Having been involved in a lot of the recent quests, I thought I'd share a few reflections that might be of interest to our players.

Linear vs. Open-Ended Quests - While most quests do have a particular immortal agenda which will result in a quest's conclusion (i.e. implement this class change, introduce a new area, etc.), I've noticed many players make the incorrect assumption that this agenda means that quests are always linear.

By a linear quest, I mean the presumption that steps A, B, and C must be completed in order for D to occur.

So in this example, what I'm saying is D is usually set (though not always), but A, B, and C are not necessarily (or even if they are, the means by which to achieve the steps may not be.)

This isn't to say that quests are never linear. I'd say most novice quest runners tend to plan a quest in a more linear fashion. I know my quests were linear when I ran them as a newer imm, and as I've gotten more experience, I keep them more and more open-ended. Similarly, I do encourage other imms to try to introduce as much open-endedness in their quests as possible.

What this means to you, as a player, is that you should feel free to express your creativity.

For example, when the Eye of Nordiach was being recovered by Jeir and Cliant, in theory I imagined the participants would probably get a dwarf character, or failing that an NPC, to sit upon the Throne of Delar-Tol. This is exactly what Jeir was trying to accomplish, which was fine. I didn't anticipate Cliant cutting off his pony tail and strapping to his face and masquerading as a dwarf, but I certainly let him do it - to the result of greater hilarity for all. (And for that matter, if he had done a piss-poor job of it - say his description didn't include him having a pony tail, or he hadn't first slyly confered with the king's advisor in whispers, I may NOT have let him succeed!)

Alternately, there might be two planned solutions. Nepenthe and I ad-libbed a bit, but during the quest leading up to the Mad Angel, either the demonic pickaxe or the blessed whitesteel pickaxe would have broken through the layer of earth sealing the angel inside. In this case, there were two competitive solutions worked into the quest, so expedience and success by the participants on each side mattered in a very real way.


The Power of Choice - My point in what has been said so far: As participants in a quest.. you DO have power to sway how a problem is solved, or when it is solved, and in some cases, what actually happens. There is not always "one solution", except in the most rudimentary quests or quests run by the most novice quest runners.

As an open-ended quester myself, this is a source of my greatest joy and greatest frusteration in running quests. When a mortal is thinking on their feet and coming up with unique solutions, it is a real blast.

Other times, I sense mortals are waiting for someone to tell them the solution to a quest. As an example, it seemed as if players were waiting for Destanin the Archmage to say: "Find me the magic Macguffin and the Sparkleflower so I can brew it together to make cure the Magebane Sickness."

And that was the biggest thing about the Mageplague. Hardly anyone - in fact no one at all that I am aware of - even TRIED to initiate a means to find a cure. For all the complaining, there sure wasn't much catalyst for action. We have several hero-level healers in the game right now, and to my knowledge not one of them embarked on a self-driven quest to find a cure. I know several imms were watching a variety of healers and mages, and nothing. We did get a few pathetic prayers to "make it stop", but nothing approaching a real effort to cure it.

You were all waiting for us to "make it stop", and the truth is, we were waiting for YOU to TRY to initiate a cure. No one really even bothered to think that the power might be in their hands. Perhaps a Battlerager could have even thought to try to glean a means to harness or prolong the disease!

So the when, how, and even what IS, in fact, often determined by mortal choice.

Rewards and Assistance - Finally, we all know that even in the most linear quest, rewards are given to those who play the biggest role in finding a solution.

However, that doesn't mean you should always try to go it alone. In fact, most of our big quests are designed with the presumption of several participants. When someone chooses to solo it, we allow it in the interest of the aforementioned freedom of choice, but this usually causes the quest to be more plodding, difficult, and time-consuming. Do not hesitate to recruit your friends. Rewards are not watered down by more particpants, and usually the quest will end up being more fun with friends and allies. The size of your group will vary depending on the quest, but I'd say a 3-5 person minimum is suitable for most quests, unless you've clearly being sent on a solo journey.

That said, on the other end of the spectrum, allow me to apologize for the neglect to reward participants in very largescale quests. We try to get everyone, or at least nix the xp loss for those who experience multiple deaths, but in the post-quest spam, clean-up, and confusion, I know for a fact participants get overlooked. Don't always expect a reward, but feel free to send up some sort of apropo IC prayer as a little poke in the ribs if you feel you've been forgotton.

Anyways, happy questing, and I hope these reflections have been of some value.

I recall one of my biggest pet peeves in respect of immrun quests was the difficulty in knowing when an echo - local or global, doesn't matter - was a one-off or set-up. Meaning, your character sees something like "The dragons smile, and the sky lights up with fire." Does that mean you just did something good but nothing more is happening, or does that mean you should rush to the dragon tower or some other similarly linked place?

The frustration comes when you see something like that and so go do what you think it implies, but then you start talking to every NPC you can find for an hour and nothing. Zero. You're sort of like "hello? Why did you send me that echo/othermob/hint/etc. if you didn't want me to come and do stuff here?" You the player have given you the imm every opportunity to give you further guidance on what your actions should be, what options you have, what - for lack of a better word - quest you have to go on to accomplish what is necessary. An hour later you get that very annoyed feeling.

All that being said of course quest stuff is some of the most fun the game has to offer, and so none of this should be construed as a suggestion to stop or diminish it.

That being said, it is really tough sometime to figure out what is going on. I was very frustrated last week and with my last char. PC's that were involved got into some giddy zone where they would NOT stop to talk or fill you in. I was blatantly ignored when tried to ask questions.

Then there is the Mana plague. I personally asked around, even sent up a few prays to my god for guidance. I really had no idea where to look.

I get pissed off sometimes because as a player I would do whatever it takes to do the quests. When I am actively looking on how to get involved and wandering in circles not knowing what to gather, or what is being done...ect, its sooo frustrating.

I was getting really put off and felt excluded from these things...then low and behold the global echos started. I would show up, assess what was going on, and act accordingly. And because of that, Ive had a blast.

My only regret is this. IMMS are going to have massive burnout after all this Immteraction, and then we are going to be greedy, whiny, wheres my imm-loving, bitches, while you guys recover from these past months of overboard questiness.

Thanks to all of you. Its fun.

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.

>I was getting really put off and felt excluded from these
>things...then low and behold the global echos started. I
>would show up, assess what was going on, and act accordingly.
>And because of that, Ive had a blast.

In designing the vague plan of what all will happen (which, lest you think all is predestined, I need point out has been amended many times along the way due to player action, player inaction, and other unforeseen factors), I tried to account for a wide variety of quest/event types. Some are wide-open in terms of participation, others target one or two specific characters, others force the whole world to be involved in some way. Some are very linear in terms of story or solution, others are much more open ended. Some are pure roleplaying, others exploration-knowledge intensive, others have a PK element, etc. Some have been for low/mid levels, others heroes, and so on.

Probably when this is all wrapped up, (Still more to come!) we'll poll for which of each of those things were well-received and which aren't.

>My only regret is this. IMMS are going to have massive
>burnout after all this Immteraction, and then we are going to
>be greedy, whiny, wheres my imm-loving, bitches, while you
>guys recover from these past months of overboard questiness.

I certainly will be burned out, but I'm streaky on my CF activities anyway. By the time I'm in the throes of quest burnout I'll probably be excited about running a religion more actively again or something else. Hopefully, some of the folks helping out this time around will catch the "quest bug" and keep it going!

I tried to get involved. The only problem being I, and certainly my character, has no Fing clue what is trying to be accomplished. From the start we've got a group of mages showing up and doing something. One of them asks my character for assisstance. Now I know that the NPC character could have done the thing themselves, and faster, but they asked, and I did it to "get involved". Only problem is.. Why would my character help some random mage? Short answer.. I got a reward, and that was stretching it. Now after that theres a bunch of stuff going on, but I don't know if I should be helping, or hindering progress because I don't know what they're doing or what they're trying to do, or why.

I know if I should help a rager if my character is a mage and vice versa, but random NPC. How do they fit into my characters world view? After a little bit I felt like I would have to basically subvert my character to get involved. So what happens is my character basically ignores it. They don't know what is going on, or who is trying to accomplish what, or any meaningful way of deciding how that will help/hinder their goals... So why bother trying?

I get the mysterious thing, but at some point my character needs to have some idea of what the outcome is going to be. Is the likely outcome a new mage cabal? Is that something my character would work for or against? Is the end goal complete destruction of Thera? WTF is going on? Crazy mana stuff and some random mages... A couple new imms. I (OOC) still don't have a clue what the "D" part of this quest is, so my character sure as #### doesn't. Why was Jeir trying to recover the Eye? A reward? That hardly seems like him. Because a mage of order asked? Only if he was being willfully ignorant of the fact that that mage was working with chaos magi. Seems to me like Jeir the character got involved (not intended as a critique of him) because Jeir the player wanted to.

Every quest seems a bit like this to me, because the imms always want to keep the suprise factor there, and that means that we're kept in the dark. Why would I get involved at all if it isn't blatantly obvious that my character *should* be involved? I mean evil demon trying to enter our plane quest as a fortie.. sure I'm there, but extraplanar happenings that aren't obviously evil... If my investigation turns up a lot more questions than answers, I'm just going to go do my normal thing and let someone else figure it out.

I'm sure there are people who can participate in quests for hours, days, weeks, without knowing what the purpose of these series of events are, but that's not me. I imagine these people like exploring solely for the purpose of seeing new places, but I'm there to find preps, etc that I can use. Finding a hidden room and being the only person who has ever gotten there doesn't do me any good if there is nothing in the room.

I've rambled on for far too long, but the jist of my point is that unless I have some clue how this is going to affect my character, I can't get involved... Because I don't know what side to be on. If I don't know what side... I'll choose neither.

As far as curing the mage plague, specifically the first one went away if you waited it out, which I figured out pretty quickly since I was doing other things. Wears off over time? Seems like a cure to me. The second, and more insidious version got cured on me directly after it came out, and seemed make me immune to contracting it again. Why would I want a cure? My enemies are weak, and I'm immune.

During getting it cured, me and my group were trying to get some information, just enough to decide whether we should be for or against, but we didn't get anything... so we all kind of decided to ignore it. Seems reasonable to me.

Tac

Sorry of the longness and ramblyness. I'm not trying to complain, just explain my viewpoint and why my characters after some attempts basically decided to ignore the stuff going on.

>As far as curing the mage plague, specifically the first one
>went away if you waited it out, which I figured out pretty
>quickly since I was doing other things. Wears off over time?
>Seems like a cure to me. The second, and more insidious
>version got cured on me directly after it came out, and seemed
>make me immune to contracting it again. Why would I want a
>cure? My enemies are weak, and I'm immune.

Hey, no problem. It's good for some characters.

I'm guessing you also weren't:

a) Praying and complaining about what #### it was.

b) Posting to the forums complaining about what #### it was.

c) Praying and complaining about what #### it was, while simultaneously posting to the forums calling the people who were calling it #### on the forums ####.

etc.

It's all fine and nice about the mageplague, since it coincided with an epic quest, but you can't be shocked people were upset when you put a global issue in that negatively affected mage characters from both a pk and ranking/practicing standpoint. Mage characters who already have to spend more time doing anything but travelling then a non-mage char.

No one likes dying/regearing/etc, and definitely not because they failed that mastered word of recall spell because of some quest in which they weren't even involved. I mean surely when coming up with mageplague, you knew there would be fallout from the peanut gallery, right?

If all of a sudden villagers got blackjacked 1/5 times they called resist or spellbane... you get the idea.

>Mage characters who already have to spend more
>time doing anything but travelling then a non-mage char.

I don't think that's true. It's definitely not true for my characters. Mages generally have low xp penalties. I generally spend less time working on skills/spells/etc. as a mage, many-path invokers excepted. I generally die a lot more playing a non-mage and it takes me a lot longer to regear to PK effectiveness, etc.

>No one likes dying/regearing/etc, and definitely not because
>they failed that mastered word of recall spell because of some
>quest in which they weren't even involved.

But they were! No opting out of this one.

>I mean surely when
>coming up with mageplague, you knew there would be fallout
>from the peanut gallery, right?

Sure! Of course, I also thought the plague would last a couple realtime hours. :p

>If all of a sudden villagers got blackjacked 1/5 times they
>called resist or spellbane... you get the idea.

Remember that you said that. We'll have a laugh about it someday

I've played warriors and mages. Barring a transmuter, warriors have an easier time getting a group, are more survivable all the way up to hero, don't have to gather wands, and to me, at least, require a lot less time/effort/suit etc to kick mucho ass. A lot of lowbie magedom is struggling to get ranks/groups and avoiding village applicants and others who want cheap ass kills. Even Zorszaul said it so it must be true!

Of course I've only been playing ~3 years. Perhaps when I've been here 12 years and wrote a significant amount of code, designed classes, and know every area/item in the game I might think differently.

Of course by then Ill be kicking your ass and you'll be asking me for advice

Only problem is.. Why would my character help some random mage? Short answer.. I got a reward, and that was stretching it.

If that is the limit to your imagination, then I can't really help you there. I've seen this in you in the past, where you restrict yourself excessively due to your role, or even use your role as a scapegoat for uninvolvement or failure.

Obviously there are lines you don't cross. If you're a rager, you don't help Destanin the Archmage. If you are good, you don't run errands for the lich. But beyond that, your characters motivations are YOURS to massage as you will. If you are throwing your arms in the air and saying "My character has irresistable reason to help this mage, so I'm not gonna!" I have to assume it has more to do with your own disinterest. Don't chalk it up to your role.

You bring up Jeir, who I actually think has done an excellent job in these quests of sticking to his role, while allowing for the creative flexibility that allows for quest involvement. He helped get the Eye because he didn't trust the chaotic thief Cliant to get a hold of a valuable artifact and bring it to a just and honorable conclusion. That's good enough for me. Mixed characters with conflicts of interest are create rich roleplaying interactions - in that quest, it didn't rely on *me* to make it interesting.. Jeir and Cliant were busy creating their own conflict too. Jeir's always played his part in roleplaying reservations, hesitation, and advocating for his ideology, while still finding justifications to participate. Even when we mixed it up in the Mad Angel quest where he ended up unwittingly making the "wrong" choice, I didn't see it as the player's faux pas. I saw it as an interesting story element and a rich burden/inner conflict that Jeir got to struggle with.

Real people make justifications all the damned time for doing things that aren't in the strictest accordance with their belief system. I don't expect MUD characters to be more perfect than people.

>Only problem is.. Why would my character help some random
>mage? Short answer.. I got a reward, and that was stretching
>it.
>
>If that is the limit to your imagination, then I can't really
>help you there. I've seen this in you in the past, where you
>restrict yourself excessively due to your role, or even use
>your role as a scapegoat for uninvolvement or failure.

After my current deletes, I hope I'll remember to point just how far I was stretching it to try and be involved especially re: helping an archmage.

I don't see the same thing in myself re: restrictions as you do, but I'm interested because perhaps it is something I'm doing without realizing it. Tac was restricted, but I try not to play very many of those types because they inevitably fail...

In a recent immteraction I basically came full circle on a core character issue that I had no intention of changing going into the immteraction. I'd say I'm pretty flexible, but again, I could be wrong.

I don't know... I feel like I've tried to put my character out there for this quest to get involved, and basically nothing happens. I try to act like my character would and get the npc's to respond however they would, but they're only interested in characters that aren't like mine. So I just go back to doing whatever I would be doing, except now I have to avoid the questy areas because it's just full of enemies, or full of people who are more interested in whatever else is going on, so now my choice is basically to go off and twiddle around until people get done with quest stuff.

Tac

To Nep: You are correct, I was not complaining about mageplague. It was only annoying when I contracted it for the 4th or 5th time because people were too stupid to go off by themselves until they got cured.

You not knowing the outcome doesn't have to stop your character from participating. You can decide "my character thinks that XYZ will happen if I help" Maybe the exact opposite of XYZ ends up happening, maybe your paladin unwittingly causes a lich king to be reborn, but that's okay. As long your character was acting according to what he believed at the time he decided to act then there's no problem. You, the player, could even know the likely result, but decide that your character doesn't. The character then acts in ingorance or on false information.

As a player, you might be the kind of person that doesn't comit to something unless you're very certain of the outcome. But the characters you play don't neccesarily have to have this trait. They could be more prone to making hasty decisions.

I hadn't considered that. Seriously. It's not that I wouldn't (OOC) get involved with something if I didn't know how it was going to turn out (otherwise I'd never date) it's more like I like to make informed decisions, and I like to reserve judgement on people and stuff until I feel like I have a good grasp on who they are. It's part of the way I think, so I never really considered my characters acting differently... Now I just have to figure out how to make insane decisions based on zero facts and only a vague understanding of any situation... I'll have to ask my girlfriend how she does it

Tac

I might add a couple of things here, based on several years' experience running a very, very open-ended pen-and-paper RPG as GM. I'll also pull from some experience with CF and playing other pen-and-paper RPG's as a character.

As an imm running a quest, you've got some general idea as to where you want to go. This is your "part D" in your post. A, B, and C are all up to the characters to figure out, do, or not do.

But a lot of times if you're the one running a linear quest, it's real easy to sit back and think "God, if these people would just buy the herb from the shopkeeper, put it in a potion of cure light, and cast a lightning bolt spell on it, we could get this thing going!"

As a player, there are several areas for frustration here. First, who is to say we even know there's a quest? I've tried with multiple characters to do some interesting things, but they've been met with dull silence. At some point, as a player, you just kind of stop bothering. On the other hand, if you know there's a quest afoot, it can be frustrating to go out and try to find that super secret special quest advancer to keep the storyline going. What you, as quest-runner, see is laziness or disinterest. What the player feels is frustration and irritation. They know there's a solution, but not where to even start. Good linear quests take a certain amount of ad lib and psuedo-open-endedness to be fun for both parties.

But let's look at open-ended quests. In this case, you're frustrated, as the quest-runner, that no one even tried to look for a cure. You watched healers and mages alike, and no one even bothered!

Well, were you looking at thieves? What if I told you there was a city-ties thief who wanted to help? What if this thief spent two hours running to different cities, using his extensive urban contacts, and trying to talk with NPC healers to no avail? Maybe after a couple of hours, he just gave up. Maybe he only had two hours to play that night, and didn't have another chance to play for a few days. Then he checks the forums and finds a complaint that the players just aren't even trying to cure the mageplague! Blah.

The catch is, I don't know how to avoid that situation. An open-ended quest is, by nature, without an obvious starting point or ending point. In CF, it has to be monitored/run by the imm/imms responsible for the quest - so they have to be online. And in CF, there also have to be interested/affected players online at the same time. Without coming out and blatantly gechoing "Hey, anyone want to cure this mageplague or what?", I'm not sure how you can gauge interest. You can snoop, but if I've already spent a worthless 2 hours talking at NPC's to no avail, I've probably given up on that and moved on to something else. As far as I can tell, this mageplague isn't even curable, and finding a cure isn't part of the quest. Moving on. When you snoop, you'll see me off doing my normal thing. Obviously, no one is interested!

I guess my point here, before I ramble on into another point, is that "Hardly anyone - in fact no one at all that I am aware of - even TRIED to initiate a means to find a cure" is about as accurate as me saying "I tried to initiate a cure, but curing it is not a questable action". They're both true from our different perspectives.

OK all that aside, Amaranthe, I think your post was EXTREMELY important, and everyone should read it at least once - players and imms alike. GMing (or running quests as an imm in CFland) can be one of the most rewarding experiences for a roleplayer - IF - your players are good, think-outside-the-box players. As a player, working out quests run by a good GM is also very rewarding. But it takes ad lib effort on both sides (er.."roleplaying"). In pen-and-paper games, it's very easy to stay out of the confines of the box.

(quick aside, my players ran into a big group of guards. Instead of charging in, they snuck into a side chamber, which turned out to be a pantry/food storage area. Amongst some boxes, they found a crate with a dozen bottles of wine. I just threw them in there to give the room a little "life". Thinking on their feet, they got some rags and made some makeshift molotov cocktails out of the wine bottles. Have you ever tried to light wine on fire? Yeah. It's not exactly 151. So as one, they hurl these wine bottles at their unexpecting foes. The bottles break and spill wine everywhere, but not much more. Of course, they now have the guards' full and undivided (and angry) attention....we still laugh at that, but at least they tried).

In CF, it's a little tougher. We, as players, experience 95% of our characters' lives confined within the box of game mechanics. Then, when we find that the throne requires a dwarf to sit on it, we sigh and start looking at our who lists for a dwarf.

There's more to roleplaying than a good description, an accent and a reason to hunt mages/evils/goods/happies/sads/dwarves/dragons/whatever. Turn brief off, and interact with your environment. The imms are obviously willing to stretch to meet the imaginations of the players. On the flip side, imms also ought to keep outside the box. Sure, the likely players to cure a plague are healers. Well, can't that include non-healer PC's who find a healer NPC to help?

OK, my last little blurb is a pet peeve of mine with regards to roleplaying in general, and it's already been touched on, so I'll keep it brief. Good questy roleplaying is hard to do. You have to divorce yourself of metagame knowledge and step into how your character would REALLY act. You know you're looking for the powerful Eye of Nordiach. Your character knows this, too. Would your character really step into a castle and yell "We're looking for the Eye of Nordiach!" Would your character really walk up to the first guard he sees and say "Hey, we're looking for an Eye so the Consortium can calm the waters on the sea"?

Probably not. And if it did, the guard would look at you like you had an arm growing out of your head. Yes, you're on a quest, and yes, the imm is there. But big kudos to the imms in this quest, because from what I've seen, the NPC's only know what the NPC's would know. The guard doesn't care a lick about whatever Eye you're talking about. He's there to keep the unsavory types out. That's his job. So, what do you need to do to get him to let you in? Befriend, deceive, buy off, kill - whatever. Those all make sense. "We're looking for the Eye" doesn't.

There's nothing more irritating, to me, than being in a 3-man group on a quest. You walk up to the guard and start talking to him, convincing him to let you in because, well, he's just a guard afterall. Then another guy in your group says "We need the Eye, give us the Eye or we'll take it from you!" Sigh. That guy really missed the boat. So did the guy who ran around to nine different areas spamming "where eye". That's "game mechanics" thinking. Don't be that guy!

Anyway, I'm real bad at rambling on about game theory and game psychology, especially when it comes to the orderly chaos that define RPGs. Sorry for the long response.

I can't really hit on everything in this post, but a few points:

Praying - I think this was touched on another thread regarding praying to NPCs, but even with imm tools, obviously our omniscience is limited. There's nothing wrong with praying to get the attention of an NPC. (Although now that I'm thinking about it, it'd be nice if there were a way for imms to monitor things triggered by the 'tell' or' sayto' command when the target is an NPC.)

This was also a big one for the mageplague - because it would have been a perfectly viable thing for any of the priests running around to have prayed to their deity for insight or the means to heal it. In spite of seeing numerous prayers of "This mageplague is ####!" all day long, I did not personally see even *one single* prayer of someone trying to find a cure.

Mortal-Driven Solutions - It is important to note a distinction between a mortal-driven solution to an imm-presented problem, and a mortal-driven attempt at something random that the imms probably don't have a current interest in. I have seen mortal-driven attempts for personal gain or vision. "I want to start my own cabal!" - "I want to build an Orphanage in Galadon." - out of nowhere. There's nothing wrong with these goals, but a response to this requires that an imm is paying attention to you who also has the time, means, and desire to cater to your effort.

Conversely, the imms run a quest, release a mageplague. We, as the imms, are setting a scene here.

Unlike a pen-and-paper game, the ability to give the player what they are after isn't as always as simple as writing something on a character sheet. Some of the things people try to initiate would involve a tremendous investment of time and effort.

Something to ask yourself: "Do the imms have a shared interest in me realizing this goal, and do they have the capacity to reward my success that doesn't involve me demmanding large amounts of staff time?" If the answer to both these questions is "yes", you are at a pretty good starting point. Again to the mageplague example, obviously as imms we had a shared interest in the mageplague eventually going away. Also removing it is not a huge effort should a mortal make the effort to do so.

Also in response to:

Would your character really step into a castle and yell "We're looking for the Eye of Nordiach!" Would your character really walk up to the first guard he sees and say "Hey, we're looking for an Eye so the Consortium can calm the waters on the sea"?

I agree! However, I'll also say that I really don't take things too seriously in these quests. I treat it more like a graphic novel with some comic relief, than I do as a serious epic tale. When I run quests, I will overlook or respond humorously to these kinds of things, and let things move on from there. After all, our little world here is one in which characters die and return to life, where ridiculous assortments of armor, and live on a diet of berry pie.

And finally to answer this question:

As a player, there are several areas for frustration here. First, who is to say we even know there's a quest?

Every imm handles this differently. There's global echoes of course, though I often approach smaller groups either with area echoes, or with an NPC. If I don't have a specific target, these attempts are usually ignored. Another good reason to try to constantly be on your best roleplaying behavior while leveling, etc. I often prelude any quest I want to run with a little random snooping to find some targets I suspect will be responsive to quest NPCs.

Incidentally this is probably also why some characters get repeatedly brought into quests. I can either spend up to an hour trying to find a new target that I assess as likely to be receptive to the quest, or I can just approach Guy X who has shown himself to be receptive and clever in the past. Sometimes due to time constraints or whatever, we just pick Guy X.

>Incidentally this is probably also why some characters get
>repeatedly brought into quests. I can either spend up to an
>hour trying to find a new target that I assess as likely to be
>receptive to the quest, or I can just approach Guy X who has
>shown himself to be receptive and clever in the past.
>Sometimes due to time constraints or whatever, we just pick
>Guy X.

There's a certain amount of right-place-right-time involved, too. Any kind of quest or event is going to play to certain kinds of characters more than others.

Most of the story up until, say, last Sunday has mostly been of the form: NPC mages want something. Not exactly the best recruiting ground to get Battle involved, except for those steps where it's interesting to bring them in as opposition to what's going down. (And if they want to be involved in steps where they're not "invited", great... but I as NPC mage trying to hire people to do something am not going out of my way to tip them off.) Frankly, I'm very impressed Battle has been as actively involved as they have been.

Similar story with Outlanders; we tried to get them involved where it was appropriate, but a big chunk of the story was essentially about mining. Several of the remaining pieces involved bargaining with undead or extraplanar creatures. Not too Outlander-friendly.

Conversely, you have a character like Spenner, who (without going into detail, since he's still active) simultaneously is both the kind of guy an NPC like Destanin is going to ask for help and also the kind of guy who is probably at least a little sympathetic to what Destanin is trying to accomplish. The same string of events that tends to be unfriendly to Battle/Outlanders is relatively very friendly to a character like that.

Sometimes you luck out.

This mageplague questy stuff has brought a great discussion element to the forums.

Before I posted that long, drawn-out treatise on quests, I considered the aspect of praying to get some NPC attention. The problem is that there's a weird greyish border between IC and OOC when it comes to prayers in CF. My hypothetical thiefy character wants to participate in the quest due to role reasons. I, as a player, would like to play along, too. But would my character actually pray looking for NPC interaction? What if my character isn't the praying type? Throw in the fact that it feels odd for me, as a player, to pray about stuff like this because it just feels like I'm -begging- for interaction. It's more immersive if it happens naturally.

But then, it's a lot less likely/frequent.

Maybe I should pray more often...but then I also don't want to be "that annoying guy" whose prayers get ignored for the next five characters I play.

On the other hand, if I give it a little thought, a quick solo-interaction with a silent NPC_healer could result in a simple prayer "NPC_healer has asked me to pray with him to meditate on the odd happenings with mana". My not-much-for-prayer thief reluctantly kneeled down (at NPC-healer's, "suggestion", of course) and prayed a reasonable IC prayer.

There now, that wasn't so bad.

You had a great point with the difference between "mortal-driven solutions to imm-driven quests", and "mortal-initiated pushes for something neat, that imms may or may not be interested in or able to pursue".

But part of the perceived lack of interest in curing the mageplague may be due to the players' collective perception that changing the world is too hard. That CF is, by and large, a static universe, and through direct experience or by word of mouth, trying to make an impact is like using a spoon to empty the Pacific.

So how do we (players) and you (imms) get out of that habitual perception quagmire?

By doing exactly what we're all doing. Run a neat quest, involve lots of people with conflicting goals across all the level ranges, and most importantly, keep discussion open and lively while the quest is in progress.

As players, we can share our expectations and frustrations, as well as our appreciation and feedback. As imms, you can explain your expectations and frustrations, as well as provide insight/logs that 98% of the playerbase would otherwise have never seen.

I've seen multiple posts by players saying "What the heck are they talking about, we tried to cure the mageplague all evening!" Instead of giving up or spinning our wheels for a week, maybe now someone knows to shoot up a quick pray to give a heads-up that there are some people ready to get their game on, the next time something questy like this happens.

I still think the burden's on the players to get out of the linear quest, game mechanics mindset, and think/act outside the box.

Hopefully, there won't be "immteraction burnout", as someone suggested. Conversely, hopefully, players won't keep expecting global-quest levels of immteraction and get bored when they don't get it.

In all, though, I think our collective fun sticks will get an upgrade to fun stick +1 by the time things settle down. I know it's been interesting for me, as my perception of CF as a linear, static world is being destroyed utterly, thanks to active imms and open communication outside IC channels.

In a case where you're trying to cure the mageplague, I find that I, personally, would respond to a prayer like this:

You look at the Grand Mistress of Magic.
pray Lords above, if there is any mercy for the poor souls of we pitiful mortals, grant my prayer that the Grand Mistress of Magic will find me worthy to speak to about this accursed magical illness.

Then interact with GMoM for a few minutes. If she still sits like a stump, likely nobody is going to immteract with you (for a variety of reasons - too busy, no clue who you are, uncomfortable with playing that large a part in a quest that is being headed up by someone else, etc.)

If I was on, personally, and saw that prayer (assuming nobody else took care of it), I would at least have interacted with you enough to let you know that you wouldn't learn anything from me today so you wouldn't be wasting your time. Or, if NepDrokDaev (in this case) had mandated it, I would have pointed you in the right direction for the cure.

I'm currently doing that somewhat WRT the stuff that's currently happening. Unfortunately for those that interact with Twist, he's effin' nutzibars right now and is more apt to drool on them than guide them to a solution.

I've just recently been getting into your quests, and while I think they look fun and I was at one point definitely interested I can't say that I am much anymore.

It seems from where I stand that the majority of questing is done for certain characters. If its not? They do their damndest to keep it to themselves. Thats fine if they want all the glory, but at the same time you gotta think that there are 15(not really, probably more like 2) other people that want to get in on the action too.

Also another thing I have noticed is that a lot of times the imm run mob seems to ignore most players or things said. I understand that when an imm controlled mob is in play there are usually 50 billion people(probably more like 5-10) spamming the screen, and usually most of it is pointless. There are, however, players out there that do things during quests, say things, act a certain way in hopes of actually getting some of the attention.

1. When you go into a quest do you have a certain player or players in mind to complete said quest?

2. Do you actively try and incorporate more willing people to join?

3. I understand that Imm run quests are usually handled by one, two, or three imms, but do you guys ever hand out tasks to the little guys? Things like, Hey, go check out other people and see if they are saying, doing, acting in a manner that might reflect their interest?

This post probably sounds jaded and I gotta admit I'm a little put off by my experiences with the currently running quest. I've tried to take part, I really have but the cards don't seem to fall in my favor for the most part. I am uncertain about whether I'll try anymore with this current quest(and subquests) now, but in the future I'd kinda like to keep the hope alive that there is a place no matter how small for me(and other left out players) in this questy type of stuff.

I'm definitely not the most accomplished CFer but I like to think I have something to add to the table. I can usually make the surrounding environment enjoyable for other people, and I'd like to think that I could play a strong role in any type of questy action going on.

Overall reading my post I'm not overly sure what I'm trying to convey here in my ramblings. I guess I just needed an outlet to express my disappointment in the current trend that I(and quite possibly I myself) have experienced when trying to get in on some of the fun.

Please don't take this post the wrong way. I appreciate everything you guys are doing, I just wish I could be part of it.

I've been transfered back to Galadon even with a "Thanks for comming" before.

That's the most I've gotten out of a quest.

I tried years ago to mediate some disputes between Tribunal and Gishka Kahn but got ignored, even though a trib or two were asking me to help if I could.

Another time I got knifed by a Mob when I tried to play along (But I would expect him too actually.. so that's cool.

Nothin from the Dragon quest thingy.

I recenly DID get a few points for trying to help a Dock worker that was in some hot water, and once I grouped with the Wandering Adventurer in Galadon.

But by and large I've allways assumed if you weren't contacted Directly, you weren't invited.

Of course I rarely pass the 40's and I assume thats where most of it's at.

I've been involved in the recent quest to some degree or another with my character since it became public knowledge. From my standpoint, the fact that I knew about the quest was all the invitation I needed, so when character X (a quest hog) basically ignored my questions I went to character Y and then character Z, and the next thing I knew I was receiving personalized immteraction, more than I have received with any of my other characters including empowered or tattooed. It has been fantastic!

For players who want to be involved in this quest or any other, I would like to make a few suggestions:
- Rumors about the goings on run rampant, which means that your character has at least a vague knowledge of events. Ask characters X, Y, and Z to discover enough information for you to act on. Some characters are known to be highly involved in this quest, so seek them out to also get directly involved.
- Assuming you've already written a character sketch in your role, you should have an idea how your character might react to the proceedings. As you learn more about the quest, I don't see anything wrong with adding chapters to your role detailing your efforts, as it advertises to the staff your willingness to be involved.
- Think of a quest as a party: the more people involved, the more fun it can be. We have a big house on Carrion Fields, so there is no need to restrict invitations because of the local fire regulations. BYOB but be willing to share.

Don't get down, get involved and have fun.

1. When you go into a quest do you have a certain player or players in mind to complete said quest?

Sometimes, but not always. For the majority of the recent quests, we've basically sent out some gechoes, or stood around a high traffic area waiting for someone to take interest in the NPCs. I'm often disappointed that there's not a larger variety of participants, but it falls as it falls. Part of that is login time issues, and part of that is just how observant certain characters are - and inevitibly, the same people tend to glom on to quests the quickest and/or most accurately.

2. Do you actively try and incorporate more willing people to join?

Usually. If it's a central quest, gechoes are the recruitment tactic. If it's a more out-of-the-way quest, I usually am trying to persuade a small group (3-6) adventurers to come. Sometimes though, the PCs who initiate are more restritive, or approached PCs ignore my NPC, and the group is much smaller. At the begining of these quests I ran around Simshipple for Consortium Intro quests, aimed at low-mid levels. I was so abundantly ignored I ended up running one guy through a quest. No one else was interested.

My personal style is to try to get a small group, and keep it isolated. I try to be inclusive, often specificlaly selecting low or mid-range folks for my target group, and have them solve problems more abstractly and not strictly with game mechanics. (Like someone putting on a disguise, or someone holding torches and waving them with an emote to drive away trolls, or fasttalking their way out of a situation (though I'll check your charisma to see if you reasonably succeed!) That kind of thing can't be done with large numbers of participants. Because of that fact, I'd say it's more common for imms to want to run large quests where as many people can participate as possible. Scavenger hunts, kill the monsters, etc.


3. I understand that Imm run quests are usually handled by one, two, or three imms, but do you guys ever hand out tasks to the little guys? Things like, Hey, go check out other people and see if they are saying, doing, acting in a manner that might reflect their interest?

Again, it depends. I do try to. Generally you're not going to have more than two or three imms online and available for questing at a time. If I do try to incorporate anyone who is online and interested, provided they have the necessary tools to do so.

A favorite I ran that involved several imms was a murder mystery I ran in the Lyceum several years ago on Halloween. I had I think 5 imms, each controlling a different suspect in the murder mystery.. each with a prepared script in terms of how to answer questions for the investigation. It was a total blast, and since we had so many imms and only let "investigators" into the Lyceum two at a time, it was easy to keep track of all the participants. I'd love to run something of that nature again sometime.

I do understand your frustration. Especially in the big central quests, when there are a bunch of people involved, it gets confusing. A lot of it also has to do with Nepenthe's points - you have 6 people talking to the cityguard, and 5 of them are asking things the cityguard has no logical reason to know the answer to. Rather than plod through an eternally branching conversation, we sometimes choose to ignore things that are not relevant, and simply address the person(s) who are making the most sense.

Other times, we're simply overwhelmed. I know there have been times where some try to participate but I can't hit on everything at once, so admittedly (and I think understandibly) I do gravitate towards whoever has a history with the NPC and such.

In regards to being able to get involved in the action and to recieve notice for that involvement.

My recent personal experience.

1. During the current questy stuff I have yet to be able to get involved though last night was admittedly my largest effort to do so.

2. During the dragons reign night a couple months ago, I was very active, dying numerous times and a had a great time, but if there was any part to that other then killing dragons I never saw it, nor if there were any rewards was I given any. Not complaining but this seems to be how you can tell if you were active participant in accomplishing the goals of a quest.

3. During the Khaz..(sp) tree stuff last fallish I was about for a short period during a part of it, didn't do much other then ask some pc some questions about what was going on and ended up getting a exp reward.

I love the fact that IMM's are actively running quests, its a huge part of what makes a game like cf great. And while you can't force pc's to get involved from my personal feelings, and obvously a couple other players, there are some people who would like to take an active role in it but just can't seem to get anything started.

This is not meant as a complaint just pointing out the fact that while it seems there are examples of quest that getting people to do has been difficult, there are also plenty of players that have just as difficult of a time actively trying to get involved.

I had thought to write up a gigantic thread reflecting on this whole quest/story-dealie when it's done, (Not yet!) but I'll probably forget half of what I wanted to talk about so I'll toss a few things out now as well.

NPCs are not Gods, at least not in the general sense.

I mean, yes, of course, the NPC talking to you is, behind the wizard's curtain, an Immortal... but IC, not so much. Corrolaries of this include:

NPCs are not omnipotent

The little girl whose cat you rescued from a tree probably cannot hand out constitution to sickly PCs, sorry. Please stop asking.

NPCs are not omniscient

The little girl whose cat you rescued from a tree probably does not know where to find the Lost Mystical Toejam of Lyristeon. If she's an attention-seeking or imaginative little girl, she might make up a story, though!

NPCs are not oracles of truth

Some of them are sneaky and lie. Yes, even to you!

NPCs are not your moral compass.

Just because an NPC asks you to do something doesn't mean you can't say no if it's not something your character would do. Just because an NPC thinks something is the right answer doesn't mean it is. I've had great fun over the course of the quest so far arguing (as an NPC) with PCs even though I the player thought they were right, either because what they were saying made sense for their character, or I just objectively thought they were right. I've had great fun (as an NPC) threatening a PC with something I either couldn't back up or knew wouldn't come to pass.

You're trying to RP a character; generally, so are we!

I think that's most of the NPC stuff. Moving on...

Everything is not necessarily related.

I know, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and all that. But, you know? Sometimes the pouch of gold your character found on the road is just a pouch of gold. It might not be the mythical Blood Money of the Orcish Nightkings or a bribe you're supposed to offer Twist in order to get his underwear.

More as I think of it!

heh.

Might be good to know for the next Lich quest.
=)