SHR - Story layout

Story Layout.

Main Storyline.

Prologue:

Protagonist discovers superpowers causing a minor accident in the process. Prologue should establish protagonist's friends and family, make them easy to relate to by the player, inducing feeling of security and belonging. Perhaps protagonist's birthday party or other, common holiday familiar to the player.
Prologue should leave the player with the feeling of leaving safe and secure environment and entering new, scary world.

Act I: Exposition.

Chapter I: New Kid on the Block

Arrival to the school and introduction to the main and secondary characters and general purpose of the school for superhumans (note to self, need some semi-original name for the superheroes).
Chapter I should achieve basic introduction to the new environment - perhaps lasting for one day.

Chapter II: New routine.

Lasting for a period of couple of weeks, chapter 2 gives more control to the player, as protagonist slowly finds itself in the school, forming first relationships - positive or not, with other students/teachers. Meanwhile getting some basic experience with usage of superpowers, giving the player feeling of progression, while continue more in-depth exposition of rules governing superheros.

Chapter III: First test.

Protagonist, alongside other students takes part in first, real world event that would test their powers. City of XYZ which is the regular city where everything interesting happens (akin to Metropolis or Gotham City) was hit by some natural cataclysm. Flood, earthquake, great fire. Perhaps it's a more localised event, like fire consuming a skyscraper or rescuing people from a sinking ship.

Regardless of player's choices, the rescue action isn't going very well and while it seems the main characters are about to miserably fail, four real superheroes arrive to save the day. Giving player a glimpse at fully developed heroes that his protagonist inspires to be. They rescue everyone, bend the rules of physics and do with relative ease, what seemed impossible to the students.

At the end, we're being introduced properly to the heroes, making them the supportive cast in the future. They can comment on how good the protagonist did, or how "he has a long way to go still" type of pep talk. It should be delivered by the leader of the heroes, who is established as a father/mother figure for the students/protagonist.

Chapter IV: The Plot thickens.

More mysterious, seemingly natural minor events happen in the city, giving the player chance to finally feel like a hero, saving citizens from certain death. Random events slowly form a pattern which lead the heroes to believe, some sinister force is behind the events.
Pattern might relate to location of the event, or targeted people - for example police officers, scientists working for some shady drug corporation or former members of a local city council and so on.. .

In chapter IV player is expected to form stronger bond with some of the other students and develop admiration towards the father/mother figure introduced at the end of chapter III.
If player chooses to pursue certain leads, first hints suggesting the "good guys" aren't really that "good" may be presented to the protagonist.
At this point only clues that are available to the player relate to extensive gene manipulation research, done on both students and regular citizens of the XYZ city.

Lastly, chapter IV should introduce the feeling of separation from characters met in the Prologue. The growing gap between the protagonist and his family/friends.

Chapter V: The Phantom Menace

Final Chapter of Act I reveals the villains of the game, three former superheroes who turned to the dark side. Their goals are still shady, but they introduce themselves, by kidnapping mayor of the city.
They keep him hostage, requesting all information about metahuman to be released to the public.
This would cause a massive damage, as most M1 and M2 subjects live in relative peace, often hiding their powers from others out of fear of being "different".
Heroes, with help of the students storm the villain hideout (located under some important building in the city, perhaps university), dealing with bunch of henchmen and confronting the three enemies.

During the confrontation the villains insist all they want, is freedom for the metahuman from control of the government. They refuse to release the mayor, leading to the final confrontation.
Outnumbered and outgunned, the villains execute their escape plan, by activating explosive device hidden in their hideout. As heroes and students rush to evacuate the building, villains flee the future ground zero. The hero authority figure introduced in the previous chapters makes the ultimate sacrifice, dying himself/herself, while saving everyone else, by either absorbing the explosion or removing it from the location and dying in the process.
Also one or more students (perhaps depending on player's choices) should perish during this confrontation.

Act 2: School of hard knocks.

Chapter VI: Calm after the storm.

Traumatised by the events from the previous chapter, protagonist and his companions grief for the dead and try to get back to normal school life, focusing on training even harder, knowing that the enemy is out there.
This chapter provides first deeper insight into shaken psychic of main and secondary characters. It also introduces internal conflict within the group of students - those who want to follow the school's way of teaching, which doesn't offer fastest results, but provides stronger foundation, or reckless but more effective path leading to power.

The outline of the conflict should leave the player wondering if the school focused their training on fighting alone, they could help save those who died in the previous chapter.

Chapter VII: Second coming.

The villains attacked headquarters of the company, that was in some way related to the victims of chapter IV. Building turns into a battlefield between henchmen of the villains and security forces.
Students arrive at the scene, instructed to prevent villains from obtaining any data.
During another confrontation with the antagonists, protagonist faces choices of how to approach the fight, either following the school's teachings of protecting the innocent first, or doing "what must be done", regardless of the consequences.

Villains gain the upper hand over students, but instead of killing them, they try to explain to them, that they only want to protect the metahumans from intervention from the government, and that the students are only blind followers of those, who would eventually destroy them.

As the exposition reaches great reveal of what is actually the truth, the heroes arrive to the scene, preventing villains from explaining their point of view. Eventually antagonists flee with partial data stolen from the company.

During this chapter, if player chooses to explore the building, he might find information gathered on metahumans, including students of the school, with very detailed information about their personality (perhaps based on some key player choices).

This chapter must undermine player's trust in the school and the heroes he idolised until now.

Chapter VIII: Divide

Information students learned during previous chapter, drive a wedge between the two groups - one starting to believe there is a conspiracy against metahumans, while other strongly supporting the school and status quo.

This is the last "open" chapter, with player being given a lot of sandbox choices of where to go and what to do. Player may try to confront his mentors about the revelations the group discovered, but gaining no clear answers.

Chapter IX: Face to Face

Once again the villains are on the offensive. This time attacking a factory outside of the city. Students and heroes appear at the scene together, confronting the enemies. As the fighting heats up, the explosion leads to collapse of the whole complex, trapping the protagonist and the villain under the rubble.
The two quickly discover, their powers are nullified, the villain explains, it's because of what was being produced in the annihilated factory - a new generation of chemical inhibitors that block access to superpowers in all metahumans. Effects should wear off with time, but for now, both characters are forced to cooperate to get our of the rubble.
Depending on player's choices, upon reaching freedom, the villain may sympathetically inform the protagonist that the attack on the factory was a deception, intended to get the students away from their school or mockingly inform him, that he better run home and see what was left of his precious school.

Chapter X: Dices

Protagonist rushes to the school, to see the place ruined, with last of the flames consuming once mighty building and home of the students. Player arrives just to be forced to choose, siding with those who want to follow the the rules, or those who are done listening to lies of their superiors.

Regardless of player's choices, the group of rebellious students leave the ruins, leaving the rest to pick up the rabble.

Act III: Climax

Chapter XI: Truths

Loyalists: Richter finally decides to tell the truth to the students who remained.
Yes, the government is perfecting a "cure" that would permanently inhibit the use of super powers in whole populations. Once and for all. Superpowers cause nothing but pain and suffering to those who have them, and everyone around them. Yes. The gift can be used to help and protect, but it can also be used to kill and destroy. It is noble to give away such power, resisting temptation of having it, as long as it prevents those who would use it for evil to have them.
And with rising number of metahumans in the population, soon controlling all of them would be impossible.

The plan is simple - find the villains and engage them, then use the mass inhibitor on all fighters, turning them into normal people.

Rebels: Seeking out their former enemies, rebels demand explanation, the truth about what was going on from the start. This is the "I am your father" moment, where the authority figure who sacrificed himself in Chapter V not only turns out to be alive, but is in fact the leader of the Villans.
He informs the rebel that the gift they were given would be taken away from them by small, lesser people, fearing everything they can't control or understand, and that no one can force anyone else to give it up - doing so would be evil.

The plan is simple - destroy the mass inhibitor once and for all, and let the metahumans be who they are meant to be.

Chapter XII: Crescendo

Final confrontation between heroes and villains, loyalists and rebels. Students are able to stand toe to toe against their former masters - their training is complete and they are not facing their final test.
Protagonist can try to bring characters he developed strongest connection, to his side.
In the final battle, protagonist will face the student with whom he had the worst relationship.

During the course of the battle, Richter, who was supposed to use the inhibitor is exposed and wounded, the superweapon is somehow lands in the hands of the protagonist who can do one of few things:

- destroy the inhibitor
- use it on the heroes, but not on the villains.
- use it on villains, but not the heroes
- use it on everyone.

Epilogue:
Depending on player's choice:

Destroy Inhibitor - Loyalist retreat and the conflict between heroes and villains continue.
Inhibit heroes - Rebels are the only ones remaining on the field, starting a rogue organisation opposing oppression of metahumans, perhaps with a hint of superiority complex.
Inhibit villains - Loyalist triumph, putting villains in jail. They retain their own powers however, to stop any threat that could upset the balance in the future.
Inhibit all - resolving the conflict forever, by removing superpowers from everyone, begining of massive global use of permanent inhibitors.