Help me understand quests

[cmbarona]

For reference, here's a link to my campaign:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/plots-places/250017-my-campaign-avalon-magical-metropolis.html

I'm a relatively new DM, and I'm trying to wrap my mind around quests as explained in the DMG. I just can't seem to understand how and when to give them. For example, looking at the above link, could any of the listed events have been assigned as a quest? What's a qualitative or quantitative difference between minor and major quests? What's the difference between a quest and just another combat/skill challenge? Etc.

I'm pretty good at creating combat encounters and skill challenges, but I'd really like to grasp this third thread of the XP/Reward pool.

 

[Zinovia]

I use quests in a more freeform manner than suggested in the DMG. When awarding xp for a session, I will go over in my mind the list of goals the PC's accomplished that session. Did they finally get the MacGuffin to the Holy High Cleric for safekeeping after defending it from the Bad Guys for the past 6 sessions? If so, that's a major quest reward. Did they find the lost ocelot that Lady Sacharina the Sweet posted a reward for? Minor quest.

Essentially I reward xp for a minor quest if it is a problem that can be resolved relatively easily or quickly, or if it's just a secondary goal, and not the main thing they are working towards. Major quest rewards are for when they accomplish something difficult that usually takes multiple sessions to resolve, or else is the main focus of that session. Rescuse the kidnapped Lord Nob, and escort him safely out of the hobgoblin fortress would be a major quest.

I don't personally like quest cards, but your group may. Those are just an index card with information on what the group is supposed to accomplish, and who asked the players to do the task. They can help to remind the players what all their various "missions" are. Mine take pretty good notes, so it's not really needed.

So from the brief look I took at your adventure, I'd say dealing with the "sick" forge is a minor quest. It was over in essentially one fight. Making progress towards figuring out what's happening to the magic is a major quest - even if they don't get all the pieces yet.

 

[timbannock]

That sums it up well.

I feel like a good rule of thumb is:

- It's a minor quest if it's a single "story/chapter" or a "sidequest" in computer game lingo.
- It's a major quest if it is an overarching (multiple stories, multiple chapters) plot point or has SIGNIFICANT wide-scope consequences with success or failure.

In LOTR, getting the folks to Helms Deep would be a minor quest: there was likely a skill challenge involved in getting the people out of Rohan and then several random encounters along the way. One story. Getting Frodo to Mount Doom was a major quest (nevermind getting the ring): it probably took several skill challenges just to find the friggin' place and keep Gollum in line, and there were several encounters with enemies and allies along the way.

I think things like Protecting Helms Deep might go either way. Minor if you resolve it as a series of Skill Challenges and a major encounter or two in one session. Major if each phase of the battle is made up of a skill challenge or two and an encounter or two (phase 1 = securing the gates and prepping the people, phase 2 = continuing morale and the initial orc charge, phase 3 = holding the gate and stopping the orc bomber-guy, etc.).

I may be on my own in this, but I don't think either should be resolved by a single skill challenge or encounter...I believe they should both contain at least a few steps. Quantitative differences though are pretty hard to say, other than maybe a 1 session = minor quest, 2 sessions = major split, but even that's not hard-and-fast.

 

[Kordeth]

Quests are goals, encounters are the obstacles on the way to those goals. Sometimes the quest is accomplished directly via encounter (e.g. "Kill Orcus and take his stuff" is a quest that you complete by defeating Orcus in an encounter). Sometimes quests are ongoing plot threads that resolve after the party connects several encounters together.

Examples, from your campaign:

QUEST: Protect the trade route between Avalon and Evora.
ENCOUNTERS: Bandit attack, dire wolf.

QUEST: Help the blacksmith fix his forge.
ENCOUNTER: Freaky slime monster thing.

QUEST: Solve the mystery of the elemental attacks.
ENCOUNTERS: Rave, sacrifice, assassination attempt, chase.

That help?

 

[Saeviomagy]

For example, looking at the above link, could any of the listed events have been assigned as a quest? What's a qualitative or quantitative difference between minor and major quests? What's the difference between a quest and just another combat/skill challenge? Etc.

Fundamentally it's a way to hand out XP to players so that they can occasionally get a level from doing something other than rolling dice. At the same time, they can provide motivation and direction for the party.

Essentially, any time the party does something that you feel is worth writing down, that is not a combat or skill challenge, it's likely to either be a quest or contributing to a quest.

Helping the blacksmith was a quest.

Getting the caravan to where it was going safely was a quest.

Finding out who's messing with elementals is a quest.

Etc etc.

Some quests might be explicit (ie - the blacksmith says "here are the steps needed to help me"), some might be implicit (something is up with the elementals: looking for the perps seems like a sensible course of action).

Now, all of that said: you don't need to think in terms of quests. You just need to be aware than when you feel the PCs have achieved something, they should probably get a reward for it if they haven't already.

 

[LostSoul]

Quests are ways of providing a mechanical reward for purely fictional events. They take the fictional events and feed it back into the character sheet so that neither one is put aside.

Some things that could have been quests in your first session:

Protect and minister to the trade route between Avalon and the nearby town of Evora
Meet a Tiefling at the Gambler's Den in the Halfling district
Hunt a dire wolf that had been attacking the trade route to the nearby town of Evora
Take out the slime and feed some medicine to his forge
Remove the slime from Rell
Capture a Megiddan alive

As well as some bigger campaign stuff:

Figure out why magic is fading
Keep magic from fading
Hasten magic's departure (see what I did there?)

 

[Skallgrim]

The easiest way to distinguish a quest from an encounter is that quests don't involve just a single encounter, but are a goal completed through a series of encounters.

While you may have a quest to kill a dragon, you wouldn't have a guy outside the dragon lair saying "Defeat this dragon and I'll reward you!", followed by a single fight with a dragon. Instead, you might have a village who, out of desperation, pleads with the party to defeat the evil dragon preying on their livestock. Thus, the quest could possibly involve learning more about the dragon, locating the dragon's lair, making your way there, defeating its minions, and killing it (or negotiating with it, or driving it away).

Ideally, quests can be completed in more than one way, and don't necessarily have to be completed in a set order, or in a set sequence.

Quests are useful to keep a party focused on a longer term goal (rather than just fight this, what's next?). They are helpful to encourage players (and characters) to learn more about the setting, and to explore and interact with things in more than just a combat encounter setting.

In addition, they can be used to broaden out a story line (everybody knows we are here to kill the dragon, but since we talked to the priest, we know that a treasured relic is part of the hoard, so we need to look for it and return it to the temple). In addition, they are very useful to move the story forward when there is no encounter-driven push.

For instance, I'm running Pyramid of Shadows. I used the "Bring me the head of Vren" quest to drive the party towards the pyramid, even though it, in itself, has nothing to to with the bandit chief they are hunting. The quest is incidental to the adventure, but it was a hook to get them into the adventure. That quest also gave them some xp, and motivated their search through the pyramid ("While we're here, let's look for the bandit that was supposedly trapped too).

Now that they are in the Pyramid, they had the quest to recover the life force of Vyrellis. This was a useful way to drive them forward into exploring areas that they might have avoided (let's just bypass this dragon, shall we?), and allowed them to succeed by negotiation, or theft, or combat.

Then I took that quest and altered it, in that they need to take the recoverd orb and return it to her kinfolk in the Feywild. That part of the quest (taking it back to the Moonstair) will be totally easy once they escape, and won't even require any skill challenges (the challenge was restoring her life force and escaping in the first place). However, it will drive the party from the current adventure into the next one, even though it doesn't have any connection.

Quest cards are useful for many reasons, but the one I find most important is simply that you probably play once a week, or even less often, with your group. While, in the game, the adventure may only take a few days, or even less, during the sessions, it might stretch over months. Things that would be easily remembered to the characters are often quite easily forgotten by the players. The quest cards are a way for the story goals to be in the forefront of the player's minds.