Giving up on the Quest

[Stormborn]

I'm not sure, but from the way I read the OP, I don't think Stormborn is against quests altogether, I think the idea is that there isn't a large, overarching Quest that continues to lead the PCs to the next adventure.

Right. I suppose that I should make some further distinctions here. To me a Quest is almost always external to the PCs, the particulars are subject to the conditions of the campaign and not the specific characters concerned; or they are tied to the particular PCs but in a way that they have little choice in (IOW Destiny). The characters may choose how they go about the quest, but the existance of said quest is seperate from their choice.

On the other hand we have Goals (which may be refered to as quests). These are influenced by the campaign setting and the particulars there of have bearing upon it but the motivation for the goal is subject to the whims of the characters and their life rather than forces outside the characters.

Let us consider two classic "Quests"

The Quest for the Grail in the Arthur Mythology is motivated by the conditions of the King and Kingdom (usually), rather than the knights that actually do the questing. Their personalities and motivations ultimately lead them to various adventures and endings but the Quest itself is larger that they are and would exist if a completly different group of knights (PCs in game terms) were in similar cirumstances.

In contrast to this we have the story of Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight challanges the Round Table to a seemingly insane contest, but none of them need to take it up. The kingdom doesn't end, no one dies, and given the reaction of most of the knights we get the impression that it wouldnt even be a great slight on anyone's honor to decline. Gawain, however, is motivated otherwise to trade blows with the Green Knight. This decision leads him to an Adventure with a Goal (Namely: meet the Green Knight and, if at all possible, survive.) The Goal arises out of Gawain's character meeting the circumstances of his situation.

We might also consider Luke Skywalker. Forces, no pun intended, are at work that shape his Destiny. He doesn't realize it but there are larger powers and stories at work that essentially shape the course of his adventures. They may seem only vaguely connected but in the end he is compleled by the nature of the setting to follow on a Quest to become a Jedi, defeat the Emperor, and provide the opportunity and motivation for redemption for his father.

If, in contrast, Luke had simply decided to leave his boring life and take up with the disreputable Han and Chewie, later coming to realize he had a connection to the Force and sought out a teacher the story would have played out differently. His adventures would arise out of the goals set by the character, not ones set by the circumstances.

Thus to me Quests are motivated by the setting or the campaign while goals are motivated by the character. The destinction is at times hard to make, but if we allow them to stand as generalities I think my terms of Quest(often tied to Destiny) and Goal, motivated by Choice, work.

This leads to some other thought that I do not at the moment have time to develop. Maybe later.

 

[Voadam]

I've had a party drop out of the Temple of Elemental Evil after doing the Moathouse and some stuff in Nulb, just "Hey we're going to Greyhawk! Or maybe the Wild Coast . . ." got on a boat and went without ever setting foot in the Temple. Went through the slavers modules but half way through decided to switch sides and join the slavers.

In Ravenloft a paladin who was losing his powers prayed for what he should do to regain them. He got a vision of 3 different wrongs that needed to be righted and was told to choose.

Be flexible, have multiple options to run with, and plenty of different things going on. Short filler adventures are great for those sudden campaign shifts that take you by surprise.

For player driven plots have a lot of plot hooks flying around, more than they can follow up on. The paladin's choices each corresponded to a different module set in different parts of the setting he would need to travel to.

Provide lots of open ended stuff for the players to speculate about and make their own connections for, and then work with their coolest ideas and turn them into reality.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Do you ever feel this way?

All the time.

What have you done about it?

1. Ditched GM-designed quests of every description;
2. Vowed never to write up any NPC who's supposed to recur.

How would you run a game that encourages players to be proactive, and how do you teach them to be that way if they say they want to be but do not know how?

Eh, you just start them all in a village on the edge of the wilderness, and say, "Your quest is... to do whatever your characters want to do, have fun!" and then sit back with a happy smile.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I want the game to be player driven and PC focused. With that in mind I am going to implement some other things (setting classes and races ranked by rarity so that players can be pretty much whatever they want but they have to have a good reason for it; no high level NPCs and no such thing as "adventurers"; in game reasons for the PCs to be unique; limited access to magic items so that wealth can be spent on more than just adventuring gear; campaign level cap with slower progression to maintain that "Sweet spot" for the group; PCs tied to the setting by family, relationships, history,etc.) but my goal is to make it about the players being proactive, making decisions about what they want to be and do, and how it affects their tiny corner of the world. If the PCs go on a quest it will be because they decide to do so.

So my questions:

Do you ever feel this way?
What have you done about it?
How would you run a game that encourages players to be proactive, and how do you teach them to be that way if they say they want to be but do not know how?

1) No.
2) Nothing. I find player-driven/PC-focused campaigns to be more work than play. I get paid to work.
3) With great difficulty. Generally I find my players to be proactive in how they achieve goals but not in choosing their goals; if I don't set goals for them the PCs will drift apart. (I literally saw a campaign fall apart after only two sessions due to unclear goals. The PCs split into two groups that wouldn't unite, even after they both got involved in a big combat.) I don't want to run five different games for five different PCs, which is what I find happens with player-driven campaigns. I don't have time for that, and it's not much fun for four players listening to one PC hogging his section of spotlight. (I might be saying goals when other people say quests.)

Edit: I forgot about backstories! Every player-driven campaign I've been in has demanded a big backstory. Now I hated English class (too much writing pointless imagery essays and reading classics that have intimidated the teachers who worship them), one reason because I'd write something, hand it in, and have no idea what the mark I get back will be. Over time I got a certain grade, but I couldn't tell what I'd get for any regular assignment. This was quite different from biology (my favorite subject); I'd only get a bad mark on a scientific paper if it was my fault. (Same for math - I suck at it, but even someone with my poor math skills would get a better mark with more effort.) Putting effort into English didn't improve my marks at all.

I feel the same way writing a backstory. No matter how clearly the GM expresses what they're looking for, I'm still dreading getting an "F" and have no way to predict how the GM will react - I can put no effort and get an "A"... or put a lot of effort and get an "F". (Not that I've ever had a GM actually assign numerical grades!)

I finished up a Spirit of the Century campaign two weeks ago, which was quest-driven, and had an innovative "light and unfinished" backstory ruleset that made writing backstories fun. I doubt backstories of that short length could have supported a player-driven campaign.

When recruiting players, unless you have a huge pool to choose from, you have to compromise. If you don't want a quest, but the other three players do, well, maybe you need to find a new group instead of trying to push something on them. (Of course, by all means ask if any of the other players want a player-driven campaign.) My current group is pretty small; at least three members like player-driven campaigns at least occasionally, even though they've all train-wrecked after a time.

1 Common Purpose - as Gizmo said without a common focus the PCs can start drifting off. So make sure to give the PCs a common purpose before the game starts (imc I told the players all the PCs are attached to the Church in various capacities, not necesarily as clergy, some might be guards, others former orphans who still visit etc; in another the PCs were junior leaders of the village community)

I can't stress how much I agree with this. The last player-driven campaign I was in was Exalted. Two of the players had character concepts that didn't mesh with the group at all. One just wanted to breed yeddim (big oxen), and one just wanted to build stuff. I had a slightly more detailed character concept (I wanted to topple a dynasty, and was an assassin). Another character was a social engineer (and the player kept "dissing" me for having such a shallow character concept). Another character was a charismatic warlord, and finally the other character was some kind of twisted spellcaster.

So I tried to make alliances with some characters in order to ensure we had a common goal. The warlord wanted to conquer the world, which meant he would have to topple the dynasty my character so hated... so I became his spymaster. I once really needed to kill a dragonblooded, but needed help, so I asked the twisted mage for help. He said I owed him a favor... give him magic items from people I killed. Being a character who barely understood magic, and (as a player) literally being annoyed with the GM for actually foisting too many magic items at me, I had no problem with the deal. I killed bad guys and gave their magic items to the mage. Unfortunately both players had to leave (one got sick, the other had to leave the country over the summer). Before the warlord left, we did have one massive battle where we finally got the social engineer and the other two PCs to cooperate with the warlord and I to topple a big powerful kingdom. I think the social engineer realized that if he didn't work with the other characters the game was less fun for everyone.

Ensuring the players actually work together when making their characters might go a long way to mitigating this problem. (I was "shot down" when mentioning that in that campaign.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Do you ever feel this way?

Yes.

What have you done about it?
How would you run a game that encourages players to be proactive, and how do you teach them to be that way if they say they want to be but do not know how?

My 2 main tools for getting away from "Quest of the Week" campaign plotting and making the game more player-driven are:

1) The Dynamic Environment Campaign (or campaign feature):

The DEC comes in many forms- a caravan, a ship at sea, etc.- but regardless of its details, the overarching theme is that adventure comes to the players.

In the Caravan, the PCs are either members of or hirelings in a caravan that wends its way across the campaign world. They may be merchants or mercenaries. Regardless, they are always doing something to forward the goals of the caravan- protecting it from raiders, foraging for food, greasing the palms of the locals for favorable booths in the market square, riding ahead for medicine or some other form of aid, etc.

A great bonus of the DEC is that absent/late players are rarely a problem. Unless you're in the middle of an extended adventure, the absent PCs are simply off doing something else. While the players who are there are doing a role-playing adventure in the city the caravan is preparing to enter, the absent PCs are riding rear-guard. Etc.

The Ship at Sea- in which for whatever reason, the PCs are forced to wander the world, but cannot control where they go- is an oft-overlooked classic. How classic? Think of The Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts, The Sailor on the Seas of Fate from the Elric portion of Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion series, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. Consider more modern twists on the theme- Lost in Space or the Kung Fu, Sliders and Incredible Hulk TV shows.

Sometimes, the adventure will be as simple as finding food on a deserted island- perhaps one like The Mysterious Island (also by Jules Verne)- or a sea-monster attacking the becalmed ship, or even pirates.

2) The Neverending Rumor Mill

Everybody uses rumors in their campaigns, be they overheard in bars or seen on a town's meeting board.

My refinement of this is to post the rumors for the players to read at their leisure, and then listening carefully to their table talk about the rumors to generate more rumors and, eventually, adventures.

The first time I did this, I used a physical newsletter- the "in-house publication" of the organization to which all of the PCs belonged - posted on the cork board of our host's house but the same can obviously be done these days via email or an online group site, etc.

In it, the internal rumors were posted as news, including synopses of the party's last adventure, as well as news of the world that would interest the organization. Some of the rumors were purely created to discuss the world, others were designed to interest particular players using info culled from the PC backgrounds...such as odd happenings in their former home region, or symbology with which they alone were familiar.

For instance, the PC who was part Atlantean was, of course, very interested in the pirates who emerged from beneath the waves in various attacks on ships around the world. Were they her kin or were they something else? (Answer: both- some were Atlanteans, some were from other submerged cities...)

All of them were incensed when they saw the news that the BBEG they put behind bars escaped.

However, until the players actually did something, all the blurbs were just that- blurbs.

As the players discussed the blurbs, however, they'd spin all kinds of theories as to what was happening. The good ideas got formed into adventures, and some of the best ones became the foundation for plot twists. The bad blurbs faded into obscurity as other agents took care of those missions.

After the first 4 adventures in the campaign were completed, I never had to worry about adventure ideas- the players supplied me with numerous plotlines.

How do you translate this into a Fantasy game? Well, if the PCs are members of organizations, you could use the same format as above. Otherwise, just have them be good friends with a recurring NPC Bard, Fence, or general blabbermouth.

In either case, you can still have Quests and Overarching Plot Themes, but the PCs aren't required to advance the main Uberstory every step of the way. Perhaps they just get called in to set the table for the BBGGs, or they are the BBGGs who get called in at the last minute to do the final big sweep.

 

[Roadkill101]

IMC, I started the characters off as all volunteering for small mission by their current employer. Once they had completed said mission, I gave them the option of continuing to work for their employerr or break off go their own way (it paid off in a goddly sum of money for my campaign). They chose to go their own way.

I don't run over-reaching plot arcs. I put forth some small, (usually) unrelated adventure hooks in the form of rumor and let the players decide which one(s) their characters chase after (and in which order). Sometimes they start headed of in direction X and end up going in direction C with a detour through J.

I make sure to have plenty of little adventures planned in rough detail. That way if they don't follow one or any, I don't feel like I've wasted my time. I only throw out rumors for these adventures as they finish up their current goals, keeping some in reserve for down the line.

To keep the group focused and from splitting up in five different ways, I have them discuss their common goal(s) for the next session at the end of the current. If they prove indecisive, one of the characters is the elected party leader who has the final say to break any ties or make the final decision as necessary.

This approach works for my group, though I know it wouldn't work for all groups.