Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Waterbrick Down]

Well I started out to make a puzzle based quest and all in all, I feel like I succeeded. Rewarding players for solving puzzles does help the quest move along quicker, but I also learned that you need to throw in some battles and longer roleplaying periods in order to keep things from feeling too rushed. Additionally I'm really glad that there was a good distribution among the solvers of the puzzles. All the players did a fantastic job at applying themselves to the puzzles and I never felt like the experience reward was being dominated by one exclusive player. All that aside, I think my future quests are going to revert back to the more traditional even mix of battles/puzzles. There is just something about a good distribution of the two that makes a quest's timing feel just right. I had a lot of fun designing the puzzles and aimed at providing a lot of variety, everything from spatial puzzles, to logic puzzles, word/riddle puzzles, to color and math puzzles.

Being a puzzle focused quest, there wasn't much of a plot to move things along, but I felt the given format worked to keep the party moving. The party could have gone in any order, but I am glad that they left the penthouse till the end as that was the unofficial climax and it ended up working out perfectly. I'll admit the party had me at a standstill just waiting around for the ritual to finish because I had originally thought they'd draw their swords and kick off the battle, but that didn't happen so I had to improvise. Avoidance of controversy seemed to be the main theme of this quest, you avoided a fight with the Metasimian and Bloodpaw gang leaders, a fight with the ghosts, a fight with Crube, and almost the final fight with Ecastue. Some of the NPC's interactions were perfect and really helped established some of their personalities. I'm sure Cynthia, U'reeves, Crube, the ghostly quartet, and Ecastue will all make appearances at some point in the future.

I'm sure I'll think of more to say later, but I'll move onto player analysis for now.

Player Feedback:

Dyric/The Legonator: I don't think Dyric stole the spotlight at all. I think his progression was very fitting considering his last quest. You do a marvelous job of evoking sympathy for his character with minimal text. Don't forget to let him have a little fun once and a while though, if all he does is be gloomy and wound up, you'll lose his appeal and he'll become flat. As a party leader you did a good job, especially when it came to achieving the balance of leading and asking for input from fellow characters. As compared to a character like Boomingham, Dyric is a much more diplomatic leader as can be seen by the number of battles your Party avoided by choosing to talk rather than fight, the part with Crube the bat-man was really smart. Dyric certainly has still got a ways to go, but I feel he's a step closer and is going to make it.

Cronk/CorneliusMurdock: Yay, I finally got to host you! I'm glad Cronk was along as it helps to have a clear cut moral compass along to get decisions made. From a role playing critique, you have mastered your character. We all know who Cronk is, what he stands for, and how he will react in a given situation, yet not because we've been overloaded with back story or walls of text, but because of character consistency. Some of your interactions with NPC's were priceless and Cronk's willingness to allow Dyric to lead even when Dyric himself didn't feel capable was quite the display of humility on Cronk's part. The final bit between Cronk and Ecastue was hard to write, because I wanted to have a way for the dragon to be right in Cronk's opinion, but couldn't figure out a way to do it without sacrificing some of his character, however I'm glad the way it turned out.

Nerwen/Chromeknight: Nerwen is probably my favorite PC to watch, her mixture of wisdom and wit make me smile nearly every time I read her. Her ability to see straight into the heart of a fellow PC or NPC and address the problem with sympathy and aloofness at the same time is a real gem. You were another player I was glad to finally host and your contributions to the puzzle solving and battle strategies were astute and well thought out. While Dyric and Cronk had some wonderful interactions with the NPC's, I think you took the cake for interactions with your fellow PC's. This quest wasn't merely a job for Nerwen to gain some gold, but an opportunity to grow in her relationships with other characters and it was quite enjoyable to watch. Sorry to leave you hanging in the end with the Red Herring, but I didn't really expect you all to get along so well with the ghosts. As with Dyric, you were contributed a lot to the peaceful solution of many of the tenants problems and it was a refreshing approach.

Xander/Posades: What is it with ranger classes being the strong and silent type. Seriously though, I'm glad you came along otherwise, the rest of the Party would have taken a lot longer in defeating some of the enemies. You weren't in the role-playing as much, but I was really liking the mistrust you showed towards Ecastue at the end as it was so consistent with Xander's character. You and Nerwen were the puzzle experts this time round and I'm glad everyone was able to contribute to the success of this quest in their own ways.

Self critique:

- I feel like there wasn't much of a concrete ending as in some of my other quests, but given the nature/style of the quest, I guess there wasn't a lot to do about it, aside from eliminate the red herring earlier on.

- The quest unfortunately dragged a little bit I think and part of that was me not updating as regularly or not providing more straightforward plot points.

- The battles were perhaps a bit on the easy/simplistic side. Not being a big "battle-type" QM, I focused more on story and less on complex mechanics to trip you up in your battle strategies, but I think I could have been a little more challenging.

- Too much loot? Not sure on this one, there was at least one unique item, one unique weapon, a lamp of summoning, some permanent stat increasers, gold reward, and reputation with two houses. I feel it might be appropriate given the quests real length (3 months) but perhaps not for the amount of activity (3 battles a few puzzles). I'd like to hear what the rest of you think.

- More straight forward character conversations, I think I probably confused some of you by elaborating on NPC characterization instead of just giving some of you the bare minimum facts.

Memorable Moments:

- The cooking challenge, a literal food fight. This was something I thought up at the last minute and was glad you all took part in, that is until I figured out that you could bomb everything to victory.

- Jacob and Christian. These guys need to have cameos in every quest.

- The game of riddles. Hopefully Cronk will have better luck with talking door frames next time.

- Dyric failing science.

- Jeremy

- The entire sequence with Ecastue.

- Nerwen on Pixie Dust.

[Flipz]

Nerwen on Pixie Dust was one of my favorite moments in Heroica, period--particularly when she started needling Dyric for (potentially?) being a virgin. Then again, pretty much any time Nerwen discusses relationships ends up as gold--she has such an otherworldly perspective, it's hard not to be intrigued. That said, I really hope there's time for Arthur to talk to her and Dyric about relationships--the interplay would be priceless.

RE: loot, it fit, it really did. One thing to note is that the party skipped a WHOLE bunch of battles, so even though it looks like "three battles and some puzzles", in reality you were looking at more. You also dropped fairly balanced rewards, and none of the people on the Quest have really "optimized" their builds in the way that, say, Pie or Costy have, so it evens out.

I love your Quests BECAUSE of the characters--if I ever end up on a Quest of yours, you can be sure as hell the page count will shoot up to rival a Brickdoctor Quest, just from your characters and mine talking. I'd honestly go on a Quest of yours with JUST roleplaying (i.e. no battles, no loot or experience aside from the Quest reward [if any]), just to go along for the ride. It's your hallmark--keep to it.

[Zepher]

I love your quests, WBD. I will probably have more to say, but really I think you've mastered the day-to-day of Eubric. I think U'Reeves and U'Or are now in contest for Madame Butterfly's attention, though if either will ever have any success is really up to Sandy. I will look forward to every future quest, and even if I took a break for one, you can be sure I'll be back for the next. I'd love to see you take on a series of stories, so that your skills even further develop (I know you have one in the works, just can't wait to see how it unfolds!)

[Flare]

Fantastic quest WBD! I really enjoyed reading it.

[Chromeknight]

Three whole battles?

Argh! So much for "level complete 100%"

I really loved this quest, for many reasons. Thanks WBD!

From the way that the puzzles interrupted real life so I could rush to write in a solution (ninja'd twice! Once by CM, once by Posades) to the rushing upstairs and down looking for solutions that were obvious in hindsight.

The quest did take quite a while and did drag a little waiting for characters to interact (across timezones), but some of that is simply the nature of forum-RPG. As for loot, I don't feel gyped, I'm in it for the character interaction anyway, but it is worth noting that some other players completed two quests in the same timeframe. I haven't run the numbers as to who'd be better off.

I loved the cooking battle and thought we were going to loose it until posades had his idea. And it was well timed. If he'd had it one round later, we couldn't have done it. There wasn't much in the ghosts interaction that indicated we could (ought) fight them. As for 'justice' Crube, Nerwen would have been all for beating him down if he'd have gone for the guys upstairs. As for them, if it'd been a Wolfgang cell plotting the night's activities, you can be sure they would have left with tails between their legs. It's a shame we didn't run into a Wolfgang posse on its way to assassinate them....

Your characters were interesting and relatable, and I think that's one reason conflict was talked out rather than fought, because it was an real option. I look forward to seeing more of Spengmore and co, and, for Dyric's sake, Claire as well. Perhaps even that nice faun, I am certain Nerwen could give him a run for his money.

Fellow players wise.

Xander(posades). Dear Xander, quiet and dangerous. Lobbing in with the answer to a riddle, cracking a tough battle there and generally dealing stupidly huge amounts of damage calmly. It was good to continue their friendship from Dastan, and although there wasn't a lot of direct interaction between Xander and Nerwen, I see that as them just getting each other on some level rather than there being nothing to say.

Cronk(CorneliusMurdock). Exactly what it says on the tin. I loved the occasional moments where it was clear there's more to Cronk than meets the eye. The comment to the gargoyle about Orc culture, the use of sarcasm to Dyric in the penthouse...

Such moments are noticed! Keep 'em coming. And as discussed in R&D, Cronk is wise. It seemed like Nerwen and Cronk have similar views on a lot of things, just different ways of expressing those views.

And Dyric(Legonater). I did warn you early on that Nerwen gets snarky with rogues on occasion, (especially true of young male human ones.) you rolled with it and used it to bring out some more of Dyric's personality. The conflict over what to do with Crube was a particular highlight, drawing a clear difference between Dyric's black/white morality and Nerwen's blue/orange morality. You did a good job keeping up while you were hosting too.

As for Nerwen, the lesson is clear.

Don't do drugs kids! Drugs are bad!

Nerwen generally steers clear of buffs, (she even drinks water in the hall!) but rolling a half dozen blood rituals in one battle made it clear that a little more "stats over roleplaying" mightn't be such a bad thing.

Otherwise she got to practice speaking like an U'kin, tried to set Dyric up on a date, cooked, and debated morality and vigilante justice. As well as gaining enough confidence to sport a crocodile handbag fashionably.

If there wasn't already a hot elf chick harlot, she probably would have nicked Cynthia's copy of 50 shades of Bley and I do wonder if hairbelly will drop by asking to use the boat to smuggle weapons, who knows? And will Cap'n Guts mind or will Nerwen talk him round? Stay tuned!

[joeshmoe554]

Quest 73 Reflection

Overall

I thought it went alright. Not great, but also not a complete train wreck. The quest was designed with a very simple idea and story in mind, mostly so I could get one quest under my belt. I considered it a learning experience to see what I was good at and what I could do better, so that the next time I plan a quest, I know what areas I need to spend more time planning out and what can work better as an organic element. A lot of the quest went better than I expected, I think the only element I was somewhat disappointed with were the battles.

Pacing

This was probably the hardest part to running the quest. I wanted to give the players enough time to interact or roleplay their parts, but I also wanted to try and keep the quest from dragging on. I ended up grouping pieces of the quest into small chunks and tried to limit a 24 hour lull cycle to each pieces in order to keep the quest moving. I am curious what the players thought as to the pace of the quest, and what I could have done better to improve that element.

Battles

I hate Nostrums now. The problem with the battles is they were designed to be a decent battle without consumables as I wanted the use of consumables to be optional instead of mandatory. I realize now that was probably a naive approach given the number of gold gaining classes on the quest and as a result any high use of consumables ended up quickly turning the fights into barrel fishing with a shotgun. In the future I will probably take a parties inventory and gold into account when designing a battle, and increase the length of the battle to allow for more variation in the event that the party uses those consumables.

Players

You guys were amazing. You took an extremely simple story and characters and managed to provide a depth that I hadn't originally designed. The vast majority of the quest was written as a result of your interactions and it made things far more interesting than the barebones framework that had been designed.

I am curious to know what others thought of the quest and would love to hear suggestions or complaints that I could incorporate into any quests I host in the future.

[Flare]

I thought that your quest was very nice, joeschmoe. Simple and to the point - we need more quests like that! Very good first quest

[Endgame]

After all of the ups and downs Sorrow has had 73 was a great departure from the tension, Joeshmoe. (Despite the fact that that he is currently in an ocean of hot water. ) Your photography and builds were great, and portrayed the quest perfectly - ht eloot was well balanced, and Sir Edward is up there with my favorite NPCs. It did feel like it dragged at times (some lulls like "Do you set up camp?" seemed a bit superfluous, especially since we usually just roleplayed after camp was set up), but other then that, it was good.

QM Advice: Players are dynamic. Keep your battles dynamic. I tend to only lock in who the party will fight, not their specific stats.

Edited July 16, 2013 by Endgame

[Waterbrick Down]

Great starter quest JoeShmoe. Straight forward and well rounded in pretty much every aspect of a quest. As Endgame has mentioned, being flexible with stats is a necessity to organizing good battles. It takes time to get a good grasp of all the factors that play into a battles length, difficulty, and engagement level, but I'm sure you had a better idea of how to approach your last battle compared to your first. Loot looked balanced and the scenery was lovely. Keep up the good work.

[The Legonater]

Thanks again for the amazing quest, WBD! This has probably been one of the best quests I've been on RPG-wise. After the intense battle with Wren and her forces, it was a fun contrast to go through a more mental and moral battle. My only issue was, as said, the quest seemed to drag a little. Given the nature of the quest, however, I suppose this was a given.

Nerwen/Chromeknight: You definitely kept me on my toes this quest. It was fun exploring some more of Dyric's facets, and Nerwen definitely offered up a catalyst with which to do that. Nerwen showed her profound wisdom a lot during this quest, all the while taking no gruff from anyone. Nerwen is quickly growing to be one of the most intriguing characters in my mind, keep it up!

Cronk/CorneliusMurdock: You were a steady presence throughout the quest, humbly stepping down from the leadership role while still offering plenty of advice and suggestions. As always, you were a lot of fun to work with. As noted above, Cronk showed some surprising hidden depths this quest, and it'll be fun to watch that grow and develop!

Xander/Posades: You were quiet, calm, and collected. You provided a nice contrast to the sometimes heated discussions going on between Dyric, Nerwen and Cronk. You generally provided consistent support for the team, and it was a pleasure questing with you.

Thank again to you all!

[CMP]

Great starter quest JoeShmoe. Straight forward and well rounded in pretty much every aspect of a quest. As Endgame has mentioned, being flexible with stats is a necessity to organizing good battles. It takes time to get a good grasp of all the factors that play into a battles length, difficulty, and engagement level, but I'm sure you had a better idea of how to approach your last battle compared to your first. Loot looked balanced and the scenery was lovely. Keep up the good work.

Agreed. It was very straightforward but it was still pretty cool overall, those are some of the best pictures in a Quest I've ever seen. :thumbup: It sounds like you already have a good idea on what to improve on, and as long as you do you'll be running some really fantastic Quests in no time.

[Kintobor]

Wonderful first quest Joe! Everything I wanted to say has been said for the most part, so yeah, excellent job all around!

[CorneliusMurdock]

WBD, I've wanted to go on one of your quests since I read your first one. And you did not disappoint with this quest.

I loved the puzzles. Except for the maze one, they always came up at times that I couldn't devote the brainpower to solve them. But I loved them anyway. They all fit into the story seamlessly and were challenging but not impossible.

Your characters were excellent. I was truly excited every time we knocked on a new door just to see who we would meet next. You even managed to create a very memorable door to insult Cronk. I absolutely loved that scene. I enjoyed letting Cronk interact with everyone.

My only wish is that I wouldn't have been so busy during this quest. Life really gets in the way sometimes.

[posades]

WBD, great quest! Reminded me of a Brickdoctor quest, and that's a very good thing. My only one minor complaint, which seems to be echoing others, is that it did seem to drag at times; only three battles was a bit of a letdown, but I guess that's our fault for being pacifists. I've always liked puzzles/brain teasers/etc., so this quest played right up my alley.

Fellow players were great as usual. It was awesome to finally quest with Cronk; Nerwen has evolved into such an intriguing character, and Dyric is Dyric. This game is a nice diversion for me, but I also have other outside commitments right now that take up most of my time. Add to the fact that I can only check Eurobricks on my phone 90% of the time, and that makes for a general lack of roleplaying from me. Hopefully no one is put off by it, since that's the way I'll most likely play this game until its demise.

Can't wait for the next one!

[swils]

Joe, that was a great first quest (I feel like I'm echoing here... just a little bit, heh). I have to be honest, I saw Shadeaux rep and sort of whored Thormy out for it. I definitely wasn't as engaged in the quest as I could have been and I hope you'll forgive me for that. I really appreciated the early suggestion that I hold onto the Medal if I wanted to hit 30. The encounters were definitely a bit on the easy side and, even if we hadn't been cracked out on consumables, I think we could have gotten by. I'd have to go back and check the rolls that got cast aside due to lucky, to be sure though. The cart was never really in too much danger, but both Mac and the cart felt like dead weight (as, fitting the story, they should have been). It was just safer to keep them both out of the action and hope we didn't get too many AoE special damages. An interesting mechanic would have been to make it so that any Wolfgang members who were left untargeted would automatically put their free hit on the cart. They are, after all, looters.

The quest kept up a quick pace and I liked it. There were definitely lulls, as Endgame touched on previously, but nothing unbearable. I think my only complaint would just be the two unexplained plot lines: the Wight, and the horses. I know you said that the horses meandered off after we turned around and also that I completely forgot about them during the visit to the town, but I'd have liked to see a little more about the equine troupe. Sir Ed certainly had a personality to him, it was a shame to see it just end there. Also, where'd the Wight come from (obviously, the locket)? Why did it activate when Sorrow picked it up? I must know these things!

[joeshmoe554]

Originally the cart was designed to be dead weight and Mac existed to repair the cart if necessary. I tried to give some of the enemies AOE attacks to place the cart in some danger (the thugs from fight 1, brown horses in fight 2, and warrior in fight 3), but AOE can turn a bad round into a death sentence, and nostrums make them almost non-existent. I tried to make the fights such that they wouldn't become dull if the party wasn't buffed to the limit. Unfortunately, when buffs can increase a hero's damage output to 12x normal it makes it hard to keep a fight between the realm of way too easy and punching a brick wall. I definitely won't underestimate the effects of buffing consumables in the future, especially if hosting gold gaining classes.

I added the protection ability to the cart when I decided to include Grimwald on the quest, so he could participate without significant risk of being KO'd from one or two of the AOE attacks.

The horses were there because I actually have a lot of lego horses and not many other animals . I had originally thought the horses would be part of something like the HLF (Horse Liberation Front), but since most of the horses I have known in my life were rather stupid, I thought it would be better to have one intelligent horse and the rest were followers. Ed was designed to be a fanatic who believed entirely in his vision and I tried to role play him as a character rather than lead him to a predestined conclusion (though it is hard to alter the path of a fanatic). Sadly, I completely forgot about them after the party left for the next town so had to retcon a little bit to explain their sudden disappearance. What I had planned on implementing was if the party did not bring the horses with them, they would wander off into the forest and get lost without a strong leader to follow.

The wight was a soul the necromancer had captured and used to increase his power. Once the necromancer died, his control over the wight ended allowing the wight to finally free itself. It attacked the party because that's what it does, like the story of the scorpion and the turtle.

[Bricksandparts]

I don't know if either of these types of villians has existed or still exists, but if not, I think they need to be made as important NPCs in multiple quests. That aside, I believe we need a manically insane villain (Sort of like the joker now that I think of it) who kills and destroys just for the sheer joy of it and a very strategic villain (The super-mastermind) who's main goal is to destroy Heroica, thus giving him enough power from criminal organizations to overthrough Eubric and progressively build an empire. The thing I hate about a lot of "masterminds" is that they always assume that a certain character will be eliminated, so I think it'd be better if he/she was a lot smarter and would be able to use intelligence rather than brute force to accomplish their goals.

[Flare]

I don't know if either of these types of villians has existed or still exists, but if not, I think they need to be made as important NPCs in multiple quests. That aside, I believe we need a manically insane villain (Sort of like the joker now that I think of it) who kills and destroys just for the sheer joy of it and a very strategic villain (The super-mastermind) who's main goal is to destroy Heroica, thus giving him enough power from criminal organizations to overthrough Eubric and progressively build an empire. The thing I hate about a lot of "masterminds" is that they always assume that a certain character will be eliminated, so I think it'd be better if he/she was a lot smarter and would be able to use intelligence rather than brute force to accomplish their goals.

Feel free to host quests with whatever type of villain you want. Whats holding you back?

Edited July 27, 2013 by Flare

[CMP]

I don't know if either of these types of villians has existed or still exists, but if not, I think they need to be made as important NPCs in multiple quests. That aside, I believe we need a manically insane villain (Sort of like the joker now that I think of it) who kills and destroys just for the sheer joy of it and a very strategic villain (The super-mastermind) who's main goal is to destroy Heroica, thus giving him enough power from criminal organizations to overthrough Eubric and progressively build an empire. The thing I hate about a lot of "masterminds" is that they always assume that a certain character will be eliminated, so I think it'd be better if he/she was a lot smarter and would be able to use intelligence rather than brute force to accomplish their goals.

Wren and Ulric respectively, I think, fit those categories pretty well.

[Bricksandparts]

Feel free to host quests with whatever type of villain you want. Whats holding you back?

I didn't do a great job at hosting my last quest, and Sandy doesn't really want me to host. Even if I could host, I probably couldn't do that good of a job anyways, The quests I hosted often interfered with work.

[Sandy]

I agree that the villains so far have appeared a little toothless, but that's probably because I, Zepher and many of the other QMs want to portray them as living, feeling beings as well, not just clichéd maniacs hellbent on destroying the world. That isn't to say there couldn't be a villain like that, though.

Feel free to host quests with whatever type of villain you want. Whats holding you back?

That would be me, actually. And B&P knows why.

Wren and Ulric respectively, I think, fit those categories pretty well.

Except Ulric's goal isn't to destroy Heroica, but rather take control of the organization, along with the city. But we'll see how that goes once we hit that point in the main storyline.

[CMP]

Except Ulric's goal isn't to destroy Heroica, but rather take control of the organization, along with the city. But we'll see how that goes once we hit that point in the main storyline.

Didn't know he'd leave Heroica intact. I can't picture it being anything other than the center of resistance if he ever did take over Eubric.

[Sandy]

Didn't know he'd leave Heroica intact. I can't picture it being anything other than the center of resistance if he ever did take over Eubric.

Maybe there would have to be some "lay-offs" made before he could claim Heroica as his own.

[The Legonater]

I don't know if either of these types of villians has existed or still exists, but if not, I think they need to be made as important NPCs in multiple quests. That aside, I believe we need a manically insane villain (Sort of like the joker now that I think of it) who kills and destroys just for the sheer joy of it and a very strategic villain (The super-mastermind) who's main goal is to destroy Heroica, thus giving him enough power from criminal organizations to overthrough Eubric and progressively build an empire. The thing I hate about a lot of "masterminds" is that they always assume that a certain character will be eliminated, so I think it'd be better if he/she was a lot smarter and would be able to use intelligence rather than brute force to accomplish their goals.

This may be a bit spoilerish, but in the future the Duplovia arc will in a sense feature both of those.

[Emjajoas]

I'm actually getting the chance to break out my lego for the first time in months today and I figured it'd be the perfect chance to work on some quest sets.

However, my supply of lego is rather limited, so I've got a few questions.

Would it be alright if I made mini-scale models depicting the Quest locations and whatnot? I don't think I have the time nor pieces to make large-scale models for my quest. Has anyone done mini-scale quests before? How would a mini-scale quest be accepted?