How to run a Quest?

[Kelenas]

I'm aware that the question might be a bit vague.

Basically, what I'd like to know is how people do all of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff in regards to quest. Both in preparation for running a quest, and when it's actually ongoing.

What sort of notes do they take? How do they decide which mechanics to use, and how to test them? What preparations do they make in regards to the setting or plotline? Or regarding non-player characters?

All of the fiddly bits that go into running a quest.

Ideally with some concrete examples.

Figure this might be useful if I ever get crazy enough to try and run my own quest, or someone else thinks about running one, but doesn't know where to start.

 

[lost star]

Whoa boy. There's no one answer to this actually.

I'm personally a bit of a madman with my quests. Everything that is done fiddly is either inside the thread or in my head. I also do things ad hoc and fly by the seat of my pants. It works sometimes. Sometimes it doesn't. I like to think I had fun and that others did too.

Pre-planning is a bit more delicate. Ideally you want a solid idea, a small outline of what you think you want to do, and what sort of mechanics would fit best.

A quest is ultimately a writing task, not so much a gaming task. You have to develop different habits for it. Chief among those is that you have to pickup the fact that you're really doing all the work. This makes it a bit hard sometimes.

 

[HypoSoc]

I'm almost a certainly a bad roll model when it comes to some of this, but I'll answer anyway, point by point for specific questions.

What sort of notes do they take?

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In my year and a half of running, I have I believe a total of three sentences worth of notes. Not to say that I didn't plan ahead, but I just have a good memory for story and plot. I can generally remember what I was thinking and planning by rereading the stuff I wrote.

This won't work for everyone, but you shouldn't think you need pages and pages of notes for a quest.

How do they decide which mechanics to use, and how to test them?

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I choose my mechanics completely at arbitrary and tested them through usage. It helps that I never used hard mechanics for conflict resolution so it's not a problem if they are out of whack.

I also intentionally left them flexible and well within my control (the DC's were never given in advance so I could choose them as necessary, for example), so I was never shackled to the rolls of the dice.

What preparations do they make in regards to the setting or plotline?

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I had a setting ready well in advance. Not all of the minute details, but I definitely had a forest to plant my trees in which made things easy.

I did not plan any plot line though. Instead I introduced a conflict and allowed it to grow.

Or regarding non-player characters?

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Honestly, until maybe 5 months into the quest, characters did not exist until the first scene I wrote them into. Even after that point, I only thought up a handful in advance. But after a character was introduced.

However, once a character was introduced, I made sure to remember them, to consider their impact on the nebulous 'plot' remained in the background. I had established motivations and capabilities for all of them, even when their impact wouldn't be felt.


So, like lost star, it's a lot of seat of the pants work. And I definitely agree that it is a "writing task, and not a gaming task." I think of it more as a nominally improvised story. Because it really is just the same as creative writing except you cannot write ahead.


I do have some specific advice, which you should take with a grain of salt.

1) Write regularly. I would argue that the most important thing in a quest isn't the plot, or the characters, or the setting, or the number of voters. It's the update interval. It doesn't matter if you update daily, or weekly, or monthly, and it doesn't matter if your updates are a few hundred words or mini epics. Having a schedule makes for a better experience when writing it, and I would say it makes it a better read as well.

2) Just write. I know this is the most common and most annoying piece of advice for authors, but it is true. Unlike random sanctimonious commenters on the internet, I'll bother to explain what it actually means. When you are writing, you absolutely cannot get caught up trying to write it well. Don't try to think up the best ideas or the best dialogue or the best descriptions. Just try to write absolutely anything.

And don't worry if it's crap. I can guarantee that forum goers are completely unable to differentiate between the sentence you spent hours agonizing over to get just right and the one you vomited on the page when sleep deprived. You won't know how true this is until somebody quotes a line you wrote that you honestly felt was weak and calls it the single greatest thing you ever read.

In short, it is better and more productive to barf words on a page than to carefully craft them. Being a good will only come with practice, and you won't accomplish that if you spend hours writing and rewriting ever sentence.

3) Kill your muse.

I mean it, just grab you gun, or a subtly size brick, and brain that damn nymph back to the unholy hell from whence it came.

The fact of the matter is that writing is not fun. It is boring. Mind drudging. And you will find yourself wanting to do anything but. Your muse will promise moments of respite where you will find yourself thoroughly enjoying your effort, and finding it comes with the ease of a spontaneous metaphor. But it doesn't last. It never lasts. And you'll be training yourself to only write when the moment strikes, which is not productive.

Worse, a muse will pull you away from your existing work to new ground, meaning it is a net negative to your productivity. And don't delude yourself into thinking that this new quest will be simply better than the one you ditched. It won't, because your muse is a cock tease and will never fully deliver.

The best thing to do is to buckle up, and slog through the dreary words the bog you down. Just keep writing, with no expectation of pleasure.

Because writing is not fun. It is satisfying.

4) Have an ending. The sad thing is, people don't end quests. They abandon them. But they really shouldn't. When you start your quest decide on an ending. Whether it is a time limit or a quest that is possible to complete doesn't matter. You should just be able to see a way to the finish. If you want to leave room for a sequel or continuation, feel free, but the looming ending keeps things on track and in perspective.

5) You'll want to limit your quest somehow. Open worlds are hard. Open plot lines are hard. Open votes are hard to tally, or write sometimes. Make things easier on yourself by making a small world instead of a large one, or by imposing a goal that cannot be strayed from. And absolutely do not feel obligated to allow write in votes. You can make a perfectly good quest that just offers two choices at the end of every update. Frankly, I feel that would be better than a pure write in option. Quests are a bit like quantum mechanics in that closer boundaries allow for greater energy density and cohesion.

And, that's just a random smattering of biased advice.

 

[Valette-Serafina]

I'm probably not the best example of a QM myself. Nevertheless.

I don't take many notes. I remember characterization and the like. I don't prep rails, so my quests are very open. Freedom is paramount, so I improvise.
This is how I run tabletop roleplaying games, too.

The best advice, I guess, would be for you to do what makes sense for you. There is no best way.

As for mechanics, I have a head for them. Some don't. Thus, it's important to remember than not all quests need crunch. Dice are optional. Stat points are optional. Everything is, in fact, as there are enough ways to run a quest that almost anyone could find one that works for them.

 

[pepperjack]

Figure this might be useful if I ever get crazy enough to try and run my own quest, or someone else thinks about running one, but doesn't know where to start.

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There's some very good advice in this thread already, so before I try to offer my own, I have to ask: have you run pencil-and-paper tabletop roleplaying games before, of any kind? And if so, how much experience do you have?

 

[Kelenas]

There's some very good advice in this thread already, so before I try to offer my own, I have to ask: have you run pencil-and-paper tabletop roleplaying games before, of any kind? And if so, how much experience do you have?

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I played P&P rpgs for a fair while, but haven't really had a chance to do so in almost a decade. I also never really ran any adventures as a GM or the like.

 

[pepperjack]

I played P&P rpgs for a fair while, but haven't really had a chance to do so in almost a decade. I also never really ran any adventures as a GM or the like.

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Okay. The reason I asked is that a lot of my questing advice is really just re-packaged GMing advice, so if you were an experienced GM that would significantly change the focus of what I'd want to say.

Lemme think about it a bit.

 

[Kelenas]

Lemme think about it a bit.

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Take your time. I'm happy with whatever I get.

 

[ReinZero]

What sort of notes do they take?

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I generally have the world down in my head, so it's easy for me to recall it or through just rereading. I actually have difficulty writing out physical notes (half organization issue, half attention drift).

How do they decide which mechanics to use, and how to test them?

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I generally draft a system based on the world I'm using. As such, it reflects how that world is and works as opposed to being forced. For me it comes naturally so I don't really need testing (also because I can approximate how it'd work out, so mental simulation in a way).

Generally though a simple system that you can stack multiples of itself on itself works well for giving it complexity and depth while being easy for you to work with and manage. The mechanics system I use for my BQ world is an example of it.

What preparations do they make in regards to the setting or plotline?

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I primarily dabble in Worlds instead of Settings, so there is no default rail or plot barring the initial premise, which serves as a lead into their own choice of what they go after and the conflicts and world aspects behind it. I find it trivial to do and manage, so that's not for everyone.

As for preparations..., I can pull them whole cloth under an hour. Including general quest details/mechanics/system/etc. The problem is actually getting it out onto text on comp.

Or regarding non-player characters?

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I treat NPCs akin to actual people, and given my own ability to draft things wholesale on the spot, I don't really need to plan ahead. I do still if it's to my fancy or for other reasons/etc. So I can simply take existing criteria/needs and pull out the character when needed without issue.

I'd suggest taking after HypoSoc's advice. Though I disagree about being unable to write ahead. One can still do si if it's a World and not a Setting as the World doesn't operate around just the PC, thus meaning what they don't interact with and even what they so interact withdrawal has consequences. Thus those consequences can be written ahead by generally forming an understanding of the scene and the factors/possibilities at hand.

 

[Beetlegeuse]

I wing it. Come up with a rough framework, and just refine and expand it over the course of the quest.

 

[Lydia]

I steal the plot from pre written adventures, they are easy to modify and I find it easier to improvise if you already have a structure. The only problem is the setting as it easy to forget that not everyone has the setting books.

 

[Anondylar]

Hmm...

I would say 'tone' is one of the most important things, because that's apparent from the first moment you set down a word. In this sense, 'tone' is the 'sensation and expectations of the world'.

Generally speaking, unless you're some kind of extreme planner, you're not going to have every little thing in the world nailed down. You might only have an idea that there's a Castle. Perhaps there's a princess or six inside, and some guards and perhaps some general personality traits that you hold in your head for them. Until you actually meet them though, the exact details of their existence don't exist yet; in a sense, everything that you haven't mentioned yet doesn't exist yet and is subject to change. Thus, the only thing that definitely exists in your work is the tone of the quest, and your readers only have that to guide them (unless this is in an already established setting, but then the tone of the quest still dictates more than the nitty-gritty details). Tone is one of the most important tools you have, and subverting it, playing around with it is effective, but having it suddenly jarring key change is more likely to have your readers complain than anything else.

So I guess style over substance is what I'm trying to say, I guess. Sometimes, the feeling that events have verisimilitude is more important than that actually being the case.
/rambleend

 

[konamikode]

I'll generally come up with a premise and fill in the blanks from there. About the only things I keep dedicated notes on are for mechanics, long term effects of consequences, and I suppose world building posts kinda count as notes. Of course I've got a sheet where I list a bunch of ideas and plot bunnies as I get them, but most of them don't end up panning out as a quest continues due to the direction things are going or because it becomes untenable to do so.

Lots of good stuff has already been pointed out so there isn't much more to say, I find myself doing what most everyone else is doing. I'll cover useful things for getting stuff done~

Google Docs: It's almost necessary to have and provides a nice place to keep things safe and easy to find in case something goes wrong. I use docs to write down most of my stuff and usually end up editing any touchups that need to be taken care of after the story/quest bits have been pasted into qq/sv/sb.

Personal Dice Roller: Personally I usually use this
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm
when I'm blazing through stuff, though occasionally I'll have the questers roll on the site roller when I'm in the mood to do so.

Music: I find myself losing myself in writing when I have something to listen to. Music gets some people in a creative mood so take advantage of it.

Space: Give yourself plenty of room to put in things like character sheets, maps, world building, omakes, etc. Better to have space to put stuff if needed.

 

[pepperjack]

Generally speaking, unless you're some kind of extreme planner, you're not going to have every little thing in the world nailed down. You might only have an idea that there's a Castle. Perhaps there's a princess or six inside, and some guards and perhaps some general personality traits that you hold in your head for them. Until you actually meet them though, the exact details of their existence don't exist yet; in a sense, everything that you haven't mentioned yet doesn't exist yet and is subject to change.

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I never got back to you with that PM, but this is one of the most important things to be aware of that I could have mentioned. Just because you had something planned, that doesn't make it real. Only what you've actually shown the players is real. Just because you decided that the reason behind something you showed the players was one thing, that doesn't mean that's the real reason, if there's any ambiguity at all. It could be, but it doesn't have to be.

Exploit the hell out of that. The only one who can tell you're playing fast and loose with potential reality is you. To the players, it'll look like you planned it that way all along - so long as you keep things consistent with what they have been shown, of course.

 

[Smuthunter]

I'm aware that the question might be a bit vague.

Basically, what I'd like to know is how people do all of the "behind-the-scenes" stuff in regards to quest. Both in preparation for running a quest, and when it's actually ongoing.

What sort of notes do they take? How do they decide which mechanics to use, and how to test them? What preparations do they make in regards to the setting or plotline? Or regarding non-player characters?

Click to shrink...

I take notes on characters and setting material to keep my thoughts organized, otherwise my brainstorming becomes a distraction from writing all on its own, as my brain keeps cycling endlessly over the same information. Usually just a few paragraphs is enough, but I have a world-building document for an AU Tristain which is several pages long and still growing.

2) Just write. I know this is the most common and most annoying piece of advice for authors, but it is true. Unlike random sanctimonious commenters on the internet, I'll bother to explain what it actually means. When you are writing, you absolutely cannot get caught up trying to write it well. Don't try to think up the best ideas or the best dialogue or the best descriptions. Just try to write absolutely anything.

And don't worry if it's crap. I can guarantee that forum goers are completely unable to differentiate between the sentence you spent hours agonizing over to get just right and the one you vomited on the page when sleep deprived. You won't know how true this is until somebody quotes a line you wrote that you honestly felt was weak and calls it the single greatest thing you ever read.

In short, it is better and more productive to barf words on a page than to carefully craft them. Being a good will only come with practice, and you won't accomplish that if you spend hours writing and rewriting ever sentence.

Click to shrink...

I will vouch for this method of writing. I don't have the greatest success with following it myself, but when I do sit down to write I find the best way to get stuff done is to just vomit words onto the page in a rough outline of how I want the scene to go. Dialogue, for instance, starts out looking like a conversation between two caveman with short and choppy sentences that form a very rough idea of how I want the conversation to go. Once I have a skeleton of a chapter I go back and flesh it out. Of course sometimes in the process of fleshing out the skeleton the scene winds up branching off in a completely new direction and I have to chop off the rest of what I wrote.

 

[EvaUnit01]

In my writing, both of quests and of more 'proper' fanfiction, I have maybe 15% of general events planned out, spanning from start to finish.

And then I randomly make shit up in whatever way I have to in order to get from 'Point A' to 'Point B'.