Making a Successful Quest

[Master of Squirrel-fu]

I thought I'd make a thread for tips, tricks, and advice to give to those struggling in such things or anyone who is simply looking to improve themselves. Odd how this hadn't been done earlier...

From my own experience, mostly in an example of what not to do seeing how many of mine either failed or were abandoned I have some garnered something I can hopeful call useful information I can give to others.


1) Quests aren't video games. Really I can't stress this enough. It's not happening in real time you have to wait for others to vote and alot of time they don't vote for the same thing or the fine details don't all mesh well. Don't try to get ambitious with making something complex in mechanics because it is going to crash and burn. Hard. This is coming from experience here, from two points me and Himura. PokeQuest might have been killed by a mod on SB but looking back I think it would have crash and burned not to long afterwards with just how much I kept complicating it. Sure it might have been an entertaining way to go or it could have become... ugly.

2) Plan the fuck ahead. I went into all of my quests with nearly no idea where I wanted to go with them until after I started and even then I didn't have much of a timeline that I was hoping for, just a bunch of events that I wanted to happen at some point. It's cool if you don't have it set in stone, it's better since you don't have to use too much railroading if your voters do something you didn't expect. But have some kind of game plan in mind not just a vague idea and try to stick with it as much as you can while still being flexible, but not too flexible. And decide before hand if you want it to have concrete decisions to pick from or be completely open ended beforehand, the former is better for a story while the later is better for an experience or journey.

3) Be patient but not too patient. You aren't going to get a million votes right after posting, more than likely you probably aren't even going to get more than a few after waiting a while. It's best to make some kind of decision on how long you plan to wait between checking and when you decided to finally cut it off and write something. Honestly I'm not really the best person around to judge when that is, being the Avatar of Procrastination. A word of warning, if you wait too long you will likely do as I unfortnately have a tendency to do; say 'I'll finish it later' and put it in development hell.

That's all I can think of right now, hoping it helps...

 

[Biigoh]

While I don't plan ahead, I do have vague notions of what can happen due to events in-setting.

Basically, if you don't plan ahead, be prepared to do improv like no one's business.

 

[FurikoMaru]

Don't give them too many perks. You and they will both lose track, and after a while, interest as well.

 

[Happerry]

If you have a fun idea for a quest, don't go write it up immediately. Wait a day or two. If you still want to run it three days later, you muse probably won't quit a post into the quest.

 

[Carrnage]

Player Morale is a thing, try to keep players from feeling like there's nothing they can do.

 

[Biigoh]

Indeed... also, it's sometimes a good idea to keep track of your ideas... which is what I've been doing with my ideas. I throw them into the interest threads.

And usually, if I think about starting a new quest... I know where to look for ideas... :3

 

[EnderofWorlds]

Hmm...well, if we're talking making a good quest; I guess my advice is don't rely too much on dice and sometimes you gotta roll with the punches.

On the dice; it depends on your GM style, but if consistently bad rolls are seriously fucking up your game and making it unenjoyable for everyone, as GM you are fully in the right to just go 'fuck it' and ignore those rolls and/or fudge them for a result that makes the game work better. I mean, nobody wants to see yet another bad roll in a row.

This is why I rarely, if ever, post the dice rolls I occasionally do for my quests and simply write the update instead. Players don't need to see the numbers, they only need to see the results.

On the 'roll with the punches'; sometimes players, no matter how many times you refute it, will simply not believe you. Or believe that you're hiding something. Or just overall start getting paranoid. You can't really 'punish' them for this because it solves nothing and only fuels their beliefs. You just gotta shrug and go 'whatever' and continue on as planned.

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't punish players for being assholes; being an asshole and being paranoid/suspicious are two different things, though the latter may lead into the former if handled poorly.

Then again, the advice here really just stems from my style of GMing; where story takes precedence over mechanics, and at the end of the day, I want the players to win. Not without a challenge, obviously; otherwise you don't have a game, and sometimes shit just happens. But I get more enjoyment from watching the players actually triumph over the challenges I give them and having their actions influence the flow of the story; their triumph is my triumph, and being a vindictive or spiteful ass is counter-intuitive to it all.

 

[Vindictus]

... Eh.

Take your idea, see what happens, and roll with it.

 

[Smuthunter]

There's a lot of advice in this thread for writing quests, but I had a related question I don't see any answers for:

The amount of detailed mechanics you put into a quest has already been covered but what methods do people generally use to come up with original mechanics in the first place?

 

[GoC]

Player Morale is a thing, try to keep players from feeling like there's nothing they can do.

Click to shrink...

Conversely, you also need to have the players feel like their decisions matter. Not every choice should lead to a positive outcome, just make sure that the players DO have enough information (or the means to acquire it) that the choice is meaningful. Even if it's only a hint here or there.

I actually do have some other suggestions for new DMs but sadly that would give things away in my current Quest.

 

[ReinZero]

There's a lot of advice in this thread for writing quests, but I had a related question I don't see any answers for:

The amount of detailed mechanics you put into a quest has already been covered but what methods do people generally use to come up with original mechanics in the first place?

Click to shrink...

Oh that, it depends on what your planed quest is and what you want the system to reflect, how much, and how far.

Generally, if you're rolling with an original setting, building the mechanics to make sense with it is one way to roll.

I did this with my fantasy world that I run all my fantasy quests in.

Which reminds me, if you want to do more than railroading, actual world building should precede and supercede your characters for your story. Otherwise you only have a setting and not a world.

A setting is where the world revolves around your characters/plot/rails. A world is where your characters are a clog in the greater span of things, which of whom affects things around them, with cascading consequences (basically increasing material to work with), as opposed to just simplified consequences, nothing of comsequence with only benefits, etc.

I seemed to have gone a tangent. Generally though, the system should serve to be of use to the GM and a reference to the players so they have an idea of things. Too complicated and it'll negatively impact all parties. Too simple and it'll be useless for anything that's not system light/non-serious. How much/little is up to the GM though. Just try to make sure you'veworked it out ahead of time/before you start it.

 

[DuskAtDawn]

What rolls to use, and when?

I use a pseudo-DD3 model of rolling, with the standard six stats, and improvise what bonuses get applied to what actions. As such, a D20 is my standard dice, but I use a d6 for random event rolls.

My question is, what do you feel are the advantages and disadvantages of each major type of dice (d3, d6, d10, d20, d100)? What situation is best for each?

Also, if there's been a constant tie for a long time (usually with a small group of questers), is it okay to flip a coin, assuming you inform your players?

 

[Biigoh]

There's a lot of advice in this thread for writing quests, but I had a related question I don't see any answers for:

The amount of detailed mechanics you put into a quest has already been covered but what methods do people generally use to come up with original mechanics in the first place?

Click to shrink...

It depends.

I try to keep my quests simple in terms of mechanics... using the KISS principle.

 

[Nekraa]

It's usually best to keep the mechanics simple. As it is otherwise easy to bury yourself in too much work and details and simply loose motivation (oh hi there Anima: Beyond Fantasy, didn't see you there). Personally I've started looking into DnD/Pathfinder which looks interesting.

As for ties, a coin flip or dice roll should be ok if it's been a long tie. Alternatively you could merge/fuse the votes into one vote if possible. Which won't work in some cases, but can give interesting results in others.

 

[Peanuckle]

Not trying to contradict posts about player choice, but giving questers too much power over where things go can be bad as well. I've seen many a quest-runner cave entirely to crazy write-ins that gather support by virtue of being crazy, resulting in total derailment or a drastic genre shift in the quest and a loss of participants who were interested in the original design. The questers don't know what future you've worked out and if you keep re-working it to fit their decisions, you'll have an unmanageable mess.

Railroading is bad, but reading the map is a good idea.

Now, just to be fair, crazy ideas can lead you to fun places. For example, Sexual Encounter Quest on /tg/. Started out being a quest to get a woman laid, ended up buying a mercenary group and playing warlord. Good times. However I think that's partially because nobody really wanted to play a dating sim where you tried to seduce older men. So choosing an appropriate quest topic is also important.

 

[UrsaTempest]

Another one is, always be ready to move on. Sure, intricate diplomatic action, intensive research of lore, or all-out combat encounter is very fascinating, but if you spent something like 6, 8 updates solely just for that encounter, people will generally get bored and wander off until it's done. Exception for 4chan quest, since they usually get updated really fast by virtue of the thread will be gone the next day.


Also: Morally challenging or difficult decision. They can be fun and makes sense IC, but if you keep pelting players with them... well, they'll generally wander off, since no one wants to make that decision and feel guilty if it ends up wrong afterwards. Always set breather episode, they are good to recover spirit after that kind of options. They are also useful for the new voters, that usually caught up by reading the quest from the start and thus has no chance to recover their morale by watching fluffy series or what.