.  That site is mostly used for holding random files that I want to distribute, because the host is too unreliable for anything of importance.  I don't know what caused this, but I've moved my avatar and sent emails to the support staff.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

And sorry, Branden, for inadvertently hijacking the thread.  Although I don't know that there's anything else to say that hasn't already been said a few times:

-Start with something small.
-Don't worry at first about graphics.  If it plays well and has a great story, people will enjoy it, and it will help you recruit an artist to either redo the graphics or to help you with your next, larger project.
-Good luck.

[Ghost]

Right, back to topic as required.

I still say you should start small. But well, one can hardly make a statement if he himself ignores it 

You seem confident about your story. And you seem to have a lot of it. A good story, or even a decent story that is well presented will make half your game I'd say, and a nice presentation can be done with basic scripting.

You're talking about a finished RPG system. Then tell us: How much RPG will there be in the game. Will there be statistics, attributes? Will we be able to buy and sell weapons, armour? Will there be spells? It would be very helpful if you could describe your system or give us a hint if it is based on, say, Fallout, Diablo, Morrowind, D&D.

You say art isn't your strong suit. That's no problem as a matter of fact because, and that's the beauty of the system, art can be improved. Try a character or a background and put it up in the Critic's Lounge. Then we can start to aid you there.

I'm sorry to repeat myself, but you may need to reveal a bit more if you're looking for help.

[Vince Twelve]

Ghost, you misunderstand him.  He's not planning an RPG.  He's planning an adventure based on a role play.  Not a role playing game.  In this case, the role play was him and his friends creating a fantasy world by acting out characters (hence "role play") over MSN.

[Ghost]

Ah, my bad then. I partly blame this bit of information here:

The role-play itself is  more less complete

So, no RPG whatsoever?

[Vince Twelve]

I think he meant "more or less" which changes the meaning completely.