I'm Curious... Options

[DementedCashew]

I'm curious as to what your techniques are for your storytelling and writing aspects in your game, a full-blown plot or some makeshift dialouge that you don't care if it's crappy or not?

[amaro57]

I generally prefer to tie my story around my setting, not tailor settings to my story... if that makes any sense.

I've done a fair bit of research and have some knowledge of the hero's journey structure and other such basis of storytelling thanks to some of the wonderful people here.

It may be unorthodox, but I generally like to have the settings throughout the journey already set and plug the characters into it. I don't build a journey around the characters but rather I build characters from the journey. It's from there that I can get a story to flow, big or small. It's not a case of designating the protagonist(s) family/friends as the conflict and have the embark on a journey due to that, but rather already have a journey in-place. It's not fixed to the characters or tailored to them, but rather the conflicts I present will ultimately shape the characters in the end; how they react to the journey. My main weakness is still dialogue though, it's a bit tough to figure out how to make a game focused on gameplay but with a decent story without too much texts/visual novel like scenes between figures.

So it would go something like design the world > design the journey > input the characters and have them figure out the way from the start of the maze (journey) to the end.

I know I'm sounding contradictory, but it's also helpful to get inspiration from the hero's journey and that will involve some of the journey being tailored to push the characters one way or another. It's how it works really, if you were trying to climb a large mountain just for one big incentive at the top, then it better be pretty big, else the characters may be inclined to just stop half-way and return. Imagine yourself a Game Master and the characters controlled by RPers, because that's what designing an RPG is! You have to entice your players and build your campaign into the best one possible!