Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Endgame]

Quest 27 was great, darkdragon. Your sets and the fact you actually put the playable characters in some sets were amazing, and the battles were rather balanced too. One thing I found random though: Why 3 badgers, 2 rock monsters, and a snake as the final battle? I expected the final battle to be, well... all badgers.

Otherwise, it was a very enjoyable read.

I'm still in shock you have that many gems!

[Zepher]

Alright, as is custom, Badger Badger Badger deserves a review.

As many people may have realized by now... I love QMing and reading other quests and how they are QM'd, so this is one of my favorite parts of the game.

DD - Your quest felt VERY different to me compared to other Heroica Quests. Not at all in a bad way... or even in a way I can explain. It just felt very different. It felt almost... more sweeping? They did a lot, and many events didn't relate to the storyline, but again, that's not bad, just different. It was a bit like WBD's style. The sets were beautiful, but the colors happened to be darker than most other sets we've seen so far in Heroica. This also added to the different feel, I think. I loved the events - fishing and the bank were highlights. I loved that the heroes just glanced upon many pieces of stories - the old man in the ship's bar, the robbers at the bank, even the bank employees and their strangeness, boarding the ship late, etc. The avatars for NPCs, even, felt different. (PS - get those NPCs to me at some point in the next two weeks or so if you feel up to it!)

My two critiques - 1) Speed. I think the quest could have sped along much faster. You were notably hindered by players who didn't really comment all that much (what's up with that, guys?), but still, you had a long quest with only 44 pages. So, that's critique #1. 2) The ending was kind of a flash! I wasn't entirely certain how all the villains got to one place. Particularly the head of the thugs from the sewers confused me, I thought he was sort of on their side? Anyway, the motives of Favorius confused me slightly. He seemed to be both good and evil... but he wasn't delved into too much, and he gave up on his life's dream pretty quickly. I liked MOST of the end, however, and again, the over-all story line and side-plots that were skimmed upon were very cool.

Also, even though it's buried up there a few times... my thoughts on the sets: :thumbup: .

Players - Where were you guys? Etzel never really fully returned... and Tesni ended up dragging the party across the finish line. It's too bad, and also confusing, because all four of you are pretty awesome players, and awesome characters on top of that. I feel an opportunity was missed as far as roleplaying went - so much more could have happened between the four of you. Oh well.

Overall, yet another great Quest to add to the history of Heroica!

[CMP]

I liked it as well. It was a lengthy quest, but the battles and loot made up for a hundredfold, and the sets were some of the best I've seen in Heroica so far.

[JimBee]

Agreed with Zepher, a great quest, but a little too lengthy. I lost track of the story several times, but I did like how the heroes explored small segments of different stories. And of course, the sets were beautiful. I also agree that some of the players could have participated a little more, although I know Etzel is away from Internet access for a while (read: all summer).

[Darkdragon]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

To address the badgers: number one there's only three in the name, so I thought three was good. Then I thought I should make it 6 but it was too late to order more bears by then!

The other items that were touched upon story-wise were either side quests nobody took or possible future storylines, so I'm glad you guys found those interesting.

When I originally wrote the quest, i actually thought I would be getting a lot more RPing from my players then what I ended up with. I also am a horrible judge of how long things are going to to take when everyone is in a different time zone, and I honestly thought this was going to be a short quest. I did try and give the players time for RPing but for the most part they didn't seem to want to

Zepher - I will get the NPC infos to you soonish.

We hardly got any comments in the discussion thread, but I guess mostly because there was nearly no RPing. It was too bad Etzel had to leave 2/3 of the way through the quest, but sometimes life happens and we did the best to manage his missingness.

If I forgot to address something you guys mention, just remind me and I will address it in a followup post.

OH, right the fact that the events throughout the quest didn't seem to relate to the storyline....

Well yeah, they were just taking some boxes to someone and picking them up along the way. So, the idea was that we were following what happens along the way in all these different towns/areas. Most things were not related at all to the task/quest. Similar to the story of Huck Finn, I guess...things happen that don't necessarily have to do with the beginning and ending, they just happen along the way.

The thing with the sorta head bad guys showing up at the end - well, it's suppose to have been a somewhat ill concieved conspiracy by Favarious so he could keep his artifacts. Obviously hiring thugs is not his strong suit, it didn't work out well for him. As for the leader of the guild in the sewer - he's on whoever's side pays him, just like most thieves.

Apologies that my story ending wasn't as clear as it probably should have been, sometimes it does get difficult to do things in a way that those outside my head will understand - in addition to the fact that the whole thing lasted around 2 months longer than I had expected it would.

[Quarryman]

Players - Where were you guys? Etzel never really fully returned... and Tesni ended up dragging the party across the finish line. It's too bad, and also confusing, because all four of you are pretty awesome players, and awesome characters on top of that. I feel an opportunity was missed as far as roleplaying went - so much more could have happened between the four of you. Oh well.

I also agree that some of the players could have participated a little more, although I know Etzel is away from Internet access for a while (read: all summer).

Well, I think I've written at least ten times as much about the quest outside EB as I have in the quest thread, simply because it was much faster and easier to just discuss things with Peppy and Darkdragon while chatting instead of posting something and then wait for them to reply. However, this does make it look like the players aren't participating, I can see that. The quest also suffered quite a bit from me and Peppy being at both the EB Event which caused a short break in the quest, and then me, Peppy and Darkdragon were at Brickworld, which led to nothing happening in the quest for more than two weeks. But yes, in retrospect we should probably have had more of the activity in the actual quest and not outside EB.

[Scubacarrot]

I really enjoyed following the quest, the pictures were beautiful, very much so, and there were a lot of fun battles and interesting characters. I hope some of them make a reappearance.

The loot... Well... What can I say? The heroes just got soooo much of it, seriously. Maybe a bit too much? But there were also very cool thought up items in there.

The ending was not great, in my opinion, but opinion's differ, and it's hard to do endings (Quest 23 ).

The only major gripe I had with the quest is that the heroes did not speak to Sorona/Sorrow. What's up with that, guys!?

[Darkdragon]

The loot... Well... What can I say? The heroes just got soooo much of it, seriously. Maybe a bit too much? But there were also very cool thought up items in there.

Guess I might have been making up a little for how little loot Cinna ever got in quests which I was sad about myself. Maybe I overdid it a little, but loot is half the fun!

The ending was not great, in my opinion, but opinion's differ, and it's hard to do endings (Quest 23 ).

[CMP]

I think if the quest was as short as you'd anticipated, it would've seemed like too much loot. But for the time spent in the quest, it was a balanced amount, in my mind. I thought the ending was interesting, personally, though it was a bit rushed. I think if more time would've been spent interacting with the characters, it would've carried more weight, but that's attributed more to the lack of roleplaying, and railroading them into conversations (Zepher ) would've taken away from the freeform feeling they had when not fighting. I enjoyed reading along, myself.

[Darkdragon]

I thought the ending was interesting, personally, though it was a bit rushed. I think if more time would've been spent interacting with the characters, it would've carried more weight, but that's attributed more to the lack of roleplaying, and railroading them into conversations (Zepher ) would've taken away from the freeform feeling they had when not fighting. I enjoyed reading along, myself.

I agree with you. It can be tough to balance what QM wants to do against how much effort the players want to do with RPing, I think especially at the end when they know the fights are over and they just want to get to the Hall to sign up for new quests.

I tried to railroad them into conversations occasionally, but that didn't always work either.

[Brickdoctor]

As far as concluding quests, I think it seems less rushed if you post a short story with pictures that summarizes what happens as a result of the heroes' actions. It's what I've done so far.

[Palathadric]

I have to agree with Zepher entirely.

[Rumble Strike]

Sorona was an Easter Egg that I asked Darkdragon to put in once they were in Miranda, she was never part of the quest. I thought it would be cool and with Darkdragon's amazing set building skills it looked great.

[Capt.JohnPaul]

As far as concluding quests, I think it seems less rushed if you post a short story with pictures that summarizes what happens as a result of the heroes' actions. It's what I've done so far.

Hmm... maybe I'll try that, and use the same pictures for a prologue to the next quest in a story.

[Brickdoctor]

Hmm... maybe I'll try that, and use the same pictures for a prologue to the next quest in a story.

Yep, I've done that, too. (also, desaturate those pictures before you use them in the next quest if you want to make it extra clear that they're a recap of the events of a previous quest)

[Palathadric]

As far as concluding quests, I think it seems less rushed if you post a short story with pictures that summarizes what happens as a result of the heroes' actions. It's what I've done so far.

I really like how Brickdoctor does this in his quesst. It makes it so much more clear when the quest is over and it makes the Heroes feel good that what they did changed something in some way.

[Capt.JohnPaul]

I really like how Brickdoctor does this in his quesst. It makes it so much more clear when the quest is over and it makes the Heroes feel good that what they did changed something in some way.

I know. I think Brickdoctor is like, a Heroica God or something.

Wait, we need to add this to the Library list of Deities:

BRICKDOCTOR

Worshiped by all Eurbickans, God of quests and D&D puns.

[Endgame]

Well, Quest 36 is officially over. Leave as much feedback as possible, no matter how critical: I'm eager to improve!

Edited August 6, 2012 by Endgame

[Brickdoctor]

When it comes to stories, Zeph is so much better than I am. His stories are actually planned more than a week or so before he sends the pitch to Sandy. I've always built quests around new game mechanics I wanted to introduce, not stories. (in Q4, the fully-explorable map; in Q17, the unprecedented freedom of actions for defense; in Q31, the hex map for battles with armies of NPCs)

[Capt.JohnPaul]

When it comes to stories, Zeph is so much better than I am. His stories are actually planned more than a week or so before he sends the pitch to Sandy. I've always built quests around new game mechanics I wanted to introduce, not stories. (in Q4, the fully-explorable map; in Q17, the unprecedented freedom of actions for defense; in Q31, the hex map for battles with armies of NPCs)

Interesting. Also, I hope you don't feel my current quest is copying too much off you.

[Masked Builder]

Both of you, DarkDragon and Endgame, had very nice quests. I will echo and say that I got a bit lost in DD's quest, and Endgame's puzzle was very nice.

[Endgame]

Interesting. Also, I hope you don't feel my current quest is copying too much off you.

Your quest is far more different then Brickdoctor's, in my opinion. They share a core concept, but 37 involves an entire city, not a single fort.

[Brickdoctor]

Interesting. Also, I hope you don't feel my current quest is copying too much off you.

Nah, I'm fine with it. I would have used hexes instead of squares for that map, though.

[TheBoyWonder]

I loved Quest 36! Normally I have little interest in LDD pictures, and it puts me off the quest. But your LDD models were good, and weren't too bad to view. The Death Progg final battle was interesting. Combrys was a great weapon, shame it had to go to its grave with Daxus.

Overall: Great Quest 9/10

[Brickdoctor]

Your quest is far more different then Brickdoctor's, in my opinion. They share a core concept, but 37 involves an entire city, not a single fort.

The mechanics are the same, just used in offense instead of defense. It does involve a whole city, but the heroes stay in one place the same way they did in Q17; I think that's what John Paul meant.