OVA is really easy to make stats for airships and items, so that phase was over real quick at my GM desk, but it (quite fittingly for an anime RPG) makes the unfinished step of concocting an engaging scenario for the players all the more conspicuous...and the block of writers' all the heavier on me...
Problems: What are the characters' jobs/goals in the story? What would be an interesting situation to play (since playing an RPG is partly about making choices)? What events should I thrust upon them and what ones should I leave them to control?
So along my ponderings, I came to the anime Princess Tutu (which, if you loved Utena, you should try to see). This anime is set in a fairy tale format, and every character is hiding something, and every character has a different personal mission (motivated by responsibility, friendship, love, or fear) that coincides or conflicts with the others'. One of the things that stood out for me is the way the characters are all stuck with impending choices between Hell and Hades.
To elaborate (fairly spoiler-free):{1} Ahiru, or Duck, is a secret admirer of the prince Mytho. Captivated by his dance, she comes to realize day after day that his smile is heart-breakingly sad, and she is told that the prince has indeed lost the pieces of his heart. Assuming the role of Princess Tutu, she is able to return the shards of his heart to him, but the shards are named things like Fear, Loneliness, Sorrow, ...Pain. Is this really a favor to Mytho?
{2} The nature of Princess Tutu is that if she were to speak words of her love to Mytho, she would disappear from the story (and hence, the world), but the prince continues to search for and chase after his mysterious guardian (like Cinderella).
Part of the fun of stories is to see what choices the characters make when the decisions are tough, so now I try growing a story from a seed of Choice, coupled with a few What-Ifs:
Once upon a time, the was a young village girl, beloved by her town for helping them and cheering them in their daily lives. One day she fell ill, and no apothecary could raise her from her bed; the only cure for this illness, the town was told, was for her to pass the illness onto a willing other. This, being very compassionate, she was hesitant to do, and the illness got worse and worse.
"Who deserves such affliction less than her?" the villagers lamented, and they would accuse one another of deserving it more, but no one was willing to accept it upon themselves. As the young girl had said, "Who is able to decide who deserves and who doesn't, the blind afflictions of life?"
Starting from such, I'll work up a character for the girl and the villagers. The player characters (PCs) may ...accept the illness upon one of them, whereupon the illness would either vanish (passing it being the way to make it vanish), or it would become an weakness that motivates the next possability; find another cure; refuse to have anything to do with it, leading to the next step...
Complications! It turns out that the illness not only weakens its bearer, but also attracts bad supernatural company OR eventually kills the person and automatically passes to any one person nearby (did she catch it by helping a stranger?). The weakness could also have its perks like enabling the bearer to see the hearts of the people around him/her, what those people really feel about others of/to whom they speak.
Any other methods or advice? I mean, they can be as simple as lifting subplots from your favorite manga, but how do you go about fitting them in your game? The HOW can be a welcome kick in the pants for a blocked writer.
