no Story?

[lightmagician]

i'm one of those people that doesn't care if a game has no story as long as the game play is good. also i can't finish a good story if the game play is painful. so i ask if designing a RPG maker game, with no story with just missions or dungeons, maybe a sandbox {think Monster Hunter or Etrian Odessey}

Edit: {forgot to actualy ask the question} would making a game like this be fine. i dunno if thats like a taboo or something in this community

[Hiruzen Sarutobi]

I don't understand what you are requesting. Do you want a game that does not focus on story and focuses more on gameplay? Or do you want to make a game that focuses more the gameplay side and not on the story so much?

[lightmagician]

make a game. i now realise. i never actualy asked the question

[Hiruzen Sarutobi]

Yes you can def make a game like monster hunter. Use moghunters ABS plugin to make the battle system real time, and yeah it's pretty easy to make a Monster Hunter game with that plugin, but of course it takes skill to make something that crazy(Not a walk in the park at all). However I am letting you know it's def do able.

[Dusk_Army]

So... It's worth noting that, as this is an engine, you can pretty much make whatever you want with it. All story, no story, that's up to you. But RPG Maker is definitely not the most versatile engine on the market. You can get a lot done with just the basic stuff, you can use plugins to override everything, but at the end of the day, the reason that so many RPG Maker games have a heavy emphasis on narrative is because this engine is "easy" to use, so you get a lot of writers and people who aren't that good at programming things. So, it's not so much that there's a taboo as it is that the kind of people attracted to using it prioritize narrative over gameplay (generally speaking, of course).

The default battle engine is on the boring side, so I'd recommend overriding that with a plugin (especially since you're looking at making something like Monster Hunter, though it should be fine for an Etrian Odyssey style game). If you get good with making Events, you can also make some pretty good puzzles, too.

[JohnDoeNews]

Well, some games do not need a story. Like puzzle games (candy crush, tetris, dr mario, bubble shooter, etc) or things like board games, card games and dice games.

But if you make any kind of RP in the widest sence of the meaning (so basically any game where you play as a character) some story would be advice-able. This includes RPG's obviously, but also platformers, first person shooters and career games.

If story is absolutely 0% part of the game, then don't put any NPC's, evented maps and such in the game either. Maybe even don't use maps at all. Replace it with a menu screen (like hearthstone for example).

As soon as you make a map, there is need for a story. As soon as you put in an NCP, you kinda already have story, even if you try not to have any.

(This is just my personal opinion. There is no hard rules about which games should or should not have story.)

[kittylitterproduction]

The Game Police will come and confiscate your computer if you do that.