Pale Jackal
First Post
Scholar & Brutalman said:
It is an excellent piece of art. Nice name, BTW.
Excerpt: the quest's the thing
- Thread starter jaelis
- Start date
It is an excellent piece of art. Nice name, BTW.
ThirdWizard
First Post
I can't wait to read the DMG!! This is really good, solid, advice. Even us DMs who have been running games for a long time can always use a refresher. I love this article. 
As long as there's tables to use to create ad-hoc rewards. That whole main quest/quest seed thing is just way too much pre-plotting for me. Things like "Oh, the prisoner is a hobgoblin slave" are things I'm most likely to come up with in-play.
I can't speak for others, but the people I game with tend to make their own quests, and I just keep up. This is especially true whenever a town is entered...five seconds past the gate, the PCs have scattered on their own missions.
I can't speak for others, but the people I game with tend to make their own quests, and I just keep up. This is especially true whenever a town is entered...five seconds past the gate, the PCs have scattered on their own missions.
TheLordWinter
First Post
1of3 said:
I think it's been mentioned before in the Design and Development articles that quests can involve just a single player. If the Elf Ranger's goal is to track down his missing father, a minor quest could involve finding some sign of his presence, such as a favored dagger or lost heirloom in a dangerous area or dungeon he was previously seen at. This quest could then continue to balloon into either more minor quests or even develop into a Major quest (The clues build up to eventually reveal that the Ranger's father is in fact the Big Bad who has been terrorizing the party for weeks, and they must now stop him and confront him to find out why he's changed.)
While the MMO influence is obvious on quests, and I've heard my share of jokes from the players around the table about looking for NPCs with gold question marks lit up over their heads, at the same time, I've dealt with groups in previous editions who drop hooks or important story elements because they simply forgot. What's important to the DM isn't necessarily the same thing that strikes the players as important, so I think tweaking the idea of quests is a fun one which can work out well.
Cirex
First Post
With just 10 appropiated level encounters (including social encounters) and quest rewards, I don't know if characters will be leveling way too fast.
My campaigns are usually very plot-centered, as in, the plot carries the adventure and it's the most important thing. Players are free to do other stuff, but often they focus on the plot, since it's what motivates both players and characters.
I need to revaluate that quest experience to see how I can fit it...or I will find myself with level 24 characters in no time.
My campaigns are usually very plot-centered, as in, the plot carries the adventure and it's the most important thing. Players are free to do other stuff, but often they focus on the plot, since it's what motivates both players and characters.
I need to revaluate that quest experience to see how I can fit it...or I will find myself with level 24 characters in no time.
Just a "how I done it" post:
"Overarching" quests for me have always been spiderwebs, not linear. So though there might be a dozen possible quest "seeds" or "hooks" in a town, they are all related to some bigger problem. The PC's may go on to the bigger problem after one of the hooks, or they might go and clear out all the minor problems before getting to the bigger one, or they might say "Let's blow this joint, it is too dysfunctional". All are acceptable choices, of course failing to complete the quests or bite on the hooks have consequences. For the minor ones, maybe the baker goes out of business, or the blacksmith is killed, etc. Up the line, maybe that village gets overrun, a battle is lost, etc. Until you get to the whole kingdom goes into ruin, the cosmology is shifted/flipped, armageddon, etc.
So while there is not much to see in the article, it's good to know they are starting to do it the "right" way.
"Overarching" quests for me have always been spiderwebs, not linear. So though there might be a dozen possible quest "seeds" or "hooks" in a town, they are all related to some bigger problem. The PC's may go on to the bigger problem after one of the hooks, or they might go and clear out all the minor problems before getting to the bigger one, or they might say "Let's blow this joint, it is too dysfunctional". All are acceptable choices, of course failing to complete the quests or bite on the hooks have consequences. For the minor ones, maybe the baker goes out of business, or the blacksmith is killed, etc. Up the line, maybe that village gets overrun, a battle is lost, etc. Until you get to the whole kingdom goes into ruin, the cosmology is shifted/flipped, armageddon, etc.
So while there is not much to see in the article, it's good to know they are starting to do it the "right" way.
Cirex said:
I expect I'll do XP the way I've always done XP. At the end of the night, everyone will get a flat reward based on my entirely subjective option of how well the game went. In my last 3.5 campaign, they got 750 points on nights we wasted a lot of time* and 1,000 points on nights we were more focussed. I never worked out the XP for a single encounter.
At the end of the roughly 1-year long campaign everyone was 8th level and just did manage to defeat the BBEG, leveling to 9th at the end. A lot less headache for me and it actually made things pretty simple for the players - they always knew withing a game session either way when they could expect to level.
*I wish I could claim this method cut down on the Monty Python references and rambling fantasy baseball discussions, but I am not sure that's the case . . .
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