Welcome to /qtg/, a place to talk about quests.Previous thread>>6029851>What is a quest?An interactive story in which a Quest Master (QM) writes and provides the readers with options on how to proceed — similar to a choose-your-own-adventure book or an old text adventureQuestionably Useful links:>QTG discord: https://discord.gg/6s4Xazmv>Skirmish discord: https://discord.com/invite/DZCVvVU>Evo Game discord: https://discord.gg/v55Xaaja>Old pastebin containing advice for QMs:https://pastebin.com/Z78p8gXfBadly in need of renovation.>Archiving guide:Go to http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/requestqstinterface.htmlFill out the request form to archive a thread.Threads are also automatically archived by other websites, such as archived.moe.>Formatting guide:Only the thread's OP can format. Note that should the OP change ID, they will lose this ability as well.Remove the spaces between the [] brackets and the letters:Bold: [ b ] text [ /b ]Italics: [ i ] text [ /i ]Red: [ red ] text [ /red ]Blue: [ blue ] text [ /blue ]Green: [ green] text [ /green ]>Formatting guide for everyone:Dice (type this in “options”): dice + [no. of dice]d[no. of sides on the dice] (optionally you can add modifiers: dice + [no. of dice]d[no. of sides on the dice]+[modifier]; for a negative modifier type: +-[modifier]Examples: dice+1d100 = a 1d100 roll, dice+1d100+10 = a 1d100 roll with a +10 modifier.Spoiler: [ spoiler ]spoiler[ /spoiler ] or by pressing alt+s in-thread>QM question:Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?>Player question:Are there any quests you're playing that you'd like to see revisited from a different angle, or with a twist?>General question:What multimedia franchises do you think would be best suited to /qst/, that haven't already generated a successful quest?>Lurker question:Why don't you at least chime in to let the QM know you're reading? And do you ever share what you're reading with other people?>Miscellaneous question:What other boards do you frequent, besides /qst/?
>>6063690cause some stupid ass made a second one eight minutes after this one
>>6063680why there's 2 threads ? >>6063686
>>6063680>>6063686Alright you two, fight to the death for the right to be the /QTG/.
>>6063692I thought you guys coordinated things in the discordnow I'm using this space to ask Mutant!Quest QM to return. it's been 2 years my dude, we need our fish girl kino.
>>6063696You act like anons are more easily herded than cats and won't just rush to do shit cause it'll give them a steady stream of (you)s and serotonin
>>6063694they do, that one is the official one (controlled by qtg cabal) so expect this one to be deleted soon.
>QM question:My very own!>Player question:Yes!>General question:I don't watch movies or TV or play video games, but I would like to see more quests with the Kids on Bikes system.>Lurker question:I don't share what I'm reading with other people, everyone has their own tastes, and they intersect mainly on one thing, enough for a quest master to have a quest player.>Miscellaneous question:/jp/ and /vg/ and pornboards.
>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?I've had an idea stuck in the back of my brain for a while of a quest from the perspective of a schizophrenic with unreliable narrative as a feature, but I don't really think I could do it justice.>Are there any quests you're playing that you'd like to see revisited from a different angle, or with a twist?It's old but gold, but I'd love to see German Hollow Quest again. Just a revised version of it, really. A lot of quests, especially from the /tg/ era, could benefit from a revision - writing can take a bit of a hit with the time constraints of that era. You either wrote quickly or you fell off.>What multimedia franchises do you think would be best suited to /qst/, that haven't already generated a successful quest?I've only seen a single quest set in the Half-Life universe, which is surprising given how rabid the fanbase is for more half-life content of all kinds.>Why don't you at least chime in to let the QM know you're reading? And do you ever share what you're reading with other people?If I don't have the energy to vote, I don't have the energy to do that much. Sometimes I share if a quest is good enough.>What other boards do you frequent, besides /qst/?I glimpse at /tg/ every now and then just to see how much of a dumpster-fire its become. Occasionally /g/ to see if there's any new tricks out there.READ LODESTAR!
Hey you! Yeah (You)! Do you like Dragon Ball? Do you like Detective stories? do you like delving into the worst of the human spirit's depthsThen have I got a quest for you!>>6063050Please come play the Tuffle Quest unpermitted, QM disavowed, outright hated spinoff, Dragon Ball TQ Mystery: Chocolat Peche! You as the Inspecter will dive into the mysteries that have plagued Son Peppa ever since Valentine's Day, which then culminated with her brother Son Gohan getting brutalized on March 14th!The other threads in the series are Chocolat Noir then Blanc which you can find on suptg!
>>6063680A qtg thread at this time of year all locates in the corner of the /qst/ board in 4channel.org?
>>6063697Hey did you say (You)? How many of those you got man? Man don't hold out on me here. Stop fucking hogging them bro.
Read my quest. No I won’t tell you what it is, that’d rob you of the journey of discovery.
>>6063711Is it The Prince or Black Ocean Quest?
>>6063704>Please come play the Tuffle Quest unpermitted, QM disavowed, outright hated spinoff, Dragon Ball TQ Mystery: Chocolat Peche!but I thought the og qm was ok with it
>>6063729>nu qm: I consent>og qm: I consent>players: I don't
>>6063712Why would I tell you if you got it or not? It would turn your journey into a game of Hot n Cold or Marco Polo.
>>6063729A year or two ago she was, we had a falling out since then. Last I heard she wanted nothing to do with it, but she also didn't say anything like "take that shit down right now" so ehhh?
>>6063712Prince is full, we don't need any more readers. DON'T read this quest.
>>6063742Ok, you're Bananas. Thanks for letting me know.>>6063756Mark my words, this asshat will be corrected.
Looks like you'll have a small heart to heart with your fellow Hogwarts teacher! whats your story?vote now to find out!>>6038711>>6038711>>6038711(i dont know which general is the real one, so im posting this in all 3)
>>6063696>I thought you guys coordinated things in the discordI don't frequent the Discord.>>6063697I waited a little over half an hour after someone called for it to post one.
>>6063744>A year or two ago she was, we had a falling out since then. Last I heard she wanted nothing to do with it, but she also didn't say anything like "take that shit down right now" so ehhh?but the first time you started was still on this year. how did you guys fell off and why ?
>>6063780Arguing, arguing, arguing. We both wanted to be right more than we wanted to be on good terms. But it's not like I hate her, I just have different ideas I wanna explore independent of her quest.
>>6063780By the way, Tuffle Quest Kai is nearing a finale, but check out Tuffle Quest Super when it runs, commissioned this for it.
>>6063706Yes
>>6063783Why does the left one look so familiar? Probably porn. I'm guessing porn.
>>6063805>>6063805>>6063805Solarpunk update! A high ranking member of the Stormwatch tells you about your next target; the perfect termite that knows only its endless hunger that has escaped captivity; it would be an ecological disaster if permitted to live as it pleases.
>>6063804https://youtu.be/RZdwgvbL1HQ
I don't like the idea of Milhouse having two QTGs in the same board
What kind of fantasy Quest do you most want to see?
>>6063887The one where we're all happy. What a fantasy that is.
>>6063680>QM Question:I've had an idea in my head for a while now about a Fear and Hunger quest that leans into the harshness of the games. Making Player death a frequent and almost expected occurrence. Continuing with a brand new PC to explore but now armed with a slight meta knowledge. The main reason I don't think I can run it is because F&H is basically known for leather trenchcoat levels of edge and I struggle to think about how I can keep the steady stream of Fodder PCs interesting without it becoming a group of people just trial and erroring their way through a dungeon. >Player question:I'd enjoy seeing something like the Dead Rising quest from a perspective other than one of a previous series Protag, I feel like it kinda takes the most fun thing about quests away. That being getting to shape and build a character with others over the course of time. It would also be fun to see it from an 'Antagonists' point of view. Like a Psycho who breaks due to an outbreak and stumbles into the plot. (Think Adam the Clown unicycling after Carlito's Bomb Vans from DR1)>General Question:Very early 2000's coded response to this but: Supernatural. I like the early seasons before they became Tumblr bait and even the later seasons had their rare moments of things I just found interesting. It's a series with a lot of lore and meat to work with but also is still free enough to do a completely independent story that never crosses paths with main storyline shit. It also can be a background for something as simple as 'Monster Hunter: Detroit' up to 'High level DnD campaign but with guns'>Misc Questionck, x, and tgNew Gotham City Beat Cop Update: >>6063873Come join us as we plan our next move following a masterful interrogation.
>>6063901Dont start with one character. Instead you start with a group of them. And switch their POV around. Also don"t limit to 4 the group. Group of mercs ? Possible. Group of holy knights ? Possible etc...The enemies can be far more, and the dungeon can be bigger than what they are in game. Being alone sound like a great way of immediate death. A group has a better chance to win fights even if the dungeon would ensure many die, are terribly wounded, poisoned, tricked, transformed, insane, corrupted etc....so losing is still very possible. The cleavers of the first ""guards"" could still cut through with ease in a shield wall and take away arms too, making a groups of veteran soldiers more a group of new crippled that begs for food in a city. That is if the ""guards"" didn't catch them and they didn't bleed to death along the road.I would prefer if there is no meta knowledge gained if a character/group dies. The dungeon should change things around with each new start, and depending how much progress previous characters/groups did changes could be based on that too.
>>6063887I'd love a Warhammer Fantasy one. Or really any kind of Dark Fantasy that doesn't lean too much into the edginess.
>>6063887I wouldn't mind a LOTR one. The one of the northern dragon was very nice (cant remember the Qm name).Or one set in the world of Legacy of Kain. Just some personal preferences. I dont really mind, if its a nice fantasy quest i usually play it.
>>6063967A quest in Nosgoth would be great to see
>>6063901There should be a group of PCs, but limit it to 4 or 13 like in 1 and 2 or something. Time Loop off of that, but don't forget to have each potential PC act according to their own agenda, even if it goes against the current PC.>>6063950Meta knowledge is a must for a Funger game, knowledge is what players gain and use to traverse the dungeon.Honestly, you'll have to worldbuild a new world but style it after Funger because it needs to be a new well of metaknowledge to dive into, and it's best to have a well you have full control over and all the "answers" to.
>>6063991>>6063991Come play with roaches! You know you want to.>>6063991>>6063991
>>6063680>QM QuestionHonestly? Dungeon Crawls. Partially because it isn't conducive to this board and partially because I'm not good at close ups and extreme attention to detail and keeping track of every object or small piece of a scene or map. I do not like having large overhead. While not exactly the same, managing the ship in Black Ocean Quest is equally annoying, but abstracted enough that I can handle it (or just let the players do it). I also don't feel I could run a really good character drama or realistic thriller type of Quest, mostly because I care alot more about the fictional elements. While I do think I can handle it, I'm also somewhat wary on a full journey or exploration style Quest that isn't island-hopping tourism.Stylistically; my art style works well enough for most quests, with one exception. There is one specific Quest concept I have I don't think I could do justice for with my art without either a lot more practice or using outside art instead of making it myself, that being a Paper Mario Quest where you play as someone other then Mario.>Player QuestionI don't really read other people's quests, but I think a lot of quests could benefit with more experimentation in the medium. The vast majority of Quests are single character/single player linear stories, where as a more anthology series or zoomed-out bits of creative writing or worldbuilding could be useful. However, skirmish games already sort of fulfill this, I simply choose not to burden these QMs as a player in case I flake on them for whatever reason.>General QuestionI'm surprised Alt-History isn't more common then it is, given the width of human history to act as a jumping off point. I can't think of any franchises in particular, other then a GoT Quest that doesn't suck and flake. Oh and before you ask, yes I know I do dynastic political stuff myself, I'm too much of a wiki-warrior and secondary to ever even attempt ASoiaF Quest. I would have to do it in my own setting so I can really "keep up" with everyone else. I'm only saying this because everyone else complains about it. Oh, that and Conan.>Lurker QuestionI don't lurk if I'm in somebody else's thread, I'll usually just skim around to get some descriptions to draw some fanart instead.>Miscellaneous QuestionMostly /v/ (video games), /an/, and /tv/ (for the funny shitposts). I will occasionally go to /lit/ or /tg/ for fantasy recommendations or worldbuilding/writing stuff, but tend not to stay. /lit/ is a very intelligent board so I don't feel qualified to stay there long, /tg/ is the opposite, so I leave out of choice.>>6063901Not to shill, but my current Quest, Black Ocean Quest, is basically a cheap rip-off of Funger. The dark world, multiple distinct gods with benefits for their followers, characters losing eyes/limbs, and even stealing the lucky coin mechanic wholesale. Basically plagiarism, but I wanted pirates.
>>6063887I would just like a fantasy quest where we're actually the big bad guy, doing evil shit, conquering the world, monolouging in front of stupid heroes etc. Unfortunately this board always, always take the pragmatic approach to everything which in turn leads to any evil quest becoming milquetoast garbage where we never do anything truly evil. I just want one evil quest, just the one. But that's apparently too much to ask for.
>>6063978Who could possibly match the level of prose needed?I too yearn for such a quest, but you'd definitely need a high quality writer as the QM.
>>6064001We've had the odd evil quest over the years, but waifu-based degeneracy tends to ruin those too. Neckbeard Warlock seemed like a great evil candidate until the QM flaked. It would be nice to have one succeed...
>>6064001>>6064010Guys, I'm LITERALLY right here.
>>6064012Okay but I want a GOOD evil fantasy quest, not a Bananas quest.
>>6063996I'll check it out. Looking forward to reading it.
>>6063887Poe-esque dionysian mystery horror. Descending the concious in flight of what lurks beneath. Dishonored 1 with fewer clues and also it gets infinitely worse.
>>6064017
>>6064001I think the only game where I remember being the standard evil JRPG villain was an RPG maker called Umbra Soul. Like there's games where you can play as the western RPG villain like overlord and tyranny, but umbra soul really embraced all the shitty tropes a villain would use and plays them straight. You even get to fight heroes and see them use the power of friendship against you, and you can blackmail them and force them to get the macguffins for you.It's not perfect, it's still RPG maker slop, but it's fun.
>>6064001Atë, the MC from Olympus Incarnation Quest pretty evil, if something more modern isn't that big a turn off
>>6063887The LadyKnight quest, but I think the QM was driven off by the latest anti-hornyposting campaign by the jannies.There were two other hornyposting quests (Tyrant Death, Paladin Dilemma) that got deleted that I had more than a little sentimental attachment to.Damn shame.
>>6064066Wasn't Paladin's Dilemma literally a shitpost about having sex with an orc in public while a Jewish gremlin chanted 'race-mixing! race-mixing!' or something?
>>6064090Kino slop of the highest order
>>6063887A continuation of A Lust for Adventure, even though it's probably not happening...I know Qoomer's doing Escape the Dungeon now, but it's just not hitting the same for me, and I really, really wish it did...
>>6064012Space Monke is literally the face of pragmatism, though. For every blatantly evil decision there's something completely opposite to thatSee: the entire last thread and our treatment of the new aliens
>>6064090Yes and it was hilarious. I even did amateurish art for it.
>>6064137>>6064066>>6064169
>>6064217You're on 4chan pal, everybody's a sex freak here.
>>6064226Hey hold on, some of us aren't freaks. We're fiends. Get it right.
>>6064001Okay anon, you want a quest where you play a REAL piece of shit? Here goeshttps://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2022/5075383/This one was good
>>6064001Most people just don't like playing a character they find entirely repulsive and without redeeming characteristics. Scumbag Antipladin had the worst, grossest, most awful MC I've seen in a while, but even he was 'nice to his necromancer girlfriends and cowardly orc buddy.That said, we have several quests right now with variously-villainous MCs, including:>Olympus Incarnation>Solarpunk Cleanup AgentOne likely soon to return:>Supreme Space Monke RulerA couple that (unfortunately) seem to be dropped:>Goblin King>Goblin CultivatorAnd one recently-ended:>Haunted GamePlus LOTS of morally-grey or antiheroic MCs, to the point that I think it might be more common than stalwart, purely-heroic ones, including:>Lodestar>Seekers of the Esoteric>The Pale Inheritance>Disappearing Hogwarts (Arguably)
>>6064290hehehe i remember that. Played it toovery evilthough i am not sure if thats what the anon wants. This is very evil not just evil. Also the kind of evil, that well.... you genuily don't like the guy. The only reason to play is for the see the hell made on earth.I think that anon might want something towards more sauron or more comical/antihero like. Which is a different kind.
>>6064186Isn't Space Monke infamous for attracting a lot of autistic bickering because of weirdos who think that heartless AI-guided fascism and eugenics is practical, pragmatic, intelligent and objectively superior to any other form of governance?
>>6064339I'm not so sure I would pin the Lodestar trio as morally gray or antiheroic - they're pirates, but explicitly the kind that only strike at less upstanding pirates, military forces, or generally corrupt individuals. They're called Blue Pirates in-setting, but essentially they're more like rebels that refuse to be bound by the constraints of law and use their well-valued freedom for generally good purposes.Unless I misunderstood your claim and you were in fact listing the purely-heroic ones rather than the grey ones. In which case, ignore me, I'm a dumb retard.
>>6064356I assumed that what anon was talking about by pragmatism was specifically the kind of 'evil' where you do non-evil stuff that any evil person wouldn't have done because it's just blatantly more effective, something that has happened enough times that bananas actively banned write-in votes in some occasions because they're "boring"
>>6064372I view them as morally grey because while they seem like alright gents, they're also thieves, not very loyal (teaming up with the guards one minute, staging a breakout the next), and often motivated by purely selfish pursuits. They're not villains, but they're also not selfless paragons, and they happily lie, cheat, kill, and steal when they can justify doing so....Actually, Seven Against Thebes is another good example. I hope that comes back soon.
>>6064377True, but consider that those guards are interested in staging a military coup that will most certainly result in Total Pirate Death, and that everyone the trio has stolen from, cheated, or otherwise killed has been aptly described as 'scum'. The alliance is a purely pragmatic one to enable a decisive strike against Silversmith, and I have no doubts that the players will seek to dissolve this alliance to dish out cold hard justice and put an end to the Guard's ambitions once Silversmith is handled.Or perhaps during the handling. Who knows! My players have surprised me with the direction they've taken things more than once so far. I'm honestly looking forward to the eventual Assault on Silversmith, with so many different alliances in play and choices to make regarding them. The consequences of every choice will be a ton of fun to see play out.
>>6064339Where would you put Cleaner Quest's?
>>6064387I didn't play long enough to say, but they seemed to be more villainous in he first thread at least.
>>6064186>>6064339>>6064356>>6064373"Evil" is an abstract word. For most, pure practical or utilitarian thinking IS evil, as it disregards the (irrational) emotional attachments we have to laws, customs, or moral constructs of a society or culture. I don't think anyone can argue that mass murdering your enemies, settling their lands, and turning their bodies into fertilizer isn't evil, but in the cultures where such things are practiced, it would not be considered evil, but moral and good. The righteous end to a hated enemy. Your existence is inherently burdensome to someone and something; you are evil to a mosquito because you won't allow them to drink your blood. You define yourself as not evil, because you have a bias towards yourself, your genetic relatives, and your cultural/societal construct in which you live. Therefore, evil can only be defined subjectively. Truly evil MCs cannot exist unless it is defined in universe artificially (the "ontologically evil orcs" argument) or if they act psychotic or pantomime evil like a stereotype for player fantasies, like a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain, wearing a skull helmet and going on about EVILLLL!!!! while baking cookies to raise money for the next evil robot army. I don't see the appeal.
>>6064387From how the players have played her and my own perspective, Nicole (Cleaner's MC) more goal oriented and self serving than outwardly malicious.She does help people when it's not strictly necessary but she's also willing to kill you if you're too much of a hassle or threat to her.Comes with the territory of being a merc working for a random rich dude, after all.>>6064339>to the point that I think it might be more common than stalwart, purely-heroic one.I think that comes with the nature of players picking what they think is the most interesting of beneficial to them. Unless you push them in a certain way, I imagine a lot of MCs will eventually lean far more into morally grey or antiheroic than super duper goodie two shoes.Granted, you can write a quest about a stalwart purely heroic MC but you sorta have to set that precedent early on.
>>6064415>"Evil" is an abstract word. The concept of evil being abstract only works in a purely relative, atheistic worldview where nothing really exists and everything is what you decide it is. While that may certainly be an popular theory nowadays, it has not been so for most of human history. You might argue "Oh, but it depends on the culture", and sure, different cultures might have different outviews, but at the same time, that's just not how things are written. The truth is that nearly every single work will be written following some manner of cultural set. Monke quest, for example, clearly possessed 20th and 21st century overtones, whether thats the genocide and eugenicism or capitalims or communism or whatever the hell. Its a blatantly modern era work where religion is pretty much a non-factor, to the point where the only people left who practice it are an singular client species in an libertarian ancapistani capitalist nation. Yet other quests have very blatantly different sets of values. Therefore, saying "Oh, there's no such thing as an evil MC" is completely asinine and reductive.
>>6064419>The concept of evil being abstract only works in a purely relative, atheistic worldview where nothing really exists and everything is what you decide it is.
>>6064415>"Evil" is an abstract word
>>6064422...And as I said, that's not how fiction actually works. You can't look at someone like DIO from JJBA and say "Uhm, well, technically, from the vampires standpoint the humans are the evil ones for not letting them feed" and think that makes sense.
>>6064419>>6064415>moral relativismI think that's why >>6064001 went on to specify what he meant: he meant quests where you play as a character that would be the evil villain i n most modern fantasy works. You know: a greedy, destructive, malicious, hedonistic, selfish conqueror who doesn't give one iota about justifying his actions or how anyone else feels about them. Pretty much no quest of any length sticks with that, and I think it's for obvious reasons: if it's a character-driven quest, and the NPCs are written with any degree of sympathy, depth, or emotional nuance, players feel bad making pleasant and friendly people suffer. This goes double if they're cute, sexy, or cool.
>>6064429Unless making cute things suffer is the whole point, then it's kosher. Scumbag Antipapadin had Melvin and his orc rape,torture and kill a boy's family and village before kidnapping him and trying to groom him into evil
>>6064429I find that boring. I much prefer letting the players do the evil themselves, or the "reader" come to the evil conclusion. It's more satisfying that way. And when people choose to do Good despite of that, is all the more sweeter.
>>6064427You 100% can do that. Vampires in fiction do that all the time, to varying degrees: asserting their primacy is part of a natural order or hierarchy of strength, and 'weak' humans leaning on technology or God or whatever is essentially some sort of fundamentally-bullshit, anti-competitive communist bullshit for stupid, short-lived, weak dullards who can't git gud on their own. Pic related's ideology, but with more blood drinking and less, uh, milk.It's just we live in a society where saying that natural aristocrats should be allowed to do whatever they want to their lessers by right of conquest is not a popular sentiment in fiction anymore, and requires caveats, limitations, and contextual justifications to make it acceptable to most people. However, this wasn't ALWAYS the case: even relatively recently (as in the last few hundred years, maybe even the last eighty if you frame it right) 'they were doing civilization wrong and they were weaker than me, so I killed a bunch of them, enslaved the rest, and if they seem too backwards and it's a lot of hassle I might just exterminate them' was a perfectly fine thing to just say in your fiction, and your average reader wouldn't even bat an eye at.>>6064432>Unless making cute things suffer is the whole point, then it's kosher.Again, though, even THEN, Melvin softened from where he started to where he ended up as soon as a 'bro' and 'waifu' were introduced. Melvin from the start of that quest NEVER would have given too shits about how a woman felt, or tolerated an ally/minion fleeing battle.>>6064435>spoilerAgreed. I get some of my favourite moments to write out of moments like that, where players play 'suboptimally' because they simply aren't willing to violate a specific principle or hurt a specific character.
>>606443>You 100% can do that.Except no, you fucking can't, because he's DIO, and being a western-inspired story that Heavily leans on the concept of good, fate, and justice, he is objectively evil. You'd have to completely ignore everything in the story to say "It's relative!">b-but the cultureNo work exists in a vacuum. Not only are they written following a specific future, the readers themselves exist within a cultural reality - specifically in our scenario, Western Culture (we literally speak english)While you can say all sorts of things about how different people in different situations might see different things, not a single quest exists in this vacuum of relativity. Every single culture has some manner of concept for good and evil, even if it's literally just "What personally benefits me"There will never be an quest where a guy who cannibalizes innocent children for no reason is seen as a good guy unless you somehow manage to bring a fucking aztec back to life or some shit to vote in your quest.
>>6064436Anon I'm pretty damn sure Melvin still treated her like an object. He got his "waifu" by fucking her on her brother's dismembered corpse and even after that he poisonned a city's well with that addictive honey he got from the dark god. Near the end he sacrificed a priest to himself and got cucked out of his soul by a good god. Maybe he wasn't as wild but "rape,rape,rape" gets a little stale after a while. Way I see it he was still super fucking evil but he was slightly more organized about it.
>>6064440>No work exists in a vacuumWell now that just isn't true. Just last week I sucked up a screenplay by mistake but it was definitely in there. Shop vacs don't fuck around with their pull.
>>6064440>Except no, you fucking can'tCharacters give speeches like that all the time. Are they usually villains? Yes. Are they always? No. But I agree that you can't depict them doing stuff like cannibalizing innocent children for no reason. Wiping out children, though? Yes. It's all about framing. You just have to make it clear the children are ugly and will never amount to anything good. If they were less humanoid, eating them would even be on the table. Morality has an aesthetic dimension, as they (Nietzsche, I think, originally?) say.> Every single culture has some manner of concept for good and evil, even if it's literally just "What personally benefits me"That's just moral relativism and a rejection of objective morality, so... Yes? I guess we agree? By the point you're accepting pure self interest as a workable definition of "moral goodness", I think you've stretched the concept to the breaking point, but if you ARE accepting that definition, then someone doing the baby-eating absolutely counts.>While you can say all sorts of things about how different people in different situations might see different things, not a single quest exists in this vacuum of relativity.Yes, but that's back to cultural relativism again, as >>6064415 said. You've drifted from some MCs being objectively, undeniably evil to Bananas point of it all being relative and contextual.>>6064444IIRC, didn't Melvin eventually start asking his similarly-evil GF what she wanted from life, presumably with some intent to help her achieve it? Yeah, Melvin never went good or even neutral by any sensible moral standard. I'm just pointing out that /qst/, on aggregate, will NOT let a MC stay 'pure evil' without sympathies and sympathetic characteristics of SOME sort. I'm not sure >>6064001 will ever get his wish, if the MC who just kicks puppies and eats babies and rapes captives or whatever and never holds back or feels bad. Villain protagonists have to be likeable as protagonists on some level for most people to want to inhabit their headspace and direct their actions for any length of time.Maybe that Craigslist Killer Quest might scratch the itch? I couldn't stomach it, myself...
>>6064452>Characters give speeches like that all the time. But not in the story.>That's just moral relativism and a rejection of objective morality, so... Yes? >You've drifted from some MCs being objectively, undeniably evil to Bananas point of it all being relative and contextual.My point from the beginning was that there is no such thing as relativism in a piece of fiction because every single piece of fiction belongs to an cultural framework, and so does every relder.The point of the cannibalization example is that there will literally never be a quest where it's considered a good thing because the cultures who considered such a thing to be permissible have been wiped out for centuries. You will not find someone who follows them to vote for you. Therefore, to say that evil is relativistic is completely pointless and asinine. If you make a quest where someone cannibalizes children, they are evil. Everyone will agree they're evil. The writing will, outside of someone trying to make a purposeful joke (AKA not actually believing it), portray it as evil. Therefore, for every single intent and purpose, it is evil.
>>6064457>My point from the beginning was that there is no such thing as relativism in a piece of fiction because every single piece of fiction belongs to an cultural framework, and so does every reader.Yeah, that's relativism. The character is good or evil RELATIVE to the intentions and understandings of the creator and audience.Based on> Therefore, to say that evil is relativistic is completely pointless and asinine. If you make a quest where someone cannibalizes children, they are evil. Everyone will agree they're evil.I think what your'e saying is that everyone here has approximately the same relative moral biases, so we all recognize the some behaviours as 'evil' and we cannot realistically expect a character written as evil by the QM and understood by some of the playerbase as evil to have any defenders.However, just as an example, I know you will get anons who will argue that Akule, Wrix, and Hass (the most genocidal, baby-killingest Space Monke rulers) aren't evil. Some of them will say they're not evil because of why they did what they did, or because of the nature of their victims, or because their evil was outweighed by some other good those leaders did outweighed, offset, or justified that evil. Others will find boiling or drowning even one innocent renders those characters irredeemable.To give Monkequest and Bananas a break, I've seen enough arguments in my own quests to know players can be pretty morally flexible. By any reasonable definition, the MC of Reptilian Infiltrator is a rapist and murderer, but she's also devout and loyal to her government, and has limits (ironically, cannibalism and killing children), and I'm SURE some of my old players would defend her honour. Dragonborn Antipaladin's MC has killed children, enslaved people, and continues to commit cannibalism (sort of), yet he would NEVER commit rape-by-force, he dialed back the severity of slavery and race/caste divisions in his society out of a sense of sympathy and fairness, and genuinely thinks he's improving the world, and I KNOW some of my players are adamant that he isn't "really" evil. I know at least one anon who quick in moral outrage and disgust after the MC of Seekers of the Esoteric committed a few justifiable killings of fellow elves, while up to the current thread, some anons continue to talk about stupid and bullshit it is that we didn't do so sooner, or feel at all bad about it, or aren't dealing with other enemies and obstacles with the same violence, and THIS main character has been consistently characterized as "good", without even the same "bad guy" background as the other two.tl;dr: I think we're engaged in some linguistic confusion, and what you're calling "not relativism" is just "the shared, common moral relativism of the people who read and play here", but even then I think there's more wiggle room here than you're willing to admit.
>>6064463>I think what your'e saying is that everyone here has approximately the same relative moral biases, so we all recognize the some behaviours as 'evil' and we cannot realistically expect a character written as evil by the QM and understood by some of the playerbase as evil to have any defenders.I'm saying this is the case in literally every single scenario. "Evil is abstract" never works in practice because everyone will always have a definition of evil. Even if it's different, it's always going to exist, and therefore, it will not be "abstract". Calling it such is therefore completely pointless because there's never going to be a scenario where it actually is.>However, just as an example, I know you will get anons who will argue that Akule, Wrix, and Hass (the most genocidal, baby-killingest Space Monke rulers) aren't evil.Because by the definition of our values, ALIENS are not extended the same definition of basic rights as humans. That's not "relativity", that's just the moral values of current society.My point, as from the start, is that "Evil is abstract" has no scenario where it actually is. In every single scenario where you could be writing a story, the writer and reader will have some definition of evil hailing from their background. Therefore, to them, evil won't be "abstract". And the same happens every time, in every culture. Even in monke quest, where people can condone genocide, nobody, not even bananas, respects or likes the worm people, even those whose civilizations they control, because who guessed it, not even a cynic, modernist viewpoint will condone literal flesh eating vermin.
>>6064474>"Evil is abstract" never works in practiceNobody's calling evil abstract, though. They're calling evil an abstract word in the sense that it's relative, rather than objective, in the absence of a supreme enforcer of the definition (ie. an active God or agent thereof punishing or correcting those who sue the wrong definition).>Because by the definition of our values, ALIENS are not extended the same definition of basic rights as humans. That's not "relativity", that's just the moral values of current society.Every character in Space Monke is an alien/nonhuman. When they do good things for aliens the players think of as "good" or sympathetic, players call these actions and characters good. When they commit awful acts against aliens the players don't like or think "deserve" it, or for "the greater good", some call it evil and some don't.In my quests, humans have suffered similar fates and hate players justify the act (or at least the character committing the act) as not evil.>My point, as from the start, is that "Evil is abstract" has no scenario where it actually is. In every single scenario where you could be writing a story, the writer and reader will have some definition of evil hailing from their background. Therefore, to them, evil won't be "abstract". And the same happens every time, in every culture.If people disagree about what is evil, or HOW evil something is, then evil might not be "abstract", but it's also not objective.>Even in monke quest, where people can condone genocide, nobody, not even bananas, respects or likes the worm people, even those whose civilizations they controlThe opinions of the fictional characters are sort of irrelevant to this discussion, I think. I think you've been on this site (and the internet) long enough to know that>not even a cynic, modernist viewpoint will condone literal flesh eating verminis false, though. Come on, anon, vampires are a COMMON fetish.
Oops tee hee
>>6064479>who sue the wrong definition*who use>and hate players justify the act*and have>>6064481I'll bow out. Sorry.
>>6064479>They're calling evil an abstract word in the sense that it's relative, rather than objective, in the absence of a supreme enforcer of the definition And I'm saying that this will never practically be the case. Because there will always be a cultural background that defines it. Even if the background itself is different, it will *always* exist.>Every character in Space Monke is an alien/nonhuman.Yes, and because of that, they're given more leeway. When a voter said "Hazaar are biologically scummy bastards and will never stop", the others couldn't simply reject it on the basis of them being of the same species as them. The exact same thing works for genocide of other human races - under the specific cultures where it is considered to be an acceptable view. >If people disagree about what is evil, or HOW evil something is, then evil might not be "abstract", but it's also not objective.Isn't it? Again, go back to the cannibalism argument.>Come on, anon, vampires are a COMMON fetish.LITERAL vermin, anon. Not a pale hot girl in a leather corset suckling on your neck, but disgusting maggots who shit their eggs in a living animal and eat their host from the inside before emerging to continue being disgusting and eating meat.
Anyone got a link to a good space mercenary-ish sci fi quest archive? been reading pic related and I want something like that
>>6064488https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Kingdoms%20in%20the%20StarsThis and there's an old one I remember where MC owned a ship and flew around doing odd jobs. I remember one crew member would not take off his gas mask, the doctor(?) was taken on as an intern so we wouldn't have to pay her, and MC drunkenly married the soldier girl while black out. If this rings a bell for anyone please tell me, I've been meaning to reread it.
>>6064486>LITERAL vermin, anon. Not a pale hot girl in a leather corset suckling on your neck, but disgusting maggots who shit their eggs in a living animal and eat their host from the inside before emerging to continue being disgusting and eating meat.I don't want to continue sucking all the air out of the /qtg/, but I'm sorry to say that there is a fetish for that, too. Or, more innocently, there are etymologists and other scientists (or enthusiasts thereof) who find parasitic larvae cool and good.I think we'll have to agree to disagree about the nature of intrinsic evil, and whether it exists IRL or in fiction, but I respect your opinion and acknowledge you could be correct and I could be wrong.
>>6064493>there are etymologists and other scientists (or enthusiasts thereof) who find parasitic larvae cool and goodProbably because they're not giant psychic albino space demons who infest magical jedi whales.
>>6064492based thanks
>>6064497Yes, anon. I'm sure making the bot fly cooler and giving it magic powers would make them like them less.
>>6064486Dropping in my two cents about capital E evil, I think that there are some things which are more 'intrinsically evil' which generally never occur except in the case of extreme dehumanization regardless of cultural norms, and some things which are 'taboo', which generally can and will vary drastically from place to place.Murder, for example, is generally in the former category. Obviously exempting cases of war and self defense, essentially no culture on earth has or ever will place the senseless killing of a fellow citizen as not morally abhorrent- our distaste for it is biological or, if you believe in that sort of thing, god given.Cannibalism, meanwhile, falls under the category of taboo. Many cultures permit, or even mandate cannibalistic practices in specific situations. Though we have a biological aversion to such on some level, humans are more than capable of overriding it given specific circumstances.From a literary context, good and evil are generally defined by the standards and laws of modern first world nations: moral grays obviously exist, and may be explored, but killing innocent people for fun or profit will essentially be considered "objectively evil" for the sake of any given narrative by most if not all people. A pragmatic monster is still a monster indeed
Fuck this job.Work long hours get sore all over and too tired to write anything good.
>>6063887A day-to-day fantasy set in the early modern era— oh wait a minute. I’m literally him. Loveless Gal thread 3 currently in production.
>>6064522Human sacrifices exist in several cultures, and even in some cases, people volunteer to be sacrifices because they believed it would bring good to their society/thwart evil. So murder, at least ritualized murder, can be seen as morally grey.I recall a story about one of the last headhunted man in Borneo. To give context, the local Dayak tribes used to do headhunting raids - literally going to a neighboring village, decapitate people, and take their heads - because they believe the heads bring magical power and protection to their village. This practice died out during the Dutch colonization era, but here's where the story starts.So, apparently during that time, Chinese traders were already making trade posts on the Borneo coast (look up Lanfang Republic), and sometimes manage to penetrate inlands into headhunter Dayak territory. Story goes is that one such Chinese merchant got lost and were taken in by a destitute and starving village of Dayaks, who were languishing due to the lack of magical protection - their taken heads have lost their power and the hunters cannot headhunt due to the restriction placed by the Dutch. So this Chinese merchant, for reasons unknown to us now, offered his own head - and the village were saved from famine.Tl;dr: good and evil is mostly quite subjective.
>>6064573The Chinese will do literally anything to avoid reporting directly to the emperor baka
>>6064573Almost every recorded instance of human sacrifice has been either a punishment for a criminal or an act committed during or after war to an enemy tribe or nation. Aztecs sacrificed prisoners of war, Druids in transalpine Gaul sacrificed criminals in their wicker men and, as you mentioned, many nations sacrificed prisoners of war captured in raids.Murder, as I alluded to but maybe didn't clarify enough in the post, is a killing within the ingroup without provocation. That is to say, a fellow countryman and not a member of an external outgroup. This is almost never seen as ethical regardless of the society or culture
>>6064538Get hype! Though young Gal has that Bobby Hill energy. I'll dd it to the already quite-respectable list.>>6064523Feel better soon, anon. Sometimes it's worth quitting and finding a new job, if your circumstances allow.
>>6064581Once I save enough money I'm sending in my notice and coasting off that until I find something else to do. One day I want to see my own quest on one of those lists, but that isn't going to happen at this rate.
>>6064581Thanks for enjoying my quest anon
>>6059902>>6059902Shamelessly shilling my quest, so shameless I linked twice. If you don't mind shit art and fighting as a monster then this could be the quest for you.
>>6064666Hey, thanks for running it! And Frogcore and Onion Adventures>>6064610When you can afford it, quitting on a job you don't like, where the bosses clearly think you're 'locked in', can be a very freeing feeling.>>6064581Oops, I also forgot one: Black Ocean, which ought to be in S tier. Just too many good quests!
Atë faces off against a ghost from her past, the <Postmortal> fury Tisiphone! Will she flee and plan for another day, or will she try and put her down for good? Vote now in Olympus Incarnation Quest:>>6064768(To those who dropped it during the most recent thread, you can catch up pretty quickly since it's mostly been a training/development arc)
How do you all balance moving a quest along and allowing players to dictate where things go? I want players to largely control the story, but this format doesn't seem conducive to doing a poll on every little thing. Any tips?
>>6064850I'm currently doing something similar with Black Ocean Quest. I think a good solution is to have multi-prompt updates (letting you get smaller details or more then one choice done at a time so as to keep up the pacing) and secondly the QM has to create situations that force the players to pick sides or advance the main plot. This is somewhat restrictive, as letting players do what they want is good, but having mutually exclusive choices (you can sit next to THIS clique or THAT clique at lunch), and time urgent or important-feeling choices to reduce the dillydallying.
>>6064850Always include a write in option when applicable, hold a second round of voting if there's a split between two choices
>>6064850For me it depends generally on the alignment/personality of the MC. If it is a goody two-shoes hero then good-aligned choices should take precedent (With maybe one or two morally-gray choices sprinkled here and there). On the contrary if the character is just a plain villain or assassin or something like that then I'll put the most likely evil options first with a few good options here and there.Another good way to limit the options is to find the most likely things the character/civ/MC would think of doing based on what they know, their personality, defects and the situation they are in.And lastly, if anything of the above still leaves you with plenty of open options then a healthy plot-hook here and there is always healthy to keep the story moving forward. Always leaving a write-in option seems healthy to me too.
>>6064850Early in a quest, players tend to not respond to write-in only very well. They get confused and directionless. It's best to give them a few prompts where you clearly choreograph where it will take them. As they get a celarer sense of the world and the character, they'll become mroe comfortable in deciding for themsleves on goals and methods with less handholding... Sometimes.>>6064867Outside of very contentious choices with a very split vote, I personally find this unnecessary, and that it can cause things to drag pacing-wise. Hw do you avid that problem, anon?
>>6064850I would differentiate between 'strategy' votes where players dictate the broad goals and 'tactical' votes where players are actually trying to make those goals happen. Once the strategy is set, it's set, and the characters are focused and driven toward acomplishing it, from there you just call votes to decide how to make it happen, unless something significant enough to warrant a strategic chain occurs.
>>6064856>have multi-prompt updates Definitely this. Prompts that dictate internal psychology/mere character relationships can be paired with prompts about the next action. Or, as we see in quests where the players simultaneously run an organization and pilot an MC, "personal" votes and organizational votes can take place at the same time.
You know what? FUCK bananas QM, there I said it. It's out in the open now, it can't be unsaid. Everyone has to live with it.
>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?I have a couple.>1There's a cyberspace setting I have that I can be severely autistic with talking about, especially in terms of the powers and "elements", and I'm confident I could effectively make a sandbox quest where the players could be just about any occupation, any creed, etc and write to an eventual conclusion. I am not confident in my ability to keep it interesting, however.My problem with this one is I know that how I've made the setting is well outside the zeitgeist, and cyberspace isn't particularly a mainstay genre as it is; people won't have a proper frame of reference and familiarity to engage with it, they'll only have what bits of information I drip-feed them, and there's always the risk of miscommunications, as well as a lack of relatability.>2Essentially, a light-hearted and pseudo-comedic quest that follows a girl trying to work her way up in competitive fighting involving energy blasts, people piloting robots, and warlocks who devote their hearts to darkness as a shortcut to power. The focus would be less on actually winning fights, and more on building and maintaining an image for in-world social media and working with the best sponsors for fun and profit.This one I actually posted a pitch for a few threads back, and I got a surprising amount of praise/eagerness for it. I still don't have confidence, because I'm not sure I can maintain its tone or keep its humor from getting stale.In general, I'm just not confident in myself as a writer, and I've already flaked on a few quests as it is, so the moment someone recognizes my art, they'll (justifiably) expect me to just drop that one too.
>>6064891But I don't wanna fuck the funky monkey man
>>6064891
>>6064850Keep in mind that players shouldn't control the story; players should control the actions of the main character. These concepts are related but not identical. If you try to give them too much granular control of everything that's happening, you're going to bog things way down.Additionally, every choice should ideally be meaningful in some way. You're not going to be able to wrangle this every time-- you're human, and sometimes you're going to have to bang out some low-effort options to keep things moving-- but there's no reason to offer choices if 1) they'd all lead to the same or very similar result or if 2) there's something the MC would pick automatically in there. Just have the MC pick it automatically and move on until you get to an actual thought-provoking split.Multi-vote updates are also great and I use them all the time. >>6064867>hold a second round of voting if there's a split between two choicesI don't agree with this, unless it's an incredibly important choice people would hate leaving up to chance. Just roll for it otherwise to save time.
>>6064917>I don't agree with this, unless it's an incredibly important choice people would hate leaving up to chance. Just roll for it otherwise to save time.Agreed, if its dead even then it shouldn't matter what option is picked so long as it isn't pants on head retarded. Just tie break with dice because the choice usually isn't impactful enough to have half of your readers leave, being slow with updates will have readers leave
>>6064881>>6064884>>6064917Thank you all this is very helpful advice.
>>6064924I don't get why or how speed makes or breaks quests. /qst/ is already a fairly slow board as is, with no way to know if the QM, such as myself for example is really there, unlike akun. I guess people think long periods between updates equals more likely to flake. I should be believing that at face value seeing as I would call my quest derelict, except for the fact I flaked a quest long ago that had more readers attached to it despite a similarly slow update schedule. Oops. Guess I should've cherished that as an exception rather than the norm.
>>6064914It's just a scratch, she will come back like she did in chapter 2. It rymes, like pottery
>>6064892What quests have you run in past? Both thsoe confepts sound pretty interesting. I'm especially interested in the cyberspace one! I have my own ideas for such a thing, too, but I think I'd rather play it than run it...>>6064910Unfortunately, it seems we've been offered no choice.>>6064930If a quest is very slow to update, I'm mroe likely to forget it exists when I'm checking the catalogue. I'm also less likely to feel invested. The exceptions tend to be quests I got into when they were faster, and subsequently stuck with.
>>6064958>>6064958>>6064958Solarpunk update!Target verified. Commencing hostilities.
>>6064917There's something to be said for leaving mundane or inane decisions in for purely characterizing moments. Especially earlier in quests or when subjected to big changes or new concepts to a character. There is value in making players choose some of that stuff to get them to internalize certain traits. We've all seen those "We voted to X back when Y, so now we should do Z to stay consistent" or "it's in character".
>>6064975Interesting perspective. I feel concerned that I am not hooking people enough when I do stuff like this lol
>>6064983Try doing a vote to pick out an outfit. Its catnip for anon's
>>6064551>>6064551>>6064551Rarely shill my own quest after the opening post, but there's a pretty important vote going on in Disappearing Hogwarts! If you follow the quest, it might be a good time to go take a look (because the thing is real close to tied right now!)
>>6064991A good thing is also downtime stuff. What the character does when there is nothing going on. Single-minded training or practice? Gardening? Popsicle stick bridge building? Simply sleeping and relaxing? Combine that sort of thing with the modus operandi when the character is on uptime and you can come up with some pretty spectacular traits and the justifications that come with them.
>>6064975In my experience, players make plenty of inane and characterful decisions even within the bounds of meaningful option slates. There can certainly be points in the quest where the choices are less "important" than others (for me: when I'm sleepy and can't think of anything good, or when I physically don't have enough time to write until the next good option), but I don't see a need to put them in intentionally outside very early on or other rare circumstances. Quests run for a LONG time, and every time you write an update that doesn't advance anything, you're adding one more update on before you can reach the end. Time isn't infinite, and flakiness claims even long-running QMs. Be kind to yourself and keep things pacey.
>>6064930>I guess people think long periods between updates equals more likely to flakeThis is objectively true in my experience. As soon as a QM's update schedule starts slowing down, I immediately start uninvesting myself, because I know the quest will be dead within the month.
>>6065066>Time isn't infinite, and flakiness claims even long-running QMs.The curse, maybe, but not flakiness. I've not flaked yet, and I know at least a few other QMs who haven't. >>6065070Again, not always. Kobolt Klan Adoption, Forgotten Realms, Jail, and Batquest all slowed down without stopping. Even my rate of posts has decreased from my old multiple-per-day to one-a-day even on weekends nowadays, but I'm nto going anywhere. Give communicative QMs with a good track record a chance.
>>6064573I quite enjoy the logic behind Aztec ritualistic sacrifice. They believed that the Gods required blood to live, and that those very same gods were the only thing standing between them and countless eternally-hungering star-demons that wished to devour the world and everyone in it. They also believed that it wouldn't be the first time the entire world had been destroyed.Just think what it was like, to look up at the stars and imagine each and every one of them to be a threat held at bay only by your gods. It must have been terrifying.
>>6065066Some people have fun when doing stuff that isn't super serious important business. What point is there to sowing and harvesting if one never partakes of the fruits of their labor, right? Sometimes it is just nice to have the characters sit down and just chat over a pizza or something debating whether sharks or trees are the more successful organism.
>>6064975Even outside of votes, OOC player discussion in every update can be a really valuable source of characterisation. Consistently incorporating the theories, thoughts and comments people make alongside their votes and in discussions into characters' internal monologues to establish their values and internal logic about the *why* of their choices as opposed to just the *what* as tidbits of characterisation can really add up over time without having to dedicate updates specifically to inane things or engineer scenarios to force it, as well as making voters on the losing side feel less bummed if their point of view is given due consideration in the character's thoughts in line with the arguments they made for it rather than simple ignored. While big decisions can establish key personality aspects, I feel this kind of gradual character building alongside simply keeping an eye on where routine votes consistently go can fill out a character much more comprehensively and organically - the best kind of character-building is when players aren't consciously trying to do it.>>6064991Truer words have never been said. I remember when we had to pick what our FeMC looked like after magic-puberty in Child of a Dead Empire and good god, I've never seen so many people come out of the woodwork to decide whether we would be thin, thicc or bricc.
>>6065142
>>6064507>>6064507>>6064507New thread of the Isekai Inquisition. Feel free to come and enjoy Lorina's rather autistic ride!
282 KBImperium of Man Princess Quest is updated. Stoy so far:To get recognition from her dear (and absentee) father, The Emperor of Mankind, Pangea snuck into the Lion's Gate Spaceport to find any evidence of corruption. Pangea finds a Unification War artifact. She discovers the artifact was owned by the High Factorum, which he used on the serfs as his test subject. Now, Pangea is on the run to deliver her discover to her mentor, Malcador. >>6052620 >>6052620 >>6052620
> Need to tell the players I just don't have time for this> Only time I have to tell them I accidently write another update
>>6063680Still waiting for that MF Vegeta's Quest to continue!
>>6064776Glad you enjoyed my one shots too
>>6063887One where we're actual adventurers going on adventures. Leaving our home town. Doing shit. Heavily action focused.
>>6064169A Lust for Adventure? What's that? Can't find it in the archives.
>>6064426Retard spotted! Requesting backup immediately! ALERT: 99.99
>>6065406You have my crayons!
>>6063887>>6065402As long as it's a human male fighter, right?
>>6065417>not playing half-orc wizard and only using melee attacks and touch spellsBitch made. No balls. Missing spine. Zero willpower. Absent determination.
Want to ask rgMHqOPv and don't want to shit up >>6063746You seem to be pretty well-versed in builders. Could you please give example of at least ONE SINGLE builder run solely on boards (no discord or other platforms) which got successfully finished? And if there is one, could you please explain what does OP have to do for a builder to thrive?I'm asking cause I like the idea of builders but everytime I join one it just inevitably crashes and burns. I have been thinking about running a builder but I don't want it to fail.>pic unrelated
>>6065419
Time to confess your sins /qst/I'll start : I'm currently running Pokemon : South Kalos on another website.
>>6065483I didn't cry when Spike died at the end of Cowboy Bebop.
>>6065483I am a shit qm, probably going to flake and try again next month, hopefully learning from my failures.
>>6065483I sometimes wonder if I ran on the wrong website because of the relatively small playercount on /qst/. I've seen quests with 600+ active voters on other websites before, but it was also one of THOSE websites. I'll be damned before I stoop to that level.But damn if I don't want the kind of dopamine hit that comes with sheer numbers like that...I just want /qst/ to flourish, bros. We need more blood. More active players. You don't gotta run a quest! Just participate in the ones already out there!
>>6065498To provide more context, I'm running this iteration of South Kalos in my native language.I'll swear to you guys it will run again there someday. I miss deeply Bubbles sweeps
>>6065498But the quests out there arent what I want to play and the one I'm running is unpopular! God bless those who's reading though.
>>6065503Read my quest and I'll read yours, anon. I might already be reading yours, who knows.
>>6065505My fragile ego can't handle read trading. If I couldn't get an readership from merit alone it isn't worth running.Also I accidently copied my inspirations more than I wanted to just homage them so I had to shelf most of the update I was just working on.Also I forgot to say I was updating in my quest. Oops.
>>6065483I only run Quests for the (You)s.
>>6064522its also just natural selection due to whats often seen as the most evil is just objectively bad for forming a society and just dying out on there own or from rivals from what is impractical
>>6065526We all do that.
>>6065384You had one-shots? I didn't know. Link them and I'll read
>>6065483>>6065500Link? I remember liking South Kalos a great deal. It was a nice take on the adventure
>>6065423Dedication mostly. GMing builders is a thankless task where you exist primarily to crunch numbers and arbitrate. Some ones run to completion are Bobski builders found in the /tg/ archives. He ran 4 and I believe all of them (except perhaps space) ran to a completion.That being said, completion itself isn't a necessity for fun. Unless you design your game with an actual win condition, it's largely just a sandbox experience with no real end point. If you want there to be one you have to make it at the start otherwise there's little practical difference between throwing out an epilogue turn at turn 20 and just leaving the game.
>>6065483I have been struggling with being quite mean to myself in regards to my own story quality, to the point it's definitely affected more than one update. Worse I ever did was just push something out I wasn't even satisfied with in the moment, I just wanted to get it out of the way. Thankfully, it's passing, but that blemish still irks me.Make sure you take breaks when you think you need em fellow QMs
>>6065483I have been LARPing as a guy here for several years, and no one’s been the wiser. 99% of the people I’ve interacted with still haven’t figured it out, but I feel a need to carry on the ruse just to see how far I can push the envelope for nothing but pure shits and giggles.Maintaining the LARP is a bitch at times, but whatever. I think it’d be weirder to tell the truth.
>>6065574How good are you in french?https://www.jeuxvideo.com/forums/42-51-74572247-1-0-1-0-fiction-pokemon-kalos-du-sud.htm
>>6065585>Imma girl btw teeheeNobody is falling for that, grils do not come to /qst/
Shameless plug of my own Quest so here it goes, let me put on my Billy Mays voice:Do you like RWBY? Do you hate RWBY? I got you. I'm running a quest focused on the universe of RWBY, timeline set roughly in Volume 1 and in the same world, but I'm exploring (somewhat) unused locations with new plotlines, original characters and a brand new story that, depending on what happens, could really shape and alter the original course of things! (For good and bad, depends on y'all)Do you like intrigue? Do you like combat? Do you want a realistic approach to situations avoiding cartoony logic? Do you like morally gray choices? Then take a look. We got guns, we got swords, we got soldiers, we got 'magic' and we got an original story with original characters not made of wet paper! Come check it out.Advertisement over>>6049681>>6049681>>6049681
That Void Wyrm aint right, Sir. Do we aim for the machine or the creature?Voidship Bridge Simulator needs command input.Geez anon, your mom lets you have two /QTG/s?>>6065589>>6065590
>>6065575Why do you keep being toxic in that thread btw and not just quitting. Or at least posting a ruleset which works?
>>6065572https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Onion%20Adventureshttps://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=frogcoreHere you go. I usually make silly ms paint adventures so Al Kimia Story is new territory for me.
>>6065496What is the problem? Your quest is good and unarguably one of the more successful ones I’ve seen you run if you are who I think you are. >>6065592I would agree that no grill in their right mind would be here. I bet pots and pans would show up though, maybe some wood stoves and fireplaces as well.
>>6065417If you were based, you cook up a pure adventure quest where we play a battle master.
>>6065498The discord culture and cabal have to go for starters.
>>6065626>What is the problem? Your quest is good and unarguably one of the more successful ones I’ve seen you run if you are who I think you are.You probably have a different guy
>>6065588Interesting, what's a turbo-celestin 0-tout? A french term on jeuxvidéo for minmaxxer or something?
>>6065483I don't know if this counts as a sin, but I always wanted to run a detective quest here but constantly ran into some gay self-doubt that caused some strong aversion to writing in general. I either don't feel confident enough in selling a branching mystery that forces the anons to use their brains a little, make it narratively interesting, or sell it to the anons in a way that doesn't get my quest ignored after a while. Plus, this place isn't the most active, and I don't want to interact with off-site stuff or Discord. I like this place because limits are relatively loose, so you can write appropriately dark situations without "triggering" someone, and you can have a tasteless anime harem quest every once in a while.
>>6065658Jeuxvideo.com is not french. It's like our local 4chan.A Célestin is the archetype of the forum dwelver : Ugly, a bit idiot.0-tout mean 0-everything.0 Kiss. 0 Friends. 0 Girlfriend. 0 Hug. 0 messages. 0 calls received. 0 job. 0 invitations to a wedding or a party.
>>6065661>constantly ran into some gay self-doubt that caused some strong aversion to writing in general.I struggle with this too. Recently I watched the movie Pig, with Nick Cage and this scene in particular hit hard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-AiTHogbcc&ab_channel=MadmanFilmsI'm reminded of it now whenever I feel that doubt.
>>60656620 doubt, 0 worry, 0 problem, 0 money, 0 time, etc
>>6065648I've got a lot on my plate right now, but I appreciate the suggestion. I've been kind of itching for a fantasy Quest after all this sci-fi and modern and post-apocalypse gonzo stuff...
>>6063680>QM question I've had this idea for a drawquest rattling around in my brain for a couple of weeks, but I don't know if I can run it alongside OIQ (which I have no intention of putting on haitus), and I don't think I have enough time to reach a satisfying conclusion in a reasonable pace
>>6065483I flaked on a popular quest long ago because I'm a bitch who can't handle criticism
>>6065483DynamicQM did nothing wrong.
>>6065701 >>6065701 >>6065701 Exalted: Dragon's Rise continues with a new thread
>>6065592We have two or three FemQMs.>>6065651What makes you think this would increase our pool of active QMs and players?>>6065483I've experimented with using AI aid to run 'throwaway' quests. Always with editing to make sure they make sense, though, and I've never flaked.
>>6065759>AI “quester”YWNBAW(riter)
>>6065651
>>6065777I also write a quest without any AI, actually. I only use it for testing the waters with low effort quests.
>>6065778This reminds me that I should run a BTTF quest after I figure out how to iron out time travel rules for maximum fun.
>>6065783Wuxian?
>>6065803No. Wuxian reliably flakes within a few posts unless it's a TTRPG module modified to be about Evil Jews.
>>6065483I was this guy in the very first Solarpunk thread:https://archived.moe/qst/thread/5806419/#5806480It wasn't my intention to derail the thread, nor was I involved in any of the weirder stuff that apparently happened. The accusations I got weren't appreciated, but I should have known better than to feed the other guy that was likely trying to get a reaction out of me. I felt like I wasn't wanted by the other posters in the thread, so I dropped from the quest before it really began. I'm not sure how to apologize at this point.
>>6065819That's a great way coming forward. Now repeat after me : "I apologize to other players. My behavior was not OK and I shouldn't had fed the Troll."
I apologize to the other players in the thread for the needless pedantry and for feeding the troll>>6065829>Now repeat after meNo way, Dragonfag. Jokes aside, thanks for the needed pick me up.
>>6065483I struggle actually reading quests. Long-form binge reading is hard for me to focus on. Maybe its how I usually try reading quests in bed on my phone while failing to fall asleep and clonk out 5-15 updates in but still.>>6065819Not everyone falls for the same bait, but we all fall for bait, anon. There's nothing to blame anybody for at this point, it's been nine months (holy shit) and whatever shitshow that started has calmed down, at least from my perspective. You don't have to come back if you don't want to, but I can understand the mishap.
>>6065836Thanks man, it means a lot coming from you. I'll try to hop in when I have the chance. Maybe I'll read the previous threads to catch up, but I have a similar issue to yours with reading long quest threads, kek. Book pages are easier on the eyes over longer periods of time.
I don't want to give up on my quest. I feel like I am because I was winging a lot of things. Kind of wrote myself into a wall all of a sudden and I don't see a good way to go forwards. Now after drafting several attempts of this update, It's clear I have to rewrite stuff and actually plan to realize the idea I had in mind. I really do like the idea of questing, of having reader involvement as its written, but writing fanfiction is so much easier. Hell, I haven't really completed a quest without abandoning like this. It feels like it sucks, it feels like I suck. Maybe it'd be easier if I use a IP to save myself the worldbuilding, but I do want to write things of my own. Better I shelve this now while its still in the 20s in post count rather than drag its feet. To challenge myself and get more experience running, I'm gonna refrain from restarting the idea until I finish one idea to completion, since I have a horrible habit of outlining stories more than I do actually writing them, and I'm sure I'll do the same for a quest.I still won't tell what quest it is since I want to be saved the shame of flaking and keep my right to shitpost, but to the reader, if you're in here, sorry. Now if only you can delete threads so late in their lifetimes...
>>6065835Were you the one who kept saying it didn't really count as "punk" and OP was suffering the "consequences" of misusing the term? That's the only person involved in that discussion who I think anyone had a real problem with.
>>6065819try and keep being better. this is a good start.
>>6065845Looking through the page, I don't think I did, kek.
>>6065845he linked the exact post in the archive
>four separate cultivation quests all active at onceFour years ago, no one said a thing about this genre, but it seems to have gotten a popularity surge out of seemingly nowhere. What's the reason for this?
>>6065857>What's the reason for this?China
>>6065851Yeah, but that post was utterly inoffensive. I was wondering if he was one of the hostile 1post IDs.>>6065849Doesn't seem like it, though. You're all good.>>6065844As for this vaguepost, I don't really see the point if the anon doesn't even know to stop waiting for you because they don't know which quest it is. Is it at least cathartic for you?>>6065857I think there was a popular Steam gane about the subject. Also, yeah, China (and South Korea).
>>6065835You're welcome. Happy to be a positive influence of my online community and using the magic of words to make people feel better.
>>6065873No I actually thought I'd go alot further than how I did.
>>6065899If you apologize in the quest proper, I'm sure your anon(s) will appreciate the heads up. Maybe they can even help you brainstorm a way past the wall you hit?
When is the appropriate time to make a new thread for a quest. Is it like chapters in a book? Or once it hits a certain number of posts?
>>6065908I say making a new one once your thread hits Page 9-10 is probably a decent rule of thumb because you otherwise might risk your thread being bumped off by someone else making a new thread or someone launching a new quest.
>>6065585I bet you are behind one of the quests where QM unapologetically pushes protagonist into being a manwhore and feed on the drama both in the story and between anons.
>>6065908I usually do what Handler said, though if it's been 30ish days and t seems like a good place to end off thematically/narratively, I sometimes do that.
>>6065906If I'm hitting a wall that early in a concept its clear to me there's something wrong on an fundamental level that I need to work out.As for why I don't own up to it, there's a saying about writers that use subtext, they're all cowards, such as myself. It's just some quest, written by somebody, somewhere. Why does it matter to you?
>>6065927>male protag>man whore male protagThis would only be acceptable in a “yowee” context iykwim. why should one want their female leads to get together with a guy with a used noodle?
>>6065857Cultivation is fun. And if I recall, the longest running of the four, Heretic, started cause the QM got annoyed other cultivation quests that came before it had a habit of dying after a few updates
>>6065937I've been that anom holding out hope, in other quests. An official update that the ride is over would have been nice, on those occasions. That's all. Maybe another anon will even adopt the abandoned premise?
When was the last Skirm Jam?When is the next Skirm Jam?
>>6065403archived.moe only. It got culled for ERP.
I miss the gundam quests
>>6065759It would push newcomers to the general, where they would get actual information/help/direction with all things quest related. Rather than trolled into oblivion. It would also increase the quality of quests in general because brigading would be less possible and effective. No cult personalities and such.
>>6065857Because it's a highly based genre. Imagine a world where anyone can be Goku if they put in the work. It's what got me into the Cradle series of novels.
>>6066091Thank you, anon.>>6066110My wishes over your airspace.
>>6066116The guys who run the most popular quests aren’t even in the discord (i.e Forgotten, notapaladin), so that’s a moot point. Are you one of the anons who got bullied out?
I know it's complete but I miss the Three Houses quest so much man......
>>6066127I'd be happy to follow another three house quest. The first was amazing
>>6066118Isn't a staple of the genre that some people are just untalented trash who will never amount to anything?
>>6066122Point proven.>>6066143Huh???
>>6066143Yes, but often the MC is also "untalented trash"
>>6066149Who then finds out they're actually just misunderstood and were really prodigies all along. The ugly duckling with karate. Not that I'm hating mind you, I like the genre.
>>6065342>>6065342>>6065342The Graverobber's Daughter continues! Chlotsuintha squares off with her most steadfast foe; time. Seven days ago, her father woke her in the middle of the night to caution her that if he didn't return from his knock-down, then she must leave the Mount within a week. Now overdue, she still has long, arduous hours of work to get herself off of the Mount - and while the city becomes less and less safe as she becomes more familiar to more and more of its denizens, she must reevaluate her plans and schedule, weighing what is safe enough against what is quick enough.>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?I have something approaching an outline, as well as a few planned endings for a mystery one-shot in the Graverobber's Daughter setting, where an Inquisitor interjects himself into what appears to be a mundane murder investigation, simply for something to do. My concern is integrating the actual mystery; I'm worried that I won't be able to get into that sweet-spot between too obvious and too hard. Is there anyone in the general who could recommend a good example of a mystery quest, or a good implementation of a mystery in a non-mystery quest? I'd be much obliged. >Are there any quests you're playing that you'd like to see revisited from a different angle, or with a twist?Any of Mr. Wong's quests, with the twist being that Mr. Wong is back to run the quest.>What multimedia franchises do you think would be best suited to /qst/, that haven't already generated a successful quest?A civilization-style quest - with a delineated end condition stated right at the beginning - where you play as Andrew Ryan (from Bioshock) building Rapture into a self-sufficient city.
>>6066151Or they get given an OP technique they have the perfect mindset/ physique for by some hobo on the street
>>6066071We had one in January of 2023 from what I can find. Next one is whenever someone makes one. That can be you!
>>6065942Then again I suppose maybe not.I wasn't imagining a QM that empathises with her female cast but rather views the story as a vehicle for highly emotional confrontations.I suppose if your view is as outlined, that is not going to be your case.
>>6065483I always feel the urge to include toxic yuri in my quests.
>>6066200Based
>>6066200>mfw
>>6066200this but yaoi
>>6066152>Is there anyone in the general who could recommend a good example of a mystery quest, or a good implementation of a mystery in a non-mystery quest?Sadly, they often seem to die before ever resolving the mystery. One Life does a good job with that sort of vibe, and Jacob's Ladder had a bit of that in a more chill atmosphere. Hobo's Epic was maybe more 'unreliable narrator' than 'mystery', but there was a sense of unfolding understanding and revelation. While it got flaked on, You're Invited was EXCELLENT at that.
>>6066233>Is there anyone in the general who could recommend a good example of a mystery quest, or a good implementation of a mystery in a non-mystery quest?I have tried this many times, it doesn't really work if you think the players will solve the mystery. You have to have the characters solve the mystery and the players are just along for the ride. This makes it hard to figure out what to give the players to do in a mystery quest. You have to understand that from the players perspective, they are not as invested in the quest as you the QM. People are not going to remember minuet details and piece a mystery together when a quest can take MONTHS or even years to play out. Most people cant even remember what they ate for lunch 4 days ago do you really think people will remember a hint you dropped a month ago and remember its relevance?You basically need a wave of NEW readers coming in to read through the whole story all at once to catch stuff like that and then also they need to post about all the stuff they noticed and the other readers need to read it. I have had situations where some guy comes in and explains everything he noticed but all the other players just scroll past and vote for the wrong option anyway.
>>6066265I've found that 'mystery elements' in quests are best left to intrigue: questions to which you provide hints but do not penalize the players for failing to answer (but do reward players for catching onto your tricks). Questions keep readers invested, and as long as the answers are plausible and satisfying people will enjoy them
BIG UPDATE for the Caretaker questwill you do something about the vision you just had? will you look for help? or will you deal with this yourself in order to not involve more people?>>6038711>>6038711>>6038711(i think this one is the correct general, right? the other one doesnt look as active as this one)
>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?Mass Effect\BattleTech crossover.Alternatively, Mass Effect\Destiny crossover.Both of those have the capacity to be insanely interesting in their own ways, but might also be better off being just straight stories, which I don't have the time for.And BattleTech requires *way more* research than I really have the time for.>Why don't you at least chime in to let the QM know you're reading? And do you ever share what you're reading with other people?I kind of covered this in Pokemon Trainer Quest a couple of threads back, but in short - I'm autistic about writing style and grammar (hypocritical though that might be and I'm self-aware enough about it to realise that it's generally better to just not comment on those things, since people generally try their best) and it's rare I find a quest I'm interested in, so I read *very* few.And I get anxiety about coming off as an asshole if I say the wrong thing.Meanwhile for the curious: >>6064653 New Pokemon Trainer Quest is up for those who missed it or want to have a look.
>>6066127Same anon same
>>6066266>>6066265>>6066233Thank you all for your input; I'll definitely take it to heart. I'm still enamored with the idea, though I don't know if I will ever run it. >>6065344My quest has been stuck in a three-vote, three-way tie for more than twenty hours now. If someone here was willing to pop into the thread and break it, I'd be able to get writing again soon.
What are some common traps that newbie QM's fall into that cause them not to hook people/ maintain players?
>>6063680>QM questionASOIAF quests>Player questionSworn to Valor from a different perspective would be extremely interesting also some sort of Bad end or fantasy apocalypse quest like the end game Black company quest set up could be amazing material.Whatever happened to Ouro anyway? Lamplighter was an amazing concept, I'll forever love Witches eating soil as a image.>Miscellaneous question:Mostly /co/ these days but I'll gander and /tg/ and /a/ when I actually wander off quest.>>6065483I've dropped my quest twice and despite wanting to return to it have struggled to commit to its return for a increasingly absurd number of reason.
>>6066517Falling for the "write what you want" meme.
>>6066517From personal experience and noticeable trends,>Write-Ins too early or being the only option>Too long character creation (a little bit is ok, doing it as you play is best)>Too harsh of a player setback early (double edged sword, can be very engaging if they're already bought in or drive them away)>Low or slow first few updates (low effort/short updates after first post indicates flaking)>Uninteresting premise or running an unpopular setting/franchise Quest (varies, OC doesn't seem to have this issue, but needs more data)>Too complex rules early OR too big of a lore dump in first few posts (basic writing advice?)
>>6066542I'm writing what I want and it works for me.
>>6066517>an early choice that alienates/fractures the playerbaseCharacter creation is the usual example of this, where selecting one character over another means a completely different flavor of quest, so all the people that didn't vote for the winning choice will just bail.>too many early failuresFailing over and over usually discourages further participation. Later on it's fine, but without that early dopamine hit, it's hard to hook and keep players. Always lean toward partial success instead of full failure.
>>6064850>>6065908>>6066517These are all me btw, I'm just phoneposting so I keep getting new ID's. I have been a semi-successful GM both live and play by post and even had some ok success on Akun, but I feel I'm struggling with this format, so thanks for your answers to my several questions. Something about this format is really attractive to me, as it allows things to flow a bit more freely than a party based ttrpg, while still hitting that collaborative story telling itch. I guess maybe I just need to lurk more.
>>6066583Good for you.That doesn't make it work for everyone else.
>>6066609Don't, really.Try. Your first quest might not work as much as you want, but as we french say : Its by forging than one becomes a blacksmith
>>6066609>another AkunfagWhy don't you just stay there?
>>6066617I was thinking being black was the biggest component in being a black Smith.
>>6066619Soot works too.
>>6066618I actually used to lurk here first, discovered Akun through /qst/, and came back because I realized I liked the stuff here more.
>>6065429>>6065435This week on chocolat mystery, come fight a spooky dinosaur with bad breath!
>>6066618> Me, reading quests on multiple sitesWhy not both?
>>6066625I hope you pay your fair tithe of (You) by voting in quests.
>>6066542>you are a QM on a /qst/ image board
>>6066517Besides what other people have mentioned:>Poor grammar, frequent typos: standards for writing quality are pretty low on /qst/, but basic readability is required >Starting off the OP post with a preamble like "hi guys, it's my first quest, sorry this will suck": just get right into it, don't shoot yourself in the foot>Reboots and sequels: it's not impossible to do these, but odds are you'll drive off some people who feel like they need to read the original to understand>>6066542>>6066610Brainlet take. "Writing what you want" isn't about gaining the most players. It's about keeping your motivation up enough to consistently update and finish the quest. QMing is difficult, time-consuming, and often unrewarding-- if you don't have the strong intrinsic motivation of loving your quest and wanting to see it continue, you're setting yourself up for failure from the start. >>6066541>Whatever happened to Ouro anyway?Flaked for good. Working on a RPG maker game last I'm aware.
>>6066609>>6064930wtf is akun? let me guess, some reddit competitor to /qst/
>>6066623
>>6066667>Reboots and sequels: it's not impossible to do these, but odds are you'll drive off some people who feel like they need to read the original to understandOof...
>>6066678If we're being honest, QST and Akun are a lot like Root Beer and Coke.
>>6066678Better known as fiction.live, but pretty much. It's got... Well, it's got quests.
>>6066694But if that's true, then what's the Ice Cream?
>>6066696>One of these things is not like the others/tg/
>>6066678You'd be surprised
>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?Demon Negotiator Quest: SMT, Oops All Negotiations Edition. I've run a couple of quests in the past, but I'm rusty and only finished one. Making negotiation the primary mechanic of the game would make a quest very character-based and allows conflict to be a mix of resource management and puzzles. I always found combat either anticlimactic or slow in quests.
>>6066697Coke Floats and Root Beer floats are good, you should have one!
>>6066738Cream soda and some seriously strong dark chocolate ice cream.
>>6066711Had no idea Spacebattles was born of tg, though I can't say I'm surprised.>>6066696Smut. Terrible for you, shouldn't spend all day consuming it, but delicious.
>>6064577
The (as far as I know) current RWBY quest has updated! You are aggresively and formally invited to join in with us.Remember everyone to drink plenty of water and eat your veggies. Or else.We have guns, swords, fights, magic, intrigue, somewhat open-ended storyline and enough original material to create something cool and stuff.I'd advertise my quest more but drunkeness is not really my ally today.For that reason I'll keep it short. JOIN AND YOU HAVE A SMALL (zero) CHANCE TO WIN THIS PENNY PLUSHIEBig Salutations. Roger and out.>>6049681>>6049681>>6049681
Requesting for someone to break the tie in my quest. Thank you.>>6051229
New update in UTUTU Quest! >>6066924>>6066924>>6066924Apologies to my players for the delay, life got the best of me for a while.I have no idea which /qtg/ is the "real" one, so I'm posting in all three.
>>6064577Late reply but you're wrong about the claim that every instance of human sacrifice being a punishment for criminals or after a war. Those do not explain the Andean child mummies, where they were taken to a mountain peak then drugged to oblivion - their parents chose them. Then there's the more recent case of the German cannibal whose victim hooked up to literally get eaten. That's both human sacrifice and cannibalism in the internet age.
>>6066542The trick is finding something that you want to write and other people want to read. When you find that sweet spot of shared interests, you have a successful quest where people have fun and get passionate.>>6066517Underpreparation is a big one. if you have a basic premise and opening post but no idea what to do after a couple updates, or any sort of 'midgame' or 'endgame' scenes or ideas you want to visit, you're directionless and it will show. My first couple quests were like that, to the extent that it took 3 or 4 threads for Reptilian Infiltrator to find its footing and get more consistent in tone, theme, and actual objectives.Treating the medium like a book, or like D&D, is another big one. This medium has elements of TTRPG and of literature, but it's neither. You can't just write your own novel and offer people meaningless, empty choices; if your prose is really good it may work for a while, but people will eventually cotton on and you'll at least lose SOME interest. You also generally can't make every single round of combat or every line of dialogue a full update, though, unless maybe you're running a rapid session-style quest; it will drag and get tedious across a span of days and days per encounter. There is a sort of pacing to progress that suits this site and this style of storytelling, and you only learn what that is by playing/lurking or QMing. That was another lesson I learned, when I abandoned RIQ's fixed morning-afternoon-evening-night cycle from early threads.The last one I'd say is a meta one: reader/player interactions. Every thread and QM is different in this regard, but I've seen some QMs die on the vine for lack of discussion, while others drown in seas and seas of salty responses by IDs waging barely-relevant debates across multiple updates, ad infinitum, pushing their in-game or IRL agenda. The QM can often feel tempted to either stand back and say nothing, or to wade in directly and start shitposting, too. If you stand well back while drama is brewing, though, or PARTICIPATE in that drama, expect a much more active thread... For better or worse. Decide on the level of civility and tone of discussion you want in your thread, and encourage it. Don't feel animals if you don't want to run a zoo.
>>6066940>Then there's the more recent case of the German cannibal whose victim hooked up to literally get eaten. That's both human sacrifice and cannibalism in the internet age.Yeah, and it was seen as completely unethical at the time by the contemporary society in which it was done, and the guy was arrested and sentenced for a crime. He's literally a case study in a book about quantifying evil, called "The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime" (good book, would recommend)Regarding the Andean child mummies, people don't really know what the circumstances were surrounding that- some assume religious practices, which if true was probably seen as something of a necessary tragedy which would be considered evil if done randomly or senselessly. Like this >>6066770 bushido practice (though most samurai would consider 'dishonor' to be acts which would get you in trouble regardless) being exceptions rather than the rule. All general guidelines of this nature have exceptions, such is the case in sociology Cannibalism specifically without the aspect of murder falls more into taboo than into ingrained biology conceptions of evil and is much more prone to vary from culture to culture
>>6065483Been sitting on this one for a long, long time. To the point that I’m not sure anyone else who played quests during the /tg/ era is still around, much less migrated over to /qst/ when they were kicked off there……well, enough stalling. Any of you anons played in Shadow Quest when it was running?I was Barman Andrews.
>>6066517Related to this question, I wanted to get feedback and an open forum dialogue on a system I'm implementing in my quest. Has it been done before? Here's the long and short of "Roach Rolling":>Step 1-Players provide write-ins with their best argument for why our quest should continue in the fashion(s) they would like.>Step(s) 2-Players may discuss and vote for each other's write-ins or their own. The suggestion with the most votes makes the decision.AND/OR-Once one or more write-ins have been suggested, any and all players can also roll 1d20 for a particular suggestion - with unique rules: 1 is a critical success, 2-20 are all failures. If a 1 is scored, that choice is automatically chosen. If a 2-20 is scored, instead of a +1, that suggestion receives a -1. -1's from rolls and votes for suggestions are weighed separately. >Rules:-Each player gets 1 suggestion, 1 vote and 1 roll per official quest update. Votes are weighed higher than rolls, and rolls serve 3 roles: (1) to let players have more chances for luck and agency by giving their responses more power (less QM intervention via ties, more random chance w/ rolling), (2) to allow players a second but consequential attempt at a "Hail Mary" crit roll for their favorite suggestion, and (3) also allows players a chaotic chance to cause mayhem by trying to purposefully poo-poo a tied suggestion they don't like by rolling a non-crit to push it over the edge.-The write-in that rolls a critical, has the most positive votes, or the least -1s from rolls is chosen, in that order. -If votes and -1's are both tied and no clear decision can be made, the double-tie will be broken with a QM dice roll.-Be honest - no rerolling!-Roach Rolling segments will be clearly labelled and may or may not be used for the duration of the quest. Roach Rolling was hastily devised in hopes of sparking more dialogue between players and QM's - these are OUR quests, after all. Hopefully this inspires more participation, deeper immersion, group dynamics in voting, and more activity on /qst/ in general. I am aware this may not work as planned, since it requires write-ins. Please share your critique, criticisms and suggestions regarding "Roach Rolling".Here's how it's being implemented in Roachsylvania (We're only a few posts in, if you are looking for a new quest to join):>>6067017>>6067018If other QM's wanted to try out or tweak "Roach Rolling" (or just help word the sections better), let us know what you find. Thanks.t. A Humble Roach Narrator
>>6066946And there be the shifting of the goalposts, if you consider religious practices as some exceptional event. You're still thinking of good and evil in modern, judeo-christian-derived context, and applying them to other cultures that doesn't even think that way.
What is the best way to balance?>wait too long before updating, people think you left, not excitingvs>reply too fast, no opportunity to voteEspecially for the start of a quest when you do not have an established following. Say you are unknown and want to get a good start.
>>6065423The actual anon this question was asked to (sorry, didn't notice it initially). Grab some more smugness as compensation.>ONE SINGLE builder run solely on boards (no discord or other platforms) which got successfully finishedNone. Not because none ever finished (as the other anon pointed out, Bobski ran his games to completion, and they pretty much defined what builder even is), but pretty much from the start mibbit (browser-based IRC if you're a zoomie) was in use. This allowed people to ask all the questions without shitting up the thread itself and in many cases, also unlocked option for secret moves and deals, for better and worse.But I will give you that the switch from mibbit to discord was disastrous - half of the regulars didn't switch on a principle since, unlike mibbit, discord requires a fixed account.>I'm asking cause I like the idea of builders but everytime I join one it just inevitably crashes and burnsIf you don't mind the game being "line goes up", the other builder seems to have the things you ask for, and first and foremost, is the most public builder I saw since, dunno, 2018? 17? It started around Easter, OP went twice for some work delegation in the meantime and had a hiatus due to an accident, yet always returned on the announced schedule. His initial players flaked left and right (me included), yet despite being an affair for just 3 factions at this point, it is still on and still has regular updates. That's by itself impressive as fuck, even if the game is kinda meh. The game itself is a weird mix of schizoid approach, line-goes-up gameplay and a really bad, mid-10s ruleset (particularly the combat resolution, which you can look up in archives, where just about everyone was groaning, including OP). And as far as I know, there is no communicator, yet it is still running without major problems, which is just uncanny.
>>6065612Ok, this is going to be veeeeery longFirst of all, >>6065575 is not me.As to your questions:>you keep being toxicBunch of things to listRight from the start, where OP started to make basic stumbles, I realized most of his set is just smoke and mirrors. There are no actual rules, it's all ad hoc. And even if he miraculously has some sort of solid and elaborate ruleset that allows to keep it going on both the scale and level of anal details (who the fuck runs a game with pre-defined provinces on a fucking imageboard!?), OP doesn't keep track of things in any kind of notes, not to mention sheet. So I riled him up to see the reaction. It was beyond predictable...... but i the same time he both has experience (at least as a player) and should know better, making it just weird. It's like an old timer had a free day, decided on a whim to run a complex game on the wrong platform, then instantly ran out of steam and decided "fuck it, players gonna flake anyway".So I switched to talk mechanics with him, given the game was already in a freefall. Turns out there are rules after all - and they are completely borked, since they are not only pointlessly anal for the capabilities of what 4chan can even carry (or even its dice generator pull off by itself), but are all run by regular, mind computation. And OP is not a math savant. Meaning he is going to mess up time and again, and he wasn't joking when telling that he wants players to self-manage and pick up his slack and fix it.Other than that, there is a matter I'm trying to figure out who he is and nothing helps more than getting people pissant. I know the majority of old guard personally. Some I even met irl. And as you noted yourself (assuming you're the angry elf guy), ego gets easily in the way of running those games and being an arbiter. I was genuinely hoping that OP was going to reveal himself as Mudkip, but unfortunately, nope. Which only adds to the reason why to take the piss out of him - he knows Mudkip, he more or less knows his rules, yet clearly doesn't take into account Mudkip games had a level of mechanical complexity from a PC 4X game and openly relied on automation via sheets to even make it feasible to get an update more than once per day and keep track of shit in the long run>1/?
>>6067088>questUpdate on fixed intervals of time. People voted - good. They didn't - move on on what's posted. Depending on your own time and period of the year, update every 3-4 hours is fine, no point waiting>builderHave catch-up rules, mercilessly keep a time-table. Nothing worse than a game that is irregular/slow/yes>>6067125>I have been thinking about running a builder but I don't want it to fail.As noted by the other anon, the majority of those games are just sandbox exercises, going on as long as there are either active players or the OP keeps updating.But if your goal is completion, then Underworld Builder is a good example of a "short and compact" (literally) builder: everyone starts with some pre-build on a very small map (say, 5x5 tiles with 10 players in it, 4x4 with 8, and I even saw a 3x3 map in a game with just 5 people in it), where you have three goals:- survive, when everyone is against everyone and alliances are barred- exterminate the competition, since this is the D&Desque Underworld- expand and keep hold of your ground, because your production and military capability are almost entirely dependent on your sizeThis makes for an absolutely BRUTAL game, but it can be resolved entirely in less than 100 turns with a clear victory condition and a winner.But if you never run a builder yourself, there is no more important rule than KISS. Don't overthink shit, don't create complex elements, and unless you absolutely know what you are doing and are 200% sure you can handle the related level of math and automate it, never steal from video games. Because your brain and a dice generator are NOT going to replace even something as basic as the original HoMM or Colonization, to say nothing about more complex and recent games.>2/?
>>6067128Some general tips for a newfag running builders1) If you add an element to your game, ask yourself if it is really useful and importantConsider this: you decide to throw in a map... but is territory physically occupied in your game important for anything, tie with any mechanic, or impact anything at all? Or you are overburdening yourself with map and map updates just because other games had maps? Or you add population. Does it actually do anything, or is just a number to go up and down? How does it grows (and if it grows). And so on and forth.2) As the other anon stated, if you plan to have a "complete" game, set up a clear goal right off the batPreferably just one, to keep shit simple. Dunno, there is an ancient throne to claim, or each faction starts with a piece of an ancient crown to be assembled by conquest, or take over a quarter of the map and the four corners of it (when it is super-small and packed), or, really, whatever. But have one, clear goal that is openly stated and can't be easily achieved in given circumstances3) Fluff is but a window dressingIt doesn't matter what players are declaring, since most of them are cheating fucks trying to break the game. Fluff is just fluff. To give you an example: one player runs a stone-age tribe, the other runs a magocracy of space engineers. So of course, the magocracy has a massive edge and is going to stomp the primitives by fluff alone, right? WRONG. And you are a fuckwit if you had to be told that. So when someone has a Gatherers Tent lvl 3 and another player has Resource Teleporter lvl 1, but both are just a structure for basic materials and their logistics, the only thing that's different is the name. In crunch terms, the tent is better, but also took longer to build and more time was put into it. Think about "what it does", not "what's the name"4) StandarizeThis cannot be overstated. Even if you are running a complete free-form game, keep stuff consistent. Player 1 develops sailing vessels. Player 2 develops builds a galley. Player 3 has hydrofoils. That means all three players were developing Shipbuilding tech, rather than each of them having their own thing. This way you don't have to constantly look up what's what and why, speeding up your updates and easing on the bookkeeping and sheets you're writing. This also allows to avoid issues from point 3>3/4
>>60671325) You're a newfag, don't dig old rulesThe majority of old rulesets have their flaws, some more obvious than others, and require careful tinkering to unfuck them - if that's even possible in the first place. Knowing which and why is bad comes only from experience and practical, on-hand familiarity with them or their close relatives, while you can effectively lock yourself in a cycle of suffering (I think this is what happened with the Easter builder - OP took a ruleset he doesn't know and everyone is suffering the consequences) by picking a flawed or outright broken ruleset from the past. The modern rulesets are either super-complex to run, if not impossible on imageboard or are mash-ups of rules of the old with tweaks and modifications that only make sense if you have played the original a few times first and know why what was changed.6) Steal from vidyaYes, I know, I said not to do this, but I'm not talking about 4X genre here. I'm talking basic shit like Settlers (particularly 3 and 4, rather than the iconic 2) and city-builders or any given base-building RTS. This offers a clean, neat, simple framework to base your game on, so when you're gunning for a goal, you can think in terms of those games, rather than if you should include delta in your combat resolution calculations (no, you shouldn't).7) There are game elements best avoided, especially as a newfagThe list includes: alliances (especially with more than 2 memebers), tech-trading and, in extreme cases, research itself. There is a plethora of exploits and loopholes with those, especially in barebones rules (but complex ones also can create loops), and as a newfag, chances are, you're going to fall for all of them in the hands of your (even also newfag) players.Granulation is borderline and I argue against it to newfags. Consider the current builder you're dissatisfied with: despite it complex look, it's non-granular. Any roll above 25 is progress, any roll above 90 is great progress, and at least nat100 does fuck all, so crit-fails probably aren't too severe either. This means you don't have to overthink the final results too much and the game runs much faster, too. Especially since this particular builder seems to run on simple cost progression: 1, 2, 3 and so on, so it's super easy and clearly geared for quick game (ahahaha) and lots of combat.8) Go find "The Quiet Year" and read it general conceptualizationPeople shit on it (and they are kind of right, since this shouldn't cost a single cent, not to mention its actual pricetag and C&D hunt all across the net), but this is not a board game and most definitely not an RPG. It's a builder to play at parties with drunk nerds. And it still has more understanding on how to run those things that some people playing and running builders for over a decade>4/4
>>6066945>The trick is finding something that you want to write and other people want to read.Yeah, that's what makes "write what you want" just a meme; it isn't actually about writing what you want.No shit you should write something you want to write about, who the fuck wants to write something they hate, but that isn't the complete picture despite being the only thing said. Then, that leaves the "advisor" an opening to blame the person seeking the advice for doing what they said if there's a problem with it in the future.That's why it's a meme; it's perpetual entertainment starting with misleading noobs with fortune cookie insight, then gaslighting them if they get mad and treating them like a villain.
>>6067139>Yeah, that's what makes "write what you want" just a meme; it isn't actually about writing what you want.Only if you are retarded autismo.Try being less shit next time when your own quest dies in 3 updates, because players picked the "wrong" option
>>6067142I remember a quest that ended in 2 updates because the players picked the wrong 'evil' choice. It wasn't even an obvious death flag thing there was a legitimate argument for that choice being picked. Then they basically had to restart the quest with the 'correct' choice which was kinda lame.
>>6067168Classic mistake. Never make a prompt you aren't willing to write.
>>6067142As a QM you must know that, given the opportunity, the most likely thing your players are going to do is grab your worldbuilding and chew it as if it was a squeaky toy.As a QM you must learn to enjoy this and laugh with them, otherwise you're going to suffer a lot as you see your own 'creation' being eaten alive. Sometimes its fun when the big bad baddy gets trolled
>>6067139>all this woe-is-me selfy-pity bullshit over not getting enough (you)sOh hey, you're that guy from the Independence Day QTG. Based on your carrying-on in this thread and last, you just suck at writing quests, anon. You're not a villain, just sort of lame.>who the fuck wants to write something they hateYou again fail to grasp the actual insight being offered here. Nobody sets out to write something they hate, but many people seem to start quests they don't really enjoy for their own sakes. If you're writing a thing only for attention/participation, and not because you genuinely enjoy the subject and the process on its own, you'l burn out and be reduced to moping around the QTG wailing about how you were LIED TO and TRICKED into becoming a VILLAINOUS FAAAILURE WAAAAH.
>>6067193>Oh woe me, people interacting with my fiction!The horror!Except I'm not autistic. So none of the things you've listed is my problem.If you can't handle interactivity, maybe don't run fucking interactive story, you dumb fucking faggot, and go back with filling your drawer with (not at all) unique story and setting?Lorefags deserve a rope, in each and all contexts.
>>6067199I wasn't disagreeing with you at all there with my opinion lol, was just pointing out something that could be considered helpful advice to those that don't want their quests trolled, no need to get so defensive about it
>>6067201Are you by chance a Slav?Because that's literally the only context I can think of where "You must embrace the (non-existing) suck as part of the job, for it is (not) masochistic" can be considered an advice
>>6067088Initially, I'd qait at least a few hours or until you have the numbe rof votes you're satisfied with, whatever happens first. Eventually, you'll end up with a more consistent number of anons who will vote reliably. At that point, you can just update as soon as most or all of them have voted, or enough to form a clear majority.>>6067049A general taboo against murder DOES exist and IS probably deeply ingrained. The caveat here is that many cultures allow killing of in-group members for a variety of reasons, which then make them "not murder". Honour duels, punishing subordinates or family members for technically legal but frowned-upon activities, wars or petty feuds, sacrifice for religious rites, punishment for a crime, just being a disposable slave or lower caste and thus not 'technically' in the in-group (I see you, ancient Sparta and Judaea), and more.>>6067033So it's regular voting, but with write-ins encouraged, and an element of chance as to which one gets picked? Seems like it would work for a mroe wacky or lower-stakes quest, but less so in the sorts of quests where people get really invested in making the 'right' (optimal, in-character, immersion-preserving, etc) choice.
>>6067207Not exactly but from a place with a similar mentality yeahAnd yeah I agree that it is somewhat of a masochistic train of thought but it works when everything is shit, it is a good defensive meassure and makes everything far more enjoyable when you have a healthy dose of "chaos and bullshit is fun" mentality
>>6067215Go touch grass, then. Preferably on the other side on the globe, you sorry fuckPeople who tell themselves they must be miserable as a pre-emptive cope over issues they then proceed to create in their fucked-up heads also deserve a rope.
>>6067218Based and /qst/pilled
>>6067049I wouldn't say I shifted the goalposts, I was establishing a general rule to which exceptions obviously exist. The former example is a religious practice- which often override what one might call 'human nature'. The second isn't murder, but rather an 'execution' more analagous to lese-majeste than murder.Obviously morality varies from culture to culture, but a lot of the fundamentals are biologically ingrained: don't take what isn't yours, don't kill your tribe, etc. These moral impetuses are genetic, back from the days when we were apes- obviously humans are capable of 'outsmarting' our own impulses, but the fact that they exist is pretty evident
Is using AI to generate images for a /qst/ considered in bad taste?
>>6067242You should commit seppuku
>>6067242Nobody really cares, they're pictures to help serve the narrative, they have a utility the same as any other pictures be they searched up on google or photographed. So long as you don't expect congratulations or high praise for it, though you shouldn't expect that for drawings either.
>>6067242Eh, I don't think it's an ethical issue or anything (you aren't trying to monetize it, after all), but I unironically believe that even shitty mspaint doodles are more appealing and a better tool for conveying tone and emotion than any AI image could be. /qst/ is all about rough but genuine art, generally written but also occasionally drawn or even animated, and as such most on the board would rather see scribbles with heart than a perfectly rendered portrait spat out by a soulless machine
>>6067196>pointing out the bullshit is whining/moping/woe-is-meYes, this is certainly sound logic that will remain consistent when it's used against you.You can't let any slight against your sagacity be tolerated; it'd be one thing if you were actually anonymous, but people know you're Reptoid, and you have to save face. You must make your detractors look as ridiculous as possible, otherwise, people might realize you're a retarded faggot who doesn't actually know what he's talking about.
>>6067242AI creations are ontologically evil, so no, you should not use them.
>>6067193As a QM, I put some delicate ecosystem and characters I love dearly on the cliff, ready to make one leap forward with a bad roll.'Tis my roll as the Bipolar Dice God. The Entertainment Vampire Quest Master.Speaking of, SOME of my players should start getting worried about right now.
>>6067242I'm doing it for quick illustrations. It's deceptively hollow and cheap eye candy that is less interesting than the worst of my draw-in, but as most player just glance at miniatures anyway it's ok
Odysseus has once more reawakened into a changed world come and try to guide him in the grim darkness of the 41st millennia:>>6062086The colony has lost one of its leaders, but it is still going strong in the civquest of Unbroken Empire: New frontier:>>6038999
>>6067309I'll be honest I've been on the verge of quitting for a while now anyway, so no worries.
>>6067324If we're talking about 40k quest, I'd kindly ask to bear with it for the end of the thread/half a new one.
>>6063680>Do you have any quest concepts that you really like the idea of, but for whatever reason aren't confident that you could run?An isekai quest that I had seen done before where (You) become Joffrey in ASOIAF, also kind of want to try the same concept with Viserys the Beggar King. I just do not think I could do the setting justice, plus quests in this setting just seem to implode spectacularly for some fucking reason. There's also the fact that I would have to fully reread the books to ensure I get all characters on point which would be a lot of effort.>Are there any quests you're playing that you'd like to see revisited from a different angle, or with a twist?Wouldn't be playing it if I wanted to twist it. If I could, I would like to see Malal getting a better PC and internet connection.>What multimedia franchises do you think would be best suited to /qst/, that haven't already generated a successful quest?Witcher. Genuinely surprised that there are not a bunch of quests going for it. There's plenty of stuff to explore there, of course you can be a Witcher, but what I would find the most interesting would be being a Nilfgaardian soldier. Just some random fuck that has to deal with monster infestations without any superhuman abilities just because he was ordered to do so. Of course, you could also make it a survival quest, you are just a peasant trying to survive one war or another, monsters are running rampant, food is scarce. Added difficulty if you have a family to look after. Plenty of stuff to explore there.>Why don't you at least chime in to let the QM know you're reading? And do you ever share what you're reading with other people?I read very few quests, but I tend to be active. And no on the second part, questing is pretty niche I have found.>What other boards do you frequent, besides /qst/?Occasionally visit /tg/, rarely check up on /pol/ cause there's so much schizoid posting there that it is pretty funny. But I mainly just stay in /qst/
test
>>6065612>>6067134desu if you're not going to go hard on rules then just run a risk game. The only real differentiator between risk and a builder is complex rules. That was exactly how they differentiated between the two on /tg/ and even then it wasn't a clean break. Each game built on the other, growing more and more complex until eventually they hit a breaking point and scaled back down to being risk + research or risk + buildings. You can actually see a very clear progression of complexity by looking at the archives of Bobski's builders. The first one was classic builder. Virtually no rules for anything. One player had EVAs by turn 12. Romans turned into zombies. Some player summoned God and the game inadvertently turned into Evangelion. Was it fun? Yes. Did it make sense? No. Bobski's next builder pared down the insanity by adding more standardization. The system builder then the colony builder were both way more complex in mechanics until we got to Space Builder which had a 20~ page rulebook (that I kept). I don't know if he ran one after that. The advantage to a risk game is that they're simple as shit to run. The disadvantage is that unless people really want to roleplay in it, they're also aggressively boring. In either case, the GM usually gets bored and leaves or the players get bored with nothing exciting happening and also leave. On the flipside, getting a group of the same dedicated people always leads to meta-issues within the game itself. It's fun to play a backstabbing little shit. It's less fun when everyone remembers you were a backstabbing little shit last game and works together to stomp on you before anything else happens, or refuses to trust you in one game based off what happened in another. Even holding grudges in the same game months after the fact can get irritating. It is the one big advantage I've seen to playing games under anonymity. It lets players be absolute shitheads to one another and that can lead to some spicy turns. Throw everyone into irc or mibbit or discord and that illusion is shattered. Everyone remembers when Chucklefuck#9910 committed a Red Wedding and you can track their ass from game to game. It's harder when all you see is 5plb6y9u in one thread and 8814suckmynuts in another. It makes it difficult to even encourage aggression between players unless the GM or the rules force people into fighting as nobody wants to knock someone out Game 1 then 8 months later get kicked in the teeth turn 3 in a new game by that same person with no rhyme or reason because they'd fought once last year.
Rolled 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 = 10 (10d1)>>6067336remembering how to roll dice in prep for quest, ignore
>>6067344>PokequestOh boy. OH BOY!
>>6067339>>6065423I encourage people to develop new rulesets. It's the only way the game really evolves. Maybe you stumble across an idea that actually fucking works. Perhaps its a solution to actually balancing alliances. No way to know unless you throw it into a game and get people to smash their head against it or you farm out advice on a game building discord/tg thread. I've gone through six iterations of different economic rules before realizing that the thing I want required actual programming and I needed to scale it down because I can't program and if I am going to learn how to program just to run a builder I needed to go touch grass. Every experienced builder player knows what it feels like for a game to simply blip out of existence. It happens all the time. I only get salty about it when all of my rolls are good and the next game they're all trash.>>6067120I didn't even know the old builder mibbit moved to discord. I can't say I'm surprised though. I am surprised most of them even gave a shit it's not like we ever changed our mibbit handles either.
>>6067339>Did it make sense? NoWho fucking cares if game's setting makes sense?There is nothing worse than a builder that tries to enforce on players the setting of the game. Like the infamous Post-Apo Builder, based on Strielok's Post-Apoc Civ Quest. It wasn't bad, because it was post-apo. It was bad, because it imposed both mechanical factions on players AND what each of those could, missing a memo this is not a Civ Quest anymore.Go kitchen sink, or go home. And if your rules can't handle that - get better rules>It's less fun when everyone remembers you were a backstabbing little shit last game and works together to stomp on youI mean third of post-/tg/ builders have notes in their rules in tune on "Be careful with research, or Bazz will show up and start meta-fucking your game". And he did that shit anonymously back in 2015, yet here I am, talking about it. And worse for him, everyone could recognise the little fuck (I'm also semi-certain he's one of the regulars in the Easter builder, the one with +5 research)
>>6067354I prefer a consistent tone. Having a civilization of insane clowns that do annoying shit isn't really any different from the one players who makes the edgy tryhard orphan eating rogue in a noblebright D&D game. It won't break the game and the GM can definitely deal with it, but it doesn't make it any less obnoxious to have around. Before you ask, yes there was a builder that had a race of insane clowns that did annoying things. Everyone ganged up on them and wiped them out because we hated them.I love baz though. I respect a man who refuses to change after more than a decade. I honestly don't know how NRPs deal with him given their complete aversion to anything resembling mechanics.
I just want more (you)s, is that so wrong?
>>6067370The obvious solution is to gatekeep the best outcome to the number of (you)s the update got
>>6067088You need to strike a balance, its okay to tiebreak by dice as you should aim to update 3-4 times per day at the start of the quest. Update less and they will think it is going nowhere>>6067242/qst/ doesn't have high standards for art, just make your own even if it is shit.
>>6067326Ahh no worries, I'm not going anywhere until we at least settle nurgles hash. Or die trying.
>>6067374He will fall
>>6067357>I prefer a consistent tone. Having a civilization of insane clowns that do annoying shit isn't really any different from the one players who makes the edgy tryhard orphan eating rogue in a noblebright D&D game. It won't break the game and the GM can definitely deal with it, but it doesn't make it any less obnoxious to have aroundUnironically depends on how it's handled by player.Insane clowns being annoying is one thing, but I remember once having a super-serious, try-hard builder where everyone was Donut Steel real-life rip-off... and half-way through a guy showed up and asked if he can play as surfer dudes on a beach. Turns out, he was cool. So fucking cool, it wasBEST.FACTION.EVER.And the game managed to handle him, despite everyone else having stick in their arse and playing super-serious 4X.>NRPsThose aren't games, so it honestly doesn't matter, even if he runs wild with those. In the end, there is simply a corner of the world that can be best described as A Wizard Did This™, while everyone had their fun in their spots.I mean if you think about it, NRP is better equipped for handling Baz than any builder ever - because there are no rules for him to abuse.
alright, I think i'm all set up and ready to go in an hour or two.I've not run one of these before- not to any successful degree, anyways- and I'm looking for some tips if you've got any. I'm planning on keeping the quest dice-light, the tone semi-serious, and my updates loose (since my schedule is still rather tight). Anything quintessential I should know before making my first post?
>>6067286Not all my detractors. Just the guy who literally comes in here accusing people of tricking anons and making him a villain and thinks giving advice based on perosnal experience is equivalent to claiming "sagacity". Just you. You, in particular, are a sad little man.
>>6067429Don't give options you're not confident to assume in the long run. It's ok for the "starter" to be one of three Pokemon you particularly enjoy and, for example, forsake Oshawott as an option if you find that thing stupid.
>>6067429Also, post sooner rather than later.I'd like to vote, participate and it's late in Europe
>>6067441>>6067449It's up now if you're interested>>6067467>>6067467>>6067467Ignore that I used the wrong formatting for the OP, I completely forgot BBCode even existed. That's the formatting standard here, right?
>>6067211I guess it's more like "write-ins mandatory with optional dice rolls, with some goofiness/shenanigans". Probably doomed for failure since "write-in only" basically never ever works, since the majority of questers seem to prefer choosing prewritten options than actually contributing to group story development, but oh well. C'est la vie
>>6067490>since the majority of questers seem to prefer choosing prewritten options than actually contributing to group story developmentAs a player, I can tell you it's because often the quest doesn't have enough context established for me to understand what I can and cannot do within the fiction. Since quests have a slow turnaround, I can't just ask or have a discussion about what those limits are either. As a QM, I've noticed that once that context is adequately established, players will indeed start doing write-ins.
>>6067505>As a player, I can tell you it's because often the quest doesn't have enough context established for me to understand what I can and cannot do within the fiction.This. Players need preexisting goals, be they narrative or mechanical, to guide decision-making.
>>6067505100%. Plus, it's much easier to particopate throughout the day (on kunch break, etcetera) if you can copy and paste or +1 an option, to be frank. It isn't always a lack of engagement so much as a practical necessity if the voting window is limited and at a bad time for me.
I'm so glad my players chose the best option for setting ever. I would've been happy with any of those three but god the Wild West is gonna make it so much more fun.
Apologies to my players but due to my computer finally croaking, I had to spend the last few days getting a new one and redownloading some stuff. Next thread will be up sometime Monday. So my week long sabbatical is more like a week and a half. See you then.
>Tried starting a quest two or so months back>Had a blast doing it, and it was fun seeing people enjoy what I write>Quest went to shit and died from a mix of getting too busy with life and getting burnt out since I'm not used to writing so much>Every day the desire to give the quest another shot with fun story/character ideas that I want to write grows, but hesitant to get burnt out again and let everyone down a second timeWhat should I do, bros? Would people be willing to give my quest another shot if I just reappear out of nowhere? How do I keep myself from burning out? I've been thinking I might simplify and shorten each post, for one. It was fun writing out massive blocks of text, but maybe I can still get the story and characterization across without spending what little free time I have overdoing my writing and eventually getting sick of it. Any tips for a fresh QM to stay afloat are greatly appreciated.
>>6067570I fee that. My computer fried in the heat. I've been suing my backup laptop ever since. Sorry to hear about yours.>>6067590I've start with a lighter quest or oneshot. People will play, though. Even notorious and well-known serial-flakes still get players here.
