Design & Development: Quests

[catsclaw227]

It's on his blog (or was) and is linked to earlier in this thread.

Ah yes, I recall. Thanks.

I think that was the blog entry that essentially told everyone to relax, that they are reading too much into what he said in his Des&Dev article.

I will try to dig it up...

 

[ThirdWizard]

I am not suggesting that the DM doesn't come up with the adventure(s), or suggesting that the players should make every effort to diverge from the adventure. What I am saying is that if you have a mechanical system in place that rewards, through X, going about an adventure in a particular way -- i.e. a Quest as defined in the Des&Dev article and expounded upon in Mearls' post -- you are railroading and limiting the players options, which are btoh things that are almost universaally decried as "bad DMing".

I think story awards come down to a few different things:

• a reward for accomplishing more complex goals than Kill The Monster
• a cohesive mechanic relating various points together
• a "wrap up" for quests with specific beginnings and endings

One thing everyone wants in their games (that I've seen at least) is some over-arching plot line or at the very least a link between Point A in the campaign and Point B. Something that says to them "This is why we do what we do." It can be as simple as killing the goblin raiders to save the village or as complex as... well, there's no quick way to summarize a complex plot, so I won't try.

We can call it a quest or a story or whatever we want, but it is an interlinked series of encounters (whether they be combat, traps, dialog, whatever). When we design these encounters and when we look back on them, we see the trappings of the Quest. That's all the quest is, in effect, but it makes things more interesting, because it gives flavor and a sense of something greater to the PCs actions.

The story award is basically a conceit that the PCs have worked through these linked encounters and come out victorious. It is a way of rewarding players for their ability to recognize this series, work their way through the series, and overcome the series. Whether the series comes about through DM creation before play, through DM improv during play, the player talking to the DM before play, or through the players own devious machinations during play doesn't matter. The point is that some goal has been attained, some quest has been fulfilled.

So, that's where the story award comes in. The DM determines the difficulty of the whole attempt and assigns some XP. This takes for granted that some quests are actually more difficult than the sum of their parts. Just because no CR broke 4, as an arbitrary example, doesn't mean the quest was a "CR 4" quest. In effect, it wraps up the odds and ends that aren't accounted for. That's not all, though, just a part of it. It can also be used as a way to round XP to a nice even number, a way to reward players for great ideas on how the quest was handled, wrapped up with roleplaying XP, given out as a "end of adventure" award during wind down, and whatever else can be thought up.

There are many many good reasons people have for like story awards. People like getting XP is probably the best good one in my book. Beyond all the fluffy stuff above, that's probably the core reason, Occam's Razor and all.

I am in favor of PC's doing what they want...but how does creating a bunch of quests (which essentially still direct and influence the PC's choices unlesss you create an infinite number of "quests") facillitate this?

Here's the thing. In my book, you are giving out quests in your game if you have any kind of linked encounters going on. So, you are creating a bunch of quests already. No extra work involved. I like handouts that explain these quests, and you don't?

I argued earlier that it should be a character/player driven mechanic (since in the end only the player knows how his PC will react to a situation) with some guidelines for DM's to assign xp dependant upon the challenges faced in achieving their goals. How does this contradict that? In the end I feel this setup is to rigid, and the assigning of xp makes it a punish/reward incentive for PC's to do what the DM wants.

They just want a system for the story awards instead of it being all DM-fiat. I think that's fine. But, it has to be a DM mechanic because he is deciding how much XP to award. The Card is more of a helpful reminder than anything else, a concise place for Quest information. So, instead of having info strewn out among several loose-leaf, like we always have in the past, you've got a nice note card with the information on it.

I'm not sure what you find distasteful. The quests will remain regardless, it isn't changing how quests work - indeed there has never been, and it isn't implied that 4e will have, any system for designing quests. Which, I think, is a shame, actually. Perhaps there will be and I'm just getting the wrong idea from the article. Unless the DMG2 had some? I didn't get the book.

But, in any event, just because something is written down on a quest card doesn't mean that it has to be any more fleshed out because it is written down. I don't see it changing much beyond a suggestion of a helpful handout. If you have no problem with Quest XP then I'm not sure what would be troubling.

 

[Reynard]

The story award is basically a conceit that the PCs have worked through these linked encounters and come out victorious. It is a way of rewarding players for their ability to recognize this series, work their way through the series, and overcome the series. Whether the series comes about through DM creation before play, through DM improv during play, the player talking to the DM before play, or through the players own devious machinations during play doesn't matter. The point is that some goal has been attained, some quest has been fulfilled.

When speaking of play in general, I think you are right and I agree with you. but that'snot what we are discusing here. What we are discussing is the Quest mechanic that is designed to reward players for accomplishing a goal in a particular way. Every edition from AD&D1 up has had "story awards" -- XP gained for things that weren't killing monsters or taking their stuff. To my knowledge, no edition -- except in the case of sanctioned, organized play -- has built in a concrete mechanic designed to reward players only for acting in a manner that best supports the DM's/designer's predetermined outcome.

If this wasn't coming out of 4E, I am guessing that half of the people lauding it would be decrying it as the railroading, restrictive mechanic that it is.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yet it's still a choice to follow the adventure (though I wonder how you know you are "following " the adventuree unless the DM tells you). You all are making a choice, and not being cajoled with gain or loss of xp to make that particular choice.

Well, if they don't follow the adventure, they will not gain the XP from that adventure. Because they might not encounter the monsters and traps I put in there. They might also not the cool +4 Holy Flaming Longsword that lures in one of the treasure chests.

---

Another important thing: No matter how many quests you invent on the fly. If you want to reward the players at succeeding at something, and this reward is not just linked to the challenge rating / level of a monster or NPC, there are now guidelines for how you award it.

Imagine as part of the game, players (secretly, without quest cards, because that would give away too much), they manage to uncover a would-be assassin. "Traditionally", I would make the Assassin a high level NPC that the PCs have to kill / subdue to "beat". If he runs once he fears being uncovered, I might want to give them some XP (since they still foiled his plan), but how much? The Full CR? But the Assassin didn't threaten them at all, he didn't even stand in their way! (It's not like they were circumventing a Hobgoblin patrol looking for them) What's the guideline for this? I'd probably give half XP or something like that. On the other hand, if they beat him, they get just XP for beating an high level Assassin? Shouldn't the whole process of uncovering an Assassin at all be worth something? Again, half of his regular XP extra? Or just twice as much?

With Quest rules, I can (hopefully) determine how much XP uncovering the Assassin was worth. And the Assassin doesn't even have to be high level - he could be a low-key scribe with access to the victim and a small dose of poison. I might miss out one cool fight, though. But it means I am also not forced to have all assassins and murderers be NPCs of appropriate level to the PCs. I can avoid using "XP for kills" and instead use "XP for quests".

There is, obviously, alway a question about how much of story & style do you want to express mechanically, and how much you are fine with just guessing or hand-waving.

Without feats or talents, there is little mechanical difference between a Longsword wielder and a Battleaxe wielder (if you're unlucky, one of them is plainly inferior), but that's it. With feats and talents, you can customize your character to enforce the different stereotypes.
Without skills, you couldn't represent someone being trained in a specific task - climbing, sneaking, knowing things about religion. You might be able to persuade your DM that you should be good at something, but you might not.

Without a quest system, we only had two types of challenges - traps and monsters/NPCs - that we could express mechanically. Without mechanical guidelines, the rest was just guesstimating. (What about puzzles, by the way? How can they be rewarded?)

With social encounter rules, non-combat encounters with NPCs either relied on a single skill check, or on convincing the DM with sweet talk (or a combination of both).

When do you have to little rules? When do you have too much? I don't think there are fixed borders - some people love rules-light, others prefer rules-heavy.
If D&D really is such a great toolbox for all kinds of campaigns and settings, it needs one of the following two (or both)
1) A hell of a lot of good and solid role playing advice.
(how do you handle "mother may I?-situations", "100 ways of intoning your voice without hurting yourself", "how do I avoid favoritism towards certain players?", "How to describe a scene in an engaging fashion?"),

2)
A rule system containing tools for all kinds of scenarios, campaigns, settings or play styles, presented in an engaging manner and describing them in a way that learning to use them is easy. ("How can I distinguish a character that is good at climbing to one that is just very strong?" "How can I build a monster to challenge the NPCs?" "How do I reward the PCs for beating monsters, surviving traps, solving puzzles?")

I guess D&D has always been falling to the latter part, and I am afraid the former part is neglected in most game systems, anyway (aside from a little standard talk.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

When speaking of play in general, I think you are right and I agree with you. but that'snot what we are discusing here. What we are discussing is the Quest mechanic that is designed to reward players for accomplishing a goal in a particular way. Every edition from AD&D1 up has had "story awards" -- XP gained for things that weren't killing monsters or taking their stuff. To my knowledge, no edition -- except in the case of sanctioned, organized play -- has built in a concrete mechanic designed to reward players only for acting in a manner that best supports the DM's/designer's predetermined outcome.

If this wasn't coming out of 4E, I am guessing that half of the people lauding it would be decrying it as the railroading, restrictive mechanic that it is.

I am not sure, but aren't you adding something to the mechanic that wasn't described in the article?

In D&D, the words "adventure" and "quest" are virtually synonymous. They both mean a journey, fraught with danger that you undertake for a specific purpose. We sometimes joke that the game is all about killing monsters and taking their stuff, but the reality is that the game is about adventures. You go into the dungeon and kill monsters with a larger purpose in mind: to stop their raids on caravans, to rescue the townsfolk they've captured, to retrieve the lost Scepter of the Adamantine Kings for the rightful descendant of those kings.

Quests are the story glue that binds encounters together into adventures. They turn what would otherwise be a disjointed series of combats and interactions into a narrative -- a story with a beginning, a middle, and a climactic ending. They give characters a reason for doing what they do, and a feeling of accomplishment when they achieve their goals.

Quests can be major or minor, they can involve the whole group or just a single character's personal goals, and they have levels just like encounters do. Completing a quest always brings a reward in experience points (equal to an encounter of its level for a major quest, or a monster of its level for a minor quest), and it often brings monetary rewards as well (on par with its XP reward, balanced with the rest of the treasure in the adventure). They can also bring other rewards, of course -- grants of land or title, the promise of a future favor, and so on.

The idea of quest rewards is nothing new to D&D. Second Edition, in particular, promoted the idea of giving story rewards of experience points when players completed adventures. The quest rules in 4th Edition are directly descended from that idea, integrated into the economy of rewards in the game. They're a rules wrapper around the story of the game, a way to keep players mindful of the purposes behind all their adventuring.

(Emphasis Mine)
Quests don't describe how you have to solve them. They just tell you what you want (should/might hope/are railroaded) to achieve. (top their raids on caravans, to rescue the townsfolk they've captured, to retrieve the lost Scepter of the Adamantine Kings for the rightful descendant of those kings).

 

[PeterWeller]

. What we are discussing is the Quest mechanic that is designed to reward players for accomplishing a goal in a particular way.

No we're not; we're discussing a suggestion as to how to implement the quest mechanic. The quest mechanic, as far as we know, is simply: "Completing a quest always brings a reward in experience points (equal to an encounter of its level for a major quest, or a monster of its level for a minor quest)."

Now, we can argue for ever and ever over whether quest cards are railroading, but that's not arguing the mechanic. Quest cards are not the mechanic; they are a suggestion on how to implement it. The only thing the mechanic says, as far as we know, is that you (the DM) should give the players experience points for completing story goals. Nowhere has it said that you only reward them for your story goals. In fact, the line, "[quests] can involve the whole group or just a single character's personal goals," would point to just the opposite, that the players' goals should be rewarded, upon completion, with experience. All the quest mechanic does is specify how much should be rewarded for completing a story goal. It's codified into the experience system and thus balanced with the rest of the character advancement rules, which IMO is a pretty good thing.

If this wasn't coming out of 4E, I am guessing that half of the people lauding it would be decrying it as the railroading, restrictive mechanic that it is.

And if this wasn't coming out of 4E, I am guessing that half of the people decrying it would laud it as the empowering and better thought out experience system (as compared to 3E's "test your mettle" set up) that it is.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

How is it any quicker for a DM to jot down a "quest card" than for a PC to do it. If anything the DM doing it stops the game full screech, while a PC doing it doesn't necessarily have to.

(Fairly close to an actual in-game conversation... Modified to fit primary example)

Player 1: Okay, so this guy wants us to find the spies, correct?
DM: Yes.
Player 2: Cool. I guess we go kill the spies next.
DM: He wants them alive.
Player 2: Oh.
Player 1: What's this guy's name again?
DM: Archbishop (Something).
Player 1: Can you spell that?
DM: [Spells it out]
Player 3: It was the bartender that was acting shadey wasn't it?
Player 2: The bar-maid. The bartender was talking to [Player 1] the entire time.
DM: Glad you caught that.
Player 1: What's the name of the town again?

Okay... Besides asking the name of the town (which isn't exactly an unheard of question) when I take notes for the group it quite often goes like this. And let's be honest - if it is the first session in a new location the question of the town's name can easily come up (multiple times).

And yes, I do actually ask for the spelling many times. That way I don't write the names down wrong and mispronounce them forevermore (because I'm "properly" pronouncing what I wrote down and not the actual name).

If the DM knew the group would be getting the quest that session - Yes, I honestly think it would be a lot faster to have it written down ahead of time. If the DM didn't know the quest was going to pop up (such as the party starting to work with the spies and thus starting the 'Remove the Archbishop' quest) it wouldn't take long to scribble stuff down on a card.

 

[Reynard]

The only thing the mechanic says, as far as we know, is that you (the DM) should give the players experience points for completing story goals.

This is the important piece. Now take it in context with Mearls' deeper explanation of the system. The idea is, when you combine those two sources, that players get extra XP for "completing story goals" that are both predetermined and restrictive. "Uncover the spies and bring them alive before the Archbishop" is a predetermined, restrictive thing for which to give bonus XP. The PCs that kill the spies don't get the bonus XP. The PCs that trick the spies into giving false information to their masters don't get bonus XP. The PCs that engineer infighting and self destruction of the spies don't get bonus XP. Only the PCs that do what the Quest description says -- bring them alive before the Archbishop -- get the bonus XP. It turns XP from carrot" to "stick" pretty effectively.

 

[Reynard]

And yes, I do actually ask for the spelling many times. That way I don't write the names down wrong and mispronounce them forevermore (because I'm "properly" pronouncing what I wrote down and not the actual name).

One thing that is useful is having a whiteboard handy where the Dm can write down "fantasy names" so that you don't have to go through the "That's Bob, with a 'kh'pa!" bit.

Player handouts are fine. In fact, they are better than fine. They are cool and fun and help promote immersion. Even a bullet point fact sheet might be a good handout (though it would kill that whole immersion part). It isn't the Quest Cards that are at issue, its the implementation of Quests as it has been described to us by Mearls that I think is problematic for a lot of folks.

The original article itself was pretty innocuous. It said, in short, "4E is going to put story awards in the DMG and tie it to the CR system for determining how much they are worth, XP wise." Nothing new. i was kind of dissapointed, in fact, as I was all ready to scream "WoWism" and upon reading it found that it wasn't a fair assessment. But then you have Mearls' comments on the subject and it becomes clear that the intent is, in fact, to create hardcoded victory conditions in the game.

 

[PeterWeller]

But Reynard, where did Mearls ever say those were the only quests. Where does it say that infiltrating the spies or turning them doesn't earn a different, distinct quest reward of its own. I would say that infiltrating the spy network is a different quest than capturing the spies and returning them alive. Your taking a list of examples as an exclusive list of the only quest available. Also, I would say that the players should get a specific additional XP reward for bringing the spies in alive. It's actually a lot easier and safer to just waste someone in D&D than it is to capture them alive, and capturing them alive will have distinct benefits over just killing the lot of them, so players should be given something extra for choosing the more difficult yet ultimately more rewarding course of action. In this case, it's a carrot, not a stick.