A Scripted Quest System

One of the problems with today’s persistent world games is that there aren’t any quests. Well, there are, but they have huge problems. Some of the quests, such as the ones in Everquest, are done over and over and over again, leaving the player feeling that it doesn’t really matter if he or she completes the quest, because it will never actually be completed. Some of the quests, such as the GM-Run quests they had in Sierra’s Realm, were always completed by the same group of people, leaving a good portion of the user base feeling left out. This allowed frustration, apathy, jealousy, and/or outright anger to take hold of individuals, feeding upon itself and spreading into the population as a whole.

The other problem with not having quests is that players (myself included) are killing simply to harvest loot, which is shallow at best. Going on a quest to kill orcs because they are threatening the farmer’s livestock is simply better than killing them for the 30 gold and war axe they are carrying.

I have come up with a system called RoboQuest9000. This system will make the above problems go away, or at least be lessened. RoboQuest9000 is a two-tiered system. The first tier deals with completely scripted quests, while the second deals with more dynamic (or Domino) quests.

I do want it to be understood that I think that GM-run quests should never go away; a computer should never completely take the place of a human being, but simply aid them in their work, and fill in the time-gaps between GM-run quests.

Non-Player Characters

An NPC, for purpose of this document is a mob that is neither a randomly-spawned monster, animal, nor player vendor. NPCs do not have to be human. NPCs are an integral part of RoboQuest9000. NPCs, in their current state, are boring. I want to give them lives. The following are ways to accomplish this. NPCs should:

Tier #1: Scripted Quests

Tier 1 Quests will be completely scripted in advanced. Quests will be assigned a name. Names for quests could be:

More complicated quests could be made; these are just to give you a general idea of what I am thinking about.

Quests should be stored in a Master Quest List, which is broken down into a few subcategories, such as "Quests for fathers" and "Quests for Women" and "Quests for Farmers." Quests would be assigned by their names to specific NPCs. If a quest was "Take this message to my [Sister]," the Sister’s ID# would automatically be filled in by RoboQuest9000. The NPC would then know that his sister’s name was Lila and she lived in Trinsic and was a Tinker, and would tell the player this information.

The NPC who was assigned the quest would, upon being ‘Hail’ed by a player who had the correct statistic, give the quest to the player. Upon giving the quest to the player, the quest would come out of the NPCs conversation list and go into the player’s Quest List. That specific player is the only one to have the quest.

NPCs will be able to tell certain things about player characters without having to ask them. While it is a ‘fiction breaker,’ it is really beneficial to the players. If an NPC has a quest to kill ten dragons, he or she won’t give it to a newbie or craft character, but to a player with a 90+ skill in a combat skill, or perhaps a player who is in the 4^th level of the Fame scale.

Quests would have time limits. Easy quests would be given 30-45 minutes to complete (buy me 10 spools of thread, for instance), and hard quests would be given three days or so to complete. Time should be measured in real-time, not game time. If the PC did not complete the quest in the allotted time, the quest would go back into the NPCs conversation tree. If the PC completed the quest, it would go back into the Master Quest List for reassignment by the Quest Master. (Can quests could be automatically reassigned?)

When the player completed a quest for an NPC, the NPC would, for a period of time, tell anyone who ‘Hail’ed him or her which player had completed the quest, and wasn’t that marvelous of the player to do that?

Players could bargain with NPCs for provisions (by saying ‘.provisions’ maybe?) to take with them on their quests. Depending on the NPC’s Orneriness plus a random factor, the NPC may give up some food, torches, or tell the PC to get the heck out of his face and that he didn’t want to give him the quest in the first place. The NPC could also bargain with the PC for quest rewards, such as items or money (by saying ‘.reward’ maybe?). Maybe it would be considered offensive to some NPCs to ask what the reward was for their quest.

Tier 2 Quests: Domino Quests

This was not written by me but by Joel Mathis; I think it’s a great idea. I am leaving it here exactly as he wrote it long ago. I feel weird about changing it.

A big problem with the quests in on-line RPGs is that they are too scripted and repetitive. What a dynamic campaign would allow is the creation of all sorts of quests on the fly as the world responds to events that are in it. Every NPC would need to have some basic script that allows them to respond to various events. This could be measured by several NPC-only stats such as aggressiveness, initiative, compassion, and so on used to determine those responses. Also, NPCs would need other factors like who they know and how well, what objects they want (even if they are in their possession), and friends and enemies (measured on a scale of how much of a friend or enemy they are). Some NPCs would also need goals, and a measure of how loyal they are to certain people. All of these factors should change as the events occur in the world. The contacts variables allows for an easy "gossip model" to allow news to spread semi-realistically.

Now that we have a world model running (at least in our imaginations), let’s apply this to something. A game administrator seeing that things are too quiet this afternoon steals a McGuffin and sells it to a fence somewhere half the world away (to allow for a large quest). The owner of the McGuffin has a strong want for it (it is his, after all) and hires a group to go after it. Word spreads out that the McGuffin has been stolen. From the owner’s housekeeper (the only person with high contact with the owner and so gets the news early), the news radiates outward quickly (its fairly big news and so everyone is in a hurry to tell everyone else). Several other groups are interested in the McGuffin for various reasons such as wanting the McGuffin for themselves or just because they don’t like the owner and also hire a group of PCs to go after it.

Now, things get really dynamic. Several things can occur. The PCs hired by the owner could get to the fence and steal or buy the McGuffin back. The same thing can happen if another group gets their hands on the McGuffin, leading to all the groups trying to get the McGuffin from them before the time limit on their missions run out. Or, the fence has been slowly spreading word out that he has the McGuffin for sale. Also, a flock of adventures asking about him is going to tip him off and he is going to hire protection (PC or NPC). The fence could find a buyer fast enough, but is he loyal enough to his clients to not tip them off if he is threatened or bribed? Probably not and the quest goes on from there with the fence on the run seeking protection from his buyer and any PC’s who are still after him. Some PC’s are going after the buyer who is probably quite ready to deal with them. And so on and so on and so on. A small pebble can be tossed into the pond and make huge waves this way.

I feel the need to note that not all quests would have to be limited to finding a special object. Using this system, players could be hired to find out who is spreading bad rumors about their employer, to protect an object, or even to fight in a war.

Now, you are still going to want some completely scripted quests. Make it easy for newbies to learn if a few early quests for them are scripted and major quests where they advance the story of the chapter will probably need to be completely scripted. However, this kind of dynamic campaign allows the game to run with a minimal of interference from GM’s. All they have to do is make sure that things don’t get too out of control or too quiet. You know that the dynamic world is working right when it can do all of this on its own without any player or GM involvement.

There should also be someway of entire groups of people taking on quests together for an equal share of the experience and reward. This would be quite helpful.

Another quick point about a dynamic setting, is that it can allow characters who have developed enough to gain roles in the game world through semi-permanent employment to various NPCs. Let them be spies for the king or soldiers or thugs or anything where they get a more direct hand in the system.

I like the idea of one other group of players competing with me, but not everybody and their uncle. In other words, to make this work, we’d have to have twenty or more of the above quests going on at once. And I like the idea that the completion of one quest would affect the next one.

Questions? Comments? Cusswords? On second thought, save your cusswords.

Janey.