#quest rpg

[elliegoose]

everyone meet Talle Sybar! she's a huldra Naturalist (this system's version of a druid) i'm playing in a game of Quest. shapeshifting stoner cowgirl who might seduce and eat you but that's okay right?

[the-cash-cache]

Have a Quest RPG session tomorrow and naturally instead of sleeping early, I'm awake converting fucked up Into the Wyrd and Wild creatures into Quest. Sadly this greatly nerfs them in Quest's system, but I'll figure something out for the special abilities at some point!

The Bramble Beast is a particularly nasty piece of work and would probably kill a PC so sadly I can't use it until I've tested more things... My players said they wanted to fight a boss with more danger, but my favorite monster might be a bit much for them at the moment >:(

That and the fact that I really want to do that particular beast justice when they encounter it!

[pathetic-gamer]

You're so incredibly nice to ask abt Farrow, my beloved mutual. Perhaps I can return the favor by asking if there's anything you'd like to share about your OCs? What are mutuals for if not mutual exchange? (Mutually assured destruction perhaps? ���)

I love hearing about OCs!! (And I love mutually assured distruction)

Okay, this time I'm gonna talk about Jargen (pronounced "yargen"), the dragon ranger from when I played Quest. I honestly think about him all the time - he's one of the few characters I've drawn actual art of (I drew our whole party from that campaign lol)

Quest is one of my favorite ttrpg systems - it's free and open source, pretty loosey-goosey with the rules, character classes are "roles" and are focused on the role you play in the party as a whole, the skill trees are really unique and fun, and it's great for telling a good story in a very collaborative way.

Jargen was a ranger (link goes to the official role description lol). He's a wandering poet of few words - other than when performing his epic tales or giving dramatic, rousing speeches - with dreams of overcoming the image of a monster and becoming a hero of the people who would live on forever in song, and with a terrible fear of becoming the monster everyone believed him to be. His skills were focused on storytelling and wilderness survival.

Our party was a group of freelancers who all accepted the same job regarding helping a woman find her sister. There was a human doctor in the group, Feign, and he and Jargen became close friends very quickly and shared a number of fun dramatic bonding experiences including but not limited to failing to kill a mouse and nearly dying for each other.

What follows is a rather dramatized version of certain events as recalled by Jargen when turning the experience into an epic poem:

When I say Jargen and Feign were close friends, I do of course mean they shared an impossible to describe warriors' bond of drift-compatible entwined souls that only grew stronger with every new bonding experience.

One of the earliest of these was the very first evening of their adventure, while Jargen was mourning the loss of an animal companion. The party was camped in some very old woods, and he took first watch so he could take some time to himself. Instead of letting him be alone, Feign sat with him and opined on death from the perspective of a physician with an innate connection to the dead and dying, a long career of going wherever he was needed most bringing back the living from the cusp of death and guiding the dead across the final threshold in peace. He shared with Jargen his deep fear of undeath, and Jargen in turn shared his fear of being seen as a monster.

While they were talking, Feign mentioned that places like this, these deep woods and ancient trees, were actually full of death, despite how very alive they are. He then touched Jargen's hand and gave him a glimpse of the world as he saw it, leading to Jargen having a sudden and overwhelming experience of seeing hundreds of spirits of creatures large and small, animal and sentient, and even spoke with the ghost of a child. It was enlightening and comforting and terrifying. After this, Jargen and Feign became inseparable.

When Jargen was overcome with rage and prepared to trap dozens of people in a building and burn it to the ground rather than risk letting single vampire - the monstrous perversions of life that they are - escape, it was Feign who talked him down and instead devised a plan to help the living flee.

When Feign was bitten by a vampire and knew he had limited time to find a cure before the infection set in, it was Jargen who offered his own blood to sustain him. (Ultimately, though, Jargen agreed to Feign's request to put him down the moment he passed the point of no return so that he wouldn't have to suffer his greatest fear of becoming undead.)

There did, of course, come a time when they walked the line of near tragedy and each sacrificed themself for the other, both nearly dying in the process. I wrote a dramatized version here, but I can do one better this time!

One of the features of Quest is that you're supposed to write a summary of each session from your character's perspective - Jargen's were, of course, composed in verse. Here is a very brief portion of what he wrote in the aftermath of that near-tragedy:

Steel glinted, cold and bloodstained red held in the villain's hand When from the dark he lunged again, a killing blow to land But Jargen’s feet were faster far, And to Feign’s side he flew To take the brunt of the attack Though the grave cost he knew “Flee now, my friend,” the dragon said, As Feign looked on in fear “I beg of you to trust me now - Your path must not end here.”

(I said he was a poet, but I didn't say he was a *good* poet)

I unfortunately can't share the whole thing because it's not finished and also it's very long, but that's a tiny fraction for your enjoyment lmao

okay thank you for reading, beloved mutual <3

[merelyroleplayers]

🦖 Now playing in the Studio

The Bureautopians’ ultimate quest: take responsibility and commit to your goals by saving Murawai from total destruction.

Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com

GUIDE: Josh Yard

STARRING:

Natalie Winter as Bess, the Invoker

Chris Starkey as Neville Flounder aka The Living Shadow aka Night Gannet, the Spy

Strat as Jerome Picklepants, the Wizard

Dave as Josh, the Magician

ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Quest by The Adventure Guild

MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst

EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman

[searching4rinoa]

Quest RPG: Brian's Journey Pt. 1 [De-make or Remake?]

[reawakeningrp]

OPEN EIGHT MONTHS!

THE REAWAKENING is a hybrid premium JCINK/discord rp based around a fantasy quest. Inspired by TTRPGs like DnD, our story follows a group of adventurers from different backgrounds who want to awaken their gods to save the world from a danger called the Rot. We have a DnD inspired combat system, stats, and even live events. If you've been searching for a site where the characters are all connected, posts lean more toward the rapid-fire style, members have a chance to contribute to the worldbuilding, and the staff is dedicated to creating a safe, fun community to write in, this might be the place for you.

HOME. GUIDEBOOK. ADVERT. DISCORD.

[gimmickblog-taxonomist]

How do you become a gimmick blog?

step 1: think of a gimmick

step 2: blog

[retrogamingblog2]

The message that Akira Toriyama left for his kids in Chrono Trigger

[the-cash-cache]

Having run Quest, it's a great system for this! Not exactly the most combat focused in the player abilities (some are definitely more confusing/weaker decisions than others) but my players had a blast with it! Support for it is pretty hard to find online, so I highly recommend people join the Discord server for it. There's even an incredible Monster Manifest by Jaen Butler which converts the D&D SRD monsters to Quest statblocks, which was a lifesaver:

it is interesting how hard the D&D podcast took off when its honestly the worst podcasting system imaginable

[ordheist]

reposting all my trading card game stuff so that I might find the will to come back to this project

[beneathsilverstars]

i think if you’re doing mirabelle’s rpg. you have to put isat right in the middle. i think it should go like… she goes through vaugarde collecting the orbs and noticing all these mysteries about her companions and mourning all the frozen towns, and she wants to get to know her friends better, and figure out what’s bothering them and help with it, and go do fun touristy things with them, etc etc, but they have a country to save. there’s no time, and everything is frozen. if that wasn’t the case, they wouldn’t even be traveling together at all! and the whole time mirabelle’s struggling with anxiety and imposter syndrome and the weight of being The Savior. she has to fix things but she can’t, she wants to help her friends but she can’t, she has to change but she doesn’t want to. she’s getting a bad grade in rpg protagonist!!!

but then we hit isat. and you expect it to be the culmination of mirabelle’s arc, but she’s not ready for that yet, just like she’s felt unprepared and unworthy all game, stuck in this role, under the weight of everyone’s expectations — of course doing the thing everyone wants her to do can’t be mirabelle’s defining moment, no matter how much she also believes in the importance of the quest. when she vanquishes the king, it doesn’t actually fix any of her personal problems. it wasn’t even really about her.

instead, the focus of this event is on siffrin, since it turns out the unchanging king was his foil all along, not mirabelle’s. mysteries are answered about both siffrin and the king, but more importantly — this is the turning point for everyone. the result of the most seemingly-stand-offish character’s arc is the key to making progress in everyone else’s: the party admits they care about each other and decides to keep traveling together.

the second half of the game, then, is going backwards through vaugarde, visiting all the same places again. and now that they’re not on their blessed quest in the name of change, they DO have time and they ARE all officially friends. everyone gets a little arc, echoing the five orbs, starting with isat as siffrin’s. they’re still clearing out sadnesses — and there’s some really strong ones as everyone takes stock of how much time has passed and how much damage has been done — but they don’t respawn anymore. people are starting to recover! and instead of dungeon puzzles, there’s fetch quests and mini games as the party helps vaugarde rebuild. a lot of the quests relate to things they saw while frozen, a bunch of mysteries and tragedies that they can finally DO something about. and in the same way, the family can finally get closer and talk about important things and meet each other’s friends/family and share their interests etc etc, all these old mysteries and maybe-some-days getting resolved!

and then, finally. mirabelle has been doing work that she CHOSE, helping vaugarde rebuild. and sometimes people use the opportunity to rebuild differently, but sometimes people just want the same familiar things back, and that’s not actually bad, it’s nothing like being frozen. you can keep living in the same house but making new memories, fixing things as needed, both different and the same. and mirabelle realizes that she doesn’t need to change. she realizes she has changed, and she will keep changing, but she can stay the same the whole time too. she doesn’t need to be what people expect, not the perfect housemaiden or the rpg protagonist savior. she can just strive to be the best version of herself!!

and that’s the end of the game, bc mirabelle isn’t trying to figure out how to do everything right to win the game anymore. she’s just living ^^

[prokopetz]

On the origin of oozes:

When googling it seems that ooze type enemies came about with dnd.

Are you aware of earlier origins? It does not seem farfetched to assume that some fantasy book had them before that.

(also, best ooze in your opinion?)

It's broadly correct that the ooze monster in its modern form comes to us via Dungeons & Dragons (with considerable influence from D&D-inspired Japanese console RPGs like Dragon Quest). However, like many other classic D&D tropes, its antecedents were present in the sword and sorcery literature of the 20th Century – ooze monsters just seem like they sprung into existence fully formed in D&D's monster manuals because nobody reads sword and sorcery lit anymore.

While there are no doubt earlier precedents, I'd be inclined to point to early 20th Century cosmic horror fiction as the point where the modern giant-amoeba-like notion of the ooze monster really became a standard trope. We can see a clear prototype of the modern ooze monster in Lovecraft's shoggoths, first described in detail in At the Mountains of Madness (1931), for example; from there, the line to the sword and sorcery literature that would go on to form the basis of Dungeons & Dragons is a short one. This certainly isn't the first example of the type – I just don't have an earlier one at my fingertips.

As for my favourite ooze monster, I've gotta give it to the gelatinous cube, one of the few examples of the type which truly is original to Dungeons & Dragons – in fact, it could only have come from D&D, owing to the peculiarities of its creation. It started out as a sort of dungeon hazard, an "invisible" ooze which concealed itself by being completely transparent and conforming perfectly to the shape of any passage that it occupied; however, since old-school D&D expected players to produce their own dungeon maps as they went, and made their job easier by abstracting dungeon floorplans onto a grid of ten-foot squares, the idea of the gelatinous cube quickly shifted from "ooze which perfectly fills any passage it occupies" to "ooze which evolved to be a perfect ten-foot cube in order to block a standard ten-foot-by-ten-foot dungeon hallway". It's incredibly dumb, and I love it.

[the-cash-cache]

This looks EXCELLENT! I just downloaded the free game and started skimming; it looks perfect to introduce them to.

Thank you for this! I've definitely heard of Quest before, but it was too perfectly similar to D&D that it slipped under my radar and I didn't think to take note when I was looking for weird stuff that piqued my personal interests.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[merelyroleplayers]

🐔 Now playing in the Studio

The Bureautopians’ third quest: support others’ development by breaking Sir Ansellus the Daring’s chicken curse.

Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com

GUIDE: Josh Yard

STARRING:

Natalie Winter as Bess, the Invoker

Chris Starkey as Neville Flounder aka The Living Shadow aka Night Gannet, the Spy

Strat as Jerome Picklepants, the Wizard

Dave as Josh, the Magician

ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Quest by The Adventure Guild

MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst

EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman

[bodhrancomedy]

Here me out - turn-based (J)RPGs like Dragon Quest need to start adding into their party roster:

- Old women

- butch lesbians

- skimpily dressed men vs sensibly clad women

- more animals

- small boy children

- middle aged women

- fat women

- horses (yes, covered under animals, but I want to have my horse a playable member and drop-kick enemies)

- ambassadors (whadda mean you’re sending members of the royal family? You have diplomats, that’s what they’re for)

- old thieves

- redeemed(ish) female villains