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Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

I'm working on a storygame and I'd like your opinion on my idea.

 

The Aloris Kingdom has prevailed through two Dark Wars in the last century, and is once again on the verge of another. As the commoners of the land allow the fury of injustice to fuel them toward another war, the Aloris Kingdom finds itself split in two, with everyone making the difficult choice of choosing who they will fight for.
 

Monty Solomon, one of the few peasants held in high regard, has led his followers into a frenzy against the king, and more are joining his cause every day. War seems inevitable, and the future of Aloris is uncertain, until a new factor came into play: Cyrus, The king’s newborn son. In the eyes of Monty, this is a chance to sow a seed of rebellion into the people, and perhaps gain power of the future king of the land.

_______

Thanks for the feedback laugh

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

I mean, you've not really revealed what's going on here. What two factions are there here? What characters are there? For me to tell you how it looks, I need way more details, because now all I really know is a very vague outline.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago
It sounds like a good pitch. Or whatever. Like the short synopsis on the back of a book that makes you wanna ask questions. But yeah, your write. To judge correctly, we'd need more details.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

"your write". Get off the site, Crescent, there is no hope for you.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

T^T Honezt mIstakez luv. :'(

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

Everyone makes typos, Steve.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago
Commended by JJJ-thebanisher on 2/22/2017 1:25:52 AM

Wars and kingdoms are always fun settings to read about, so I look forward to seeing what you do. It's always interesting to explore the dynamics between royalty, loyalty, and peasantry as a kingdom attempts to work in tandem with itself. I think the "fury of injustice" works decently as a hook, since it hints at a number of things going on without needing to explain them directly. 

It sounds like you have a solid starting point for how the story could play out. One thing that's unclear based on the title and description: are you playing as Monty Solomon or are you playing as the newborn son (once he gets older)? Or someone else entirely? There's different pros/cons to that. The other question being: is this upcoming war with someone outside of the kingdom, and is the internal strife a separate smaller parallel matter? Or is the quarrel between king and kingdom the war itself described in the description?

I think a story built around Monty Solomon's perspective could create a more concise and focused plotline, especially if this is your first storygame. Or writing a story based around the King's son when he's old enough to be a factor, would allow for a lot of different elements to be more open-ended, which would also work well for a larger CYOA.

It'd be worthwhile to flesh out the two Dark Wars that happened before the actual story takes place, if you haven't thought about it already. This doesn't necessarily need to be done in the description, but can be more subtly told through the story itself. How the wars happened, why they happened, how long they lasted, why they're called the "Dark Wars", and how they concluded. Since the Aloris Kingdom survived them, we can assume they either won the wars or simply didn't lose (if the wars concluded by other means). Small details like that will help explain why a third war could happen. 

Since this appears to be your first storygame, it's important to have a strong focused theme and direction to make sure you can finish it. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the number of what-if choices that can branch around. It can be good to have a smaller storygame project to start with and get feedback on, to practice the CYOA medium and prepare yourself for a larger scale project. Having an outline of major decisions and branches ahead of time can also help with the writing process.

As Steve said, there's too many vague things in the description to understand your overall plan for this. You'll get better feedback on your ideas if you share more details about the story.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

Thank you for you help. The story is from Cyrus's point of view, and the conflict is in the Aloris Kingdom itself. Monty is leading the peasants in a rebellion against the King and his army of knights.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

Wait, why is the king's son grounds for dispute? What importance does he have? I mean, especially since he's a newborn?

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

He is the heir to the Kingdom and Monty wants power over him for his own dastardly deeds.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

And he's gotten people to get behind him for this specific reason? I'm sorry, but "He has a baby child!" just doesn't sound like something you rally a rebellion around. That's nearly the equivalent of Jerry Seinfeld going to a medieval village and saying "What's the deal with TAXES!?" except Jerry comes closer to actually making a point that people can rebel about.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

The peasants feel like subjects of injustice because of certain actions made by the king that will be revealed in the actual Storygame. He's using this to rally them, but the plan with Cyrus is his own and unknown to the people.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago
I was pretty busy during the week and missed this whole thread. I'd like to know more about what the villain's actual plan is in regards to Cyrus. The rebels want to overthrow the king, but the idea isn't to remove him and his line? They're setting themselves up as Cyrus' enemies here either way, so I don't see manipulation and the like working. Unless by 'gaining power' you mean more along the lines of 'sign these papers giving us power or we'll cut off your head'. Which could be interesting, actually, but it would work as well with the current king as on his son.

How does a peasant vocally speak out against a king and get followers to do the same without some kind of repercussions?

It's like ok, the peasants are being oppressed. But that kind of goes hand in hand with being a peasant. They're also uneducated, untrained, unarmed and generally powerless, and they don't have the kinds of rights needed to keep anyone expressing discontent from being brutally stamped out, unless you specifically establish that in this setting they do.

Basically, please think about your characters and setting and everyone's motivation carefully, but also how they actually do the things they do. Maybe you can be the hero who brings us the fantasy rebellion story that doesn't suck.

Aloris: The King's Son

7 years ago

Interesting idea, but execution will make or break it.

Is there magic? Are there other races? Are there monsters?