Easiest Sidequest

[Totally Guy]

I was running game last night and the adventurers found the hook to a sidequest that was intentionally very easy. You've got to allow an easy victory every now and again as adventurers cannot sustain high dramatic tension all the time.

The adventurers visited the temple of Kord and after a bit of prompting the high priest revealed he was having a bit of a tiff with Melora. He believed that Melora had funded a play that made Kord look bad. The high priest of Kord ordered his people to stay away from the play house and avoided the play himself. He's been told there was a scene where Kord was defeated by a cleric of Melora.

So the adventurers go off to watch the play, they find it's an underwater comedy drama in which "that scene" had been greatly exaggerated. The cleric of Kord was the antagonist but Kord was testing him, whether he'd blindly follow orders or be man enough to question him. And they all lived happily ever after.

The players reported this to the high priest and convinced him to see tomorrow's show. The party fulfilled the whole sidequest without even rolling dice which they were quite impressed by.

Easiest sidequest ever.

[Comet]

I'm loving this. A quest like that is quite non-standard for a DD-adventure, brings the world nicely to life, introduces some humour to the story (which is almost never a bad thing) and also feels, at least to me, nearly epic in atmosphere.
Fantasy shouldn't always be about the main characters performing daring deeds and slaying armies. Sometimes it's cool for a character to just sit back and watch somebody else play their own stories. And of course, sometimes stories are just that; stories and drama
Well played, sir!

[Adumbration]

Very nice, indeed.

It kinda reminds me of the quests you have in Elder Scrolls series.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Very nice, indeed.

It kinda reminds me of the quests you have in Elder Scrolls series.

Best DMing resource, EVAR!

Seriously, those were awesome.

[Totally Guy]

also feels, at least to me, nearly epic in atmosphere.

Thanks a lot. One of my players told me they felt that our last session had a very epic feel. Which was not what I was expecting as they are level 2 and of 2 baddies one was trying to conquer a town politically and the other wanted to open the dungeon entrance door in the first baddies basement. Neither of which are anywhere close to take over/ destroy the world.

Tell me more about the Elder Scrolls. I've never seen those.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Thanks a lot. One of my players told me they felt that our last session had a very epic feel. Which was not what I was expecting as they are level 2 and of 2 baddies one was trying to conquer a town politically and the other wanted to open the dungeon entrance door in the first baddies basement. Neither of which are anywhere close to take over/ destroy the world.

Tell me more about the Elder Scrolls. I've never seen those.

Video Games, on the XBox and PC. Incredible quests, especially Morrowind. I recommend it, especially since Morrowind will be dirt cheap now and run on anything.

[KillianHawkeye]

Tell me more about the Elder Scrolls. I've never seen those.

Video Games, on the XBox and PC. Incredible quests, especially Morrowind. I recommend it, especially since Morrowind will be dirt cheap now and run on anything.

To elaborate, the Elder Scrolls is a series of fantasy CRPGs with an extremely open-ended, nonlinear quest/game design. You are basically dropped into the world at the beginning with very little idea of what you should be doing besides a vague overall objective, and you are free to explore towns and dungeons, meet NPCs, get quests, join guilds, etc. There are always tons of sidequests, and you don't even really have to follow the main quests at all if you don't want to.

Morrowind was the 3rd in the series, with Oblivion being the most recent. (I was a big fan of tES2:Daggerfall, myself.)

[Nemoricus]

To elaborate further, Oblivion, the fourth in the series, has so many sidequests that you could literally spend hours doing them and never touch the main quest once. Most of that game's playtime is in those sidequests, unless I'm very, very much mistaken.

[Zeta Kai]

To elaborate further, Oblivion, the fourth in the series, has so many sidequests that you could literally spend hours doing them and never touch the main quest once. Most of that game's playtime is in those sidequests, unless I'm very, very much mistaken.

You're not. Reports of 100+ hours of gameplay before completing the first mandatory mission are common.

And BTW, Glug, great story & great adventure. This shows what competent roleplaying can accomplish. Granted, this could've been done with any game system, even FUDGE, but still, awesome job.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

To elaborate further, Oblivion, the fourth in the series, has so many sidequests that you could literally spend hours doing them and never touch the main quest once. Most of that game's playtime is in those sidequests, unless I'm very, very much mistaken.

On my first run-through of Morrowind, I had 30 hours and hadn't done the first step in the Main Quest, and didn't realize it. The side quests and guilds were so immersive that it took me that long to think "Wait, what am I actually supposed to be doing?"

[Eldan]

In Morrowind, the world was incredibly immersive. You were up to your head in politics: racism, slavery, guilds, the army, rebels, ancient cults, assassins and so on.
In Oblivion, on the other hand, the game engine really made a leap forward, which made incredibly original quests possible: a village were everyone was suddenly invisible. A painter trapped in his own paintings. Dreamworlds. The god of madness hires you to convince a backwater town of cat people that the apocalypse has come. And so on.
Great games. And a great resource.

[Epinephrine]

How odd. I bought Morrowind ages ago on someone's advice, played it a bit (few hours) and subsequently deleted it. The sidequesting killed the game for me. I suppose I like to have goals, structure, etc. Too many sidequests (even optional) distract and detract from the game.

[Zeta Kai]

How odd. I bought Morrowind ages ago on someone's advice, played it a bit (few hours) and subsequently deleted it. The sidequesting killed the game for me. I suppose I like to have goals, structure, etc. Too many sidequests (even optional) distract and detract from the game.

Then maybe you'd prefer a more linear game, like, oh... I dunno... Final Fantasy X?

[chiasaur11]

Then maybe you'd prefer a more linear game, like, oh... I dunno... Final Fantasy X?

I was thinking Donkey Kong.

The last level gets a bit open ended, however.