Some thoughts on igrostroeniya or how to make banality more interesting

Despite. that igrostroy does not stand still, we regularly encounter a few (or many) hackneyed stories. Go there - clean the dungeon from evil, go here - bring the ingredients for the great elixir. And so 30 times per game. I think this is familiar to almost everyone.

In this article, I will try to show ways to improve a hackneyed plot. The article is intended for beginners Game-masters, and may be interesting to everyone who is fond of game building. The request to experienced dungeon masters to perceive it not as an attempt to teach to live, but as another look at where everyone started from.

So, we take the classic plot:
During a difficult journey, Hero's favorite horse injures his leg. To his great happiness, there is a village nearby, in which, quite possibly, there is someone knowledgeable in treating horses or, at worst, another favorite horse of the Hero. The villagers advise the Hero to turn to the Local Healer. The local Sorceress sympathizes with the Hero and is ready to help him, but the trouble is that she does not have Very Important Red Leaves that grow in the Glade of the First Roses. The hero courageously squeezes his sword and goes to the Glade of the First Roses, where the Terrible Goblins are waiting for him. Having defeated the Terrible Goblins, our Hero returns in triumph to the Local Healer, who heals the Hero's Favorite Horse. Now our Hero will be able to continue his epic adventures.

How do you like this story? If you remove from it a hint of humor, then, in my opinion, it is simply terrible. Hackneyed, boring, linear and does not catch. In a good way, this plot is easier to rewrite than to improve, but in this case this task is not before us. Therefore, we will bother with what is.

The first step to saving our quest is to detail the place where our quest will take place.
Let our village go hungry. Now is the end of winter, food supplies have come to an end, seed has almost been eaten. The nearest villages have the same problems, there is nowhere to wait for help. On the streets are hungry children who see the hero and rush to him with a request for food. The restaurant is closed, the villagers look at the newcomer with a mixture of fear and expectation.

Look, we added only one paragraph of the description to the quest, and how much has changed. Now our event begins to cause feelings, but this is the most important thing.

However, for now this is only a static picture. The world does not revolve around the hero as if he did not want it. The world lives on its own only interacting with the heroes. Therefore, our second step is to create a number of events independent of the Hero. For computer games, the problem, since most events are triggered by triggers. But even in this case, the appearance of independent events will always please the player.

In our case, here they are:
• Villagers find out that one of them has a hidden supply of food. A crowd comes under his house, demands to give food. The hiding person refuses, the crowd bursts into the house, endures everything, the house lights up.
• A local resident sent back a month ago to buy groceries (this is the finishing piece) returns to the village with groceries.
• Locals look for a healer, find it and burn it for witchcraft.

When creating events, you need to monitor their compliance with the style of your world and its logic. Adding Mardi Gras to a starving village would be ridiculous.

But events do not happen on their own. They happen to people, and in our case, to characters. Therefore, our third step is to create the characters of our village. Here they are:
• Warden Will (50 years old, extrovert, feeling, bachelor, grumbler)
• Father Istrius (40 years old, extreme extrovert, thinking, tantrum, schizoid, fanatic)
• Sorceress Itilda (introvert, thinking, selfish, deceiver)
• Elder brother Stas (extrovert, feeling, younger assistant Robin Hood, has a sick younger brother whom he loves).

Characteristics of heroes should not be comprehensive at all. They should force you to generate a coherent and consistent personality. In essence, these are keys that remind you of how a character thinks.

Now we know how our village will live in the coming days and who its main characters are.

Having done all the preliminary work, we can easily add additional events that organically fall into the outline of the plot. And, now, we can test run our quest without the main character. Thus, we will check the consistency of the plot, find gaps in it, and better deal with the characters.

After everything is checked, completed and completed, we are ready to implement our Hero in the quest. The problem is that the hero may not want to go through our quest at all. In role-playing games, the hero can simply say that he leaves the village with a horse and belongings. Computer games solve this issue head on, mostly of course. If (! Quest) Location.Close - until you complete the quest you will not leave the village. However, this method does more harm than good. Firstly, it gives off violence to the player. Secondly, you are depriving yourself of the incentive to create interesting motivation. So, the whole project suffers. Therefore, we need to properly motivate our Hero. May our hero be kind. At night, a child, Stas, will make his way to the place of his sleep. He has a sick little brother who really needs to be cured. But there’s no one to treat because the sorceress disappeared. And everyone is looking for her and wants to burn her. And if they burn her, then the brother will die. Provided a good nature is sufficient motivation.
And again, we force the Hero to react emotionally.

Now we enter the finish line.
It is necessary to determine the place where the healer hides. Let it be one of the shepherd dugouts on grazing near the village. In the village everyone knows about these pastures.
You need to give the player enough clues so that he can find a healer. The sorceress often collected herbs in the northern pasture, the sorceress took food and essentials from her home, but left tools, cans, bottles, clothes. The house has a cache with packed clothes and necessities, clearly left to pick up later. The sorceress will return for him one of the nights.
You need to choose what the sorceress wants for solving the Hero’s problem. Based on my vision of the character of a healer, her own life will be her main value. Accordingly, the hero can get what he needs only to effectively guarantee its inviolability.

Oddly enough, the quest is almost ready. Of course, the places to improve it are just the sea. For example, add to the quest folklore, a connection with the outside world, the influence of religion. But, you can write and edit endlessly, so I just summarize what we did.

Moving along the not very well-groomed tract, the Hero's horse tucks up his leg. Fortunately, not far away, a small village is already visible. Having driven into the village, the Hero sees that things are much worse here than in the previous one. Everyone is extremely hungry, the children beg for food from him. Having distributed some of his supplies, the Hero finds out where the headman lives and sends him there. The headman is Will, he, after a heated discussion, agrees to take the hero for a bait and talks about problems with food. At the request of the Hero to help him with the horse, the headman reports that there really was a healer in the village, but for a couple of days now she was gone. The local priest Istrius accused her of infirmity, and the crowd established by him went to burn the witch. However, that house was not there, and for a couple of days no one had seen her.
At night, a guy named Stas sneaks into the window of the hero’s bedroom, who considers the hero a great hero and asks to save his brother, who is burning in a fever. The hero agrees. In the morning they go to the sorceress’s house. A thorough examination reveals things packed in a cache. The hero concludes that the sorceress is hiding somewhere. Returning to the village, the Hero sees a crowd in front of the headman's house, which demands that the hidden headman stocks be returned. The crowd is led by Istrius, accusing Will of conspiring with the witch. The hero is trying to convince the peasants to leave the headman alone, but he is being forced out. As a result, Will is beaten, the reserves are really found and taken away. The priest commands to take the horse to his church for conservation. The house lights up. At the same time, Istrius says that the Sorceress was often seen in the northern pasture. One of the shepherds screams that the witch often spent the night in one of the shepherd's dugouts. Stas tells the Hero that he knows where it is and offers to warn the witch. However, trying to move away from the crowd, our hero attracts attention and the pursuit begins. Having hardly escaped from the crowd, he meets Stas and together they run to the dugout, where he finds a healer. Having warned her, Stas asks to help save his brother. The sorceress agrees and invites him to meet at night on the other side of the village, near old barns. The hero returns to the village in a roundabout way, convinces the child's mother to go with him to the witch. Arriving at the old barns, the hero waits all night for the sorceress, but she never comes. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. where this suggests warning the witch. However, trying to move away from the crowd, our hero attracts attention and the pursuit begins. Having hardly escaped from the crowd, he meets Stas and together they run to the dugout, where he finds a healer. Having warned her, Stas asks to help save his brother. The sorceress agrees and invites him to meet at night on the other side of the village, near old barns. The hero returns to the village in a roundabout way, convinces the child's mother to go with him to the witch. Arriving at the old barns, the hero waits all night for the sorceress, but she never comes. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. where this suggests warning the witch. However, trying to move away from the crowd, our hero attracts attention and the pursuit begins. Having hardly escaped from the crowd, he meets Stas and together they run to the dugout, where he finds a healer. Having warned her, Stas asks to help save his brother. The sorceress agrees and invites him to meet at night on the other side of the village, near old barns. The hero returns to the village in a roundabout way, convinces the child's mother to go with him to the witch. Arriving at the old barns, the hero waits all night for the sorceress, but she never comes. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. He meets Stas and together they run to the dugout, where he finds a healer. Having warned her, Stas asks to help save his brother. The sorceress agrees and invites him to meet at night on the other side of the village, near old barns. The hero returns to the village in a roundabout way, convinces the child's mother to go with him to the witch. Arriving at the old barns, the hero waits all night for the sorceress, but she never comes. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. He meets Stas and together they run to the dugout, where he finds a healer. Having warned her, Stas asks to help save his brother. The sorceress agrees and invites him to meet at night on the other side of the village, near old barns. The hero returns to the village in a roundabout way, convinces the child's mother to go with him to the witch. Arriving at the old barns, the hero waits all night for the sorceress, but she never comes. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products. At dawn, the child dies. Coming out of the barn, the hero sees three loaded carts moving towards the village. There are products.

That's all. As a result of the modification of the banal plot, we got a completely suitable, passing quest, which is easily implemented both in desktop gaming systems and in computer games. In addition, the quest leaves its ends to garter other events / quests, introduces significant characters that can later be reused.
With all due respect