My RPG storyline, critique welcomed.

[artisticdude]

Really only three factions, since the humans members of the Alliance would still be part of the Alliance, I take it?

Well, originally I had planned for them to be more a separate faction, but I'd better keep it down to only three, 'cause any more and I'll end up giving myself far too much work to do.

Thanks for the writing grammar/stylistic help, CheeseLord. I appreciate an outside opinion, as the writer's view tends to be rather narrow once he's gotten rid of the more obvious errors. I agree with all your points, BTW, good eye on that.

As for changing the name, I'd like to, but the alliance sounds better than any of the synonyms like: association, union, league, confederation, federation, confederacy, coalition, consortium, affiliation, partnership.

None of those seem quite right, for some reason. On the other hand, I could change the empire's title, but the synonyms there are kinda limited too: kingdom, realm, domain, territory, imperium; commonwealth; power, world power, superpower. Although of all those, I kinda like 'commonwealth' the best, though I don't think it has the same quality as 'empire' does.

As I said before, take these suggestions with a pinch of salt - I'm only 13, so it's a little presumptuous of me to go and comment on the work of others, but hey, this is really awesome written overall, so I couldn't resist :p

You're not that much younger than myself, man. Age is never a problem in my mind, the quality of the input speaks for itself. And believe me, I'm gonna need all the help I can get to bring this to reality.

So wait, will this be RPG as in you-have-only-one-unit, your leader, or RPG as in you still recruit/recall normally, but you make a lot of choices that determine the outcome and plot and which scenarios you play?

Neither. You will have a party of up to 3 characters, though only your leader will have an inventory. All characters will have a user-controlled character development system that allows you to determine the stats for your characters as you gain experience.

Think Brent, only with an inventory, more complicated dialogue, quests, and NPC's.

[CheeseLord]

As for changing the name, I'd like to, but the alliance sounds better than any of the synonyms like: association, union, league, confederation, federation, confederacy, coalition, consortium, affiliation, partnership.

None of those seem quite right, for some reason. On the other hand, I could change the empire's title, but the synonyms there are kinda limited too: kingdom, realm, domain, territory, imperium; commonwealth; power, world power, superpower. Although of all those, I kinda like 'commonwealth' the best, though I don't think it has the same quality as 'empire' does.

Hmm.......I agree, commonwealth like its a confederation of kingdoms, not a actual empire....big difference (compare the British Empire and the Commonwealth )


And also remember, the thesaurus is your friend for names
So Alliance could be:
accord, affiliation, affinity, betrothal, bond, coalition, coherence, collaboration, collusion, combination, communion, compact, concord, concurrence, confederacy, confederation, congruity, conjunction, connection, consanguinity, cooperation, engagement, entente, federation, fraternization, friendship, interrelation, kinship, league, marriage, matrimony, membership, mutuality, pact, participation, partnership, relation, support, tie, treaty, union, alliance, association, circle, council, federation, foundation, fraternity, institute, league

And the empire could be:
authority, command, commonwealth, control, domain, dominion, federation, government, people, power, realm, sovereignty, supremacy, sway, union

Shamelessly copied from thesaurus.com

[artisticdude]

I used my thesaurus for the list above, too (though obviously it isn't as complete as thesaurus .com ). Do you have any personal favorites among those? They are all okay, but the empire synonyms just don't evoke the power or size that 'empire' conveys. And I don't know, but somehow I prefer 'Alliance' to 'betrothal.' Ahhhh... It seems impossible to change the names, and yet I really need to figure out what they are gonna be called, 'cause I need to start coding.

[pauxlo]

Invent some name added to the generic term. (Like "Kingdom of Wesnoth" instead of simply "Kingdom", but of course with another name.) This will help removing the generic feel.

[Jarkko]

IMHO having an exquisite name isn't required, if there's only one faction around, so if there's only one 'Kingdom', why bother naming it, because any references to a 'Kingdom' within the campaign surely means that one and only Kingdom.

Only if there are two or more 'Kingdoms' around, then they should be named to distinguish them from eachother, but else it serves no great purpose.

[artisticdude]

That's what I figured. I guess I'll have to go with Empire and Alliance, because, stereotypical or not, I'm already coding the first scenario.