A question arose just a moment ago that I thought was interesting enough to ask.

Specifically, how do you write the actual plot to your game, and in what form do you direct the plot's flow?

I've heard some people get a basic idea (I want a good guy to find a sword to defeat a bad guy with) and then just run with it. Does anyone write out a game script for dialogue and events before advancing to creating the game? Or do many really just roll with it?

Do you build your plot based around events you want to happen, or do you start with a character and focus the plot on their adventure?

I've personally always held that writing a script before anything, and building any plot around its characters rather than a premise and an event is the best way to go. I can't work without actually scripting out the plot lines so I have something to hold on to, with enough freedom to add events as I so choose provided I do not alter the core events too much.

Working from characters seems natural and easy to me, but I imagine others might disagree.

What are your opinions?

I believe that the best place to start with a plot is the actual setting/theme, and the writer should have a vague idea of what to deal with based on the those two. From there, you could take the snowflake method to writing out a plot, where you start with a single idea and flesh it out more and more, adding characters, plot twists, subplots, etc. An efficient way to go about this is to take a pencil and a piece of paper, and jot down a single, simple sentence that can serve as the foundation for the plot. Do this exercise several times until you have run out of ideas, sift through them and select the one that you feel is the best, and work it that one from there.

One problem that's always plagued me is the habit of choosing a small scenario that I would adore to see make to the actual implementation stages of my game, but I always fell into the pit of building off of that single idea, which isn't how the process should work. Instead, I will take a small notepad and jot down any ideas that come to me throughout the day, no matter what aspect of the game it is relevant to; whether it be a mini-game, CMS idea, puzzle, plot device, event, etc.

Start with a quickly fading really messed up dream and then only keep the story. As time goes along, pitch only the characters and settings to others and watch as they come up with stories. Take pieces, both the good and the bad, and make them excellent. Character development comes naturally. Have some characters that doubt each other? Have some characters witness deaths? Have characters trip over that sealed evil in a can? Of course they're going to get messed up. Possibly it comes from the fact that I treat stories I hear as real.

When I make open-ended game, they are not open-ended. They be very not open ended because story not very open ended. Story has begin and end. In between not matter, like babies who are dead in ground for many year in Siberia. So, I make begin and end very good. Good like the Vodka. In between focus on game. Story, not so much.

Kidding. The middle is good too. For a game, though, stories must be spotty. If the player has no control, where the heck is the game? If there's no control, aren't you better off making a web comic? In my current game, I didn't get a plot down until too long ago, but it constantly changes as the engine improves. For example, instead of a single evil in a can, now it's like a soda of evil that was shaken up over the course of a few thousand years. The new weapons change the amount of soldiers chasing you down, the dialogue between characters, the reason for not being able to get off an island when the can of evil pops open. The changing of the source of the ruins to a more recent civilization changes the area, the platforms, the secret weapons, the giant clock, and the technology in the ruins. All of this is the middle. None of it is set in stone.

Now since the player doesn't know this world at all, and is going to be discovering it as they go, why would their character know anything about it to start? No, this is not the amnesia thing again. The character comes from another realm.

And, for this project at least, that's another reason why I don't have to set it in stone, as the same exact thing is happening here. From a USA just out of the Civil War, a world with elves ironically without magic, the character I've got is suddenly thrown into a Steampunk style post-apocalypse Old West through the world with a lot of magic, guns, fusion engines, a few shapeshifter beasts that are faster than shadow, and a five person ensemble? Fuck no, not setting any of that shit in stone. Play it by ear. I'll piece together a rough story months before work starts, but if it's not about the player, if it's not working out with the engine, or if it's not fun, I'm not afraid to nerf a storyline that I just spent a couple months setting up. The end, that may be set in stone, but even then, an ending like that no longer seems as shiny.

Half Life 2 anybody? How about even Duke Nukem Forever's storyline over the years? More than several storylines on both of those, very much destroyed completely many times.

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Oh yeah, but practicing daydreaming helps insanely. That, and I really like ad-lib-ing stuff.