Fetch Quests: Repurpose, Don't Remove

[Micamo]

To top it, Bethesda is so evil they removed "movetoqt" cheat in Skyrim.

What the hell, Beth?

It's not removed, it just works differently now due to the way the new quest marker system works. The correct format is "movetoqt [QUEST ID]".

[JFSOCC]

I generally agree with the OP, but not that every fetch quest has to have some greater significance.

 

Maybe a guy who wants 10 rat tails just wants to make rat-tail soup?

 

Or that old guy who asked you to chop down a few trees, really jsut needs them for firewood and nothing more. And he's old and tired so he paid you.

understandable, but even so, the quest should not be some half-assed, go here, kill 10 of that, return to collect your reward.

[exodiark]

 

To top it, Bethesda is so evil they removed "movetoqt" cheat in Skyrim.

What the hell, Beth?

It's not removed, it just works differently now due to the way the new quest marker system works. The correct format is "movetoqt [QUEST ID]".

 

Thanks, I missed that one )

[Lephys]

Lets look at one of your examples:  You supply some weapons to people who will later help you because they are better armed and trust you. What makes this example cool and interesting is not that it is a fetch quest (you could substitute "give them weapons" with "help them in an argument with their landlord so that he doesn't call the city guards") or that you don't get xp or that it isn't mentioned in the quest log afterwards.

 

No, the interesting thing is that you have to find and solve the quest for yourself without someone telling you the quest objective. It is sort of removing the exclamation mark of MMOs one step further. Someone laments he can't fight the baron without weapons or you just notice that they have no weapons, and it is you that decides that you have to do something about it.

 

Wasteland 1 for example had no quests or quest log. You just did things to help people or get stuff without a clear marker what to do. This is IMHO what open-world RPGs are about and where they in reality fail because some hand-holding is needed for the majority of players to have fun and because they need so many quests that they fall back to simple fetch- and kill-quests.

 

It is also very difficult to make a game where any logical action of your heroes has the proper consequences. It would be frustrating if you gave those peoples money to buy the weapons instead of the weapons themselves and they wouldn't react.

Just because I think simple fetch favors can be made into "unofficial quests" does not mean that I'm in any way suggesting that all unofficial quests must involve fetching. Nor am I commenting on the percentage of quest content in the game that these types of things should comprise.

 

You're bringing up valid points, but they aren't actually contrary to any of the particulars of my general idea.

 

It isn't really that difficult, btw, when you're building these things from the ground up. There are only so many things that will fulfill that person's need (weapons, or currency with which to buy weapons, or maybe crafting materials for weapons, if that faction/person has a crafter). These are all pre-determined factors, since you, the developer, hand-crafted this scenario.

 

Anywho, it's not exactly hard to get weapons. Or herbs, or bread, etc. In most games, they justify these tasks' "questness" by always throwing in some out-of-the-ordinary factor. "No, I need ONLY the weapons that come from the Bandits in the Bekanzi Forest!", or "No, I need ONLY the herbs that grow at the mouth of the volcano where the dragon dwells!", or "No, I can ONLY get bread from this particular masterful baker in Venithar!" While it's not unheard of that some people in the game would need specific things like this, at the very least, all this does is completely exclude the more commonplace needs and effects of helping people and factions throughout the game that could potentially interact with your specific iteration of the narrative in various interesting ways.

 

Yes, the idea extends beyond just fetch quests, but it was the simplicity of fetch quests that got me brainstorming to similar setups. I mean, if you find some tarnished old ring somewhere, there's typically some quest to return that to someone you find out is seeking it, because it was lost long ago. This is quite commonly just a "Oh, thanks! (people now think you're even Good-er than you were) Here's like 20 gold, and some XP, because, obviously I have to reward you for your trouble!" And that's great, but why are the only people in the world who are looking for something you happened to find just good, kind-hearted little innocent folk who only want to extend a heartfelt thanks and will now cherish their heirloom forever? What if they actually have some sinister plan to use that ring to forge some document seals or something, and they just used you to find the ring? Boom. Helping people isn't always just a mild, positive reward. We just threw dynamics into the outcome of overly simplistic "I happened to find this item while out-and-about, and someone happened to be looking for it, and rewarded me and was very happy to have it back, it turns out" quests.

 

Again, all this is is a discussion of why I think simplistic quests -- much like the ones that get dubbed simply "fetch quests" -- are such a boring cliche nowadays in the land of RPGs, and what I think we can do about that that doesn't involve "just make different quests, because fetching things is stupid and dull and simplistic."

 

I just think the main reason they're so drab is that all there is to them is fetching things. It's either going out of your way for a little extra gold and some XP, or, if its not quite as bad, just an errand you run while performing other tasks. I.e. "gather 15 herbs that only grow near this cave whilst exploring the cave for some other quest." They're just simplified "extra quantity of effort = extra direct reward" things, and that's what I think we can change for the better.

[jamoecw]

 

I generally agree with the OP, but not that every fetch quest has to have some greater significance.

 

Maybe a guy who wants 10 rat tails just wants to make rat-tail soup?

 

Or that old guy who asked you to chop down a few trees, really jsut needs them for firewood and nothing more. And he's old and tired so he paid you.

I dunno. Even then, even if it's ULTRA minor, I'd rather there be some greater (relative... not necessarily "great") significance. I mean, if he gets to make rat-tail soup, I want to at least have some different ending interaction with him than if I didn't give him the rat-tails. Or maybe he decides to give me the rat-tail soup recipe. If he's just going to say "Dude, I realllllly want to make rat-tail soup, so please give me 10 rat tails," and I do so, only to have him go "Yay! I got my 10 rat-tails and get to make rat-tail soup! Here's 10 gold and some XP!", then he might as well have said "Give me 10 rat tails, and I'll give you 10 gold." Then, you give him his 10 rat tails, and he just says "Thanks, *gives you gold*." Because the only purpose for that quest is to supply you with a task to perform, then a reward for performing that task.

 

Maybe he hates rat-tail soup and gets sick. Maybe he loves rat-tail soup and decides to cook interesting dishes from now on. Who knows. But, he's a person who exists beyond the procurement of those 10 rat tails, so why is that the only potential interaction/affectivity/significance he gets?

 

His making soup doesn't need to impact the main narrative in some way, but if he doesn't even feel like a person, then why is he mildly pretending to be one?

 

why would the guy pay you for rat tail soup?  it strikes me as a pretty poor meal (heck for 1 gold you get some food and a place to stay).  you could have him not pay you, and you could either get mad that you did something for a bum or just chalk it up to charity.  if you got mad you could get a couple of dialog options, one that simply wants him to die for wasting your time, and another where you want him to pay you back somehow.  later on you might encounter another bum asking for a gold piece, and you might kill him, or decide to start a bum mafia by having the bums report on the goings on of things on the street, so that you can profit from it in different ways, or maybe you start a work program to try and find work for the bums (who don't want to work, but also don't want to be seen as lazy so they find excuses and issues to get in the way of doing honest work).

 

of course this way quests aren't spoon fed to you so their might be some randomness to experience gain which can be a bad thing.

[Sheikh]

I think some of the fetch quests could be in the form of you finding work. You go talk to whatever person and some dialogue options hint at being able to get the quest. If you get it depends on your charisma, talking skills and which dialogue options you choose exactly.

 

About quests coming up spontaneously that could depend on the characters race, class and alignment. So a half elf druid would not get a quest pop up for exploring the dungeons beneath an ancient ruined city while a dwarven warrior or human paladin would.

 

Lets look at one of your examples:  You supply some weapons to people who will later help you because they are better armed and trust you. What makes this example cool and interesting is not that it is a fetch quest (you could substitute "give them weapons" with "help them in an argument with their landlord so that he doesn't call the city guards") or that you don't get xp or that it isn't mentioned in the quest log afterwards.
 
No, the interesting thing is that you have to find and solve the quest for yourself without someone telling you the quest objective. It is sort of removing the exclamation mark of MMOs one step further. Someone laments he can't fight the baron without weapons or you just notice that they have no weapons, and it is you that decides that you have to do something about it.
 
Wasteland 1 for example had no quests or quest log. You just did things to help people or get stuff without a clear marker what to do. This is IMHO what open-world RPGs are about and where they in reality fail because some hand-holding is needed for the majority of players to have fun and because they need so many quests that they fall back to simple fetch- and kill-quests.
 
It is also very difficult to make a game where any logical action of your heroes has the proper consequences. It would be frustrating if you gave those peoples money to buy the weapons instead of the weapons themselves and they wouldn't react.

Just because I think simple fetch favors can be made into "unofficial quests" does not mean that I'm in any way suggesting that all unofficial quests must involve fetching. Nor am I commenting on the percentage of quest content in the game that these types of things should comprise.

You're bringing up valid points, but they aren't actually contrary to any of the particulars of my general idea.

It isn't really that difficult, btw, when you're building these things from the ground up. There are only so many things that will fulfill that person's need (weapons, or currency with which to buy weapons, or maybe crafting materials for weapons, if that faction/person has a crafter). These are all pre-determined factors, since you, the developer, hand-crafted this scenario.

Anywho, it's not exactly hard to get weapons. Or herbs, or bread, etc. In most games, they justify these tasks' "questness" by always throwing in some out-of-the-ordinary factor. "No, I need ONLY the weapons that come from the Bandits in the Bekanzi Forest!", or "No, I need ONLY the herbs that grow at the mouth of the volcano where the dragon dwells!", or "No, I can ONLY get bread from this particular masterful baker in Venithar!" While it's not unheard of that some people in the game would need specific things like this, at the very least, all this does is completely exclude the more commonplace needs and effects of helping people and factions throughout the game that could potentially interact with your specific iteration of the narrative in various interesting ways.

Yes, the idea extends beyond just fetch quests, but it was the simplicity of fetch quests that got me brainstorming to similar setups. I mean, if you find some tarnished old ring somewhere, there's typically some quest to return that to someone you find out is seeking it, because it was lost long ago. This is quite commonly just a "Oh, thanks! (people now think you're even Good-er than you were) Here's like 20 gold, and some XP, because, obviously I have to reward you for your trouble!" And that's great, but why are the only people in the world who are looking for something you happened to find just good, kind-hearted little innocent folk who only want to extend a heartfelt thanks and will now cherish their heirloom forever? What if they actually have some sinister plan to use that ring to forge some document seals or something, and they just used you to find the ring? Boom. Helping people isn't always just a mild, positive reward. We just threw dynamics into the outcome of overly simplistic "I happened to find this item while out-and-about, and someone happened to be looking for it, and rewarded me and was very happy to have it back, it turns out" quests.

Again, all this is is a discussion of why I think simplistic quests -- much like the ones that get dubbed simply "fetch quests" -- are such a boring cliche nowadays in the land of RPGs, and what I think we can do about that that doesn't involve "just make different quests, because fetching things is stupid and dull and simplistic."

I just think the main reason they're so drab is that all there is to them is fetching things. It's either going out of your way for a little extra gold and some XP, or, if its not quite as bad, just an errand you run while performing other tasks. I.e. "gather 15 herbs that only grow near this cave whilst exploring the cave for some other quest." They're just simplified "extra quantity of effort = extra direct reward" things, and that's what I think we can change for the better.

 

So lets say if you find a valuable engraved ring and you guess it could be someones from a nearby city, then you could sell it to a collector. If you returned it to its owner he/she would give you nothing but thanks, unless you tried to extort cash from her for it? That would be more in the realm of an evil character.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Sheikh

[Lephys]

So lets say if you find a valuable engraved ring and you guess it could be someones from a nearby city, then you could sell it to a collector. If you returned it to its owner he/she would give you nothing but thanks, unless you tried to extort cash from her for it? That would be more in the realm of an evil character.

The owner could give you nothing but thanks, but that thanks doesn't end there. They still exist (unless something in the story kills them), and they're still thankful, and they tell others of what you did, perhaps. Or maybe others find out via other means.

 

That's literally the whole basis of a reputation system. You get rewards in the form of reactivity dynamics rather than immediate object/resource acquisition.

 

That whole simply finding an item and maybe tracking down its owner scenario, though, represents the kind of simplicity I'm getting at when it comes to things like "fetch quests." In a lot of games, when you find an item like that, it's almost its own quest (with starter clues and everything) specifically to track down its owner. Even though it should just be "Okay, I have this ring, and obviously it belonged to SOMEone, since it's got a name/emblem on it, and rings don't just exist in nature, but I don't really have any clue as to who." Maybe you can wear it, and go around talking to people, and someone can notice it. Or, maybe you can start asking around. But, there's no reason for the game to forcibly give you an immediate clue, or have the two "options" regarding that quest be "do it or don't do it." Maybe that ring's very valuable. Maybe that ring has magical properties that are useful. NOW you've actually got a significant choice. "DO I keep this and use its daily magical ability? Or do I sell it for 700 gold for some equipment improvements? OR, do I try to figure out who owned this ring, and give it back to them, even though it is unknown what I'll actually get out of that deal?"

 

But, maybe you DO get something really nice out of it, but it's just not an "immediate" reward, and it's not really the same type of reward as the other two.

 

In most games, selling it is the "wrong" choice, since you pretty much "know" you're going to get some kind of reward (generally in the generic form of currency + XP) from the owner if you return it. So, you have the choice between giving up an unknown amount of definitely-existing money and XP reward to take advantage of the ring's properties (usually not worth it at all) or selling it (usually not worth it, since selling it JUST gets you money, and you're still out the XP of "completing the quest").

 

There's simply no need to artificially force a quest structure onto a simple lost item or needed fetchable thing. And, I'm not saying put in little actually-pointless people-needing-stuff quests just so they're more realistic or something. Only put in ones that actually affect something.

 

That isn't to say you can't have a request to fetch something develop into something much more than a simple fetch quest. It's just silly for a quest to literally be "control your character over to here, get this thing that there's nothing really stopping you from getting since you loot things all the time even when you DON'T have a quest to do so, then give it to this person, and that will get you a reward, and that person and what they do with that thing you gave them will never matter ever again. They literally only existed to pretend like the world actually had people in it who actually need things done, and to give you monetary and XP rewards."

[LKD]

It's mentioned a few times by the posts, and really detailed by several of you, but I wonder why the comments keep coming back to Fetch quests being necessary or useful?

 

I think the reward XP should come after meeting the goal, not when you complete the arc. Let me try to give an example or two...

 

You walk into a town, they have little speach bubbles above their head remarking about how their daughter got bit by a rat and they're really sick. A fe others of the citizenry comment on this regularly to note there is a rat problem. No need for a quest or marker, or what have you. If you wander around the town exploring and kill all the rats around the town, kill 20 and you get a dig and a bonus XP number for letting you know you fixed the problem, the plague doesn't start and the town improves and they no longer talk about the rats but about something else. If you ignore it, the people get sicker and the next time you come back a lot of the NPC's have died leaving the stores hurting for stock.

 

You walk into a town an people complain regularly that they wish they could overthrow the bad duke. If you ask people about it, they clam up, but if you are persistant you find the leader in the tavern. He remarks that he likes your sword, but would rather a dozen weapons to help his people. This opens a dialoge with the blacksmith to buy a dozen swords for him xp ding and your done, report the leader to the duke for an xp ding, you can steal them from the duke with an xp ding when you hand them over, or you can gather them up at your leisure and hand them over for an xp ding. None of the successful options require a quest as far as I can tell. And depending on the path you take, the town changes its reaction to you and any bonuses in interactions.

 

In both cases there doesn't need to be a quest giver, quest marker, or any fetching at all, so much as a comment or 12 about a problem that you can effect. BGII did this with Nalia where she gives the speech when you enter into the tavern, but after the dialoge, you are free to ignore it, act, or what have you.

 

I'm afraid that I don't see where fetching quests are in any way necessary. You can probably remove every single one and no one would notice a lack of XP.

[J. Trudel]

Fetch quest are lame, no matter how they are handled. Quest should be meaningfull, end of the story. Removing fetch quest doesn't means you can't do small things here and there. Your character might be able to get a job as the blacksmith apprentice, who needs herbs just once anyway ? If there is an alchemist in the city, he might want to pay you to gatter ingredients, but this should be a job not a one time quest. 

 

Of course having to work for someone may have advantages :

The smith you worked for will do better price for you. 

It may turn out that joining the guards will make your grand heist of the castle a bit easier latter.

That Alchemist  might be a key person in a ''real'' quest, if he knows you this might changes how he react. 

[Lephys]

@LKD:

 

I, personally, only think of "fetch quests" as a label for those quests that are nothing more than "this person wants you to get them this thing, and they'll pay you for it." I know they're not always that simple, but they're often not much more complex at all, and are functionally the same thing. In terms of the game's design as it affects the player's experience, these things become a bit silly when all they do is provide you with an immediate, minor reward.

 

This is why I tried to be as specific as possible (ME?! Overly specific? Never... ). I'm not discounting quests involving the procurement of items. I was only trying to point out that this whole "fetch quests" stigma has been, in my experience, applied quite liberally, in just such a manner. "Oh my crap, this person actually needs something? Fetch quest... LAME!"

 

I was only trying to evaluate examples of these types of quests in an effort to come up with a valuable approach to follow when designing them.

 

One of my major beliefs, in this regard, is that, quite often, the problem is simply that they don't feel connected enough with the game world, and they seem to be directly connected to the player. Almost like a treasure chest in disguise. I think interaction with NPCs should, whenever possible, offer a greater dynamic than the simple accessing of a treasure chest.

 

In other words, 2 main points:

 

1) I think quests aren't actually bad or simplistic just because they involve item acquisition/delivery.

2) Any type of quest like this should be more than just looting via dialogue.

 

It's often easy to tell when a quest has been designed to support its reward, rather than the other way around.

[J. Trudel]

Basically, what you want are Fetch quest that in fact are not Fetch quest If there is development after the fetch quest, it stop being a fetch quest don't you agree ? Unless you think that the Lord of the Rings is just a big Fetch quest to bring the ring back to mount doom  

[Lephys]

Basically, what you want are Fetch quest that in fact are not Fetch quest If there is development after the fetch quest, it stop being a fetch quest don't you agree ? Unless you think that the Lord of the Rings is just a big Fetch quest to bring the ring back to mount doom

What?! Lord of the Rings WAS just a big fetch quest! When he got to Mt. Doom, it had a big question mark above its head, and it was all like "Thanks, *money-clinking noise*, here's 5,000 gold and 10,000 XP."

 

After that, Frodo was uber.