so now we have our story made by uberbeard. We need to plan for the maps a loose out line would be to have one big map as the castle and other maps to surround it. Its just our luck that we have the amazing Hale helping (yep thats right HALE). so from now on (11/29/09) we will discuss maps and ideas of what they should look like. Happy thinking.I've been mapping out an image of five rival houses, or nobles if you like. They're all pretty snooty, and they're not particularly well liked, but they don't really care because all these houses really spend their time doing is trying to get one over on the other houses. My story revolves around two of these houses, both very well known for their extreme characters (which have no names, at the moment, because I have no desire to attach corny fantasy names to them).
In some place, "the southern hills" whatever, lives a king who has become so paranoid about being attacked that he has had a fortress built in a most unimaginable place ever, on the side of a mountain overlooking a lake. His home was designed with security in mind, he's bizzarely worried about being assassinated, why? Nobody really knows, he's not a bad king, in fact he's not really important in any sense (because I use the term King as a title, he's not a royal in the classical feudal sense (and things like this need neatening up)). And so the story travels of this paranoid power, and it's pretty amusing.
A character I very much want to call Baccus hears about this, Baccus being the male head of a matriarchal society, or a village, and another member of one of the noble houses. Baccus is a drunkard and a womanizer, but is quite often publically humiliated for it by his wife who (is the queen?). He's not a serious man, and he's not really a nice man. Upon finding out that the king from the southern hills is so paranoid (possibly a direct paranoia relating to Baccus, because it would be nice if there was a pre-established relationship between the two) he finds the whole thing unbelievably hilarious and promptly spends most of his money hiring three assassins to scare the living shit out of the king from the southern hills.
The character you play as being one of these assassins, and preferably the most capable one too. It turns out Baccus does not want you to kill the king, but instead take one of his most prized possessions, an amulet which he wears round his neck at all times.
I should say now that I envision more gameplay then just the infiltration of the king from the southern hill's fortress, but that you will be returning to this one area three times, with each subsequent revisit having subtle changes in the layout, and massive changes in the security (getting harder each time, but with different ways of doing stuff).
I'd like the other two assassins to come into it at some point, too, possibly a face off involving them trying to simplify the job a bit after you've done it. This could even be quite formulaic, one at the end of each chapter.
Upon success, the king becomes more paranoid and boosts up his security, spreading rumors about the land. Baccus, being so pleased with your performance, wants you to do another job. Put the amulet back! As if it had never gone, making the king seem even crazier (super points being awarded if you can stealth it).
So the game is afoot once more, but this time I'd like to trick the players, get them trying the same tactic as they might have used the first time only to have it backfire. I think mapping and talking about what's possibly might formulate this a little more. Anyway, the story goes that you manage to get the amulet back.
Once again, Baccus is pleased, so he sets a THIRD challenge, this time? Bind and gag the kings wife, and take her back to Baccus... for... whatever. Yeah. Anyway, the money IS good, so why not eh? It'll be a laugh, or you could say no and end the campaign right there but that's totally not as fun.
You make your way to the kings room once again, through a remixed fort, only to be apprehended the moment you get in by Baccus himself, who boasted the week before to the king that he could do a better job of catching the thief who has been taking his amulet. So you were trapped by the pig, it'd be pretty good if he was actually a pig, too, and you're carted off.
Not sure how to end it in a way that is actually satisfying. I really want Baccus to be murdered by his own wife, who is just fed up with him being a complete dick and decides she's going to take a new husband (possibly the PC, but that's a bit obvious) and that can be included but there should be a more player centric way of escaping from captivity. Anyway, those are the thoughts on the FIRST story I had planned, I have another based on an old japanese fable, but you wouldn't want to swallow that down after a hefty lump like that.
PS. feel free to talk to me about this on irc my nick is jesse.
EDIT:
Here is our "To Do" list.
• Finalize the storyline.
• Fit the storyline to a series of levels.
• Prepare for map production. (Make any textures, models, or characters if needed)
• Actually make the maps
• String them together.
• Finalize everything.
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