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RPG Writing...how to determine length
Author
How do you determine how many hours your RPG will take to finish? For example, if I want to target a length of 70 hrs how many pages of story would I need to write?
4200 pages.
A script in Courier 12 point, written per movie scriptwriter standard formatting, is 1 minute.
A script in Courier 12 point, written per movie scriptwriter standard formatting, is 1 minute.
Quote: Original post by murdock
How do you determine how many hours your RPG will take to finish? For example, if I want to target a length of 70 hrs how many pages of story would I need to write?
It really doesn't matter, a game is a game, not a story, you can make a game that takes 70 hours to complete without any story at all or with a really really thin story that you can fit on a single page.
You need to create game content that takes 70 hours to complete, the story is just an extra. (Allthough for an RPG its a fairly important extra)
Playtesting will tell you exactly how long a game takes to complete for a specific player, experience allows you to make a decent guess early on.
A standard FF-type RPG is roughly equivalent to a novella or movie. A novella is 40k-50k of prose, a standard movie script is 120 pages. This does not include any branching plot or dialogue though.
The story is somewhat irrelevant of the actual length of the game especially in RPGs where players may spent a lot of gameplay time not progressing the story but leveling up or looking for better equipment.
If it is a heavy story based game, meaning that player will almost all the time progress the story then you may need 200 or more pages but with less you may be ok.
You should try to create the path players will take and determine the gameplay time. For instance :
"Player will need to go from village A to Town B to get the antidote. In this path he/she may spent 10 minutes in combat and 5 walking." So this particular line in story will be in average 15 minutes . If your team decides to make enemies stronger the combat may last 20 minutes so one line will now be 25 minutes.
If it is a heavy story based game, meaning that player will almost all the time progress the story then you may need 200 or more pages but with less you may be ok.
You should try to create the path players will take and determine the gameplay time. For instance :
"Player will need to go from village A to Town B to get the antidote. In this path he/she may spent 10 minutes in combat and 5 walking." So this particular line in story will be in average 15 minutes . If your team decides to make enemies stronger the combat may last 20 minutes so one line will now be 25 minutes.
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