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View Full Version : Player Help Too many questions for the Quest Giver?



Silus
2016-09-11, 06:38 AM
Okay let me preface this by saying that yes, I am very salty about this but I'll try to keep it civil.

So the group I'm in started up a Rolemaster game on the 10th. Now me, I'm not a fan of the system (I dare say I hate it and wish it was burned to ash) but I'm able to wrap my head around concepts it instills, namely that it is very important to have a good idea of what you are getting into before you dive face first into a dungeon, 'cause things can easily kill you.

So long story short we end up talking to this one guy that offers us a quest to retrieve a gold dagger from a guy that the quest giver had commissioned to make said dagger. The maker ended up running off with it and we had been offered the ludicrously lucrative job (at ~500 gold) to retrieve it. Simple, right? Well I didn't think so and I attempted to grill the quest giver (said grilling was sidetracked by SOMEONE interrupting me and telling me to basically shut up). The end result was the quest getting rescinded and us having to leave.

What questions?
-What condition ought the gold dagger be in upon returning it? Gold is a very soft metal so damage is a real issue.
-If damaged either due to complications retrieving the dagger or in transport, how will that affect our reward? 200g off 'cause the blade is bent, 300g off is the inlaid gems are missing?
-What do we know about the guy that made/has the dagger? Last thing we need is him being a super powerful caster or something.
-Is he known to be running with any gangs or accomplices? Hell of a thing if we go expecting one guy and it's like 10.
-Is the dagger cursed or enchanted in any way? Pick it up and suddenly we're possessed. Be nice to know about that feature.

The big sticking point was the first question which the other players regarded as "a stupid question" or "obvious" and, as a result of my asking and us not getting the quest, I was more or less banned from any negotiations in the future. The above mentioned someone likened it to "If I hire someone to get me apples and they come back with mashed apples, I'm not going to pay them" whereas the real issue is "You hired me to get apples. Is it a problem if they're a little bruised or old? Yes? Fresh apples it is then".

Anywho, what do you all think? Were those questions too much? Is there such thing as asking the quest giver too many questions (so long as they are relevant to the quest at hand)?

Slipperychicken
2016-09-11, 11:17 AM
Your players probably figured you were wasting their OOC time. I've had a few groups who just want to mindlessly plunge into dungeons and get their power-wank on, without any kind of legwork or even learning basic facts about their quests. That includes stuff like our mcguffin being "a relic", without even a visual description to help us know when we found it. I don't really like those groups.

[edit]
Personally, I get annoyed and skip over dialogue when it's something like price negotiations ("after 10 minutes of back-and-forth over the price of the tents..." [roll dice] "...you got him down to X gold and Y silver"), but at the same time I have patience for players grilling my questgivers for info. Learning about quests is important to the game and also gives me chances to give the players world-building and exposition.

I do think "what condition ought the dagger be returned" is not the most intelligent one you could ask. Obviously the questgiver doesn't want a broken, chipped dagger. You probably could have skipped to the second question. Aside from that, the others seem reasonable.

Silus
2016-09-11, 12:50 PM
Your players probably figured you were wasting their OOC time. I've had a few groups who just want to mindlessly plunge into dungeons and get their power-wank on, without any kind of legwork or even learning basic facts about their quests. That includes stuff like our mcguffin being "a relic", without even a visual description to help us know when we found it. I don't really like those groups.

[edit]
Personally, I get annoyed and skip over dialogue when it's something like price negotiations ("after 10 minutes of back-and-forth over the price of the tents..." [roll dice] "...you got him down to X gold and Y silver"), but at the same time I have patience for players grilling my questgivers for info. Learning about quests is important to the game and also gives me chances to give the players world-building and exposition.

I do think "what condition ought the dagger be returned" is not the most intelligent one you could ask. Obviously the questgiver doesn't want a broken, chipped dagger. You probably could have skipped to the second question. Aside from that, the others seem reasonable.

As unintelligent as the first question was, it'd help a lot in HOW we go about retrieving the dagger.

"Hey go clear these bandits out of this warehouse on the edge of town."
"Does the warehouse have to be intact in the end?"
"What a stupid question YES, IT DOES."
"Okay, cool, barring the doors and burning it down is off the table. Run them off or kill them all?"
"Kill them all you idiot, I thought that was implied."
"You said clear them out not kill them, I'm just covering my bases so we get the job done the way you want it done."

JeenLeen
2016-09-12, 10:50 AM
I think asking the questions is reasonable, but I know I've ticked off fellow players in games by my many questions to an NPC.

I reckon it might come to a play-style difference?
Maybe, as a compromise, you can say OOC something like "I ask him for any pertinent details about the mission, like anything special about the dagger or the guy, his allies, etc." and have the GM tell you. This assumes a level of trust between GM and player, such that "well that was obvious!" should not be something to happen if you, say, let the guards escape when the questgiver intended their death.

Did you reject the quest because of lack of intel, or did the questgiver get ticked at you and say 'never mind'? If the latter, sounds like the GM got annoyed and handled it poorly. Even if IC the questgiver was annoyed, that could've been played better or at least a warning like "He appears to be annoyed. You get the impression that more questions might cost you the job."
Though if I were in those shoes, I'd wonder if the questgiver was honest or if the job was a set-up.

Silus
2016-09-12, 11:03 AM
I think asking the questions is reasonable, but I know I've ticked off fellow players in games by my many questions to an NPC.

I reckon it might come to a play-style difference?
Maybe, as a compromise, you can say OOC something like "I ask him for any pertinent details about the mission, like anything special about the dagger or the guy, his allies, etc." and have the GM tell you. This assumes a level of trust between GM and player, such that "well that was obvious!" should not be something to happen if you, say, let the guards escape when the questgiver intended their death.

Did you reject the quest because of lack of intel, or did the questgiver get ticked at you and say 'never mind'? If the latter, sounds like the GM got annoyed and handled it poorly. Even if IC the questgiver was annoyed, that could've been played better or at least a warning like "He appears to be annoyed. You get the impression that more questions might cost you the job."
Though if I were in those shoes, I'd wonder if the questgiver was honest or if the job was a set-up.

The quest giver basically asked us to leave and I was told OOC later by one or two of the players that I was coming off as "disrespectful" and "pedantic". And it seems that the whole thing was less of a proper quest-acceptance dealy and more of a job interview FOR the quest dealy. Would have been nice to know that from the get go.

Whipped up a more....socially minded character last night (also a faster one as full plate drops my speed down to 10 where everyone else is blitzing around at like 40-80) so hopefully this is less of an issue in the future. But I think if it does come down to something like the problem I was having I'll deal with it in the vague quasi-OOC way you mentioned above.

Grod_The_Giant
2016-09-12, 11:41 AM
I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask for more details. If it's taking more than a few minutes, the DM can make the quest-giver get impatient, or simply sum stuff up in narration. He definitely shouldn't get snippy and revoke the entire quest; unless he had a whole bunch of options prepared, presumably that was supposed to be the session's activities and throwing that all out because he's annoyed is just childish.

Demidos
2016-09-12, 09:25 PM
Questions 1 and 2 seem almost like you are planning on stealing the dagger for yourself or perhaps stealing the gems and figuring out the best way to gouge the questgiver. These are tangential to getting the dagger back, and probably not likely to come up.
Questions 3 through 5 are extremely reasonable and I'm pretty sure I'd bail on any quest where those were not established first. These are vital to being able to successfully bring the dagger back, so they should be asked.

Overall, it seems your problem was less of one of the questgiver not trusting you, and more of OOC annoyance by the other players/DM. As such, I would talk that out OOC rather than worry about it as an IC problem.

Fri
2016-09-13, 05:31 AM
first and second question is irrelevant IMO and would annoy me as well. It's just asking for asking sake in a genre not fitting for the question. It's like when you get a simple quest to kill a low level bandit chief in a hack and slash game and you ask "What constitute 'death' here? Does brain death count? How many people in minimum should witness his death?" Sure it might be relevant in say, a cyberpunk game where you play back alley medic or political assasination game or whatever, but for this context it's completely irrelevant question. The other questions are fine, like if on the quest to kill the bandit chief you ask about how many people might be in his gang, or does he have any famous trick. I assume the first few questions soured your fellow player's mood OOCly.

Geddy2112
2016-09-13, 10:45 AM
Generally, I think players should ask a lot of questions. It helps get everyone engaged in the game, and adds detail to the world. Even if the DM has to make up the stuff on the spot(what color is the dagger) it adds verisimilitude. So long as they are relevant questions, ask away.

I agree that the first question might have been a bit pedantic. Granted, "gold dagger" is a big vague, but I would reasonably assume this would not be 24 karat gold molded into the shape of a dagger. It might be gold plated, or part gold, or just the handle/inlay. Gold is soft, but unless it is solid gold it is reasonably durable. It is also generally reasonable to assume the default-with your apples example, if you ask somebody to bring you apples you certainly don't want mashed ones, and you probably won't tolerate anything but minor bruising.

You could roll it into your second question, "if we bring back the dagger with damage, what then?" This is very legitimate-some items might be worthless with even a scratch, whereas others are good even if the are beaten to hell.

The last three questions are certainly legitimate, although the questgiver might not know, or lie. Sometimes you hit the nail on the head and guess the DM's twist for the adventure, and maybe this NPC could not lie if they tried. So I empathize with your DM if this was the case, although good DM'ing on the fly involves mind blanking NPC's or otherwise preventing them from revealing this information. It is also good to just ask "could you tell us everything you know about the dagger" instead of going through an itemized list (is it fragile? Cursed? magic? solid gold?) for the sake of brevity and to not waste table time. That said, it is a good idea to know exactly which gold dagger you are looking for, as it is not exactly a named item.

The quest getting rescinded seems like an incredible overreaction, although the fault is with the DM for the players blacklisting your negotiations. The players only saw that because you spoke, the DM decided no adventure tonight and it is your fault. They want adventures to keep rolling, but the DM was the one that pulled the plug. I can see both sides of you being interrupted. On one hand, it was wrong for the other player to tell you to shut up and bash your questioning. On the other, they likely suspected a 20 questions scenario where one player(DM's can do this too) hijacks the game with endless one-on-one interaction and the rest of the players have to sit there. I would talk to the DM, see if you can figure out why the questgiver balked, and if you could work with them to get back in good standing with the group.

Another aspect is system specific. I am not familiar with rollmaster, but in a lot of systems minor damage does not mechanically exist. For example, a reasonable pathfinder party probably has access to prestidigitation and mending. These two at will abilities can clean and repair any small object. Likewise, the system does not favor objects getting damaged unless they are intentionally attacked. Your quest could be to recover a faberge egg, and even if the boss monster is holding it in their hand, the system assumes that despite the fireballs/arrows/acid/whatnot you hit the boss with, it probably won't be damaged. Even when they die and drop it, most likely it will be fine. If it is damaged, nothing that a couple at will's can't fix. So asking questions about damage in this kind of system is a stupid question, but if that is a real possibility and hard to fix, then it is not.

Silus
2016-09-13, 11:51 AM
Another aspect is system specific. I am not familiar with rollmaster, but in a lot of systems minor damage does not mechanically exist. For example, a reasonable pathfinder party probably has access to prestidigitation and mending. These two at will abilities can clean and repair any small object. Likewise, the system does not favor objects getting damaged unless they are intentionally attacked. Your quest could be to recover a faberge egg, and even if the boss monster is holding it in their hand, the system assumes that despite the fireballs/arrows/acid/whatnot you hit the boss with, it probably won't be damaged. Even when they die and drop it, most likely it will be fine. If it is damaged, nothing that a couple at will's can't fix. So asking questions about damage in this kind of system is a stupid question, but if that is a real possibility and hard to fix, then it is not.

Problem is, I'm not sure how persnickety the DM would be about it. It's entirely possible (like in the real realm of possibility) that he could have opted for "Well because you handled it like that the dagger is damaged" which would have affected our end reward. Again, in the real realm of possibility, there was the possibility that he'd pull the whole "Well I said I'd pay you 500g for the dagger but because it's busted up the reward is 300g".

In hindsight it was probably meta on my part but the first two questions are pretty relevant when you don't trust your DM to not screw you over for technicalities.

Geddy2112
2016-09-13, 01:08 PM
Problem is, I'm not sure how persnickety the DM would be about it. It's entirely possible (like in the real realm of possibility) that he could have opted for "Well because you handled it like that the dagger is damaged" which would have affected our end reward. Again, in the real realm of possibility, there was the possibility that he'd pull the whole "Well I said I'd pay you 500g for the dagger but because it's busted up the reward is 300g".

In hindsight it was probably meta on my part but the first two questions are pretty relevant when you don't trust your DM to not screw you over for technicalities.

If you are unsure about the DM and their particular views on stuff like this, it is always better to air caution. If you do know your DM is like this, then those were relevant questions. It might get pejoratively called metagaming, but knowing the system and setting the DM is running IC and OOC is important.

Kami2awa
2016-09-13, 02:37 PM
As your list of questions gets longer and longer, the old man* brings out a LONG parchment and tells you everything you need to know is in the EULA, or Eldritch Ultimate Lease of Adventure, before vanishing in a puff of annoyance.

*For some reason, 98% of quest givers are old men.

Vizzerdrix
2016-09-16, 09:28 AM
You can always use my rule of thumb. The amount of information withheld is proportionate to the amount of explosions used to solve the problem. Any party members who complain about getting a tiny bit of basic information should be mondful of blast zones.

Jay R
2016-09-16, 12:44 PM
Problem is, I'm not sure how persnickety the DM would be about it.

... how persnickety the DM would have the quest-giver be about it. I'd ask for a description of his apparent attitude before I dared to ask questions that made clear I was planning to loot the quest object. [And yes, the purpose of the question appears to be to find out if you would get more by prying the gems out of its hilt and selling them elsewhere.]


It's entirely possible (like in the real realm of possibility) that he could have opted for "Well because you handled it like that the dagger is damaged" which would have affected our end reward. Again, in the real realm of possibility, there was the possibility that he'd pull the whole "Well I said I'd pay you 500g for the dagger but because it's busted up the reward is 300g".

There's cool role-playing to do here. "OK, fine. Contract declared void. Keep your 300 gp; we'll go look for another buyer."


In hindsight it was probably meta on my part but the first two questions are pretty relevant when you don't trust your DM to not screw you over for technicalities.

If you don't trust your DM, the details of the quest are the least of your problems.

And if the DM is determined to screw you on a quest before seeing how you handle it, then he will succeed. And in that case, those questions are the worst ones to ask, because they are likely to encourage him to do so.

Those questions were likely to annoy a fair and honest quest-giver, while not helping protect you against an untrustworthy one.