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Story/Setting ideas for inspiration


Outlooker

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To my great dismay I have not the time (and therefore ability) to start mapping myself - I hope it will change in a couple of years when I retire or at least can reduce workload somewhat.

 

But often do I ponder the thought of what kind of mission I would like to craft, had I opportunity and skill. So, I came up with some ideas, I'd like to humbly share; maybe they inspire others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The heist ist done;the mission is all about escape - with your beloved filled loot sack. The rich ruler of the city (now with considerable less net worth) alarms the police force that swarmed out and is searching the city in force all over town, blocking traffic/chokepoints, you witnessing searchings and arrests of suspect citizens, police breaking doors, much chaos; you navigate the city/parks/sewers/rooftops escaping to the countryside, or leaving by ship, or by boat down the river; it's all about escaping, favorably unrecognized and unnoticed.

Complications one encounters may be scripted events like a house on fire, multiple guards/city watch zeroing on your suspected position, hiding in a crate on a carriage (and watching city scenes through a hole while escaping some distance with the moving carriage), police lighting "search lights" (fireplaces/big torches in town for nightly situational awareness).

 

 

Gentlman thief in high society. Drug the wine/food of a high society party/ball by sneaking into the kitchen and adding sedatives to food; later, when all are sleeping, get the jewelry off the guests, hide it outside or in a delivery packet and join the sleeping to act unsuspicious. Ghosting probably.

 

Gentlemen thief; high society wears jewelry, but it is usually hidden cleverly at home, not only locked. So, a thief has a hard time finding the most valuable stuff; this particular educated and experimenting, innovating thief, however, uses city watch forensic technology for his purpose: By inconspicuously applying a transparent/invisible fluorescence-paint/powder during a party to the valuables of the nobles, he marks them;

later at night, when they have hidden their valuables at home, he sneaks into their dwellings and, by assistance of a blacklight/UV-lamp from the inventors guild he scans the rooms for rubbed off UV-paint, indicating the hiding spaces of the hidden treasure.

 

 

Distraction can be a thiefs most valuable tool:

The security of a rich bank is broken by causing an undead outbreak; while the guards are distracted/away/battling/scared/not patroling/hiding, the thief has a chance to enter and empty the main vault.

 

Distraction II:

Rich Lords wedding/birthday etc.: Big fireworks - at night, nobles, neatly sitting on benches or something like that as an audience, watching the show.

Intense light on darkness adapted eyes causes temporal blindness - and the thief knows not only that, he also knows/arranged it so, that he knows the background orchestra music plan, which is linked in action to thefireworks, in effect making him knowing in advance when the individual bright fireworks are fired: By using this effect, directly after a fireworks firing, he can navigate almost freely and unseen for some seconds in the darkness, helping himself to the jewelry/valuables of the guests (he closes his eyes just before fireworks goes off because he knows the timing from the orchestra plan).

(Later, escaping riding a "warhead"-less fireworks rocket - just kidding, but maybe a prepared zipline?)

 

 

By day a guard, at night a thief: During day, your wander around as a guard, inconspicuously preparing for your nightly action: Hide tools, open/weaken locks, windows; placing thin climbing

rope on an outside wall, copying/manipulating guard orders/patroling plans, adding absolute alcohol to the night guards wine (perception impaired), mapping the grounds, placing crates to climb later on,

placing crates/other stuff in such a way that security cameras/guard posts etc. have a slightly blocked way of view, allowing specific undetected movement later at night; photographing/sketching loot items, to produce dummy copies/replacement items, so the nightly theft will not be noticed soon; sabotaging infrastructure (water, electric, heating,food stocks, privy,...), so repairs are needed, weakening security/ allowing distraction/allowing entry.

 

 

Uncommon scenario:

The map will almost be empty of NPCs, maybe only containing one single NPC, but this is an assassine:

You have to escape/navigate the map, knowing there is only one adversary, hiding in a dark spot,waiting for you, listening and watching for you ...

maybe with a bow, maybe with a sword, maybe on a rooftop, maybe he has set traps (mines..watch your step) ... he uses the shadow as you do, and he wants you dead.

Could be a scenario of escape from a heist from a king, making his bodyguard/assassine hunt you.

Replay value low due to known hiding spot, but 1st playthrough could be very tense and atmospheric.

 

 

Ransom/Hostage:

Stealing a living (sleeping) person can be more tricky and interesting than stealing dead stuff. You have to be carefull with the hostages health, and are hindered in mobility/climbing prowess/visibility/speed. Hide the body, clear the way, preceed; repeat. In effect, you have to scout ahead, and find ssafe hiding spots for you - and the hostage.

 

Assassination plots:

Bringing yourself in position for a good shot with the bow; setting an explosive under a bed, bringing poison, stab a sleeping noble - and escaping - possible clearing your planned escpape path beforehand.

Could be combined with a distraction like fireworks (bomb), setting fire to another building, realeasing something (undead, spiders, wolves,...).

Could be made more intersting by making the assassination itself difficult: Target wears armor/helmet and uses weapons and is located in a brightly-lit open space, maybe a throne room, guards...

Using blade or bow may be difficult, so setting traps (mines) beforehand and bait/lure the target to move towards them (sound arrows?) to kill him. Escape route/entering route of alarmed guards/barracksentrances could be mined beforehand for better escape, too.

 

 

Rescuing someone from a prison, a hostage, your fence, family member ...

Basically like getting out an body, but this time a conscious one; making the NPC following you, and by frobbing making him standing still or follwoing you again, effectively navigating him

to safety. For added complexity he could carry big loot that you "aquire" during your escape, or emitting tips or funny comments, mabye giving "fire support" with a bow in specific locations.

  • Like 2

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." - Plato

"When outmatched... cheat."— Batman

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Outlooker, can i use this scenario or some parts of it in upcoming mission? It's not finished and has no story yet, and no title.

Actually why not cooperate? Fan mission making is not only mapping. If you keen for story writting i'd be glad to joint forces :)

Edited by someTaff

What excuse do we have not to sculpt, and sculpt, and sculpt, until the job is done?

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@someTaff get a point here about story tell, as a maper English is not my mother language and i realy will need someone to write the story for me, just not translate but put something details the even I in my own language i could not dot it, so cooperate with some one to get a mission complete is what i wish.

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Uncommon scenario:

The map will almost be empty of NPCs, maybe only containing one single NPC, but this is an assassine:

You have to escape/navigate the map, knowing there is only one adversary, hiding in a dark spot,waiting for you, listening and watching for you ...

maybe with a bow, maybe with a sword, maybe on a rooftop, maybe he has set traps (mines..watch your step) ... he uses the shadow as you do, and he wants you dead.

Could be a scenario of escape from a heist from a king, making his bodyguard/assassine hunt you.

Replay value low due to known hiding spot, but 1st playthrough could be very tense and atmospheric.

You could have several assassins waiting for you in randomly choosen spots. One shot and you are dead. :smile:

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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  • 2 months later...

Never played that. I thought more of "Snipers last standing" in the first MoH or CoD (not sure). There were six snipers hidden in the map, and your only objective was to get from one end of the town to the other one. Although this sounds quite simple, it provided a very tense experience.

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

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Distraction II:

Rich Lords wedding/birthday etc.: Big fireworks - at night, nobles, neatly sitting on benches or something like that as an audience, watching the show.

Intense light on darkness adapted eyes causes temporal blindness - and the thief knows not only that, he also knows/arranged it so, that he knows the background orchestra music plan, which is linked in action to thefireworks, in effect making him knowing in advance when the individual bright fireworks are fired: By using this effect, directly after a fireworks firing, he can navigate almost freely and unseen for some seconds in the darkness, helping himself to the jewelry/valuables of the guests (he closes his eyes just before fireworks goes off because he knows the timing from the orchestra plan).

(Later, escaping riding a "warhead"-less fireworks rocket - just kidding, but maybe a prepared zipline?)

 

 

After reading this I was thinking.... great idea only with a Play going on, on the stage vs. orchestra. Then you could have some AI interactions and interesting conversations. Also this would be based around not only thieving all the rich audience but also killing (Lincoln style) some rich taff in one of the balconies?

 

 

Uncommon scenario:

The map will almost be empty of NPCs, maybe only containing one single NPC, but this is an assassin:

You have to escape/navigate the map, knowing there is only one adversary, hiding in a dark spot,waiting for you, listening and watching for you ...

maybe with a bow, maybe with a sword, maybe on a rooftop, maybe he has set traps (mines..watch your step) ... he uses the shadow as you do, and he wants you dead.

Could be a scenario of escape from a heist from a king, making his bodyguard/assassin hunt you.

Replay value low due to known hiding spot, but 1st play through could be very tense and atmospheric.

 

Was thinking about this and the way others have done some recent missions with random placement of various loot, the same could be done with the Assassin. So you wouldn't know where he's going to be at mission start.

 

You could also just place various traps/mines/death scripts about the map and the Assassin could be a phantom, never actually showing you sight of them. Then there would be tension from thoughts of, "where is he!?" and they would never be resolved. This method would obviously hurt re-playability because of the linear placed traps about the map though.

 

A roof top chase would be neat though.

 

One thing about chases too, if you're timed, and feel that pressure from the timer ticking down to get to the next spot, or "catch the invader/assassin", you ALWAYS miss things along the way because you're focused. Then afterward you get the opportunity to go back and explore which is always a neat experience I think. You see passages and things you totally missed and it makes the player feel smart and rewarded.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm just computer-literate enough to get mods running and use the typical office-stuff. And I sadly have not yet won the lottery - so I don't have the time to learn making missions myself. But like Outlooker I fantasize about what I would do, and I too have some ideas I'd like to share.

 

 

Mini-Campaign - From Rags to Riches

 

First mission: You're still a child, living on the streets. I imagine the mission taking place in a rather small part of the city, the central hub would be a market place. Your objectives would be stuff like stealing food, playing pranks on the merchants (e.g. freeing cattle from their cage, watching the stampede), you could work as a messenger - delivering love letters for a Romeo and Juliet-style couple, helping the local beggars and so on. If it is possible, it would be cool if you were smaller than the regular PC character - it would be an interesting change in perspective, since you were smaller you wouldn't be able to reach everything an adult could, but on the other hand you would be able to fit into tighter spaces, opening routes that weren't available to a taller/bigger character.

 

Second mission: You're a teenager now. I imagine the mission as an initiation mission into the local thieves guild. That would open the way for some interesting but rather artificial design choices that would seem out of place in a "normal" mission. I imagine it somewhat similar to the training mission, testing your thieving abilites. Maybe there are other initiates that you compete against. They try to sabotage you - or vice versa.

 

Third mission: Finally, you're a grown-up, a fully-fledged thief. This would be a heist mission with a twist - you're taking revenge on your old enemy from the thieves guild (the one trying to sabotage you in mission two), maybe trying to frame him/her.

 

 

So that's about it for now. Hope it was something new and interesting.

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