Plot, Continuing from Ideas. Options

[Sparrowsmith]

The closest thing we have to a plot synopsis can be found here: http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index....st&p=557072
but there is still a lot of work to do.

Mainly, we need to work out some characters. Who are they and, more importantly, how do they behave/develop?

We have a few character outlines:
-The 'main' protagonist. The first one to log off the game/one who returns to his original body in layer 3
-The fighter. One of the two members of the group who does not own the game. He is an adept martial artist of some kind and spends his introduction robbing a warehouse for a copy of the game and then saving the 'main' protagonist from a group of monsters.
-The fighter's accomplice. An unwitting ally. Also doesn't have the game.
-The programmer that shoots the Rogue Program
-The programmer that contacts Matryoska (spell fail) might be the same programmer as above
-The Rogue Program (quite developed, but still a little weak in characterization)

We need to develop these, and make some more, then develop them as characters. I'd rather not have us submitting characters, but trying to work out how these people should act according to their situation.
Let's get these characters worked out, nice and logical like. Also, any additional plot points. We gotta work them out too.

We're kind of slowing down here, let's not have that.

[shinyjiggly]

For programmer's actions in battle, I was thinking that a layer 2 character would have to do something specific to get the layer 3 programmer of their choice to help them slightly. After the layer 2 character does their attention-grabbing action, they can yell out what they want a specific programmer to do (example: Shelly, can make flowers grow on their heads please?).
It would take a couple of turns to activate the mod and sometimes the requested programmer won't be around at the time or they simply won't want to do something stupid like make flowers grow on the monsters' heads or something. Also, sometimes a mod will fail and give the opposite result. Also, a single programmer can only be called upon once per battle and their expertise can only be used if the current characters know about them at that particular part of the story.
Another thing that would happen is that something would eventually undo the mods after a couple of turns of being active. (we would need some in-game reasons for the mods wearing off.)

Now for plot stuff that could go with this system, one of the layer 2 characters eventually would meet an avatar of a layer 3 character that would be willing to help them out and then he give that character a phone number to call him in a pinch. For a while, this layer 2 guy is just fine and dandy, until when the layer 1 monsters start showing up. The first time that he has to battle a layer 1 monster in his layer 2 form, he is nearly wiped out until he calls the phone number. Then suddenly, the monster's head size doubles and it is immobilized! For a while layer 2 guy thinks that the phone number is magic, do to the sparkly effects, but it is later revealed that the phone number is the number to the layer 3 guy's cell phone.
Before then, he might meet a couple other willing avatars of the layer 3 programmers and receive their phone numbers, but their numbers would each only do one specific thing until the plot twist happens. When it does, he'll then be able to choose from a couple different mods from each programmer's number instead of only having one.

Each time a programmer applies a mod, their modding skill goes up by a certain amount, depending on the complexity of the mod and how many times they've done that particular mod before. When they gain more skill, they'll be able to code old mods faster and occasionally come up with new ones.
Sometimes due to certain events that may radically change the codebase of certain things in layer 2, the speed to apply a mod will be reset back to default, not affecting the availability of newly added mods. Also, certain monsters might have more anti-mod encryption than others, which would slow down the speed of mod application as well.

Hopefully there's enough plot hidden away in this chunk of gameplay mechanics to rationalize it being in the plot thread.