Quest Design

This is a tutorial for designing a good quest Plot

    Unless you have a really unique idea to start with, the best thing to do is 
 start with a generic quest idea i.e. rescuing a maiden, stealing secret battle plans,
 recovering a lost artifact, defeating a powerful warlord/wizard, sabotaging an 
invading force/defending force, participating in a local ritual/fulfilling a local 
prophecy, assassinating a local bandit/leader etc. The details and plot twists that 
make things interesting will come about later as a result of the characters and their
 motives.

Characters

    Character creation is the most important part of creating a good quest. Coming 
up with interesting, detailed characters will help you to make the plot unique and 
keep the gameplay varied. The best technique for character creation is to treat it 
like casting parts for a play. The first thing you should do is create a list of all 
of the minor roles/group roles in your quest i.e. guards, elite guards, mercenaries, 
henchmen, prisoners, resistance members etc. Then write down a second list of the 
major characters i.e. Warlord, 2nd in Command, Head Guard, Leader of the Resistance, 
Leader of the Prisoners etc. As a part of group dynamics there is almost always a 
pecking order so it is useful to have a leader for each group role. Now that you have
 two lists, go through the lists and for each role write down the loyalties, 
personality traits, aspirations, relationships, and a brief description for each 
character. It is useful to write down each characters opinion of the other characters
 around him/her because it will help you figure out how they would react to different 
situations. For instance, if the Warlord in my above example was killed by the player
 character then it might please the 2nd in Command might because he/she has always 
wanted to assume power. Depending on how I set up the relationship between the 
Warlord and the 2nd in Command it might instead cause the 2nd in Command to exact 
revenge. Making the characters reactions an integral part of the plot is something 
that everyone should try to do because it makes the story more believable and more 
interesting. Another useful result of good character development is that it can 
affect the player’s strategy and thus influence gameplay as I will describe bellow.

Gameplay

    Plot and Characters are essential to an interesting quest but it is also 
important to keep in mind that this is a game and that games should be fun. Oblivion 
is a very open ended game, and as such it never made sense to me that the quests 
aren’t equally open ended. It’s true that it takes longer to create a quest that has 
many different solutions, but it also encourages the player to think and to approach 
each problem differently. One of the most challenging things to do is to get the 
player to care about completing a quest. One technique that helps the player to care 
is allowing him/her to take the quest in towards two different conclusions. For 
example, say the quest is that the Resistance Leaders want the player to head a 
rescue mission to free their imprisoned friends from the Warlord’s dungeon. One 
possibility is that the player works to free the resistance members. The alternate 
side to that quest is the player informs the Warlord of the resistance’s plans and 
sets a trap to capture the leaders of the resistance. Making two different 
conclusions does have a big downside; it doubles the length of time it takes to 
create a quest. However, when you consider the amount of substance it adds to the 
quest it seems to me a worthwhile endeavor. There are a few techniques to cut down on
 the increased work load while still making the quests far less linear. By splitting 
the quest into segments and having two distinct ways to complete each segment the 
quest can have many different paths that all come to the same final conclusion. That 
way even though you’re doubling the time it takes to create the quest your increasing
 the ways to complete it by 2^(however many segments it is divided into). My opinion 
is that making a linear quest is choosing quantity over quality but everyone is going
 to have a different opinion on this matter. Non linear quests also gain an added 
bonus from the character creation process I described above. The process of writing 
down character aspirations, loyalties and relationships makes it easy to come up with
 different strategies to help complete the quest. For instance say a Warlord and 
his/her 2nd in Command aren’t on good terms, than the player might be able to exploit
 their distrust by turning them against one another and weakening them both. Or say 
the guards have been mistreated, maybe the player can appeal to them and make them 
betray their leader. By simply having character dynamics it is easy to come up with 
strategies the player can use to further his/her agenda. As a final note I’d like to 
comment about gameplay in general. Gameplay seems the most fun when it consists of 
30-60sec of stock gameplay that is broken up by unique and interesting challenges. So
 if the player explores/fights for 30-60sec then they should face something unique. It
 could be a puzzle, overhearing dialogue, talking with an NPC, finding a journal, 
fighting a unique boss (preferably with some weakness the player can discover and 
exploit), overcoming a difficult trap, or something else I haven’t even thought of. I
 hope this guide has been helpful. In the future I might post a list of generic quest 
ideas that people can use as a template to write more complicated quests or even an 
example quest that showcases all of the different techniques I’ve described.