Gearhead 2 plot generation talk
Gearhead 2 plot generation talk
Editorial - posted by Saint_Proverbius on Fri 10 March 2006, 20:40:56
Tags: Gearhead 2; Joseph HewittJoseph Hewitt has posted a little background info and other such on the plot generation of Gearhead 2 in the mailing list which I thought was moderately interesting. So, here's the post:
Right now there are six tasks which can be used to
select plot components. A task describes roughly what
I expect the PC to be doing at this point in the core
story. It isn't nessecarily a quest assigned by a NPC,
though it could be. The tasks are "no task",
"investigate encounter", "speak socially with target",
"speak business with target", "locate target NPC", and
"guard scene".
The character I'm playing with doesn't belong to any
faction, so coming up with adventure ideas is more
difficult than if he did. I can make certain
assumptions about a character with a faction: Knights
and Privateers want to fight someone, Pirates want to
steal something. I can also legitimately use NPCs to
boss them around. I can't do either of those things
with unaligned PCs.
Currently I'm building up the "attack by unknown
enemies" plot state. The components involved in this
state should be slightly different depending on the
nature of the PC-aligned faction. If the PC-aligned
faction is the government of the city, the unknown
enemies are attacking the city. If the PCAF is a
corporation, they're attacking the corp's holdings. If
the PCAF is the police, these mecha attacks will be
handled as a criminal matter.
Creating a XRAN episode for GH1 usually took 2-3 days
of work. Creating a simple XXRAN component for GH2 can
be done in about 20-30 minutes. This is because the
new components are individually much smaller than full
adventures and can take advantage of persona fragments
and random scene content.
I'm somewhat concerned that the components I've
written so far aren't dramatic enough. The PC isn't
being given enough choices, and the PC/NPC actions
don't have great enough consequences. I blame this on
the current lack of decent giant robot anime on both
Tooniverse and AniOne.You're probably better off looking at some decent sci-fi for plot ideas anyway. Fundamental plot point ideas probably don't rely on there being giant robotic vehicles anyway. Even plots in more standardized sci-fi that do revolve around something dealing with technology can be hammered to fit in to the stompy robot theme.
Right now there are six tasks which can be used to
select plot components. A task describes roughly what
I expect the PC to be doing at this point in the core
story. It isn't nessecarily a quest assigned by a NPC,
though it could be. The tasks are "no task",
"investigate encounter", "speak socially with target",
"speak business with target", "locate target NPC", and
"guard scene".
The character I'm playing with doesn't belong to any
faction, so coming up with adventure ideas is more
difficult than if he did. I can make certain
assumptions about a character with a faction: Knights
and Privateers want to fight someone, Pirates want to
steal something. I can also legitimately use NPCs to
boss them around. I can't do either of those things
with unaligned PCs.
Currently I'm building up the "attack by unknown
enemies" plot state. The components involved in this
state should be slightly different depending on the
nature of the PC-aligned faction. If the PC-aligned
faction is the government of the city, the unknown
enemies are attacking the city. If the PCAF is a
corporation, they're attacking the corp's holdings. If
the PCAF is the police, these mecha attacks will be
handled as a criminal matter.
Creating a XRAN episode for GH1 usually took 2-3 days
of work. Creating a simple XXRAN component for GH2 can
be done in about 20-30 minutes. This is because the
new components are individually much smaller than full
adventures and can take advantage of persona fragments
and random scene content.
I'm somewhat concerned that the components I've
written so far aren't dramatic enough. The PC isn't
being given enough choices, and the PC/NPC actions
don't have great enough consequences. I blame this on
the current lack of decent giant robot anime on both
Tooniverse and AniOne.
