"Totally not the Witcher" – a lore concept by ElvenNeko

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Hi. This is the post-mortem for the "Open letter to CDPR" post that were closed by the mods (i talked with him and he said it will be ok to open this one, so please do not close it, it's not a spam). We won't continue the discussion from there here. Instead, i wanted to say - Hiperion was right when he said:

You post SHORT amazing idea, part of script, story, dialogue etc. short enough to be in one post here.

And this is what i will do here! Bellow, you will see a lore concept that's written by me and will be able to judge it.

Just be aware of few things:

1) It's a lore concept. There is no plot. And no game design (except for few features that's connected with lore). It's not a complete work, and more like just an idea.

2) It's short. A lot of names (like "The Order", or "The Hunter") are nothing but dumb placeholder. To make something bigger i would have to work on it for more than just one day. And also probably write a text that won't fit in 1k symbols, when i was asked to not extent that limit.

3) It was made while i tried to challenge myself by accepting the specific task, and it was "Take a popular game, take one of it's core features, and make a new lore around it so it would not feel like a ripoff". The game i chose was The Witcher series (that's why i think that posting this concept on this forums are quite fitting, even tho i never originally planned to share it with anyone because it was just an experiment), and the core feature - "In a world infested by monsters, a mutants fight them to protect humanity that hates and fears them in return". Do i achieved my goal of making it original enough, while keeping the core feature, or it still fells like an attempt to copy The Witcher for you? You are welcome to share your thoughts about it.

I would not kept your waiting any longer, but i tried really hard by cutting it here and there to make it "short enough to be in one post here" (and forced it into 9928 characters), so i totally forgot about another thing and made a mistake by not counting the introduction part, what you are reading right now. So once again i need someone to leave a comment, and then - i will post the whole thing at once, just like i was asked to!

p.s. Thanks to everyone for advices that were given back there, but let's talk here only about the concept, so this post won't be closed. Please!
 
In this world technical revolution just began, gunpowder was only invented a bit of time ago, but progress of humanity was violently interrupted by "The Arrival" event. First, a giant meteor felt from the sky, destroying all life in huge radius around it. Then, all expeditions sent to investigate it never returned back. And, finally, monsters started appearing – some very alien, creatures previously unseen on this planet, while the others seemed to be mutated humans, but everyone shared the same trait – they were praying on people. At first, it does not seemed like a large threat – but eventually humans discovered that those who were wounded by one of the monsters became infected and eventually turned into one of them.

Since gunpowder were a recent discovery, and amount of muskets and cannons were limited (not to mention that bullets barely hurt creatures that were able to regenerate their lost limbs back), melee combat was the most reliable way to fight the invaders, but also the most dangerous ones, because every wound were fatal. In great panic after millions of deaths humanity split into two parts: the biggest one built huge walls around every major city (turning them into a city-states with their own laws and culture) and hiding behind them ever since, protecting the cities with cannons and musketeer squads (who don’t have to engage In close combat), leaving rest of the planet for the monsters, and there is also a minority who chose to adapt and hide their settlements in the forests, mountains, and other remote places of the world, living a half-savage lives. The only ways of communication were zeppelins and air balloons (slow, unstable, and vulnerable to flying monster attacks), armored trains (that were easy to ambush, while tracks were hard to maintain), and small parties of reckless people who dared to travel on horses.

But like it wasn’t enough, soon people found out that more intelligent types of monsters appeared – some of them can even mimic humans they devoured, infiltrate the cities, and live there pretending to be humans, while preying at unsuspecting citizens at night. This caused new wave of panic and cities became even more separated from each other – because every person that comes from outside world has to go trough the series of tests to prove that it’s a human, everyone was afraid of their neibhoors.

This is the part where "The Order" steps in – they are group of scientists (and madmans) who did all kinds of research on the monsters, before they noticed interesting fact about their behavior: some of the human-like monsters seemed to show signs of past life instincts, and one of them were attraction to human females – often before killing them they were trying to rape them. Further research showed that the semen from these creatures do not cause females to be infected, and can even make them pregnant.

Of course, what was born in the result were far from normal human. Pregnancy period were fast – only several months, but during it mother rapidly lost weight and strength, becoming so weak that she can’t even move when it’s time to give birth. Creatures inside them are also bigger than human child and often are very deformed – so they cannot be born in normal way, instead they start eating their mothers from inside, and poor women becoming their first meal in this world.

But despite all that, creatures that are born this way still have the intellect of the human, and can be taught just like any normal human – despite growing very fast and becoming an adult in just several years, during those years they are able to learn more than normal child would learn in a decade or two. All of them have unique mutations (and potential to develop even more) that serve as great help in battle against monsters, and, what’s most important – they completely immune to their infection, that makes them the best weapon against the alien threat. So, The Order keeps abducting women to produce and train more of those creatures they call "Hunters" before releasing them to the public.

(Of course, they keep they way they are created a secret, and at some point of the game player who will discover it might face a key choice: either reveal truth to the world and destroy the reputation of The Order, turning most cities against it, but making humanity weak without Hunters, or keeping their secret, but being responsible for all the people they will sacrifice in their experiments in the future).

No Hunter is the same – each has unique set of mutations given to him upon birth, and even more that he can develop during his life.

Some of them are very human-like – for example, the only surface thing that differs them from the humans might be having dozen of eyes on their face, so simply wearing a mask (in this particular case), or somehow otherwise hiding their mutations would make most humans unable to understand that they are facing the Hunter. They will be able to complete some quests in more social ways – persuasion, maybe even seduction. But beware – opinion about you will quickly change as soon as the people will find out who you really are! Battle mutations of this kind of Hunters are usually hidden (like bone blades that can come out from the arms, small wings) and not very powerful, instead they rely on agility and brain-related mutations, that allowing them, for example, react a lot faster than everyone else (for them it looks like slowed time), restore events of the past based on clues, etc.

Other type of Hunters are more or less monstrous – huge bodies, additional hands or tentacles, monstrous faces, fur or scales – it’s very hard to hide their identity, and people are usually react to them with fear, hatred and disgust. Playing as one of them will be somehow similar to playing as Nosferatu in VTMB – you won’t get much from conversations, but you still can intimidate people, and also you are a very powerful fighter who can take the most enemies head on.

But there is one more thing about Hunters that scare people the most – all of them have to eat (or at least drink a lot of blood, I don’t know what option is better) humans to survive. They are strong enough to spent weeks without any food, but eventually they will start growing weaker if they won’t eat someone. For that reason all towns agreed to give their prisoners (usually those who are sentenced to death) as a food for the Hunters.

How it’s supposed to work gameplay wise? You have a progression limiters. To develop your character further and become stronger in combat – you must eat humans. Actually, any humans, but actions of Hunters are monitored closely, and if someone will notice you eating innocent person and report that – game will end because you will be marked as a rogue by The Order and other Hunters will track you down and kill. But nothing forbids you to live up to the horrible reputation of the Hunters are, let’s say – eat a lone traveler on the road (or anyone else, as long as it will go unnoticed), if you want to achieve power this way. But legally you will be allowed to eat only offered prisoners or people who will volunteer for that (for example, dying ones that want to help your cause – yes, not everyone in the world hate the Hunters). But there is also a trick: let’s say you arrived in town, and authorities give you a you that you can eat. But this guy claims that he is innocent, and corrupted authorities of the town just want to get rid of him this way. Is he speaking the truth, or maybe he is lying to save his life? Will you spend time to investigate, possibly provoking a conflict with authorities of the city, and gaining nothing in return, or you will just eat him anyway because you don’t care? All of that will be up to player to decide. If player will eat only those who already dying or really guilty in their crimes – he will still be able to survive, but his character would be much weaker, making the game harder to play. That’s the price of kindness – will you give up your power in order to make the right thing?

But anyway, after player will eat enough – with the help of special elixirs they will be able to develop new mutations. They work pretty much the same as augmentation systems in cyberpunk games, but instead of just replacing your external and internal parts with new you will be also able to grow additional ones – extra set of hands for more weapons, tentacle to use as a grappling hook, extra heart to resurrect in combat, wings, claws, gills – anything that fits your character’s archetype. It’s even possible that brain mutations would allow supernatural abilities like telekinesis – but I am not sure that any kind of magic would suit this world.

And there is a final detail about Hunters – all of them are seeing weird dreams, and most of them are about Living Forest – anomaly zone that spreads around the crater of the meteor that caused monster plague. People say that even trees in this forest are mutated and attacking humans that dare to enter. The anomaly zone slowly spreads, giving humans another reason to panic – but no human expedition has ever returned from this forest, and the only Hunter who did became insane and was destroyed by other Hunters. Discovering the secrets that lay in the center of Living Forest may be the end-game plot.

And here you are – half human, half monster. What side will prevail? Will you cling to your humanity, or do what’s needed to be done whatever means necessary? A lot of tough opponents will stand in your way – from smart and agile, to huge, like mountains, that forcing people to evacuate the cities if one of them chose to walk through it, destroying everything on its path. And monsters aren’t the only threat – many resourceful humans won’t mind using power of the Hunter in their own conflicts, while others (like the "Purity " organization, that’s against half-breeds) will plot against you or even try to assassinate you. What will you do? Who will you become?
 

Sild

Ex-moderator
Sounds.. interesting. You can tell it's inspired by Sapkowski works but considerably darker and bleaker, with a steampunk(?) twist. The player in this case would also be playing something much closer to an actual monster. The moral conflict of feeding on people or staying weak, reminds me a bit of Vampyr and how it was playing the role of Dr. Jonathan Reid. The Order's members origins are rather grim. It means you're going to get hit with some of the most limiting AV ratings around. I would also make The Order's recruiting methods more easy to sympathize with. Still, solid effort.
 
So, this is a lore concept that would fit in a game, right?

There's several reasons why someone would want to play a game, and broadly speaking I'd say these are a combination of interesting mechanics, or an interesting story. Either extreme or a careful balance of the two would do. The really brilliant games manage to blend the both in a way that no other medium can.

The problem with this pitch, is that I'm not seeing anything that would make either the mechanical or the possible storytelling parts stand out in the ocean of games we already have, or anyone else could come up with.


You like to compare this pitch to that of The Witcher games, right? So can I imagine this to be an RPG?


Mechanically

The very problem with RPGs is that they never manage to stand out from a mechanical point of view. They're pretty much all Dungeons and Dragons derivatives with a few extras slapped on. V's ability in Cyberpunk 2077 to strap on a short burst flamethrower, isn't all that different from Geralt's ability to unleash a fire spell. They're all just stats, given to a player character with skills and abilities, set in a world with a certain ruleset, pitted against enemies with their own stats and skills.

I don't care how you dress up the reasons for these abilities and skills existing, but this is NEVER the most interesting part of an RPG. I don't care if you're a witcher imbibing potions and mutagens in a Witcher game, a vampire staving off hunger by guzzling vitae in the Masquerade and casting blood magic, or a vault dweller staving of radiation sickness by gathering Radaway in Fallout and strapping on a suit of Power Armor.

Mechanically, all your lore pitch does, is simply change the set-dressing, without giving us an RPG that's unique or different in any way. Even if the mutation of wings would give us the ability to leap across cities, a game like Elder Scroll Oblivion did much the same with magic, and doing something as cool as having a giant wreck a city, is something everyone has already thought of, but with the industry not having the technology to reproduce. From within the perspective of game mechanics, the same could also be achieved with technology or magic.



Story

Storywise, your lore also doesn't stand out from anything.

Let me summarize your lore:

There's a world on the verge of industrial revolution
Meteor falls from the sky and causes disaster
Antagonist Monsters appear and cause chaos
Protagonist has a relation to the antagonistic force - a very mysterious connection
This relation and their identity puts them at odds with the normal world
Whatever happens next? Can the hero save their own identity under these circumstances?


This formula in itself, is nothing special. It is just the basis of every other hero story already out there, and it has served as the foundation of many RPGs. Just a few examples from both other games and popular culture:

(Vampire the Masquerade)
There's a world where vampires live hidden among human society.
Great big bad awakes and seeks to upset the balance.
Allies of the big bad cause chaos
Protagonist has a relation to the antagonistic force
Their identity puts them at odds with the normal world.
Whatever happens next? Can the hero save their own identity under these circumstances?

(Final Fantasy 7)
There's a world where the world is dominated by the Shinra Electric company.
One of their legendary heroes goes mad and causes disaster.
Antagonist monsters appear and cause chaos.
Protagonist has a relation to the antagonist force - a very mysterious connection
This relation and their identity puts them at odds with the normal world
Whatever happens next? Can the hero save their own identity under these circumstances?

(Attack on Titan)
There's a medieval world.
Titans appear and start eating humanity.
Protagonists has a relation to the antagonist force - a very mysterious connection
This relation and their identity puts them at odds with the normal world
Whatever happens next? Can the hero save their own identity under these circumstances?

(Game of Thrones)
There's a medieval world.
White Walkers appear.
Noble houses quarrel amongst themselves and cause chaos.
Protagonist has a relation to the antagonist force - a very mysterious connection
This relation and their identity put them at odds with the normal world
Plot Twist! Never mind the White Walkers. But what happens next? Can the hero save their own identity under the circumstances?

(Lord of the Rings)
There's a peaceful shire of happy hobbits
Sauron reemerges
Wring wraith and orcs and goblins cause chaos
Protagonist has a relation to the antagonist force
This relation and their identity put them at odds with the normal world
Whatever happens next? Can the Frodo save their own identity under these circumstances?

There's X
X appear!
X causes upheaval to the normal function of the world!
X has a relation to the X!
This causes X's identity to be at odds with the normal world!
How will X resolve this!

It's all pretty formulaic and anyone in this forum could come up with 20 of these in an hour flat, and using far less than a thousand words.

There's a futuristic world
An massive magical tree pops up.
Magical Angels appear and cause chaos.
A girl with magical ability has the same symbols as on the bark of the tree!
She's been an outcast in the world of technology all her life because of her magical powers!
Will she make butter peanut sandwiches with the angels, or will she finally buy an iPhone?


You've done the bit where you've followed a well-worn formula into a rough set-up and to be honest, I struggle to see how you'd make an interesting story of it from there on. It sticks rather close to a lot of tropes, but maybe you can prove me wrong.

At the very heart of a good RPG, is the story it's trying to tell. The characters, the plot and the storyline, and how it interweaves with the lore. It's what it's trying to say about human nature and how it manage to make us see the world we live in from a new light. THAT'S the hard part which would impress me and spoiler alert: Fantasy isn't about lore or Fantasy in of itself.

Cyberpunk isn't about the gadgets or the amount of grime on the neon-lit streets either - it's about a person making their way through a hyper techno-capitalist world that has seen socio-economic collapse. A cautionary tale of our own world, rather than lore carried by technobabble.
Tolkien wasn't about the elves. You're not going to succeed at telling a better story by making your elves slightly different. Tolkien was about history being cyclical, generations passing on the burdens of the past and how the small momentary comforts of friendship and fellowship can help alleviate it.


I also suspect that you may be putting the horse before the cart. Coming up with lore is easy. Bad games like Anthem bury us in it. Why don't you come up with a good story first, and then try to make the lore fit around the story? Lore should help the story, rather than the other way around.

Right now there's little here that makes for a good game pitch. Neither mechanics, nor story.
 
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Yeah, I’m sorry but that doesn’t sound very convincing.

Perhaps the better path could be, since you’ve said you put a lot of thought in your work, to try and figure out how to step out from the generic mass rather than trying to gently polish and recolour it like it was an easter egg. Both narratively and mechanically. I.e. step out from the tropes as much as you can.

The ”cataclysm brings monsters to the world” is not a very original premise and it’s hard to pour intrigue into something generic when the first impression might already be on the negative or ”uninterested” side.

At the very heart of a good RPG, is the story it's trying to tell.

I agree with your post otherwise, but this I do not. It’s the wideness and reactiveness of the experience as a whole that’s at the heart. The story can well be as subtle as it possibly can just as long as it gives the role the player s roleplaying as a reason to exist and move forward. Mechanics play a huge role in the overall experience if a game is what is desired instead of interactive storytime.
 
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I agree with your post otherwise, but this I do not. It’s the wideness and reactiveness of the experience as a whole that’s at the heart. The story can well be as subtle as it possibly can just as long as it gives the role the player s roleplaying as a reason to exist and move forward. Mechanics play a huge role in the overall experience if a game is what is desired instead of interactive storytime.

Interesting! I must admit to a certain amount of bias as to what an RPG is, since I only pick those with a strong overarching narrative - usually starring a protagonist with a predetermined personality. I sense a hint of the old "what is an rgp?" debate in your reaction and I estimate you're firmly in the camp of those who say that RPG protagonists should be blank slates whose character is fully up to the player to mold.

I respect that definition and from that perspective, you're right. A ridig central narrative will only serve to restrict player choice and it's more important for the protagonist's surrounding to be reactive towards player choice, rather than serve a narrative.

I'm less comfortable making statements on these kinds of RPGs (let's call them player driven RPGs) since they're somewhat out of my wheelhouse, but could you agree with this then:

If not for a central story, it still serves player driven RPGs to have a strong central theme.


Let's take Cyberpunk 2077 for instance. Indeed, Geralt is gone and the world's greatest storybeats do not revolve around Geralt's personal foibles. The game's greatest events now revolve around V's actions and the player's decisions. However, the world of Cyberpunk still isn't all about the gadgets and the technological abilities that the player chooses for V to equip. At its heart, a Cyberpunk setting is still about deeper underlying themes such as corporate hegemony, social economic unrest , the interfacing of technology with human identity, etc.

Even if it's a player driven RPG, such an RPG will still work best when it interacts with these underlying themes. V is more of a blank slate and the world more reactive, true, but all the choices made are still at their best when they form a reaction to the moral questions of Cyberpunk - which are corporate hegemony, social economic unrest, the interfacing of technology with human identity, etc.

In essence, even a good player driven RPG is still deeper than its mechanics. More important is the underlying themes that give the player's roleplaying a reason to exist and move forward. If so, then that's still storytelling by different, more flexible means.
 
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I would also make The Order's recruiting methods more easy to sympathize with

They are like that to not make it easy. They should not have your sympathy, you can hate them but still understand why they did what they did, and help them cover their actions for the sake of humanity. Or you may say "screw compromises" and sell them out, but either way you will have to live with consequences. Do you believe in sacrificing minority to save the majority? What evil seems lesser to you? In this choice, i wanted to leave player with negative consequences regarless of what he choses.

The problem with this pitch, is that I'm not seeing anything that would make either the mechanical or the possible storytelling parts stand out in the ocean of games we already have, or anyone else could come up with.

Not all games need to stand out. Some have to be just really good - and it would already put them above many others. Also i asked to notice that there is no gameplay or story concept - it's just a lore, but it has the potential for gameplay possibilities. Just think about dynamic battle system with all possible mutations player's character can have - this will not only make battle stylish and impressive looking, but also have classes that are having really different combat - this is a common thing for crpg's, but not for slasher type of games (for example, it does not matter what kind of branch you level up in Witcher - you still will swing your sword around a lot).

Just a few examples from both other games and popular culture:

Your first example is the best RPG ever created (IMHO, but many people think so as well). The others are pretty strong titles too. So this comparsion kinda... proves my point? It's a good setting for an RPG with uneasy choices and grim, unforgiving world that also has lots of opportunities to have interesting quests and story. Does anything else matters?

Coming up with lore is easy.

I know that. It seems like it's you who expected a bit too much from a simple lore concept that took one day to write, and (unlike all my other work) were based on already existing title. I published it exactly because it has no value, but it still displays my ability to write lore that makes sense and can host interesting gameplay mechanics. People asked me to show at least something, even if it will be one of my worst works - and so i did.

Right now there's little here that makes for a good game pitch.

That was not the game pitch. I would never pitch something that does not even have a complete story or gameplay. And i will also never do it publicly, because nobody would make a game from published script.

Please, remember: what was my task here? Not to write a compelling story. Not to make a good gameplay concept. The task was:

"Take a popular game, take one of it's core features, and make a new lore around it so it would not feel like a ripoff"

And now the question is: how i did that?

People said that i don't have enough stuff to show apart from the game i made, because the game is too long to look at. They told me that everything would do - a small story, dialogue, anything that's short - just to give a taste, so developers might want to see my real work. I chose it to be the lore concept along with a very specific task attached to it, to show how closely i can follow instructions. Maybe i chose poorly and it's really bad. But at least try to judge it for what it is.

The ”cataclysm brings monsters to the world” is not a very original premise

Yet it was part of the task. I had pretty limited choice in regard of how to infect world with monsters (like task demanded), so i just chose my favorite (sci-fi) method, instead of, for example - opening portals. There were also some other options, like genetic experiment gone wrong - but it would not only require to change tech level to more advanced one (and it will lead to even more changes in setting), but also would remove a very good thematic of first contact with alien civilization and attempts of humanity to understand or confront it.

V is more of a blank slate

It's hard to say without seeing the actual game, for from gameplay movies that's already shown - it's not really true. Or at least for me it seemed like V has more or less set personality (certain attitude for responces in dialogues), and there is just not enough dialogue options to change it, to role-play someone else. If you want the game about forming personality from blank state - look at Disco Elysium, you will hardly find better example of that. (Also a side note - that game also starts with a super-overused cliche of amnesiac hero, but it uses it so good that it does not matter at all).
 
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I believe Neko's point is that this was not intended to be a revolutionary piece of writing. It was intended to use some common tropes. I mean, the post is called "Totally Not The Witcher," for goodness sake, that should make it obvious.
 
They are like that to not make it easy. They should not have your sympathy, you can hate them but still understand why they did what they did, and help them cover their actions for the sake of humanity. Or you may say "screw compromises" and sell them out, but either way you will have to live with consequences. Do you believe in sacrificing minority to save the majority? What evil seems lesser to you? In this choice, i wanted to leave player with negative consequences regarless of what he choses.

I know. I took it into account when I made the suggestion.

Think of it like this: if you are thrown into the shoes of a member of this Order, would it be an interesting experience to say, add another recruit to the ranks? What would such a quest entail and look like? From what you said, going through something like that would be such a gruesome experience that it would be overly hypocritical of the main premise of the game, which is, I assume, fighting monsters for humanity?. What does that say of those that are the so called protectors of humanity the player is supposed to be part of.

I could see them recruiting members by catching wind of certain events that would hint at the appearance of a young hybrid. Scared, alone, unpredictable and highly dangerous. They track it, go after it, maybe even need to fight it or others, that are trying to end it then bring it back to the world's Kaer Morhen equivalent.

The fact that they need to feed of off the living is conflicting in itself whithout the added weight of being an involuntary participant in what is basically human torture and sacrifice. Would seem the only "good" outcome would be to burn down everything.

Basically what I'm saying is that in my opinion it would better to tone down the bleakness where the player is involved. Make the choices tough, yes, but not just bad choices, give him something to strive for and not, for those so inclined. Would open up the audience a bit.
 
Your first example is the best RPG ever created (IMHO, but many people think so as well). The others are pretty strong titles too. So this comparsion kinda... proves my point? It's a good setting for an RPG with uneasy choices and grim, unforgiving world that also has lots of opportunities to have interesting quests and story.

My point was that this is not what makes these titles what they are. I suppose I should've thrown some stinkers from games and popular culture in there for for good measure too. Ride to Hell: Retribution and Twilight come with the exact same formula before completely flubbing the delivery. The point is that just about everyone managed to get to this point and that anyone on this forum could've done what you just did. Maybe CDPR should hire us all.


Does anything else matters?

Yes. Everything else matters more than this. After this is when the actual work begins.


Not all games need to stand out. Some have to be just really good - and it would already put them above many others.

Being put above others is kinda the definition of standing out, both figuratively and literally.


That was not the game pitch
...
They told me that everything would do - a small story, dialogue, anything that's short - just to give a taste, so developers might want to see my real work.

So it's not a pitch, but it is designed to draw major attention?

So you're posting this so others can judge you (maybe get more dev attention), while at the same time, not producing anything that can easily be judged, since you readily agreeing that it has little value (but CDPR should nonetheless pay attention), and that the things that are valuable are not here.


It seems like it's you who expected a bit too much from a simple lore concept that took one day to write

YES! I think I can completely agree with that and I'd like to sincerely apologize for it.

I'm sorry, but after the passion shown in the Open Letter thread and the length of the lore concept, I was expecting something more. Right now I am... feeling somewhat deflated.

But that's my problem and you're right! You've completely succeeded in creating a concept that is so breathtaking in its simplicity that anyone can be behind it. I've just been taking this way too seriously. I mean, you're right not to post your best efforts straight away. Nobody would want to make a game of something published. And although the devs might be busy with one of the most anticipated games this year, have heart, for it is as you said: You don't need to stand out to be put above many others. I'm sure this simple concept will get notice!

Best of luck!


I believe Neko's point is that this was not intended to be a revolutionary piece of writing. It was intended to use some common tropes. I mean, the post is called "Totally Not The Witcher," for goodness sake, that should make it obvious.

Yes, I know. Didn't pick up on the sarcasm of the title. I'm feeling properly silly.

I'm going to leave ElvenNeko's endeavors alone for now. Maybe spend more time in all the amateur writing forums I used to visit. At times like these, I miss those.
 
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I sense a hint of the old "what is an rgp?" debate in your reaction and I estimate you're firmly in the camp of those who say that RPG protagonists should be blank slates whose character is fully up to the player to mold.

Not my intention ("What's an RPG?"). And I'm not really "firmly" in a blank slate camp either. I don't know what's your understanding on what a blank slate is, so there's that too.

A character can be a blank slate (e.g. the protagonists in TES games), but those kinds of games kinda require that the player, through his actions, can create the definition that's not (Bethesda doesn't do that, because it would require cumulatively growing limits and actual consequences from a reactive world and that's not in their interest). The best characters have some definition behind them. The key word being "some". And that means that the definition doesn't interfere with the players intention about creating different characters nor interacting with the gameworld and the narrative accordingly. Games such as the Witcher and Mass Effect go too far in their definitive push about the narrative to really allow the player make his own mind and see what happens. Games like Fallout (1&2) do it just about right.

But you get the gist. I don't want to invade and derail this thread further.
 
I like the concept. Not anything super-new, but a likable piece of grimdark.

Have you ever considered writing for the actual pen&paper tabletop RPGs, not the virtual ones? They take much less people to be done; if you do the lore, all you need is another person with interesting mechanics in mind to partner you and some players willing to test your stuff out. If they like it, you can start a Patronite or Kickstarter for your project; you can publish the corebook for free or a couple of $, and then sell supporting adventures and fluff for patrons. This way people play your stuff and you have some income from your writing.
 
Steampunk meets Destiny?

I think CDPR should do Sons of Anarchy or Mayans MC style motorbike game, and Vampire game, thats if they wamt to hire more staff or open new studios. That should give them own nice spot in game industry without going head to head with any other bigger gaming company. I would also turn Witcher series little bit darker like Diablo.
 
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Have you ever considered writing for the actual pen&paper tabletop RPGs, not the virtual ones?

I never played any tabletop games in my life. In my small city there is no clubs or anything else related to this thematic. So i cannot involve myself with something i don't know at all. Also i don't think that my stories and gameplay would fit for any kind of a text-based games, since all of them require visuals for different reasons - either to make a story elements more powerful, or to implement unique mechanics that rely on very specific visual effects.

This way people play your stuff and you have some income from your writing.

I don't really care about income. I earn 60$ per month from my disability pension, and that money is enough to stay alive. If i would ever have profit from a video game i created, i would either share it between development team, or invest it into the next game.
 
Tabletop RPGs are not really different from virtual ones :) stuff like stats and classes exist there too. The plot takes form of scenarios and campaigns (I can send you one later to show how it looks). Visuals are rare, but can take form of illustrations that GM shows the players at certain points.
 
Ok, i probably chose a poor set of words to explain myself again. Theoretically i know how they work (since i love d&d as a setting for video games and books, while also watching some movies like Stranger Things where people played tabletop games), what i do not know, it's... how to say... their game design? I believe that one of the reasons why i could make a good video game - is because i played thousands of them, i know every little detail that makes them good, or frustrates player beyond reason, and i know how to build a good story around gameplay elements. Even if tabletops are not that different, i still cannot make something that i never even tried - that's first. Second would be importancy of visual part - i don't think that any of my concepts would be even half as good without visuals, or i would create visual novels or text rpg's instead. The reasons for that is always different - one game needs visuals to implement unique gameplay mechanics that's impossible without them, the other needs it to show cruelties of war in most frightening details, and there is even a concept of online pvp game, that would be simply impossible to play without matchmaking system and some other things only the video game can provide.

Take almost any game, for example - Jedi Fallen Order (first that comes in mind, the game i am playing right now), and then think how it would be played if it was a tabletop game. Would it be a good game? Maybe. Would it be the same game that gives same feelings to the player? That i really doubt.
 
You have a point, but see: we don't have any visuals on the totally-not-witcher world you've described yet despite of it we are able to like it based on concept alone ;)

That said, I understand that your dream is to tell the stories specifically through the video games.
 
Yes, but it's because it's only a lore, it can even be adapted for any kind of game, including a tabletop one. You can even make a variety of games based on singular lore, because lore does not restrain you from changing gamelay elements.

But if you add a story with more or less specific gameplay concept - it may become better, but already not suitable for most of the genres.

Few of my stories are flexible enough to become anything, ranging from rpg and ending on space sim, but even they still need elements of a video game to function well. The others are tied to one specific genre - for example, "Traitors" despite having a setting that can be easily tweaked (mostly for visuals and atmosphere that dev team will want to make the most), still can be only a shooter, and a first-person one, because otherwise many strong parts of both story and gameplay would be impossible to implement. Yes, video games are so much harder to create, but in return they allow some really magnificent storytelling methods, especially if you will learn to combine them.
 
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