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Nicolai Withander
Master of Realmslore
Denmark
1093 Posts |
 Posted - 14 Jun 2008 : 17:50:15
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Hi.. In our group, it is very much op to us players to deside what to do. Not so often do we get quest from others. We all have something we want my charracter wants more power, to better serve Mystra and to better protect her. My paladin friend just wants to build and empire and have thousands of folowers... our fanatic priest want to smite evil across the realm.
I would like to hear what kind of "personal" quest you guys go on?
I know that I will be burning shar and Cyric temples now that I know what "will" happen.
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sirreus
Learned Scribe
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jun 2008 : 16:54:45
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as a dm my players can do anything, however i decide how those goals are obtained. your paladin would need to go on more than one quest to obtain the money and prestige required to gain his empire and followers. your path to power, in the name of mystra, could easily parallel the paladin's. it's the dm's job to make you want to go on this or that quest, through plot hooks and storyline. for specific quests just open any FR sourcebook and roll %. most of them are flexible enough to tweek, to fit your specific needs. |
"The measure of an undisciplined mind, is that the intellect allows emotion to challenge the observed truth" Richard Baker |
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Alisttair
Great Reader
Canada
3054 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jun 2008 : 17:05:10
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It's best to also tie in those quests together, making adventures that are part of everyone's personal quests (doing something to benefit all the aforementioned quests)
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Karsite Arcanar (Most Holy Servant of Karsus)
Anauria - Survivor State of Netheril as penned by me:
http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/172023 |
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Kes_Alanadel
Learned Scribe
USA
326 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jun 2008 : 21:09:57
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicolai Withander
I know that I will be burning shar and Cyric temples now that I know what "will" happen.
As a twisted DM, this gives me all sorts of ideas.  Ways to make your character one of the reasons for Shar and Cyric to conspire against and finally kill Mystra... That is, if I was going to DM after the Spellplague.
But like I said, I'm twisted......
~Kes |
Ack! I seem to have too much blood in my coffee stream!
When did 'common sense' cease to be common? |
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Jamallo Kreen
Master of Realmslore
USA
1537 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jun 2008 : 10:01:08
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I steered an unwilling player toward Shar and the Shadow Weave, used the materials in Netheril: Empire of Magic to determine what spells the player's character could learn as Shadow Weave spells, then laid plans for her to discover scrolls of them all at the end of a long and harrowing adventure -- the character had a vague, quest-like injunction laid upon her by Shar, and these were to be her reward for following Shar when it would have been oh-so-easy for her to use the Weave and copy spells from other mages in the party instead of having to research everything. Since it wasn't a "real" quest, the player had no idea what was coming down the road for his character, but I figured that I had put his character through enough to warrant a reward of quest-like magnitude. In a quest scenario, a deity monkeys with a character and permits (or, more often forces) a character to do something in exchange for a reward (which is sometimes no better than the deity choosing not to kill the character); since I had done the same thing to this character, such a reward seemed entirely reasonable.
Having learned that His Nibs Richard Baker was planning to get rid of the Shadow Weave, I decided that it would be foolish to keep forcing the player to stick with Shar and the Shadow Weave and play a character whose classes were going to eliminated by one DELETE keystroke on Baker's word processor, so after one particularly grueling session, the character just woke up one morning and discovered that she was a priestess of Mystra and a user of the Weave, and that she had only dreamed that she was a priestess of Shar and user of the Shadow Weave. (Such abrupt shifts have occurred to my own PCs-turned-NPCs in the campaign in which they were "born," so I was all too familiar with how to DM such a sudden change.) Now the unspoken quest is to find out what exactly happened to her. Instead of a heaping helping of spell scrolls, what lies at the end of this loooong, sloooow path will be an insight into planar mechanics and an opportunity to do some really high level adventuring. (Exactly like going up a level in a video game, the model which Hasbro is now forcibly imposing on D&D, but with no reward at the end of the trail.)
Another PC was a paladin of the Red Knight who received a genuine quest after being stripped of paladinish powers following a little incident which we call "Going to Hell and back -- for real." The quest was fairly simple: prove yourself a worthy soldier and tactician before you get your powers back. It was understood that this would occur, but there was no indication as to when, the paladin having gone through multiple battles against the Tuigan with nothing to show for it except ex pee and treasure. Then, one fine day, the party came face-to-knees with a demon. A glabrezu, to be exact (and a few summoned vrocks plus ten dretches). The paladin was about to attack when I abruptly said, "You feel that you must Smite Evil," and the party suddenly had a paladin with them again. Keeping the actual end condition of the quest a secret from the player enabled me to set up the demon battle without the players having excessive confidence in the paladin's presence, because I knew that this was going to be a vicious battle and they needed to have a battle plan which didn't rely on the paladin, who might very well be killed. As it turned out, all of the PCs survived -- narrowly -- but a large number of mid-level NPCs were slaughtered ... don't believe anyone who says that dretches aren't dangerous: I have a stack of 3x5 cards with the stats for a lot of 3rd and 4th level NPCs who probably thought the same.
Keeping the actual fulfillment condition of a quest secret really adds an edge to a game. You needn't be as elaborate or take as much time as I do to unroll a quest. One trick is to have the apparent object of a quest be a McGuffin (e.g. the Tablets of Fate). This is very helpful if you have cocky players who think that D&D is just a follow-the-numbers type of game in which they only have to do the obvious, as opposed to doing what their deity wants them to do all the time.
Some of the most famous unspoken quests may be in classic text games such as Adventure (proto-Zork), which includes the necessary watering of a plant which says, "Water me," and keeps repeating the phrase until it is watered a certain number of times; if a player ignores the plant, either out of fear, or disdain, or because he did something stupid to the needful water, the game can't be won. It's easy to apply the same principal in an RPG. If Chauntea lays a quest on someone and they neglect to sow or nurture a plant when the opportunity arises, Chauntea should consider the quest unfulfilled even if the the Seed Catalog of Zann is recovered from the Moander cultists; the real prize may well have been a +5 Demonbane Thundering Vorpal Holy Avenger buried in the garden where the plant should have been taken care of if the person on the quest had actually been living Chauntea's dogma instead of just parroting it.
If Kossuth lays a quest, merely killing the Bad Thing which guards the apparent object of a quest may not yield the reward the subject expects (the Mighty Mace of Myron may turn out to be made of tin and not adamantine); it may be necessary to drop one's sword or spear or whatever and grab a torch, setting the Bad Thing on fire, which causes it to burn up and reveal a treasure which has been inside it (or perhaps it was carrying a scroll with secret writing in lemon juice which is only revealed when the scroll is heated, something like "Redeem this scroll at the nearest temple of Kossuth for 20,000 experience points").* Similarly, if Istishia lays on a quest on you, you'd better not chop down the kindly old priestess of the nature cult with a sword or bash her head in with a mace when a bucket of water is all that you need! 
* As to why Kossuth would send someone on a quest for a tin mace, perhaps the Bad Thing was unknown to any mortal, but the Secret Archives in the sub-basement of Candlekeep may record that the Mighty Mace of Myron is in a partiucular location ... which just happens to be where the Bad Thing is located; going for the Mighty Mace of Myron forces the character to confront the Bad Thing, but its up to his own wisdom (or devotion) to realize that he needs to use fire to win the real prize.
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I have a mouth, but I am in a library and must not scream.
Feed the poor and stroke your ego, too: http://www.freerice.com/index.php.
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BlackDragonKarameikos
Learned Scribe
USA
106 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jun 2008 : 15:31:31
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As a DM I try to listen to what my players are telling me that they are interested in, and I also pick up on things that they are talking about while we are playing as well.
For example: A player of mine was Certain that the town they were in was going ot be attacked, so when they had their guard down and I had done some work, I DID have the town attacked.
When it was attacked it was not just by a few creatures, it was attacked by several waves of lizardmen and then by a group of Hobgoblins with a Warsoul in the party.
Several of them wound up dying and then being brought back for helping to defend the town(That Warsoul was a pain in the backside,
and they didn't even get to kill it.).
On a more recent note though, I've been hearing the same person ask me if I have a huge battle to let him know so that he can come up with some kind of battle plan for the group(I may or may not do this though, let hyim know that is.)
One of the PC's in the group even is thinking of asking one of the femle PC's to go out on a date once they reach Waterdeep(I already have the date pretty much plasnned out as to what inn or tavern they will find, what food they will find served, and what drinks there will be.) Since the PC asking is also the assistant DM I've mentioned to him about the date and helikes what I've done.
But the big thing is this: it all depends on if your group of players like to Role-play(i.e. interacting with NPC's) or Roll-play(rolling dice). If they are like my group then they will like to role play more than roll play. Just listen to your group and you shouldbe able to come up with a lot of ideas for adventures, quests, and plot hooks. |
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Quests
