Fables part 4: building a basic action & reaction

Myths Series
Myth making: my plan
What are myths, legends, and folklore? Definitions (Quotes)
Joseph Cambell : Myths

Myths: Types and functions

Mythology: How they are created

Myth #1: Blood and Water - Begin

Myth #2: From them, all become

Type of Myth #1 & #2; Fable #1: part 1

Fable part 2: bird symbolism

Myths and Fables: ponderings  & decisions
Fable part 4: snake symbolism
Fables part 4: building a basic action & reaction
 

Going through my notes, from both days and my ponderings, I'll now try to make a few sketches of some fables.

bird guide, atonement, resurrection, wisdom, hope, help, courage, happiness, splendor, or wisdom

snake healing, rebirth, benevolent, inspiration, creator, intelligent, without morals
fear, threats, untrustworthy, dangerous, and vengeful

• The dangers of expending too much power (magic) when using powers.
• How powers can be used for both good and bad purposes.
• Powers can be used in unusual ways besides obvious purposes.

Structure of fable

At the minimum, looking over the Aesop fables from both the bird and snake symbolism posts, a basic structure of the two interacting with each other either directly or indirectly.

bird + action.... reaction
snake + action.... reaction

Direct interaction
snake does something to bird.
bird does something to snake.

Indirect interaction
snake does something that leads to bird interaction.
bird does something that leads to snake interaction.

Bird and snake actions

Bird most often sings, eats, or flies.
Snake most often bites or slithers into hiding.

So based on these, I can have:
A.) Bird sings and the snake hears the song and then the snake reacts.
B.) Bird eats and snake sees bird eating and then the snake reacts.
C.) Bird tries to eat snake, and the snake reacts.
D.) Bird tries to fly, snake does something to prevent, impede, or change the flight of the snake for some reason.

H.) A snake tries to bite a bird, and the bird reacts.
I.) A snake slithers, and the bird reacts.

Not all birds sing.

J.) A bird crows, quacks, screeches, pecks wood, winnows, mimics, hoots,

Of course, not all birds can fly.
K.) A bird that can't fly is fleeing from a snake.
L.) A bird that can't fly seeks help from a snake.

And some birds can swim.
M.) A snake sees a bird swimming and has some plan.

And some snakes can swim as well.
N.) A water snake is swimming, and the bird reacts.

For snakes, I think that the healing, resurrection, and renewal symbolism of snakes from some cultures comes due to snakes the shedding of skin.
O.) A snake sheds its skin, and the bird reacts.

Pythons may also wrap and strangle their prey.
P.) A snake strangles something, and the bird reacts.
Q.) A snake tries to strangle the bird, and the bird reacts.

Birds may also be known for their talons.
R.) A bird attacks the snake with its talons, and the snake reacts.
S.) A bird grabs something with its talons, and the snake reacts.

Snakes hiss.
T.) The snake hissed at the bird, and the bird reacts.

Rattlesnakes rattle.
U.) The rattlesnake rattled, and the bird reacts.

Cobras rear upward, hoods flattened.
V.)  The cobra reared its head, and the bird reacts.

Next Post

In the next Post I'll explore possible magic context, since Aioskoru is a magical world.

Story vs RPG part Appendix: Emma - RPG to Story Conversion using Psychology and Sociology Theory

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. It's also available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

Example of an RPG to Story Conversion using Personality Theory

For more practical purposes, lets try making a story character that is based on a fantasy character. Most of this process will help to develop backstory.

Picking a name

I'll pick a popular names in the US 2015 for character names - Emma.

Gaming information

Emma a Lawful Good alchemist

Emma is e a Lawful Good character in a game that is a alchemist - someone who works to transmute material into magical items. To move that character to a story I begin with what I know about the character. In this game maybe the alignment is the only indicator of character personality. I'll use that information to try creating a hopefully more interesting character by adding small backstory and character details.

Conversion

As mentioned yesterday, I think that Lawful Good is similar to Jung's Hero. Let's compare them.

Lawful Good - Crusader
Core Concepts: Duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness

Jung - Hero
The Hero (Heroine, Champion) - Defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront

And then compare this information to the first enneagram.
1. Reformer (Perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks they are always right

If I agree to this comparison, I begin to see character weaknesses of arrogance, confrontational, and maybe sacrifices themselves beyond what most people do.

Converting Class to Profession

And maybe I want take this character to move over to more modern terms, changing the world and setting slightly.

To me a alchemist might be some sort of scientist, maybe like a CSI type crime scene investigator. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In a different fantasy world, that might by using magic powers to analyze stuff. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.

Character Behavior

Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics.

• Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence. "Tell the truth even if it causes harm."

From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.

Character Needs

Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others.  She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open. If that weakness ever is filled, another weakness should also emerge.

Character Emotions

Having looked at character personality, ethics, and needs emotions will now be more predictable.

Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong. From these basic emotions they can easily be turned into backstory of actual events - one for every major emotion.

All of these examples show that once you know your character's personality, ethics, and needs the other details flow much more smoothly out from backstory. You can just create events that would created the emotion. A list of several emotion creating events would help to round out the character, and make them more whole and less one dimensional - even if you don't actually write that information into the story.

Character Lies

Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.

Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.

Whatever it may be, using lies can help create a dark secret with is great for storytelling.

Character in Society

Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.

Character Pair Dynamics

Interesting dynamics can occur between her and investigators that interact with her. Especially if they have very conflicting personalities, needs, and ethics. She might despise a rule breaker at first. But then when their rule breaking leads to the truth faster than her objective evaluation the dynamics of the relationship may change as she begins to respect and trust the rule breaker.

Character Group Dynamics

Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.

Summary of Emma from the Lawfully Good Alchemist

I believe this is much more usable and better for story writing than just knowing alignment and class.

All of these details I tried to create just based on RPG alignment of lawfully good and the class of alchemist. I'm just showing one way that details can be found just by expanding background using tools and interpretation to expand those two descriptive data pieces.

Emma is a CSI type crime scene investigator. Here personality believes in duty, fairness, honor, property, responsibility, right, truth, virtue, worthiness, defender, guardian, rescuer, sacrifice, win, arrogance, confront, (perfectionist) principled, purposeful, self-control, thinks she is always right. She's someone who uses technology to work with the material in crime scenes to reveal what happened by various methods. In this modern world, rather than magic it will be technology and procedures.

Emma wants to know and tell the truth about these crimes. She does her job well and tries to tell the truth, even if less desirable people accused of crimes or a bad person in general has evidence that supports their innocence. Because of this I give her Kantian Ethics. Kantian Ethics - right is determined by intent, reason, and type of action, not the consequence. "Tell the truth even if it causes harm."

From the Jung - Hero archetype, they also sacrifice themselves - in this case I will translate that into relationships. Emma doesn't spend time to develop romantic relationships. Instead she fills her time with activities that reaffirm her sense of truth. It might be a religion, working for a cause, or maybe trying to find new advances in crime scene investigation.

Because of her needs are strong in some areas and weak in others.  She has strong sense of law and order for safety, yet might be threatened somewhat by helping to put away dangerous people. Here biggest relationship weakness is an issue of social love, belonging, and sexual intimacy. Along that line which might affect the balance of affiliation, autonomy, and dominance needs should be used occasionally in any story created, while the weakness is still open.

Emma will be courageous when facing the results of brutality within a laboratory. However with relationships, then may be fearful a begin to feel threatened when in casual situations dealing with relationships. The biggest surprises may come when she thinks she knows the truth but finds out later through investigation that it was all an illusion or wrong.

Any number of lies depending on Emma's earlier experience, may be creating or maintaining her relationship weakness. Something probably happened in her childhood or adolescence.

Maybe she saw something between her parents and created a vow not to ever get herself into that situation. In her teenage years, maybe her early relationship went really bad and she was hurt in the process. Or maybe her interests kept her from forming any teenage relationship with someone else.

Her job as a CSI scene investigator is going to come with many role expectations. Some conflict can occur when her relationship weakness my interfere with her social role expectations. Conflict that other characters might attribute wrongly to her own reason and cause.

Emma probably begins with conformity to the CSI rules, procedures, and regulations. As she tries new methods of investigation, she may begin to have innovative goals. With her relationships and dating, she may be in rebellion or retreat at first.

RPG and Story Scenes: RPG scenes

For the last series on  Character & Society see those posts.

RPG and Story Scene Series

RPG and Story Scenes: The foundation of action within a story.

RPG and Story Scenes: RPG scenes

RPG and Story Scenes: Writing and RPG methods
RPG vs Story Sequel: Reaction

The last part was primarily from a story writing perspective. In this part, I wanted to look into a RPG perspective of scenes.

In most games time comes in two major forms. They may not even name these two forms, but they become more evident when looked at more closely. These two time forms have corresponding story writing forms of time.

The purpose of both forms is to focus on the exciting stuff and quickly pass by the boring stuff. And stuff that is trivial to character development can be brushed aside.

A. Timeless

The first form is when major action is not occurring. In this time mode, time itself is less relevant. Things occur in a very vague sense of time using broad terms. Because action is not being focused on, thus accurate game time is not important. Time can easily slip from minutes to hours to days all in a few moments of gaming time.

In gaming, this might be while at a town or village not at any specific location, travelling to a location, or some introductory overview.

The party enters the village of Shattered Teeth. You make your way towards the citadel located on a medium sized hill.

An interesting mechanic that uses this form is a series of two or more competing characters rolling in succession which represents several events or actions over a long period of time to try reaching a target or goal. Many skill rolls use this time mode. The two main edition of Fudge even have a combat option called Story Element, where vague story units use one or taking-the-median-of-three rolls can sum up an entire combat, skill, or social interaction sequence. HeroQuest has a similar summary mechanism. In this time mode, time isn't really kept accurately.

[You roll some great success result] 
Not only do you destroy all of the foes around you, you even kill the ones trying to escape.

In writing all of these mechanics represent this type of time is called narrative summary and transitional scenes.

If timelessness is one form of time, then time focused is the other form.

B. Time Focused - Rounds

The second form is when major action is occurring. During these types of time mode, time itself becomes very important.

Many games use specific increments called rounds, which divide time into set increments. Another form is to use moves where actions are triggered by descriptions of actions within the discussion of the game. Some mechanisms are simultaneously resolved such as some Fudge and Dungeon World conflicts. Most use alternating resolution where some sort of turn-taking method is employed. Indicators of this type of time in gaming is dialogue between the characters, rolling for specific action and results, and time based skill rolls such as combat.

[Roll to see if your surprised]
[Roll for initiative]
Q: What do you do?
A: Since I have first action, I ....
Etc...

In writing, this is the main content to proactive action scenes and reactive reaction sequels - writing the scenes that describe action, reaction, emotions, thoughts, dialogue, and real-time conflict.

What is similar between the two media types?

Similarities between RPGs and Story Writing Time Modes

Both RPGs use two major types of time modes. They use vague timeless scenes and sequels where time and action are less important. They also uses more exact time for those scenes where time and action are very important. How they do so is by using various methods.

The RPG and Story Writing Methods of managing Time Modes

RPG gaming uses time vague skill rolls, a series of sequence rolls vs target or each other, and story element rolls for timeless modes. For time focused moments they use simultaneous rolls, alternating rolls, dialogue, time specific skill rolls, and time based narration all within a time frame of rounds, moves, or other time-unit based system. The time units keep track of time more closely and accurately.

Story writing uses narrative summary and transitional scenes for timeless moments when quickly moving from one important moment to the next - when details don't matter as much. For those time focused moments, they use dialogue, action, vivid descriptions of supporting character actions, interior monologue, and inner thoughts from the POV character.

ABS12: Story Engine

All the changes from this page will be added to the complete master game page at A Basic System 12 (ABS12).

ABS12 Solo Game Engine and Fact Generator
ABS12: Basic Fact Generator
ABS12 Solo Game Engine: Additionals, Branching, & Conditionals
ABS12: Synonyms for writing using the ABS12 Solo Game Engine
Testing the ABS12 Solo Engine and Fact Generator
ABS12: Story Engine
ABS12: Random Objects & Participants
ABS12: Drama Escalator

ABS: Solo Gaming Engine - flexible version It contains 1d6, 1d8, Fate, Fudge, 1d10, 1d12, 2d6, 3d6, 1d20, 4d6 JAGS, and 1d100 columns and modifiers.

Story Engine
Here is an potential story engine for main storyline that I will experiment with. It is based on three literary plot structures. I am not sure I like the 2d12 probability.

#1 is hidden text. The blogger has numerical list which automatically starts at 1. I didn't feel like looking up how to remove it, so the list really starts at 2 since 2d12 lowest value is 1+1 = 2.

ABS12 Sory Engine v 1.0

Roll two 12 sided dice (2d12) adding the results together.

1. By Ken Wickham 2016
2. Descend - a character must descend to the very depths of despair to perform some great task.
3. Maddening - a mad person versus the victim of the insanity.
4. Tempted - a character must face their greatest weakness, distraction, or compulsion.
5. Disaster - a power falls defeated by an enemy or informed by a messenger.
6. Sacrifice - a character must struggle to maintain an ideal by sacrificing something great to satisfy a creditor or opponent.
7. Obtain - a character asked by another, must struggle to obtain something great in order to aid against an adversary.
8. Prey - a master or monster threatens or causes suffering to a victim or unfortunate character.
9. Rescue - a character must deliver a unfortunate or supplicant from a persecutor.
10. Pursue - a character must pursue a criminal and avenge the victim with the expected justice deserving.
11. Escape - a character must escape from imprisonment or punishment from some conflict.
12. Transform - a character goes through a dramatic change like a rebirth of power, form, or appearance.
13. Mature - a character comes of age or knowledge through a challenging experience to reveal something important.
14. Abducted - an abductor takes abducted from a guardian.
15. Enigma - an interrogator posses a problem to the seeker and gives the seeker better ability to reach the seeker's goal.
16. Rival - there is an object of rivalry and a preferred or superior side versus a rejected or inferior side.
17. Revolt - conspirators plot to overthrow a tyrannical power.
18. Metamorph - a character must go through a dramatic change into something by supernatural or severe natural means.
19. Daring - a bold leader sets out to obtain an object from or to fight against a powerful adversary.
20. Conspire - a hated character and a 2nd conspire against a character.
21. Lost - an important object is lost by negligence. There character must find the object or remedy any consequence.
22. Forbidden - a character must do something considered forbidden in opposition to sagely advice.
23. Betrayed - a desirer and desired have betrayed a character. The betrayal is discovered by some means..
24. Ascend - a character must climb some challenging task and raise above opposition to become one of the few to ascend to the top.

Based on a mixture of Polti's 36 plots, Tobias' 20 plots, and Booker's 7 plots.

2d12 probablility

I may have to change to something else. I couldn't fit the plots into one single d12 roll.

I may instead to a double roll instead of a single roll.

But if I can organize the plots into more common and less common plots, this 2d12 may work.

A Basic System 12 (ABS12)
Index of my blog

Story Engine © by Ken Wickham 2016. All rights reserved.

This blog may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise for any other person—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. Available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

As mentioned in the first culture post leaders of societies can be traditional, charismatic, and bureaucratic. Groups differ from pairs. In pairs two characters are dealing with their personalities mostly. In groups characters are dealing with leaders, status, roles, and ethics. They're more likely to have common group goal and an established means to achieving the group's goal. And judging the members may depend on how well the characters fit within the acceptable means and goals of the group.

Forms of Group Leadership

In addition to this, there are three leaderships styles. Authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire (leave it alone). Authoritarian leadership focuses on instrumental issues, is proactive, and demands conformity of its constituents. Democratic leadership focuses on expressive communication. It tries to be inclusive - involving everyone in the process. A 'leave it alone' leadership doesn't try to fix anything that isn't broken.

Common among fantasy, especially dystopian fantasy, is the concept where an authoritarian regime holds total control over most of society. Then along comes a more democratic rebel group which tries to overthrown the totalitarian regime. 

And sometimes the opposite is true as well. A weak scatter fragments struggle in isolation. Along comes some savior type character who tries to unify the fragments and oppose some force or threat to all the groups of the region.

We must unite our tribes to fend off the newly arrived demonic beasts.

Conform vs Deviate

As mentioned in the first post also there are roles, expectations, and assumptions made not only for those in specific roles in a cultural group. There is also many times the desire to make those in the group conform to fit in with everyone else. Conformity pushes obedience. Rejection of conformity can be seen as deviance.

Conformity can range from something simple like some sort of agreed upon rule to a peer group to something much more important like breaking the law - a criminal. Murdering someone breaks an important social law. Killing someone in battle doesn't break the law, unless it is in a manner that is questionable. Stealing breaks the law, but taking a stolen item from someone is okay as long as done correctly. Everything depends on the rules and laws the society has created - their ethical structure. See my post on ethics and morality for a list of different ethical systems.

Sometimes in the attempt suppressing conflict the cultural group leads to groupthink. This is a somewhat common occurrence where eliminating deviance also eliminates creativity, independent thought, and rational decisions. A group under groupthink can become irrational and dysfunctional.

We don't want to fight.

Merton's Strain Theory of Deviance

Robert Merton said that social arrangements lead to deviance. In it he looked at two contributing factors which I discussed in the ethics section: the goal and the means to achieve the goal. Once those two things are defined in a group by any type of leader, it also defines deviancy as well.

Accept goal, accept means = conformity

Failure to succeed through normal means leads to these four failures.

Accept goal, reject means = innovation
We need to change how we do things.

Reject goal, accept means = ritualism
I'm just doing what I've got to do.

Reject goal, reject means = retreatism
Why bother. Unplug and dropout.

New goal, new means = rebellion
We're doing the wrong thing in the wrong way.

Also within this structure you can see an implied progression of people from a conformed group all the way to rebellion. A character may start out conforming and then move to either ritualism or innovation. Then to retreatism. After retreatism it could lead to rebellion.

The opposite is true as well. A rebel might find their way slowly into conformity.

Events and experiences have a way of changing characters.

Hirchi's Social Control Theory

Travis Hirchi said that the ability to have social control over someone else depends on four imagined consequences.

Social attachments - these are a character's friends, family, and relationships.

Available opportunities - the ability to improve a character's status and role in the group.

Active involvement - how involved a character is in the group.

Positive belief - a character positively believes in the goal and means of achieving that goal.

If any four of those four imagined consequences are weak, deviancy becomes more likely - especially if compounded by multiple disassociation.

I think the more cliche way to create a deviant character is the first one. By making a character be a loner - without any friends and family. More interesting is creating a social character that does not conform because one of the other three weakened imagined consequences - because of lack of opportunity, too little involvement, or a negative belief. However, doing so requires not just an internal difference. In stories, they need external realities. There is opportunity in some other group, they are trying to sway the member to join. Or a character involvement is shrinking, and the character finds themself being involved somewhere else. Or the character has a negative belief about their own group, yet is beginning to believe in another group's belief.

Story and Game Structure: Storylines

Story vs RPG Series

Story: Elements

Story vs RPG Part 2: Main Characters - Protagonist, Antagonist, PC, NPC

Story vs RPG Part 3: Character Information

Story v RPG Part 4: Potential Pitfalls of using a RPG session for a Story.

Story v RPG Part 5: Personality Types

Story v RPG Part 6: Alignment, Morality, and Ethics

Story vs RPG Part 7: Character Needs
Story vs RPG Part 8: Character emotions
Story vs RPG Part 9: Lies - Our characters darkest secrets
Story vs RPG Part 10: Setting - cultures
Story vs RPG Part 11: Pair Dynamics
Story and Game Structure: Storylines
Story vs RPG Part 12: Larger groups - conformity & deviance

If you like this series support it by buying it today for kindle all in one file and without advertisement. Available in most countries that Amazon supports. 

I'm not sure where this post is going to go. I wanted to explore the structure of stories and role playing games. This may lead to a series on creating stories from ideas to storylines to outlines or sandbox tools and to finally the scenes. It may in future posts focus on plots, acts, chapters, adventures, series, and books. But today I just feel like writing and researching storylines - both for bestsellers and adventure sourcebooks to see how similar and different they are.

Are storylines for bestselling novels and rpg sourcebooks similar? Can they catch the essence in one single sentence, even though they may using several paragraphs to describe the story?

Storline of a Story
A storyline (or story arc) is one of the most basic part of an adventure or story. That is has been called many names.

In writing, these may be called the storyline, narrative thread, plot thread, or story arc.

In gaming, these may be called rpg plots, adventure ideas, adventure types, story or plot hooks, or plot or adventure seeds.

At its core, a storyline can be told in one sentence. Books normally have several paragraphs at the back of the book. I'll try to rip out the three most important parts of the three paragraphs and put them into one sentence.

In gaming, if you have this one sentence, you most likely will be able to run an entire game adventure. All of the maps, encounters, and obstacles support this one storyline. In a sandbox style game, as long as you know the reason for the adventure - the storyline - details can be attached to that basic structure to flesh the sessions out.

Storylines in games can either be pre-bought, pre-made, developed with help of the players, or made on the fly.

What are the three most important parts of a storline? These I think are the prominent characters, the main action thrust, and the opposition of the story or game adventure.

Five examples from current fiction bestsellers and RPG adventure sourcebooks will be spliced.

Book Bestseller Examples

For these I am using for these examples 1. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, 2. A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman,  3. End of Watch by Stephen King, 4. Enemy by K. Eason, and 5. Pines by Blake Crouch.

Who are the prominent characters in generic and universal terms?
A storyline normally doesn't name the protagonists or player characters. If it does name the character, unless the name is widely known readers picking up the book have nothing to connect to the name. The more important part is the description of the name. This is normally an adjective word followed by a common noun.

Here are some examples pulled off of the more recent best sellers.

1. an ordinary girl
2. a chatty young couple
3. retired police detective
4. half-blood conjuror and smuggler
5. secret service agent

What must they do?
A summary of the main action thrust of the plot must be written down or hinted at. This also reveals conflict between the prominent characters and the third part - the opposition. This shows what the main characters must do. It tells where the story will go.

1. she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.
2. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.
3. pulled into their most dangerous case yet, one that will put their lives at risk
4. must decide whether her partner’s life is worth betraying her allies and damning the Republic to war.
5. locate and recover two federal agents who went missing

What is the opposition?
A storyline normally hints on who or what the antagonist or opposing force is that is preventing such action from the prominent character from occuring.

1. ex–Master of the Universe ... , who is wheelchair bound
2. a curmudgeon ... the bitter neighbor from hell
3. perpetrator of the Mercedes Massacre ... is awake, and in possession of deadly new powers that allow him to wreak unimaginable havoc without ever leaving his hospital room
4. the goddess is back ... she wants revenge
5. he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive

Example of making a one sentence summary
I'll just make the first example into a one sentence storyline summary.

1. An ordinary girl sets out to show a wheel chair bound ex-master of the universe that life is still worth living.

The entire essence of the story is rolled up into one powerful sentence.

You can try the other sentences or do them in your mind like I did.

Gaming examples

For these, I'm using 1. Curse of Strahd by WoTC, 2. Prince of the Apocalypse by WoTC, 3. Curse of the Crimson Throne by Jacobs and Logue , 4. For Queen & Empire by Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and 5. Exquisite Agony by Schwalb Entertainment

Who are the prominent characters in generic and universal terms?

1. a party of adventurers
2. adventurers from heroic factions
3. a ragtag group of heroes
4. Arriving in the imperial capital, the adventurers
5. The devils and mortals

What must they do?

1. has just entered his domain ...
2. must discover where the true power of each prophet lay, and dismantle it before it comes boiling up to obliterate the Realms
3. can they stand before the might of one of Golarion’s most notorious villains?
4. To impress the queen and secure a royal audience, the wicked characters must scour ... to root out and eradicate a secret organization that works to free halfling slaves
5. must join forces and take a stand against the impossible foe

What is the opposition?

1. the vampire ... The master of Castle Ravenloft
2. four corrupt prophets have risen from the depths of anonymity to claim mighty weapons with direct links to the power of the elemental princes
3. a new queen
4. Her Infernal Majestrix Queen
5. a grim darkness cast by the Voice in the Void

Example of making a one sentence summary
I don't really like the first one since it's very vague. I'll do the second one instead

2. Adventurers from heroic factions must discover the source of the mighty weapons true power of each of the four newly risen corrupt prophets and dismantle it before it comes boiling up to obliterate the Realms.

Although not as straight forward as the novel example, I did manage to muscle in what I believe is the entire storyline of the RPG sourcebook.

Conclusion

I believe most stories, both novel and rpg adventure sourcebook, can use these three chunks of information (who are the characters, what must they do, and what is opposing them) to write one sentence that clearly tells what the story is about.