I have a story idea but I just can't seem to make it work.

[nii07]

The premise of the story is MC gets transported into a terrible RPG game. It's not a bad game per se just generic and the coders messed up focusing on the game's AI and so monsters don't respawn some areas glitch among other problems. Rather than fix their mistake they just trash the game and begin working on a new project that makes them tons of money and eventually shut down the server of the old game. So the MC works to try to change how the game is played before the launch because if the server goes down the entire world goes along with it.

The game is a basic fantasy game with humans, dwarves, elves, and demonkin.
Has a level-up system and classes. With certain classes being locked to a race and hidden ones too.
Players choose from one of the 4 races and get a racial skill. The Demonkin however are a mixed race of different fantasy creatures that were hunted to near extinction so their racial skills can be random and often detrimental.
Of course, MC is a demonkin. The world has favorability so if it goes low enough you can turn NPC against you.

I was thinking of the MC changing the game into a kingdom-building gaming instead.

 

[RepresentingDesire]

Well to look upon similar works and understand how and why they function.
Start to just pile up ideas is some way through Obsidian or Fantasia, if you can come up with a somewhat good understanding of your world and character (in detail) it would be helpful.
Understand how the genre is written and try to make it fitting for the Story you want to tell.
A personal advice would be to make it so that at the end the world was so glitchy that entire parts of the game were corrupted to the point when the reincarnation happens many parts of the world have little resemblance to the old game, this plot point could be interesting.

Ps I'm no Writer yet and have no idea about kingdom build.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I would pick an existing game, if you haven't already, and file the serial numbers off (rename the races and tweak some attributes if you go with, say, Warcraft or Neverwinter Nights or something like that; maybe make the game's name a pun that fans of the game you're using will get but others will probably never get).
Maybe for a twist have the MC be one of the coders for the flawed game, who gets "shoved into" it after butting heads with a superior on cost-cutting or similar measures.

 

[nii07]

I would pick an existing game, if you haven't already, and file the serial numbers off (rename the races and tweak some attributes if you go with, say, Warcraft or Neverwinter Nights or something like that; maybe make the game's name a pun that fans of the game you're using will get but others will probably never get).
Maybe for a twist have the MC be one of the coders for the flawed game, who gets "shoved into" it after butting heads with a superior on cost-cutting or similar measures.

Thanks I didn't consider that.

 

[Arch9CivilReactor]

Kill your Darlings… Look that up on TV Tropes.

 

[nii07]

Kill your Darlings… Look that up on TV Tropes.

I did, but I don't understand what that has to do with this?

 

[Arch9CivilReactor]

If something isn’t fitting together, you set aside the entire idea before putting the pieces back together one by one. You have to make a choice of either making it work, or throwing the idea away (because it doesn’t fit in the bigger picture due to whatever reason). This is especially true when writing a fictional story of a fictional game.

SAO’s anime was fun since it was the first time people saw a visually consistent game world and had a lot of interesting things just from that alone (even if they were simple game mechanics).

It’s way too easy to get bogged down by mechanics and forget the story itself. That’s why it’s better to remove the ‘world building’ for a moment to see what story is being written underneath the explanations of game mechanics.

If they are serving a purpose for the grander narrative, keep it. If not, remove it. Which is why I suggested Kill your Darlings, because every game novel enthusiast must consider it as an option at one point due to their endless creativity at times.

I did, but I don't understand what that has to do with this?

 

[BearlyAlive]

The premise of the story is MC gets transported into a terrible RPG game. It's not a bad game per se just generic and the coders messed up focusing on the game's AI and so monsters don't respawn some areas glitch among other problems. Rather than fix their mistake they just trash the game and begin working on a new project that makes them tons of money and eventually shut down the server of the old game. So the MC works to try to change how the game is played before the launch because if the server goes down the entire world goes along with it.

The game is a basic fantasy game with humans, dwarves, elves, and demonkin.
Has a level-up system and classes. With certain classes being locked to a race and hidden ones too.
Players choose from one of the 4 races and get a racial skill. The Demonkin however are a mixed race of different fantasy creatures that were hunted to near extinction so their racial skills can be random and often detrimental.
Of course, MC is a demonkin. The world has favorability so if it goes low enough you can turn NPC against you.

I was thinking of the MC changing the game into a kingdom-building gaming instead.

You got an underdog race, you got an MC that presumably has some idea about the game? Or no idea at all, and the underdog race gets random skills.
Easiest (and worst) way would be to shoehorn the kingdom-building into the skill with some BS explanation.
You could also incorporate the goal the MC has into his racial skill, like giving him foresight, management ability, or resource generation.
Or you give him something really detrimental and let him BS his way through anyway, like saying he's a prophet or a promised hero while being a farmer/juggler/thug.

General flow of those kinds of story normally is: finding a group of like-minded, running into a problem, getting territory, running into a problem, getting more people, getting more problems, getting more territory, getting even more problems, getting even more territory and people, rinse and repeat until MC is master of the universe or they reached their set main goal (normally happens only MC is ruler of everything everywhere anytime).

 

[nii07]

If something isn’t fitting together, you set aside the entire idea before putting the pieces back together one by one. You have to make a choice of either making it work, or throwing the idea away (because it doesn’t fit in the bigger picture due to whatever reason). This is especially true when writing a fictional story of a fictional game.

SAO’s anime was fun since it was the first time people saw a visually consistent game world and had a lot of interesting things just from that alone (even if they were simple game mechanics).

It’s way too easy to get bogged down by mechanics and forget the story itself. That’s why it’s better to remove the ‘world building’ for a moment to see what story is being written underneath the explanations of game mechanics.

If they are serving a purpose for the grander narrative, keep it. If not, remove it. Which is why I suggested Kill your Darlings, because every game novel enthusiast must consider it as an option at one point due to their endless creativity at times.

Thank you for the advice. I'll take time to really consider the storyline I want to tell.

You got an underdog race, you got an MC that presumably has some idea about the game? Or no idea at all, and the underdog race gets random skills.
Easiest (and worst) way would be to shoehorn the kingdom-building into the skill with some BS explanation.
You could also incorporate the goal the MC has into his racial skill, like giving him foresight, management ability, or resource generation.
Or you give him something really detrimental and let him BS his way through anyway, like saying he's a prophet or a promised hero while being a farmer/juggler/thug.

General flow of those kinds of story normally is: finding a group of like-minded, running into a problem, getting territory, running into a problem, getting more people, getting more problems, getting more territory, getting even more problems, getting even more territory and people, rinse and repeat until MC is master of the universe or they reached their set main goal (normally happens only MC is ruler of everything everywhere anytime).

I wasn't planning on him ruling everything, but rather work to gather all the intelligent Demonkin who the game considered unique monsters and sometimes raid bosses to form a kingdom on their own. As for his racial ability, I was thinking something like the eyes of a banshee. Like his bloodline routed in fae and banshee so he gains those. In the game, they work by allowing the user to check one susceptibility to status aliments which normally require a high-level appraisal scroll to see. However due to the flavor text of the skill he's able to use it ability to see when someone will die and it doesn't work on players who can respawn endlessly. NPC are able to use their racial skills and can awaken the ability of whatever flavor text is in the ability, unlike players.

 

[FeathersUponClouds]

since/if the original game wasn't made with kingdom building in mind

How about making it so that the actions that the character can take is at first very limited to what such a RPG game is coded for and allows.......and the character rather than immediately trying to start kingdom building tries to ' break ' those limitations and do things that you're not supposed to be able to do
( which would give you time to get your bearings and figure things out while still writing the story )

Weird glitches and bugs happening as a result, and areas of the game that weren't developed for like the interior of many buildings are empty nothingness because the developers didn't make anything for those rooms.....but over time, through sheer will and determination......limitations loosen.....glithces and bugs lessens ( where it makes sense ).....places that were once empty nothingess because developers didn't put anything in there......Suddenly there is something there

do you know of the philosophical idea/thought that things exist only because there is a consciouss mind there to observe it ?
that the universe is real and exists BECAUSE we are there to observe it.
Perhaps that RPG game world started out only existing in the realm of fiction and ideas, but through the pressence of a consciouss observer within that world, who through their will and determination made changes and observed and lived there in person.....that consciouss observer make it become real.....and NPCs slowly over time wake_up/'awaken' as though they were in a long dream.
once nothing more than ideas and fiction. They too have become consciouss observers.

A cascading effect where consciouss observers makes the world more real which in turn awakens other NPCs as consciouss observers.
The main character through repeated efforts to ' break ' the code of the game by trying to make things happen that shouldn't be able to happen. Perhaps the mc starts out with an advantage and an edge due to being the only fully sentient being in a world of NPCs....but slowly over time loses that advantage as more and more NPCs ' awaken ' into sentient beings. quite a few who are or becomes more clever than the mc is.

It would make it a race against time where the mc would have to hurry up and realise their ambitions by taking advantage of the situation as much as possible before going from being the only sentient person in a world of NPCs to being.....well.....average. Normal.
Just like everyone else.
As NPCs become sentient and the world stops being a mere work of fiction. The clock is ticking and any glitch/bug/advantage the mc may have at their disposal for exploitation is disappearing before their eyes as exploits and tricks that worked before ceases to be effective as NPCs gain sentience and the emerging reality by itself heals the gaping wounds of faulty code that is the sources of those bugs and glitches.
As a world once bound to fiction ascends to existence.

But those are just ideas. ultimately. How the story is written and told is up to you and what you want to write. Feel free to disregard this comment if it does not suit your needs. And good luck with your story.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Ah yes, I've seen cartoons and was told of a short story like this, but based on pen-and-paper not computer games - the party goes in a direction the DM/GM had not anticipated, opens a door, and finds "a vast white room. The only thing that breaks up the emptiness, is a blue grid that covers everything; the lines of the grid seem to be about ten feet apart, and it seems to go on forever..." (i.e. the graph paper for that part of the dungeon)