Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Palathadric]

58 may be my favourite quest to date. Fun party interaction as well. Short, sweet, and to the point. Good stuff!

[LordoftheNoobs]

Agreed. Especially the part where Eric gets lucky...

[Flare]

As for the unlimited quest - Sandy, did you come up with all these killer specials for these hard enemies, because for some reason I have the feeling that CMP is adding murderous specials in order to try and (kill us) get us out of there as soon as possible

[Sandy]

As for the unlimited quest - Sandy, did you come up with all these killer specials for these hard enemies, because for some reason I have the feeling that CMP is adding murderous specials in order to try and (kill us) get us out of there as soon as possible

Yes, I'm guilty as charged.

[Scorpiox]

To be honest, I looked back and tried to read Quest 19 a while ago, and nearly quit just because of how annoying I found Dyric .

I tried the same thing, but was so repulsed by former Haldor that I had to stop instantly.

[Flare]

Yes, I'm guilty as charged.

And I thought you were a nice person

[CMP]

If Sandy starts letting me add Specials, you'll know. Every single one will involve piercing SP.

[JimBee]

Like others have said, great quest, Sandy. "Short and sweet" can make for some really great quests IMO.

I also wanted to chime in on Zepher's proposition brought up a few pages ago: No. It's cool that people can customize weapons and stuff, but honing stones seem even more powerful than unique weapons drops. Even if they were dropped only once a quest or so, I definitely do not want a weapon that can blind and seal while dealing damage. Or even more than that, since it sounds like they can be stacked. I strongly believe that we don't need weapons that can deal all effects, drain health, and have high WP. There's the fun in choice and strategizing, and choosing different equipment and classes is part of that. If we could just roll that all into one, there'd be no strategy. Just my two cents.

[Etzel]

I'm working on a short quest at the moment that will take place in Bric'lin. But I haven't had the time to read through all recent quests and therefore I don't know what has happened there lately. Does anyone have any information about the situation in Bric'lin at the moment? What kind of people and factions can be found there, important persons etc.?

Thankful for your help!

[Flare]

I'm working on a short quest at the moment that will take place in Bric'lin. But I haven't had the time to read through all recent quests and therefore I don't know what has happened there lately. Does anyone have any information about the situation in Bric'lin at the moment? What kind of people and factions can be found there, important persons etc.?

Thankful for your help!

There are a few insane marketers a half days walk outside of the town, thats all I know

[Brickdoctor]

I'm working on a short quest at the moment that will take place in Bric'lin. But I haven't had the time to read through all recent quests and therefore I don't know what has happened there lately. Does anyone have any information about the situation in Bric'lin at the moment? What kind of people and factions can be found there, important persons etc.?

Thankful for your help!

I never really developed the town; I don't think anything major has happened there since Quest 4, and that battle was contained to one building and didn't concern the citizens themselves.

[Palathadric]

There are a few insane marketers a half days walk outside of the town, thats all I know

Are they still there?

If so, please, I've got to go back there."

[TheBoyWonder]

Any Paladins?

[Zepher]

I believe you yourself put a Theatre in it that I'm hoping to use as a locale of a future quest. But, if you want to use it, I can visit a different Theatre!!

[Flare]

Are they still there?

If so, please, I've got to go back there."

In my next quest featuring the western parts of the island, Grabian and whatever part of his gang that weren't murdered ny you will most likely appear.

[Brickdoctor]

I believe you yourself put a Theatre in it that I'm hoping to use as a locale of a future quest. But, if you want to use it, I can visit a different Theatre!!

In Bric'lin? I don't remember making a theater. I'm pretty sure it was just market, inn, tavern, plus the building where the final battle was.

[Flipz]

In Bric'lin? I don't remember making a theater. I'm pretty sure it was just market, inn, tavern, plus the building where the final battle was.

No, Etzel did, he mentioned it in the Grogmas Gifts topic.

[Brickdoctor]

No, Etzel did, he mentioned it in the Grogmas Gifts topic.

Ah, got it.

[Zepher]

This is a monster post. Skip to the parts that you want to read, if need be. I won’t be offended, I just have lots to say.

Personal Notes: I wish I was better at running battles. You were all very courteous with all my mistakes, but I hated having to slow up the quest due to my own ineptitude. A party of 16 is too much, it was hard to memorize all your traits, abilities, and artifacts. Even so, I really profusely apologize, not because you made me feel like I had to, but because I feel guilty on my own.

The length of this quest was about one month longer than I intended. I apologize for that as well, but still feel that we clipped along and that, for probably about 90% of the time I stuck to the 24 hour rule.

THE QUEST

Firstly, I hope you all liked the story. I had fun with it. There’s a lot of it, and I’m happy to leave it behind, but I’m also very happy with it as a whole. I think each installment worked well. It was a lot of fun. A fun score-card, from my opinion, for the victories through-out the 5 quests (it has a nice ebb and flow):

Quest 7: Wren Victory

Quest 19: Tie/Slanted Towards Wren Victory

Quest 30: Hero Victory

Quest 38: Wren Victory

Quest 53: Hero Victory

The photography and sets of this quest I was mostly pleased with. Not the best, not bad. I liked some more than others- the Court of Demons I thought was particularly weak, but oh well. I tried to stay true to the style of architecture we’ve seen in Eubric so far, and I feel I accomplished this. I will publish the sets you didn’t visit later.

The story of this quest was a fun one for me. There was a lot of repetition (get to and close the spire) but I think that the NPCs and side plots made it well paced. I hope you all agree- I tried to give you something new to do at each spire, even though the basic goal remained the same.

I stressed about how to tie together all the stories I’d already told about Wren- how al the different NPCs would behave, etc. I think that in the end I did a pretty decent job, I’m happy with the results and it felt like one big family reunion to me. I didn’t want them to all show up at once, because I thought that would be overwhelming, so tried to figure out how to pace them out, and again feel like I did a decent job.

The spire mechanic was another way I tried to have built in choices. You, as players, basically helped to build the final big bad, so you chose some of the traits and powers it would have. I’m very pleased with the technique.

The Court of Demons was included so that we’d have some new blood in this quest. Their function and name changed a lot in planning- originally they were called the Brothers Zoot, there was two of them, and they were aligned with Wren from the beginning of the story. I changed them to Mephisto’s Fist after Quest 44 came out (this whole quest was drafted before 44, but as you can tell, there were quite a few changes made after it had concluded) but remained aligned with Wren. I finally changed them to the Court of Demons and made them not aligned with Wren, and some of them not even aligned with Zoot. The final change I made was making the Magician a follower of the Ancient Gods who had screwed over the rest of the Court. I liked that backstory a lot, and helped me to introduce the Ancient Gods better.

Other than that… well, there’s not much to say. The story worked as I wanted it to. I’m pleased with it. I want to hear what you think, and if you have any questions!

THE NPC’s

STATS:

Number of NPCs: 23

3 of which had no possibility of dying [Vipera, Master of Regret & Johnny Everyman]

8 of which had no possibility of living (assuming you did not fail the Quest) [Felton, Gray Wizard, Bal, Bennetton, Wren, Sphinx, Mephisto & The Magician]

14 of which were casualties [Felton, Gray Wizard, Bal, Bennetton, Triad, Wren, Sphinx, Mephisto, Magician, Zander, Vonnetate, Zee, Gnash, Hans]

NPC Fun Facts:

-XX is not named after the band by the same name. XX was the working title I gave him while I try to think of a good name, but it stuck. I heard of the band a few months later.

-Wren was originally going to be a man until about a day before Quest 7. There are a few times in Quest 7 when I mistakenly refer to her as male.

-The NPCs who were made up on the spot were my favorites – Zane’s backstory was not pre-planned, and the same is true for Poletad. All of the Court of Demons members were supposed to die if defeated, but I felt the quest was getting a little stale, so I threw MYSELF a twist and kept them alive to see what happened. I’m happy I did. The Magician was always supposed to be shadowy and have given their souls to the Ancient Gods. She wasn’t really part of their group (because she had always planned to betray them), a clue given to by a lack of a wanted poster for her.

-Felton was going to die at the end of the final Wren quest from his introduction at the beginning of the first.

-The Gray Wizard was always intended to be one of the Ancient Gods.

-There are lots of clues and references to later NPCs, as with all of my quests. Wren talks about the Gray Wizard having a brother in town at the beginning of the quest, when Bal dies. The Gray Wizard also burns Bal instead of burying him (you can see the urn in the background of some of the Barrack shots), in hopes that it will protect Bal’s soul from his brother.

-I know you guys hate him because he keeps almost dying on you, but I have a soft spot for Phil. He’s very noble in my mind. Probably one of the most noble NPCs I made while still being fleshed out and having clear faults. I also just enjoyed Dastan. I also love Poletad, Zane, and XX… and pretty much everyone else.

-Donny Dozenhands was supposed to appear in a brief cameo in the quest, but he was scrapped because I thought his part got too complicated.

-FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: XX, Zane, Poletad, Vipera, Phil, Ella, Malellio, the Master of Regret, McColt and Hans should all reappear at some point in quests hosted by me. They’re not quite done, though some of them will be playing FAR smaller roles from here on in.

Finally, a GREAT game, the WHO KILLED WHO of Quest 53:

BAL was killed by a PONGCANIS SUICIDE BOMBER (The blame can rest with XX, Vonnetate and Wren)

TRIAD was killed by VONNETATE

BENNETTON was killed by MEPHISTO

ZANDER was killed by ZANE

MEPHISTO was killed by ________

The MAGICIAN was killed by BENNETTON

VONNETATE was killed by HOKE and DYRIC

ZEE was killed by NYX

THE GRAY WIZARD was killed by WREN and CRONK

SPHINX was killed by

WREN was killed by SKRALL and PHIL and FELTON

FELTON was killed by FELTON

PLAYERS:

Players – I’m very happy with this group. I’ve loved hosting you all individually in the past, and I loved to have you all together. You’ve got a rapport with the NPCs already, and with each other, so it felt like a lovely family reunion. I told Cronk and Skrall both that I’d miss hosting you all, and I mean it. You guys were really and truly great.

Only Negative Group Feedback – I was told that NEARLY every battle on this quest was impossible. They were not, it turns out. Heroes are tougher than you think – it bothered me particularly when you complained before even trying the battle. It started with the first round of meeting the Court, where you didn’t follow my suggestion and still won 2/3 battles and came close to winning the third. It happened for a number of other battles after that. How many times did you guys lose a battle after that?! Nearly never. QMs will get tougher, because you have gotten tougher. This was meant to be a challenging quest, but you should all feel accomplished now that it’s over, because you actually beat some challenging battles. This made this quest genuinely unpleasant to host at times, something I’ve never experienced before in Heroica, and something I hope to never experience again. Just don’t assault your loving QM next time.

Personal player critiques will be up tomorrow.

[Etzel]

Any Paladins?

Not many, but there are connections to the Paladin Order.

I believe you yourself put a Theatre in it that I'm hoping to use as a locale of a future quest. But, if you want to use it, I can visit a different Theatre!!

Feel free to use it, I'm not going use it for more than a reference in this quest.

[The Legonater]

I think I might have teared up a bit in Poletad's end speech.

Seriously, Zeph, I've got to thank you for this. Words don't express the amount of fun the Wren Quests have been, and it's really bittersweet to see them wrapped up. I probably could spend pages chatting with McColt and Phill and Poletad, but in the end, all things must come to an end. That said, I'm so pleased to hear that they might be coming back in the future. I'll definitely try to get into the Guffington Quests if I can.

Again, there's a real bittersweet feeling about the end of this quest. A lot of times when I finish reading a really excellent series of books (and the Hunger Games trilogy was a prime example of this, though far from the only one) I'll lie awake for hours with this inexplicable sort of feeling and just kind of think of the book to come to sort of come to terms with the fact that it's over, there's no more. It's really hard to explain, and I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it. The fact is, though, the ending here is giving me the same sort of feeling. You've managed to convey a lot of emotion and character through these quests, and again, for that I thank you.

At this point, I could probably ramble on about these sort of things, but I'll just end it here until you post the player critiques.

[Palathadric]

Loving QM? That has to be a joke!

I'm really glad you made Wren female, I don't think she'd be nearly as interesting male, but perhaps it's just because we've already known her for so long...if you will.

[CMP]

Again, there's a real bittersweet feeling about the end of this quest. A lot of times when I finish reading a really excellent series of books (and the Hunger Games trilogy was a prime example of this, though far from the only one) I'll lie awake for hours with this inexplicable sort of feeling and just kind of think of the book to come to sort of come to terms with the fact that it's over, there's no more. It's really hard to explain, and I'm probably not doing a good job of explaining it. The fact is, though, the ending here is giving me the same sort of feeling. You've managed to convey a lot of emotion and character through these quests, and again, for that I thank you.

:thumbup: :thumbup:

For all my bitching about the battles, I had fun. I think ultimately the problem is that you set it up to where we have to get good rolls to even survive, where most of the time, if you're smart, you can scrape by on bad rolls. And, well, it's hard to craft battles for that when you have sixteen characters to roll for.

[Jebediahs]

Only Negative Group Feedback – I was told that NEARLY every battle on this quest was impossible. They were not, it turns out. Heroes are tougher than you think – it bothered me particularly when you complained before even trying the battle. It started with the first round of meeting the Court, where you didn’t follow my suggestion and still won 2/3 battles and came close to winning the third. It happened for a number of other battles after that. How many times did you guys lose a battle after that?! Nearly never. QMs will get tougher, because you have gotten tougher. This was meant to be a challenging quest, but you should all feel accomplished now that it’s over, because you actually beat some challenging battles. This made this quest genuinely unpleasant to host at times, something I’ve never experienced before in Heroica, and something I hope to never experience again.

Amen.

A nice epic there, Zepher. Congratulations on completing your story.

[Flipz]

:thumbup: :thumbup:

For all my bitching about the battles, I had fun. I think ultimately the problem is that you set it up to where we have to get good rolls to even survive, where most of the time, if you're smart, you can scrape by on bad rolls. And, well, it's hard to craft battles for that when you have sixteen characters to roll for.

Agreed.

Self-analysis:

I feel like my griping, both in-character and out, really took their toll on the Quest. I don't think I could have suppressed Arthur TOO much without being untrue to who he was and what he wanted, but at the same time I know that was even more counterproductive to the Quest itself than my OOC complaining.

I did feel a little betrayed that Felton was always scripted to die. I picked him over Hans because he was the one I'd miss most, but if I had seen foreshadowing that Felton was plot-essential, I would have saved Hans instead.

The ending was also a lot "quieter" than I had expected--this isn't a good or bad thing, but I've learned again not to make ANY predictions around you.

Overall, I feel like, aside from Arthur's interaction with Skrall, Dyric, Zane, and later Wren (in our PM side-Quests), I've been a detriment to the Quest experience. I sincerely apologize for this, and rest assured I am taking a long, hard look at both my character's and my own actions before I sign up for anything else in Heroica.

Some quick thoughts for Zeph:

The story of this quest was a fun one for me. There was a lot of repetition (get to and close the spire) but I think that the NPCs and side plots made it well paced. I hope you all agree- I tried to give you something new to do at each spire, even though the basic goal remained the same.

...

The spire mechanic was another way I tried to have built in choices. You, as players, basically helped to build the final big bad, so you chose some of the traits and powers it would have. I’m very pleased with the technique.

Other than that… well, there’s not much to say. The story worked as I wanted it to. I’m pleased with it. I want to hear what you think, and if you have any questions!

I liked the idea of the Spire concept, and I think it could have been improved further with differing "rewards" for each one, i.e. immunity to more individual effects being up for grabs. I also VERY MUCH would like to see exactly how each Spire affected Chaos and Wren's stats; a tad more transparency in that department could have gone a long way (another reason why more "specific effect" options would have been nice--they're mechanically transparent in purpose without breaking immersion and/or spoiling just how strong the final boss will be).

-Felton was going to die at the end of the final Wren quest from his introduction at the beginning of the first.

-I know you guys hate him because he keeps almost dying on you, but I have a soft spot for Phil. He’s very noble in my mind. Probably one of the most noble NPCs I made while still being fleshed out and having clear faults. I also just enjoyed Dastan. I also love Poletad, Zane, and XX… and pretty much everyone else.

-FOR FUTURE REFERENCE: XX, Zane, Poletad, Vipera, Phil, Ella, Malellio, the Master of Regret, McColt and Hans should all reappear at some point in quests hosted by me. They’re not quite done, though some of them will be playing FAR smaller roles from here on in.

I may just be stupid and missing stuff, but was there any foreshadowing for this? (Aside from him living after being KO'd in the Observatory fight--I'm kicking myself for not noticing that before.)

Phil's frustrating because he doesn't listen to orders until he's nearly killed himself, but overall I like him. Mallelio, on the other hand, I can't stand. Like, at all. Which is unfortunate, because our characters could really benefit from knowing each other. Mallelio definitely needs a Quest in which he actually does something useful for the Heroes, rather than being saved by them--he reminds me a lot of Princess Peach, and I loathe her as a character in most of the Mario games. At the very least, it'd be nice to see Mallelio score a few kills before he's kidnapped by Bowser again. In general, I think I prefer NPCs when we don't have to constantly make sure they're not going to die on us. That may just be my own pet peeve, though.

Is Hans supposed to be on that list? Or do you mean we'll get to meet people who knew Hans...?

-The NPCs who were made up on the spot were my favorites – Zane’s backstory was not pre-planned, and the same is true for Poletad. All of the Court of Demons members were supposed to die if defeated, but I felt the quest was getting a little stale, so I threw MYSELF a twist and kept them alive to see what happened. I’m happy I did.

This is the only categorical advice I will give you, Zeph:

You. EXCEL. At improvisation.

The best parts of EVERY Quest you have EVER run are all parts where neither you nor your players knew exactly what they were doing, but you ran with it anyway (CM's side-Quest in 7 and its effect on the main team, Wren's odd love for Cronk, Wren herself (gender-wise), the side-Quests in 30, the character RP in 38, Zane, XX, and Everyman in 53, and the side-Quests with me and, from the sound of it, Pandora in 53). This is where you shine as a QM. Show me more of that, and I will always dive right in with you.

I may have more to say later, of course, but I wanted to get this (especially that last bit) out there for you.