PorkyThePaladin
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 5,109
Playing some RPGs right now and getting pretty fed up with the whole Fed-Ex quest barrage, which made me think about RPG quest design again. Here at the Codex, C&C is one of the buzzwords and objects of worship, but the strange thing is, some of the RPGs I have played lately do have significant C&C in their quests and yet the quests are still dull and tedious. What tends to happen often is some NPC gives you some low level task (go fetch this thing, or go kill that guy, or go talk to whoever, etc) and then you get there and are presented with some options in the dialogue based on your skills and abilities. So it's basically like a choose-your-own adventure Fed-Ex quest. The fact that I can choose one of several options doesn't make the shallow nature of the quest any better.
Don't get me wrong, I like choice and consequence and think they are a great addition to an RPG, but to design good quests, I think you need something else. So I went back and looked at some of the quests in those games that I actually enjoyed, and the thing they all seem to have in common is enjoyable complexity.
All basic RPG gameplay is the same, it consists of combat, exploration, dialogue, and puzzles. But the bad quests incorporate those elements into a very simple total construct: go here, perform the basic RPG element, and come back (maybe even several times if they want to punish you). The good, memorable quests combine these basic elements into a complex total construct. For example, NPC tells you to bring him some thingamajig rumored to be in some dungeon. But the thing is separated into multiple pieces scattered throughout the dungeon, and to traverse it you have to engage in a mixture of combat, puzzle solving, and exploration. Or, another example, you have to set up defenses for a fortress before a massive attack. The quest giver tells you all the things you will require for this in general terms, but then it's up to you to move around and talk people living around the fortress to lend a hand in the defense, purchase or steal weaponry and defenses, set up some mechanisms in the fortress and whatever else is involved.
In both of these cases, you are still doing the basic RPG stuff, talking, fighting and exploring, but instead of doing it in tiny doses after speaking to an NPC which is tedious, you get to do a LOT of stuff after talking to an NPC, which makes you feel less of an errand-boy and more like an active and involved character. For bonus points, these "complex" quests can also involve using your brain in terms of collecting clues and solving problems based on your knowledge and thinking.
If you are going to add C&C, it should ideally be in line with this complexity. So if the quest involves traversing a dungeon, one character can use brute force and combat, another stealth, and another diplomacy and guile, rather than just picking one of dialogue options every time.
Don't get me wrong, I like choice and consequence and think they are a great addition to an RPG, but to design good quests, I think you need something else. So I went back and looked at some of the quests in those games that I actually enjoyed, and the thing they all seem to have in common is enjoyable complexity.
All basic RPG gameplay is the same, it consists of combat, exploration, dialogue, and puzzles. But the bad quests incorporate those elements into a very simple total construct: go here, perform the basic RPG element, and come back (maybe even several times if they want to punish you). The good, memorable quests combine these basic elements into a complex total construct. For example, NPC tells you to bring him some thingamajig rumored to be in some dungeon. But the thing is separated into multiple pieces scattered throughout the dungeon, and to traverse it you have to engage in a mixture of combat, puzzle solving, and exploration. Or, another example, you have to set up defenses for a fortress before a massive attack. The quest giver tells you all the things you will require for this in general terms, but then it's up to you to move around and talk people living around the fortress to lend a hand in the defense, purchase or steal weaponry and defenses, set up some mechanisms in the fortress and whatever else is involved.
In both of these cases, you are still doing the basic RPG stuff, talking, fighting and exploring, but instead of doing it in tiny doses after speaking to an NPC which is tedious, you get to do a LOT of stuff after talking to an NPC, which makes you feel less of an errand-boy and more like an active and involved character. For bonus points, these "complex" quests can also involve using your brain in terms of collecting clues and solving problems based on your knowledge and thinking.
If you are going to add C&C, it should ideally be in line with this complexity. So if the quest involves traversing a dungeon, one character can use brute force and combat, another stealth, and another diplomacy and guile, rather than just picking one of dialogue options every time.