Minor Quest

[Bartmanhomer]

I feel like minor quest are very important for example A female half-orc child lost her doll and you managed to find it. You give it back and she give you a reward to find it: 1 Gold Piece. Another example. You help an elder female dwarf cross the street. Or deliver a letter or an artefact to another town. There may not be a major quest but at least it good quests to think about it. What do you think of minor quest?

[EisenKreutzer]

I don’t do quests. It works well in computer games, but I find it feels restrictive and artificial in tabletop rpgs. I could hand out notes with prewritten quests at appropriate moments, and I have considered it in the past, but I generally try to avoid emulating aspects of computer games in tabletop games.

I do provide lots of smaller encounters with special or interesting NPCs, where the players get to interact with them and possibly aid them or learn something important or relevant about the world or the ongoing story, but I never call it a quest or anything like that.

You make a lot of threads about theoretical scenarios and thought experiments. Do you ever get the chance to play D&D, to see these scenarios in practice?

[Evil DM Mark3]

Nothing so rigid, after all a quest log only exists in computer games to deal with the fact that a computer can't improvise plot. But sure, you should include or invent minor stuff in your game for people to do.

[Bartmanhomer]

I don’t do quests. It works well in computer games, but I find it feels restrictive and artificial in tabletop rpgs. I could hand out notes with prewritten quests at appropriate moments, and I have considered it in the past, but I generally try to avoid emulating aspects of computer games in tabletop games.

I do provide lots of smaller encounters with special or interesting NPCs, where the players get to interact with them and possibly aid them or learn something important or relevant about the world or the ongoing story, but I never call it a quest or anything like that.

You make a lot of threads about theoretical scenarios and thought experiments. Do you ever get the chance to play D&D, to see these scenarios in practice?
I do play D&D in this forum. Only two of them so far. I try to play as many D&D 3.5 games as much as possible but it very hard to get due to the lack of interest from other players and DM. But I do play D&D 3.5. :smile:

[weckar]

Wait, you have only played in 2 games ever, or 2 games right now?

[Bartmanhomer]

Wait, you have only played in 2 games ever, or 2 games right now?

Both. But one DM is MIA at the moment. :frown:

[EisenKreutzer]

Both. But one DM is MIA at the moment. :frown:

Don’t feel bad, man. We were all beginners once, and finding regular games can be very hard if you don’t know anyone who plays.

[weckar]

I just remember a time when you posted boatloads of character sheets for review, so I assumed you'd been in many more games than that.

[Bartmanhomer]

I just remember a time when you posted boatloads of character sheets for review, so I assumed you'd been in many more games than that.

I have participated in other D&D 3.5 but they died down with lack of interest. :frown:

[weckar]

Okay, so you have played in more than 2 games ever.

[Bartmanhomer]

Okay, so you have played in more than 2 games ever.

Basically yes.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I don't think he literally means "entries in a quest log", just simple, specific things you can do for people (or for yourself). And in that sense, I agree; minor quests provide opportunities to show your alignment and attitude, which helps character definition and immersion.

[EisenKreutzer]

I don't think he literally means "entries in a quest log", just simple, specific things you can do for people (or for yourself). And in that sense, I agree; minor quests provide opportunities to show your alignment and attitude, which helps character definition and immersion.

Definitely this. Minor non-combat encounters add color and flavour to the world, encourages roleplaying and allows characters to explore their connections to the world and its characters.
If its all main story all the time you end up with a very focused campaign that could feel very shallow. If the world doesn’t feel alive, and the characters go through it undefined, the end result will end up feeling tame and dissatisfying.

[Sepultra]

I feel like minor quest are very important for example A female half-orc child lost her doll and you managed to find it. You give it back and she give you a reward to find it: 1 Gold Piece. Another example. You help an elder female dwarf cross the street. Or deliver a letter or an artefact to another town. There may not be a major quest but at least it good quests to think about it. What do you think of minor quest?

I really like the idea. I assume you mean just having random encounters and things that can be done for NPCs rather than just "Hey I'll give you this if you do this" and it helps the world feel fleshed out.

Also honestly try looking on reddit or joining a discord if you're looking for groups. Can find loads of random people for D&D in some weird servers

[Psyren]

I don't think these kinds of "filler quests" that are unrelated to an overarching plot work particularly well in tabletop. CRPGs have them because you're paying for an experience, and so the designers feel obligated to include X amount of hours of entertainment in that experience to justify your purchase, which in turn means adding content to pad out the game's length so you feel you got your money's worth. This content typically takes the form of setting various story challenges i(ncluding the Big Bad) to be a certain minimum level, and then crafting an engagement curve funneling the player to that level over the course of X hours.

In tabletop, this is neither necessary nor practical. With a human running your game instead of a program, it's much easier to accurately tailor challenges to the party's skill level and engagement. In addition, tabletop tends to be a lot slower anyway, with a single encounter often taking an hour or more, so padding the game with side encounters is actively detrimental a lot of the time.


What you'll more often see in tabletop are two things:

- Seemingly innocuous quest ends up being a larger plothook (e.g. using the OP's example of "deliver a letter to another town" - something will typically happen either in that other town or on the way there that will serve as the main plot's Inciting Incident.)

- Bonus objectives on a main quest (Say you're freeing some slaves and one of them is a little girl who asks you to find and bring back her dolly too; doing that successfully can result in a key NPC viewing you favorably, extra information from her because she thinks you're nice, possibly even divine favor.)

But both approaches ultimately relate far more to the main plot than a typical CRPG sidequest would.