QuestWorlds is coming—who else is hyped?

[PrunellaUK]

So, what is the core play mechanic for this system?

It's advertised as being setting agnostic, so I'm assuming it's targeted at homebrewers like me. But for homebewing, I already have BRP, Mythras, Savage Worlds, Fate Core, Cepheus Engine, Cortex Prime and True20. Does QuestWorlds deliver something new to the brewery that I don't already have?

Someone upthread described it as a 'more flexible FATE', and I'd cheerfully go along with that. Mechanically it's lighter than FATE, and really focused on rolling only when you need a story obstacle to be overcome. The core mechanic for resolving obstacles is a straightforward D20 system where all rolls are opposed rolls, and nearly always generates a win/fail result (true ties are rare). The degree of success is graded, with a common result being a zero-degree success/failure (aka 'victory with a price', or 'defeat with a boon'). The way in which stats are calculated means that characters can scale from ordinary, to heroic, then to epic fairly simply.

The system suits a storytelling style where the GM and players are both contributing to the storytelling. I find it's light on 'mechanics prep' (no stat blocks to be filled out) so that my prep is spent solely on the story and characters. The result is sessions that rock along at quite a velocity. You can actually complete whole stories in relatively few sessions, which for people who are restricted on time is a boon.

There's definitely things the system doesn't do well. One boxout explains why it's well suited for pulp action and not, say, psychological horror. But if you like pulp adventure, this system is certainly my weapon of choice.

 

[Autumnal]

Some years ago, Ben Monroe and I started work on a horror genre book for HeroQuest 2e. Life got in the way for both of us, and then Chaosium decided on a different direction for the game. I won’t be able to do professional-level work any time soon, but I may have some tidbits worth sharing at the forum level. In our early experiments, we both found HQ2 just great for various kinds of horror, and the QW STD suggests the same.

 

[Autumnal]

I’m in the process of reading it now and feeling like this was money well spent.

I am pondering how best to handle it for solo play. The fact that the game calls for a lot fewer rolls per unit of play time than many games makes this much less urgent than for many games, fortunately.

 

[PrunellaUK]

I feel that something that will trip up a lot of GMs is the low frequency of rolling. The Platonic ideal of QW is to roll only at key moments where the story might diverge in a substantive way. However, that's difficult if you've trained yourself (or been trained by other GMs) to have players roll on every single task and build a narrative from the herky-jerky string of successes and failures.

Part of what also adds to the GM's dilemma is that the game tries to encourage story branching on failed rolls. Are you as GM agile enough to handle this? In many ways it's similar to the related issue of the GM burning through QW stories at a faster rate than traditional TTRPGs.

In many games the GM can coast a little if they know that a battle will take up half a session, or a sequence of task rolls and discussions of strategies will similarly occupy the players' time for an hour of play. QuestWorlds really wants you as GM to get past that hurdle quickly and branch the story one way or the other. You have to be on your toes.

 

[kronovan]

Someone upthread described it as a 'more flexible FATE', and I'd cheerfully go along with that. Mechanically it's lighter than FATE, and really focused on rolling only when you need a story obstacle to be overcome. The core mechanic for resolving obstacles is a straightforward D20 system where all rolls are opposed rolls, and nearly always generates a win/fail result (true ties are rare). The degree of success is graded, with a common result being a zero-degree success/failure (aka 'victory with a price', or 'defeat with a boon'). The way in which stats are calculated means that characters can scale from ordinary, to heroic, then to epic fairly simply.

The system suits a storytelling style where the GM and players are both contributing to the storytelling. I find it's light on 'mechanics prep' (no stat blocks to be filled out) so that my prep is spent solely on the story and characters. The result is sessions that rock along at quite a velocity. You can actually complete whole stories in relatively few sessions, which for people who are restricted on time is a boon.

There's definitely things the system doesn't do well. One boxout explains why it's well suited for pulp action and not, say, psychological horror. But if you like pulp adventure, this system is certainly my weapon of choice.

Many thanks for that explanation Prunellas. I downloaded the QuestWorlds SRD and have been making a casual read of it. I'm interested in games with a more narrative style of play, which I'd describe the FATE and Cortex Prime I use, as being. I know I have a limited audience for such rules, as I've learned with experience that only some of my circle of players share an interest in such a style.

IME reading a system with a different approach, can help me improve upon how I run my campaigns with my other systems. Will I go as far as actually buying the finished QuestWorlds product - at a cost to me of $28 CDN, probably not.

 

[Autumnal]

This passage hits on something that’s become really important to my gaming:

Stories advance by two methods: conflict and revelation.

• Stories advance by conflict when your PC is prevented from achieving their goals because there is something that must be overcome—to gain a desired person, thing, or even status.

• Stories advance by revelation when there is something that must be understood—a secret learned, or the past revealed.

Not every struggle or progression is best approached as a conflict. There can be resistance without anything that’s really antagonism.

Lots of challenges are conflicts, of course, and some things that aren’t innately conflicts can be approached productively as if they were. It’s just not the only show in town for getting from here to a desired goal. It makes me glad to see that spelled out here.

 

[Autumnal]

Um. Fair warning: I’m likely to enthuse a lot as I go. Feel free to ask, publicly or privately, to tone it down if it’s too much. I am by lifelong temperament an enthusiast for the shinies of the moment, and have deliberately cultivated a tendency to go on more about what I like than what I don’t in response to toxicities in my fandoms and subcultures. If you were in my living room visiting with me, you could throw a blanket over my head, kick me in the shins, or send the cats in to distract me. Same deal.

 

[overgeeked]

Um. Fair warning: I’m likely to enthuse a lot as I go. Feel free to ask, publicly or privately, to tone it down if it’s too much. I am by lifelong temperament an enthusiast for the shinies of the moment, and have deliberately cultivated a tendency to go on more about what I like than what I don’t in response to toxicities in my fandoms and subcultures. If you were in my living room visiting with me, you could throw a blanket over my head, kick me in the shins, or send the cats in to distract me. Same deal.

Please enthuse all over the place. The forum needs some positivity somewhere.

 

[EthanSental]

I fully agree that QuestWorlds being ORC licensed and setting agnostic, it encourages the creation of genre packs. With the release of the core book, I’ve decided to resurrect my old blog, Playtesting.org, and use it as a space to share and develop a brand-new genre pack, Perseverance.

Perseverance is space western setting inspired by classics like Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, and The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers. It’s a frontier world on the edge of the Terran Commonwealth, where law is thin, fortunes are won or lost in the dust, and survival depends on grit, wits, and the speed of your draw.

I have just published the first post, Perseverance: a space western setting for QuestWorlds.

Nothing on the site or in 4 pages shown on the site mention it being Orc gaming licensing based, the just statement that it’s different than wotc OGL. If they arent mentioning it as orc, then it’s not a big, medium or small selling point for them or it would have been mentioned. The orc creation push 2 years ago is probably more behind the scenes than seeing a big d20 type thing in 3e days on covers to show dnd tie in with the OGL.

 

[Autumnal]

It is in the book, though, and the SRD, and lists of publishers and games that use ORC, and so on. I suspect Chaosium figures thst it’s not interesting enough to gamers at large to mention in ad copy, and that people actually interested in ORC will be looking at resources like those;