Quest Design

Things to think about when designing your 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 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.