This is probably my fault as I am still a relatively new GM, but I always have a hard time making quests compelling.
Whenever they are fetch quests with fights that's hardly a problem, but I struggle to come up with decent quests with social encounters.
I think I can write decent npcs with specific attitudes, and I can imagine an overall series of events that could happen if the players do not interact with the quest, but I don't know how to make them interact with players. What to ask in return, so that the encounter doesn't end up getting solved by a roll, or becomes the start of a new fetch quest?
My players probably don't mind it that much and they still have fun, but not understanding how to improve is disheartening.
Any tips for a new GM? How did you improve your quests?
We usually play fantasy settings, for what is worth.
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How is that related to my question?
It's a joke, numbnuts.
Not a good one, that's for sure
Step one:
Remove stick from your ass
Step two:
Write better quests
You're overthinking it probably.
A quest is a small story and there's only 7 stories out there period:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Basic_Plots
Now you can take out comedy/tragedy and I'm not sure why they're there as they're more of a type of story you tell. Anyway, that leaves you with 5:
>overcoming the monster
Obvious.
>rags to riches
The PCs need to amass resources for something. Shadowrun is a good example of this.
>The quest.
It's literally a fetch quest. You're fine.
>voyage and return
Give the players a home base and you can easily give them scouting missions or just in general give them a sense of returning home.
>rebirth
This one COULD work but trickier to do because it would require your player, your character, your world, and you to be in synchronization and make it so that events force a player into growth. I always seek to do this whether as a player or as a GM.
>You're overthinking it probably.
I think so as well, but that thought is hindering the process of creating quests, cause I fail to write meaningful interactions.
We are not only playing d&d: games got stale and we decided to test new systems, while sticking to the fantasy setting that we all enjoy.
But that's honestly not a problem of the system itself, but rather to the writing of quests.
I get what you are saying about creating many "red herrings" that will lengthen the duration of a quest, other than making the world feel real; that said, the players may opt to follow the correct lead and skip all the rest, thus not solving the problem, no?
>They have to offer the party something useful. Whether that be political favors, resources, information, training, etc. Anything other than some gold and a pat on the back.
What should the NPC want? My only way to make that more compelling is to create multiple NPCs with conflicting goals, so that the players can play both sides. Still, I can't use that formula everytime.
>Proactive characters with goals to pursue are good
Wish I had proactive players.
>no proactive players
OOF. That does make it more difficult.
Can't change my players, so gotta deal with that.
Still, I think I would feel the same way. Though them not being proactive and me having to prepare more stuff to spoonfeed is not helping, that's for sure.
Your efforts are wasted. Moving the story forward CAN'T just be a DM thing. Tge players have to help too.
In your position I would honestly just cancel the current campaign, tell everyone to make new characters (who "WANT or NEED" something as Anon put it), and either start over or just start a different campaign entirely. Lazy players are cancer, and the tumor needs to be addressed and treated early.
>Your efforts are wasted. Moving the story forward CAN'T just be a DM thing. Tge players have to help too.
I somewhat agree, but that's not my problem here. What the NPCs want and the kind of quests that derive from them is my job, not the players'.
Yeah but if the players aren't engaging with them and aren't building characters that bounce off of that, then it's hard to proceed. You're just a glorified number cruncher and nobody has time for that.
You wouldn't happen to have notes, screenshots, transcripts or anything?
I'm a filthy ESL, so my notes wouldn't help.
The players are interacting, they just aren't that proactive.
Like, last quest was about them investigating kobolds attacking caravans, despite being a somewhat docile tribe up to that point. If they reach the the kobold's village they can discover that it's not them attacking humans, but goblins nearby. Up to this point, I would be basically bouncing players from one side to another, so I added a sidequest inside the village, where two factions have different view about how they interact with humans and the like, and one leader may ask the players to get rid of the others, in exchange of help against the goblins. Now, it still feels like I'm basically inserting a fight there just because. I don't know, I'm just not satisfied by how I structure quests, but at the same time I can't explain what's wrong.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it.
>seems straightforward
>option to fight or diplomacy with the kobolds
>multiple kobold factions
>sidequest
The only thing I might suggest is that if the players did diplomacy with the kobolds they might try to do it with the goblins. So you either need to prep social stuff for the goblins or telegraph it clearly (like heads on pikes with a sign that says "no humans allowed) that there's no way the goblins can be reasoned with.
But overall as a fellow GM I can't find any overt flaws with it and as a player, I wouldn't have any issues with that structure. I suppose there might be a problem with presentation, but that's something else entirely. The structure is good.
No, you definitely can change your players. You have agency and you can make decisions.
>compelling
"Compelling" to who?
>meaningful
"Meaningful" to who?
>me having to prepare more stuff to spoonfeed is not helping
Ironic, given the nature of this thread.
Go to Hell, beggar.
Did you have a bad day, anon?
whom
whomst'd've
moronic link, kys
Not buying your shitty essay, sorry.
Terminator 2 is a thousand fricking times better than Proust.
Frick off, Chris. I will NEVER buy your book.
I don't know who Chris is but of course you won't. Go read another hundred fricking pages about what cookies some fricking French dandy prefers with a cup of tea and then burn in hell where Proust belongs. Proust's kindling is good for starting a bonfire and throw Joyce's ass on there while you're at it (but only Finnigan's--the rest are worth reading). Spare DH Lawrence, though. Love that guy.
How about we don't derail the thread into complaining about some Wikipedia article that some coomer linked.
It's just not worth the time.
There's always time to derail for hating Proust. It's literally the most important thing you can do with your life.
>writer emotionally affects you through his work so much you devote your being to talking about him
must be an amazing writer
Now you're just trying to goad me.
Christ i feel sorry for you if you really believe this
-Step 1: Stop playing D&D if you are, it's a terrible system for anything social, and it mechanics ensure that characters who aren't playing a Charisma-based character should not even fricking bother attempting anything social. That being said, the following advice may still be useful regardless.
-Step 2: Think of social encounters less as the player making an NPC do something, and more like... an investigation. Say we've got a plothook where a werebeast has been terrorizing a small town, but nobody knows who it is. There is so much non-combat material to work with there. Why is the butcher going out at night? Why does the apothecary have wolfsbane herbs hidden behind her counter, is holy magic really the reason the church is never attacked? There's evidence to investigate, people to talk to, and maneuvering to be done. Maybe the butcher suspects his wife of cheating on him, and might tell a man, but not any of the women in the party. Maybe the apothecary is the opposite. Maybe the priest will only up to a fellow Cleric or Paladin of their religion.
-Step 3: Don't make NPCs helpless quest dispensers. They have to offer the party something useful. Whether that be political favors, resources, information, training, etc. Anything other than some gold and a pat on the back.
Step 3.5: Before the game even starts, get backstories from players. Tell them to make characters who WANT or NEED something. Gear Step 3 around what their character WANTS or NEEDS. Proactive characters with goals to pursue are good. Reactive characters who only ever wait for things to happen TO them are bad.
>>it mechanics ensure that characters who aren't playing a Charisma-based character should not even fricking bother attempting anything social.
>proficiency doesn't matter, everyone is too good at every skill!
>If you aren't proficient in charisma skills, you shouldn't even bother
Which is it?
What are you on about? If you haven't invested in basic reading comprehension, you shouldn't even bother trying to post. For everyone's sake.
Ignore him, it's just that moronic shitposter who thinks WotC will give him a job if he white-knights against the "trolls" hard enough. Literally some kid with a mental disorder.
You have never read the Dungeon Master's Guide in your life, pedo.
Backwards engineer it. Start with the mechanics. What's a fun thing for players to do? Does your game have good chase mechanics? Do your players have a wide book of spells to select? Is there a rogue with sneaking skills and lockpicking?
Perfect: You've got sneaking your way into a magical fight that ends in a chase scene. Now plug in the story from that structure. Good quests serve the goal of having fun, and playing the game is the part that's fun.
That's a neat advice, although it mainly works for non-social challenges, right?
The thing is, without the multiple factions inside the kobold's village, the quest would be quite barebone, but I can't always use that trick. What else could I do?
>I suppose there might be a problem with presentation
What do you mean?
Well, it wasn't funny nor clever. Thanks for the bump I guess?
My philosophy when I feel a quest is too simple is to add a different way to approach it that may have some defined benefits and risks/consequences. They can choose to kill the goblins, and get a reward but disgruntled town people will actually pay more if the party can deliver the goblin band unconscious so they can torture them. At which point the strategy would be how to knock out as many goblins as they can without alerting the rest. If they fail a brawl will start but a bunch of the goblins will escape and the townsfolk will not be as happy with only getting half of the band, with most of the goblins already roughed up. With that you can also add function to the kobolds, maybe there is a kobold shaman, that knows how to brew sleeping gas potions, or maybe the kobolds are trusted by the goblins, and if convinced might lure them into a trap set up by the party.
The thing is if your party is lazy they probably will always engage with the laziest way to do things, which will invariably be killing. Maybe if you goad them by either being very ovious or putting thoughts in their heads like:
>with your background as a thief you know of certain concoctions that when inhaled might put a creature to sleep, maybe the local shaman knows of that.
But that also feels way too handholdy and gay.
I see your point, but that would be a declared side-objective at the start of the quest, wouldn't it?
>But that also feels way too handholdy and gay.
If the players are new I don't see it as a bad thing, as long as they do not become dependent on your hints.
If your players aren't going out of their way to quest, just don't DM for them.
It's hard, but trust me. If you keep DMing for them and pushing them into questing, eventually they're going to feel like their choices (which they aren't making) don't matter and get bored and leave, and then act like you're a shitty DM because they couldn't roleplay.
Apart from the schizos who had to derail the thread, anyone else who can give me meaningful tips?
>Whenever they are fetch quests with fights that's hardly a problem, but I struggle to come up with decent quests with social encounters.
>I think I can write decent NPCs with specific attitudes, and I can imagine an overall series of events that could happen if the players do not interact with the quest, but I don't know how to make them interact with players. What to ask in return, so that the encounter doesn't end up getting solved by a roll, or becomes the start of a new fetch quest?
Don't make 'quests'. Create a problem, add some complications, and don't worry about the solution. That's your player's job.
Those are just synonyms though.
Like, I called this a quest
>Like, last quest was about them investigating kobolds attacking caravans, despite being a somewhat docile tribe up to that point. If they reach the the kobold's village they can discover that it's not them attacking humans, but goblins nearby. Up to this point, I would be basically bouncing players from one side to another, so I added a sidequest inside the village, where two factions have different view about how they interact with humans and the like, and one leader may ask the players to get rid of the others, in exchange of help against the goblins
but you can replace that word with challenge, problem, or whatever you want, and the core remains untouched. The problem for me is not the solution, but the quality of the encounters themselves.
>Those are just synonyms though.
No.
You have a different conception of this entirely. You have constructed this encounter in the form of three tasks they can complete:
>go to kobolds
>fight goblins
>optional (recruit kobolds)
Clearly job 3 comes across as a videogame optional objective. You have set up a simple two-faction dichotomy and the players have to side with one.
Instead, the hostility of various tribe members towards humans should exist on a spectrum. In general they probably have a preference but it's unlikely they're forming political parties or lobbying for anything. You don't need to plan out the extent to which any of them feel that way, or why they do until your players choose to engage with it.
It's simply a complication: the kobolds are unhelpful.
It's not that I have constructed the encounter that way, that is simply the most predictable way to complete it.
The fact that goblins are posing as kobolds to steal is unrelated to what the players do, and they could just decide to explore the opposite side for whatever reason and discover the goblin's settlement.
Is this a quest, or problem? It doesn't matter at all.
Either way, I don't really get your point: how would you structure your complication?
your post is tl;dr
just keep it simple, stupid
Judging by what's been posted itt, you are quite literally incapable of writing anything at fricking all
So, moron, who are you trying to compel and whose sense of meaning are you trying to appeal to?
Never did get a clear answer on that.
When you finally figure out who you're appealing to, try asking those people what compels them and what has meaning for them, instead of being a parasite on this board of anonymous people you'll never meet.
I see today is just as bad as yesterday, have you taken your meds? I don't want to live rent free in your shitty brain.
>a hard time making quests compelling.
this may just be trpg in general.
what motivates your players to play this type of game? do they want to win? do they want to roleplay? do they want to do tactical combat scenes? do they want to see characters grow and gain power in a world? travel to see weird places?
the problem here seems to be your players. they are not compelled by your story because it's not their type of story.
I understand that the actual messages have been obscured by the sheer amount of autism in this thread, but as I said, they are not compelling to me, the GM. The only issue my current players have is that they are not too proactive, but that's another issue. I also don't think they have a clear goal in mind yet, since they are beginners who have been trying different systems to see what suits them the most.
Either way, regardless of them, I am not satisfied by the structure I am using. A possible example is this one
. What I listed is how I assume they will behave, but you can think of it in general terms as the setting with the problem. I don't like how I create social encounters, as they look like fetch quest from a videogame to me, but I'm not sure how to change the formula.
>they are not compelling to me, the GM.
why do you want to GM?
what do you enjoy about it?
building a world?
battles?
challenging them with puzzles?
describing the world?
> they look like fetch quest from a videogame
videogames are based on d&d mostly. which means you are just noticing what d&d is, essentially.
social encounters are about the players wanting something and the NPC witholding it because the NPC wants something in exchange or because the NPC is too dumb to understand what they want.
as you might have noticed, I personally do not really like trpgs. I think they are inherently flawed. I prefer a boardgame instead.
having said this, players usually enjoy trpgs when their character's personality / build / flavor has an impact on the game.
The sand guy uses his sand to seduce a girl
the gnome can get into a tiny tunnel other characters cannot
the angry brute guy makes little forest friends
these tropes usually make NPC compelling.
in your story, why are the kobolds allowing the goblins to steal in their name?
are goblins and kobolds compelling? I would say they are incredibly boring creatures unless you add comic relief into it. goblin olympic games, or kobold wizard who tricks everyone.
maybe the goblins are infiltrated by a kobold shapeshifter?
>what do you enjoy about it?
I'd say I enjoy creating the world and not forcing the players to a single path while they try to deal with a quest, like many pregenerated adventures do.
>social encounters are about the players wanting something and the NPC witholding it because the NPC wants something in exchange or because the NPC is too dumb to understand what they want.
That is correct, but there are ways to make it less railroaded. If you have a single NPC then they become a new questgiver, and it's boring; if you introduce more NPCs with conflicting goals, that gives the players more freedom, as they can choose what to do. Still, that addition is my only idea to aovid the quest-giver issue.
>in your story, why are the kobolds allowing the goblins to steal in their name?
They are not, but they are not strong enough to attack them, nor they care so much about what people think of them (and they're not so forward-looking to expect retaliation from a weak village)
>I think they are inherently flawed
Interesting take, why do you think so?
Have you tried masterless systems?
>are goblins and kobolds compelling? I would say they are incredibly boring creatures unless you add comic relief into it. goblin olympic games, or kobold wizard who tricks everyone.
I don't think creatures are compelling per se, it all depends on the situation. Kobold societies can be greatly different from humans', and that can offer many peculiar situations.
Now, certain creatures like goblin or kobolds are more generic than other, exotic ones, that's true.
why do you say they are always quest-givers?
most NPCs do not give any quests. they sell products, they propose investment opportunities, they want to marry a PC, etc.
We're talking about these NPCs: "social encounters are about the players wanting something and the NPC witholding it because the NPC wants something in exchange or because the NPC is too dumb to understand what they want. "
If the interaction is simply the NPC stating what they want in return, their purpose is nothing more than giving the players a new quest.
No one would play with such a master. RPGs are a social activity with an implied social contract, and the masters making up things on the fly for the sole purpose of "winning" and/or "ruining the game" is not allowed.
I don't see why not being able to win is an intrinsic flaw, as social activities do not always require you to.
There are also countless boardgames where winning is not the point (mythwind, dixit and its clones, many narrative games)
And I take you make up everything on the fly?
Sure, if you say so.
Yes, I do say so, and I'm right. Watch the attitude, c**t.
ignoring the fact that you should be improvising most of the game anyway as a matter of good practice, what gave you the impression that I improvise everything?
I guess my problem here is not really understanding what your ideal scenario is.
I feel like in most cases if not all players will only interact with npcs if there is or think there is something they can expressly gain from that interaction, much more in the case of non proactive players. If the npc is not being forthright with their "use" the players will 9 times out of 10 just ignore them and move on to what they think will continue the story further, even if that thing is the npc they ignored.
The thing also in the case of the kobold quest is that the final goal of the quest remains killing a thing, which isnt very conductive to social roleplay. Maybe switching up quest premises might be a better course of action.
>why do you think so?
because it's an improv theater exercise that camouflages itself as a boardgame
you cannot win a trpg. you cannot lose a trpg.
if you want to kill the PCs, you can just say "falling rocks fall on your head, you are all dead, game over."
>and that can offer many peculiar situations.
then add these situations
the kobolds worship a moonrock that can talk
the goblins are stealing because they are blackmailed by another goblin tribe etc.
You just need to take quests/problems/situations from other media, tweak it enough to be different, and do that enough times coming up with new ones iteratively feels natural. The ol yoink and twist method.
>but i want to be original
its a game not a novel, take things that are proven to work and be interesting and just put your own spin on it
I don't write quests because it's not a video game. The players can go anywhere and do anything.
The problem is likely player involvement in with the NPCs. Everyone at the table should at least have one NPC they like and one NPC they hate. Getting players to love/hate/have strong feelings about NPCs is a skill that will develop in time.
Recommended cheat:
Create an array of NPCs (about1 per player). Tell the party these characters will be important over the campaign. Each player must choose one NPC they're going to have as a friend and one as an enemy. Additional picks maybe allowed, randomly determined. Friend and enemy are could include bonds of loyalty, rivalry, love, grudges, debts owed, etc. If someone says "my character is a loner", then choose 2+ NPCs who hate them on their behalf.
Once all the picks are made, work with the party to determine why these relationships and attitudes came to be. Anyone who doesn't get picked needs to have a mild character rework to make sure they swing in some direction that elicits a response.
Nice idea, do you introduce these NPCs right from the start as the background of your players? Still, how does this connect to the side quests? The quests would clearly involve said NPCs, but the question about how to create them still remains, no?
I do improvise most of the time, but I still like to create few quests as they can offer a better structured experience when I'm out of options.
I'm assuming that because if you don't prep anything, then you are most likely improvising. What techniques do you use otherwise? How do you make sure that whenever you improvise, the result is satisfying?
I didn't say I don't prepare anything. I said I don't write quests.
Alright then, what do you prepare and how?
Nice try. Do your own work, content farmer.
Don't make posts if you're not willing to help, then.
I swear you must lead a sad life if your top priority is making useless posts on Ganker. Kinda amazing that you have a group that puts up with your autism... provided that you do have one, that is.
I'll do whatever I want. Frick off.
Are your players self motivated or between quests are they waiting for you to drop a quest hook? If you are constantly laying the plot in front of them then you can't help but write uninspired stuff eventually.
I'm running a world that rewards players for taking initiative and exploring and I'm yet to give out a single quest I just told them there was a nearby dungeon and let them talk to locals to discover rumours.