PLOT SCHOOL LESSON 2 - Convince Your Player

PLOT SCHOOL LESSON 2 - Convince your player

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

RE-INTRODUCTION:
Over a year ago, Furdabip created the first lesson to the "Plot School." It provided an excellent overview of clichés, why they can be bad, and how they can be good. Unfortunately, no subsequent lessons were ever created! I've decided that I will try to revive the Plot School with a new lesson, a lesson on creating a convincing storyline. As the above quote states, telling a fictional story can be harder than telling a true story. There's no need to make a true story convincing, because it actually happened. When a player starts your fictional game, they'll have it in their head that your story is not, was not, and will not be true. We don't to give them any excuses to cling on to that notion, now do we?

Things to Avoid:

We can rebuild him, we have the technology.-
Avoid new technology. Notice that I said "new" technology, not "advanced" technology. If you are making a game with a futuristic setting, try to stick with advanced versions of existing technologies. We've got lazers now, so if you want to use lasers in your game, go for it. The lasers we have now are bulky, inefficient etc. etc. but in a couple hundred years or so, it is completely believable (and probable) that that will change. When you start to lean towards things like DNA enhancements to regrow lost limbs in a matter of seconds, you start to get on the sketchy side. Having one or two instances of completely new technologies is fine, but you had better explain them. Saying something like "Because it is the future, we can regrow limbs instantly" just will not cut it. If you are going to come up with a new technology, remember that it took hundreds of years for scientists to develop your technology. There must be an interesting story behind that, right? Now, on the other side of the fence is that you can bore the player by explaining too much. If an insignifigant piece of the plot, like an oven that cooks things instantly, comes along-- just let it be. Some things that are ordinary, everyday things to the character you will do better to leave them unexplained. If the character would already know about it, why should it be explained?

What are the chances?-
Remember that coincidences are coincidences, not rules. What are the chances that the town right before you have to cross water is the only town in the entire world that has a boat, and the town right before you need to take to the air is the only town in the entire world that has an airship? If you have ten towns, then there is a 1 in 10 chance that only one town has a boat, and a 1 in 10 chance that the one town right before you need the boat has a boat. That means that the chance that there is only one boat in the entire world and that it is in that particular town is 1 in 100. Now, those odds aren't too bad. Let's multiply it times the odds that you will also have only one airship, in the one town right before you need it. Now we are looking at 1 in 10000. As you can see, the more coincidences you have the more unlikely it is that it could actually happen. Now, all of these numbers assume a random probability. What do you think is the best way to make it believable? Explain it in your story, of course! Remember, though, that this will work only to a degree. You can certainly explain why there is only one of each vehicle, but how could you explain why they just happen to be right where you need them? With story, you can bring the odds back to a more favorable 1 in 100, but that is with only 2 coincedences. By using story you can increase your coincidence allowance, but you still want to be careful.

It's in my genes!-
You know what Bill Gates's father did before he retired? He practiced law. You know what your hero's family did before they retired? Chances are they didn't go around saving the world. Your story will not be believable at all if your hero's father saved the town last time, your hero's uncle is the town mayor, your hero's mother is the daughter of the king of another kingdom etc. etc. If your hero's (or any other character's) family consist of all of the most important people in the world, it begs the question why everyone else has not been taken out back and shot. Ok, that may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one. It may be easier to just make it so that the player already knows everyone important so you don't have to find ways to introduce new characters, but you just can't get off that easy. That actually brings us to the next point--

Didn't I sit behind you in the 5th grade?--
This one is actually an addendum to the last one. There are over six billion people in the world, how many of them do you know? I'm sure it is an incredibly small fraction. If you go for a job interview, how often do you hear "Oh, I've been waiting for you!" Even if a character is vitally important to the story, that doesn't necessarily mean that they know every other vitally important person in the world. It is certainly easy to have a person in your third town say "You need to go see my friend bob across the ocean, he'll give you the sword of haxorness." How incredibly lucky is it if everyone important knows each other already? If we already know who's important, why do we bother with any of the other characters? Now, you certainly do not want to leave the player completely on their own, so maybe that town across the world is known for it's weaponsmiths. It would only natural to think that someone in a weaponsmith town would know about the sword of haxorness. That doesn't necessarily mean that by the time you get to the town you know exactly who to look for.

Follow the yellow brick road!--
Who ever said life was easy? Your character's life shouldn't be easy either. I don't know, but it seems to me that for mighty heroes, protagonsists get coddled an awful lot. Someone tells you to go find A, by the time you've found A someone else told you that B is next and it continues on like that. How is your player supposed to believe that your protagnist is heroic if everyone else is doing all the work for him! If all your character has to do is run around and fight, then why don't those guards that easily handed your arse to you and threw you out of that castle a couple towns back just do it themselves? there's got to be a reason that your character is the one saving the world, and it usually is the figuring things out part.

Things to include:

A setting, damnit!--
Yeah, no special title for this one. Just include a damn setting! Did you know that there was a World War I that actually came before World War II? Yeah, right? I was so surprised when I found out! A setting does not mean just a location and time. Your setting also has to include the history. World War II would not have been nearly as interesting or believable without World War I. In fact, it would not have happened at all without World War I! There has to have been other conflicts that happened before your current conflict, and those other conflicts could have even been completely unrelated to your current conflict. For bonus points, you make it seem like they are unrelated, but they are tied together in some way. Either way, if nothing interesting has ever happened in your world, then why the hell do the antagonists want it? You have to make your world unique in some way.

Walk like a man, talk like a man!--
If your characters are supposed to be people, then make them act like people! You have to make the dialog convincing. Remember that, even though your NPCs are just pieces to move the game along, they have to act as if they are not. It can help to try saying the conversation aloud before you put it in your game. If you feel like a moron doing it, chances are that your dialog needs to be fixed. There will actually be a full lesson on this piece later.

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: As with clichés, these are not set in stone. These are merely guidelines. If any of these things surprised you, then I would suggest reading again and getting practice following inside these guidelines. They will challenge you as a writer to the point where you will eventually be able to recognize exactly why these guidelines are here, and then you are golden to bend the rules

LESSON:
Alright, if you want to get some practice doing this, here is what you have to do:

Create a story that takes place in one town. Remember to keep in mind everything that is above, that means:

--Describe your setting. Remember that the town existed before your current events, tell us a bit about them. Remember to do so in a way that won't bore your reader/player.
--Use coincedences sparingly. They will be necessary sometimes, which is fine because coincedences do happen. Just make sure that your entire plot does not depend on coincedence after coincedence.
--Remember that the path ahead is not paved in gold. Make your protagonist figure things out.

Also, you get bonus points if you incorporate what was given in Furdabip's lesson 1