Interest for a writing prompt contest?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

So, all the discussion of tropetastic RPGs has led me to realize: would there be others in the DL who would like to take part in a contest to write a plot outline and such for the most generic RPG ever? There will be no reward, but just like in Rocky 1, the competition is all you require. Am I the only one who thinks this would be a magnificent read?

Some basic rules:

1) Keep it short. We don't want to read anything longer than a normal Meep rant (which is to say, shorter than his long rants where he devotes a paragraph to the way he levelled each character in Fire Emblem).

2) Characters, Setting, Plot Events. Cover these three things. Make them tropetastic.

3) Being clever in your writing is a good thing. "And then Cloud was like Squall I'm gay for you but Squall just wanted to eat hot dogs but then Zell was mad lol" is not clever.

4) Don't mention a fucking battle system. The goal is to write a tropetastic game, so all games have the most generic battle system I can think of: turn-based, coat rack characters. Think Wild Arms 3.

What say you?

[Cotigo]

I'd be interested but probably wouldn't have anything to say for a couple weeks.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Yeah, well, not like I set a deadline for it or anything.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I think Lunar would be a better example for cookie-cutter battle systems. WA3 at least has FP building and Mediums to play around with. Not to mention the puzzle aspect.

The most original thing Lunar has is Nall...

Also, Setting in JRPGs tends to be the most creative (non-trope-ish) thing about them, I'm not sure there's too many games you would be parody-ing directly in that category.

It sounds interesting. And of course, knowing me, I'd love it "OMG! I would -so- play this game! lol!"

I'd like to help, but don't expect anything clever out of me...

-Djinn

[Dark Holy Elf]

Quite a few JRPGs (by no means all) do go for the completely cliche fantasy RPG setting, complete with a set of one-city kingdoms and an evil empire or something like that. Especially during the SNES days.

[Bardiche]

I'd do it.

[Cotigo]

Quite a few JRPGs (by no means all) do go for the completely cliche fantasy RPG setting, complete with a set of one-city kingdoms and an evil empire or something like that. Especially during the SNES days.

Even when they break from that there are still several tropes about them; semi-modern setting?  One-town countries instead of kingdoms, usually one of those countries being evil.  Futuristic setting?  One town planets, one of them is evil.  Or floating in space and evil or something.  Yeah, the settings have bits of originality to them but they all--all of them--fall back on at least one or two prominent tropes.  A few of them (Suikoden series, namely, and to an extent the SH series/Koudelka) less so but for the most part...

[Sierra]

Sounds fun. I will probably send you something this evening, actually, because I'm already coming up with stuff (hey, this is supposed to be tropetastic. Stuff like that writes itself). I presume we would submit entries via PM rather than posting them in the thread?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Quite a few JRPGs (by no means all) do go for the completely cliche fantasy RPG setting, complete with a set of one-city kingdoms and an evil empire or something like that. Especially during the SNES days.

Even when they break from that there are still several tropes about them; semi-modern setting?  One-town countries instead of kingdoms, usually one of those countries being evil.  Futuristic setting?  One town planets, one of them is evil.  Or floating in space and evil or something.  Yeah, the settings have bits of originality to them but they all--all of them--fall back on at least one or two prominent tropes.  A few of them (Suikoden series, namely, and to an extent the SH series/Koudelka) less so but for the most part...

I'm not sure I can think of a single trope-free jRPG. Unless you count EarthBound because it uses tropes as the joke (much as we're going to be doing). I guess Star Ocean: Blue Sphere avoids them because it only has story at the very beginning and the very end, and besides that the game is "cruise around and kill shit."

Sounds fun. I will probably send you something this evening, actually, because I'm already coming up with stuff (hey, this is supposed to be tropetastic. Stuff like that writes itself). I presume we would submit entries via PM rather than posting them in the thread?

Sure.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I'm not sure I can think of a single trope-free jRPG.

If you can think of a completely trope-free -anything-, I'd be impressed.

-Djinn

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I don't count it as a trope if you came up with it and then it became one later. Like how Shakespeare is full of cliches because he invented them all and then other people started using them. Also, if it previously held the title but has fallen out of favor (ie, Fallout's robots with the big glass dome heads) it doesn't count, because nobody uses it anymore.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So basically anything that's not Shakespeare is a trope. Wow... why am I not shocked?

-Djinn

[Cotigo]

James Joyce's word vomit would like a word with you.

And Shakespeare is hardly the master of invention people make him out to be.  Most of his plays are actually re-writes of older plays, most of the ones that weren't histories, anyway.  Those were based off of history.  But that's not the point.

And for fucks sake, please learn the difference between "everything x is a trope" and "every x has tropes in it."

[Taishyr]

No Zenthor you are the tropes.

And then Zenthor was Shakespeare except Zenthor sucked.

(*cough* Also, I'm likely not going to participate in this.)

and on a completely random side note, screw James Joyce's word discharges.

[Cotigo]

Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

[Taishyr]

augh hate you zenny. ;_; (except i'm pretty sure he was more coherent.

...by maybe like one word, but he was more coherent.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

James Joyce's word vomit would like a word with you.

And Shakespeare is hardly the master of invention people make him out to be.  Most of his plays are actually re-writes of older plays, most of the ones that weren't histories, anyway.  Those were based off of history.  But that's not the point.

And for fucks sake, please learn the difference between "everything x is a trope" and "every x has tropes in it."

The whole thing was an analogy anyway. I wasn't saying "Shakespeare is completely original" I was saying "If you come up with something and it becomes a trope, that doesn't mean it retroactively becomes a tired and overused plot device."

But, the only place to find things that are trope-free are generally in things that use plot devices that end up becoming them.

[Cotigo]

Tai:  Actually, that was Joyce right there.  One of his "thunder words" that showed up in... either Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake, I can't remember which. 

Rob:  Ah, fair enough.  For the record, that last part was directed entirely at Djinn for being dumb if it weren't clear.

[Grefter]

You shoud know that Ulysses is about the Illuminati and that Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk is an invocation of one of many Lloigor.