RPG Filler ideas

[WarxePB]

When developing a game, you can't just have major plot points and important cutscenes all of the time - you have to have the "filler", ie. going to a town, doing something there, and moving on.

With my biggest project right now, the whole "villain's minions are attacking X town, you defeat minions, X town is saved" scenario doesn't really work due to the nature of the villain. So, what I need are some basic ideas for "town problems" that I can use as a base - even if they are like the scenario above, I can rework them to match my plot.

All ideas will be credited.

[Ben]

large reptile infestations in the sewers.

the towns children have been led out of town by strange piper pedo types

A cult has mysteriously taken all of the towns adults

The mayor of town, and avid rock climbing enthusiast, has been missing on an expidition for a week

One of the towns children is stuck in a well. You need to travese the ancient relics to enter the well's base and rescue the child from the spider living below.

Ghosts in the town hall need to rest at peace...find the missing treasure and return it to the tomb

a plain old zombie invasion, acredited to the local witch

[Red Fox]

It's breeding time for some couple of nasty monsters and the town is located right where the monsters breed. So thousands of monster comes to the town to breed...No pretty sight.

A cult of cannibal has kidnaped and eaten half the town.

Drugdealers has set their eyes on the town. It has now become the drug capital of the world.

Snakes? I hate snakes... so does everyone in the town. They have now started a holy crusade to kill all the snakes wich have lead to the near extinction of a very rare snake. You must stop this madness before the snakes dies.

[Dominicy]

Farmer needs help with tribe of monsters, sends you to kill monsters.  Farmer turns out to be using a special metal to make his crops grow quicker, but hurts the soil irreversably.  Monsters (or whatever) send you to stop him.

Apothecary sends you to find reagents for a medicine to reverse a plague.

Civil war.

War between neighboring towns.

Local botanist sends you to take care of a demon flower he accidentally created in the town square.

[HobomasterXXX]

There is an elvis convention in town.  Bob hates elvis's music. You must mass slaughter the elvises.

[Ben]

dude ive totally had to stop through a town with an elvis convention. Do you by chance live in Penticton?lol

[Osmose]

A woman asks you to send a letter to a man in another town. If you deliver the letter, the man thanks you, pays you for your trouble, and the quest is over.

If you read the letter, however, you learn of the bitter divorce that is in progress between these two, and can investigate by talking to neighbors. Turns out the husband is a former treasure hunter and keeps on going on hunts despite his wife urging him to quit. Armed with this knowledge, you may confront either the husband or wife about it and possibly mediate their issues and convince them to give it another chance.

If you question the husband about his treasure hunting, he will mention an old cloth worth quite a bit of money. He will mention an ancient culture which you may look up in the local library, and learn of a master alchemist who locked himself in his quarters, claiming to be working on a cure-all potion. After many months locked in his room, he emerged from the room, emaciated and ragged, and falls dead. His body was wrapped in a ceremonial cloth that was removed by historians hundreds of years later. It is said to have been sent to a museum in another town.

Going to this town will reveal that the museum is since closed down and is now infested with monsters. Venturing deep into the museum will reward the player with pages from the alchemist's journal, revealing the nature of his various experiments, ending in his own personal testing of what he believed to be a cure for all diseases, which led to his death. In a remote corner of the museum the player will find an old raggedy cloth.

Somewhere in some distant town there will be an alchemy specialist who can analyze the cloth and confirm that it has traces of a very strange mixture that were transferred from the remains of the alchemist. Using some filler ingredients he can make a diluted version of the cure-all, which cures several status effects but gives the user poison in return (A trade off from, say, blind or confused).

Bringing the cloth to a magical specialist in another town will instead allow you to give the cloth to the magician to amplify, creating a very powerful magical effect that is ineffective due to the condition of the cloth. At this point, the player may again make a cure all at the alchemist's, but this time it will cure most status effects without the poison.

Bringing the amplified cloth to a weaver will allow you to have the cloth repaired into a piece of clothing with both resistance to several status effects and a small boost to magic.

Another treasure mentioned by the original treasure hunter involves a suit of armor in an old castle. Taking this armor to an armory will allow it to be repaired to make a very strong suit of armor.

Bringing this strong suit of armor and the amplified cloth to an armorer will allow them to be fit together to form an amazingly powerful suit of armor with status effect resistance, high defense, magical power enhancement, and even resistance to magical damage.

Just a thought.

[zuhane1]

Originally posted by Warxe_PhoenixBlade
When developing a game, you can't just have major plot points and important cutscenes all of the time - you have to have the "filler", ie. going to a town, doing something there, and moving on.

With my biggest project right now, the whole "villain's minions are attacking X town, you defeat minions, X town is saved" scenario doesn't really work due to the nature of the villain. So, what I need are some basic ideas for "town problems" that I can use as a base - even if they are like the scenario above, I can rework them to match my plot.

All ideas will be credited.

"Town problems" can be very boring. If you start a game and have to do 30 minutes of getting our sister a brush to clean her room, saving cats and walking old grannies into houses, people will probably quit your game. You should put in a little taster of the battle system at the very intro, maybe start off as another character you meet earlier in the game for a brief time.
      Once the boring town part comes in, keep it witty, brief but well-done. Make sure it's very obvious what to do with markers an reminders and stuff. This will make it much more enjoyable. You could then put in some sort of ABS-type thing like a game of dodgeball or whatever, just an idea.
      In my game, the intro is a little bit like Warioware in that preparing your food invloves a series of fast-paced minigames. Just some thoughts there...