Design & Development: Quests

[Beastman]

:-/ i prefer the good old way. players (characters) should make notes. if i want to have cards in a game, i would play a boardgame. i think, this is another aspect of the "new" game straying from RPGs in general. although the idea of using cards (in one way or another) is not a new one (dragonlance saga anyone), do you remmeber any of the more prominent RPG lines using cards? i think it is only another distraction from the game and minis and battlemaps are distracting enough with their potential of ruining a flavorful roleplaying expereince because players tend to focus on game pieces and oftentimes do not hear the (more important) descriptions...

And perhaps WotC makes the cards collectible? what then?

 

[Remathilis]

So I'm the only one who thinks its bloody brilliant that they reintroduced proper story awards into the game with the assumption of using them?

As for the cards, I don't mind a quest log. It might help with the classic problem in most D&D games: character amnesia

 

[Tquirky]

:-/ i prefer the good old way. players (characters) should make notes.

You can end up writing constantly instead of really playing and with a whole lot of useless notes this way.

I've had a player do it really thoroughly before, and felt guilty that I was feeding them this information that wasn't really worth noting down, because I'd improvised it on the spot and there would be no followup.

Then, when you have your player notes, there's still no guarantee that the players will put the pieces of the puzzle together. Say something from two pages and a session ago matches with something just presented. If five people miss it (which often happens), you can hardly blame the players for "being stupid" or something - the onus rests on the DM to make the hook obvious. These cards deal neatly with that problem.

The alternative is breaking the 4th wall and telling the players what they've missed, and what they "should" be doing. Cards aren't as awkward as that.

 

[Badkarmaboy]

I'd like to agree with what Remathilis says at this point (see his sig, he's a smart feller)

Rewarding players for delving into the story is great-the fact that the devs support it is great too

 

[Pale]

Back in my day, players took notes. The DM didn't have to pre-do it for them.

And... pick up an item and get a quest card??? That's something that they put into CRPGs because they couldn't tailor quests to every person. It's a good idea considering the limitations of a CRPG.

I guess that this will go into the 50% of things I don't like about 4E pile.

 

[Pale]

You can end up writing constantly instead of really playing and with a whole lot of useless notes this way.

I've had a player do it really thoroughly before, and felt guilty that I was feeding them this information that wasn't really worth noting down, because I'd improvised it on the spot and there would be no followup.

I've had that happen, too. Difference is I borrowed his notes a couple of weeks later and used them to enhance the overall adventure with subplots.

No sense in wasting creativity.

 

[Odhanan]

Given you've stated you're not the target customer, can I take it as read that you never have quests in your games? It's all about kill monsters and take their stuff?

Not what I meant. I don't think the advice is relevant to me because I take notes during the game and ask players to do the same. I've been doing it for years, don't have issues about that kind of thing, and therefore do not consider modifying my way of DMing to include quest cards and such.

Ergo, I'm not the target audience.

You think that's a brilliant idea? By all means, rejoice, be happy! More power to you!

 

[Tquirky]

I've had that happen, too. Difference is I borrowed his notes a couple of weeks later and used them to enhance the overall adventure with subplots.

No sense in wasting creativity.

Nice thing to do if you've got the time to spend on that. But there's still no guarantee they haven't missed your main plot points, despite the notes, though.

 

[Fifth Element]

Back in my day, players took notes. The DM didn't have to pre-do it for them.

Please note, again, that this is a suggestion that will apparently be included in the DMG. The DM won't "have" to do it. I know some DMs who already do this sort of thing (myself included at times), because it's easier for them (us) to prepare such things before game time than to wait for players to make their notes during the session.

Also, did you really just say "back in my day"? Was that facetious?

 

[Beastman]

Nice thing to do if you've got the time to spend on that. But there's still no guarantee they haven't missed your main plot points, despite the notes, though.

So as a GM i'm expected to prepare a game session and I expect my players to review their notes. Another thing a GM is to do is to bring the players back on track and improvisation is part of the game and a fun part at that. Another part is for the GM to tie in the personal history/background of characters.