Alright, I would like to know if any of you guys prefer coming up with a story before you make your field map(s), or is it better to wait until after you've created a map(s)?

Also, I realize it would probably be easier to create anything after you have a story made. I'm just asking because I want to see how many people prefer to make a world map for fun, and then based off of what they have created, they make their story off of that.

Thanks again for the input guys.

Before or after story is made?

While I don't really use RPGM3, I'll answer this anyway. Usually I only get interested in making a game when I come up with an interesting story or gameplay element. So, how the maps look depends greatly on what my ideas were. In other words, maps second.

Hmm..so far this is what I thought.

I've tried stories before maps, and then the other way around.

It's just that I'm on such a stalemate with story creation right now that I was just wondering what would have been a better approach.

Thanks for the info Draygone.

Hopefully something will inspire me soon, in the mean time, FFXII it is.

Well, sometimes new ideas can come about by accident while fiddling around with maps.

See, that's how I came across a few good story ideas from a couple of my projects, I had made the field map first, and based off of what I had created, I attempted a type of story, but again these lead me far from what I wanted to create.

It's weird how you could have a story before OR after the map making, depending on your creativity levels.

I create the game world first, with a very basic bare bones idea of what
the story is going to be. Then I fill in the story later as I'm filling up the
game world with gameplay.

This includes towns, dungeons, and field maps (in that order of creation).
I get the town layouts up and running with the buildings and deco placed.
Then I create rough drafts of the dungeons. Then I do the field maps.
While I'm working on the terrain, I place the towns and dungeons (helps
to have them already created and the game world planned out, so I know
which objects will be appearing on each map). I do high concept map
work, fitting in the towns and dungeons seamlessly with the surrounding
terrain (no Big Ugly Mounds (BUMs) showing).

The story is filled in while I'm placing battle encounters and treasures in
the dungeons. Finally, I finish up by populating the towns with NPCs and
everything that goes on in town.

Almost all of my story scenes are done with character acting on the spot,
improv. When I go to write a new story scene, I have no idea what's
going to happen or how it's gonna turn out. There are very few things
that have to happen in order for the story to progress. These bare
bones ideas aside, I usually don't know what the dialogue is going to be
until I start working on the scene and start playing the characters. This
makes it very easy to tell a story. The characters tell the story by
themselves. So while the player is finding out what happens next, I was
also discovering it while I was writing it.

Ahh, so you do it that way Crythania? I wasn't sure if that was the best way to do it or not. I guess everyone has a style of their own.

I think that's the best way if you want to avoid certain headaches- knowing that your towns and dungeons are all done accept for the placement in the fields part, that's got to be less stressful.

Thank you very much for the insight Crythania, I'll take this information to heart.

Oh yeah, and to Draygone- I agree, you could make certain elements of gameplay by simply playing around with the field editor, hmm...time for more experimentation!

Different things for different games, but now that I have experimented enough with RPGM3 I pretty much make the game in my head as a backbone and then sculpt it like Crythania.

I actually probably have to remake some old games because they were from when I was learning what the maps/towns could do and now I'm not happy with the way they look, but they defintiely were inspirational to story ideas.