PC/Console RPGs - What are your memorable Quests?

Chairman7w · Feb 14, 2012

Hey guys, I see people voice their complains about "Fetch this" quests, and "Kill X amount of these" quests, or "Fedex" quests... and I understand how they can get a bit monotonous.

My question is, strictly from a conversational standpoint, "What are some unique rewarding quests you've done?"

For me, I remember a quest in Oblivion for the Dark Brotherhood where I had to be locked in a mansion with a group of people, and I had to kill each other, without any of them seeing it happen. So eventually it was just me and one other person left and they realized I was the murderer. Now THAT was a unique Quest!! Loved it!

What quests have you done that you remember and were fun?

MarkB · Feb 14, 2012

I remember in Planescape: Torment, when you meet Mebbeth the witch, the first character who can teach you to take up the Wizard class. She's this absent-minded insane old woman, and she starts sending you out on these seemingly stereotypically pointless fetch-quests for the most inane, irrelevant items - her washed linens, which have been over-starched, an old picture frame that's missing its picture, a bag whose contents have all been lost save for a handful of dried-up thorny seeds.

It's pretty much designed to be annoying, and just when you're getting really frustrated, she turns all this random stuff around into something else - stripping the starched surface from the linens to form papery sheets, stretching them across the picture frame, using a drop of your blood to grow a seed into a vine that grows around the frame to hold the sheets in place.

The result is your first spellbook, with a few spells already scribed into it, including a thorny plant-based one derived from those seeds, and even much of the seemingly-trivial dialogue you had along the way is transformed, through a few key phrases from Mebbeth, into insights as to how wizardry works - not only in-universe, but game-mechanically, so that the quest series becomes a tutorial on the wizard class.

It's just brilliantly presented - the typically annoying, trivial fetch-quest is transformed into both a representation of the hard work and dedication required to learn the magical arts and a genuinely useful tutorial into the use of magic in-game, and at the end of it you have an absolutely unique spellbook and some unique spells to cast.

jonesy · Feb 15, 2012

Bal Molagmer quests in Morrowind. Basically playing a good thief.

Getting sucked into the painting in Oblivion. Too bad it wasn't developed into something more interesting.

The box delivery quest in Knights of the Old Republic.

Scaring Yquog in Icewind Dale 2.

In King of Dragon Pass you can send your king alone to challenge a dragon. They end up fighting.. with riddles.

Everything in Vampire: Bloodlines when you're Malkavian. And the tv starts talking to you. And the whispers in your head give you clues other vampires don't get. But the Ocean House Hotel was cool.

In Planescape: Torment the Xaositect were sadly neglected a lot, but what you needed to do to join them was fun. Woof Woof!

The liquor store in Leisure Suit Larry. "Hey, everybody.. !"

The hotel assault in Police Quest 2.

When the gravity goes upside down in System Shock 2.

The whole thing with the frog and becoming one in King's Quest 4.

Planescape is generally the best model for good quests. The brothel was very interesting.

The dream in Lurking Horror. Sets the mood of the game nicely.

Chairman7w · Feb 15, 2012

Great stuff there, Jonesy. I had forgotten about getting sucked into the painting in Oblivion - that was very cool!

Oh - and how bout when you had to kill that guy in Oblivion and make it look like an accident by dropping the moose head on him? That was cool, too.

Sounds like I'm gonna have to play Planescape.

jonesy · Feb 15, 2012

Chairman7w said:
Sounds like I'm gonna have to play Planescape.

If you do the easiest way is probably Good Old Games:
Planescape: Torment - GOG.com

Deuce Traveler · Feb 15, 2012

I thought Oblivion was sub-par when compared to Morrowind, but I felt that Dark Brotherhood quest you talked about was a nice tweak to reality TV shows and also the best and most memorable quest of the Elder Scrolls series.

I would say the unlocking of the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon from the Planescape: Torment RPG was also a memorable and great quest. Hell, I could probably site examples of great quests just from the one Torment game, but this was my favorite of them all. Other quests involved purposely dying in one trap-filled maze in order to access a hidden section (falling into a trap as a solution?) and sticking your companion into a demonic Pillar of Skulls and trying to retrieve him for the knowledge he collects before he is absorbed.

I think the quest in Baldur's Gate where two mages are fighting over a nymph was good for the flexibility it allowed, it's dark tone, and the heroism your character could show if you took the hardest solution by trying to free her.

Another great one was Durlag's Tower in the Baldur's Gate expansion as it dealt with uncovering the tragedy of the Tower and what the mystery of what had actually occurred. A good mixture of traps, fighting and riddles.

Ah the 90s. There are some good games out there today, but since many are 3D you don't seem to get the mixture of tactical turn-based combat, riddles, traps and puzzles as you did in the isometric era.

Starman · Feb 15, 2012

Chairman7w said:
Great stuff there, Jonesy. I had forgotten about getting sucked into the painting in Oblivion - that was very cool!

Oh - and how bout when you had to kill that guy in Oblivion and make it look like an accident by dropping the moose head on him? That was cool, too.

Sounds like I'm gonna have to play Planescape.

Planescape: Torment is one of the greatest PC games of all time. Of all time!

Relique du Madde · Feb 15, 2012

Were you able to kill Macbeth the Witch? I don't remember doing that quest, and I know I did my best to kill NPCs who annoyed me in that game.

Poor Morte... If only The Nameless one did not use Strength as his dump stat when I played the game...

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