The Armory of Karrack and Search for it...

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

I need to talk to Tobias...  get a copy of his Sub and then talk to him about what he did

[Acacea]

(Edit- oops! Long and late post )

Goals and aspirations are ideal to have, of course! Dorg is just saying that a character may have many goals, but a one-shot-mission a WL does not make. People often make their goals things that are relatively minor or enormously large, and an epic quest will never be "I've got the plans, let's take it to action now" while a DM supervises what you're doing. Sometimes the favored goals don't even make sense with the events that are happening in the background that the player has no knowledge of, or, while nice, leave no lasting impact or responsibilities, both of which are supposed to smack the WL in the face. In the first example, if cleaning the mines was the result of some really magic heavy curse in the background that deals with a lot of arcane junk, it might not really be appropriate for a martial character's epic even if it could be big enough and maybe should be saved for someone with arcane leanings. That's the kind of stuff among other things that gets considered and talked about when the DM submits the quest ideas to the lore people...background knowledge, lore jiving...once you're in the know, it might not fit anymore.

Usually a character with a lot of history is going to have a thousand possibilities to develop, as well as familiar DMs that are all to eager to put them through the grinder and have had plots waiting to spring on them for gods know how long. Others may qualify, but have really little to grasp in terms of something to attach to the character in a visceral sort of way. Maybe he was in all the wrong time zones or never went on the same DM quest twice, or while being an outstanding player, has had little to do with world events. That is when it becomes very important to have ideas and explanations. The point of asking for goals is that the player knows his character far better than any DM on the team - themes, ideas, IC goals, these all tell what is important to the character and what gets their butt moving, what challenges them and what should ideally be affected by the quest. "I want to clean the mines" or "I want to find a sword" is not much of a foundation, there.

I think Nehetsrev has kind of the general idea down, actually! It's not enough to just "want to clear the mines." If that were submitted as a plan, well okay then, we have a target area that the player/character really wants to be affected, but it would most likely not be the core purpose of the DM's plot. If addressed, it would probably either blow up enormously in importance (unlikely if it is a place with an already established history), have the cleansing itself be the trigger for a far greater challenge, or be a potential outcome in the 'ideal' result of a larger quest. The latter meaning that something vaguely related and far more impacting must be dealt with or the quest is a 'failure' (though in the sense of a 'developing quest' it is impossible to fail to do that, at least), but there are many routes to success and other good things that can happen, or bad ones. Each battle lost makes winning the war harder, but it can be done. He might clean the mines, but fail to achieve the true goal. That is a 'failure'. He may achieve the true goal, but fail to clean the mines, leave a mass of bodies in his wake, and lose his beloved in the process...and that may be 'success,' but at what cost?

By completing a world impacting challenge, he has firmly established himself and will gain whatever rewards and responsibilities appropriate (they should never be scaled down to account for 'partial' successes in my opinion - you do or you don't; if at any point a success is so small as to be considered only partially deserving of reward, then the quest should likely have failed), but will have a HUGE amount of RP baggage to carry around and a lot of things to set right. A classic way to put a character through hell is to look at their proposed goals and aspirations, then find something that ranks higher that must be done at all costs, with the possibility (not ideal!) of losing the first dreams forever along with gods know what else Not all leaders are happy people - instead of making more 'minor' rewards or responsibilities, they should be equal in scale but be made to reflect how it was achieved.

[INDENT]General Dragonheart was never the same after he lost his family to the demon's ritual. His hair had more gray in it, afterwards, and though he shouldered the burdens of the kingdom after his blade halted the fiend and the army's advance, his wounds ran deeper than the wicked scar that the demon's talon had left slashed across his chest. Who could know how much of the blood he had shed to banish evil from the world was deserving of such sharp justice, and how much was innocent? The general could not, and the question haunted his dreams along with the faces of his wife and children. In grief he swore to never draw his sword again except in the most dire defense of a sacred cause, and never then to threaten - only to kill.

The weapon itself reflected his sorrow, and so it was called thereafter, for never again did he draw it without feeling the weight of countless deaths on his soul. His grief is said to have been so powerful that it was only matched by the bond he shared with his blade, and the weapon reflected the master. When Sorrow is drawn from its worn scabbard slung over his back, its enemies must fight two battles; the intricate dance of combat, and a battle of the soul against the debilitating lament of blood that drains the will. May it never again be drawn.[/INDENT]

So, under the right circumstances we could call that a worldly success that is rife with personal failures. He failed all the goals he had set for himself, but still stood up where it most counted, even though he had lost everything else that mattered to him. Failure or success, if what he did manage was the goal and he didn't break under the weight? Deserving of lesser reward? I think not! Especially since the ultimate success would have been made all the harder with all those other failures. Let's say he got a fun armor with some useful bonuses and some charisma to go with the role and the reaction his presence now inspires. Whatever, cool. Because it was a weapon master, some cool unique sword properties were always on the list, but were heavily influenced by actions on the quest. Now it's totally wicked with serious drain and fear attacks among other things, but with the RP baggage of the oaths sworn against drawing it and what have you. He's got the position, the gear, the responsibilities (extra ones, even, because of various actions or lack thereof), the world impacting actions and whispers of stories to go with it, all the junk you are generally supposed to associate with a WL. But he was put through the grinder and came out a different character, and his result was the rock-bottom last chance for anything resembling success - after all, it's important to make sure that you can succeed in a good way, too, and that the motto is 'involve, not alienate.'

So... where'd the point go... right, should players be submitting themes and goals and ideas along with their histories, heck yeah. It's not just about a list of qualifiers, the DMs look at that stuff for places to sink hooks into your character's fleshy soul, and if you've attended their quests they'll probably tie in there too, somehow. You usually won't be laying down your own one-shot mission, but if it is important enough to the character and a suitable challenge it may make an appearance, you know? They should be looking at it to understand and challenge the character appropriately - but it doesn't mean that specific event will occur. Some things end up resolved in the weirdest of ways.

I guess I also got on kind of a tangent there, though. Oops. Heh. *Goes to ramble somewhere else...*

[Weeblie]

Just mirroring a comment that was made by others before...

Even if you think that the quest was a success, with you actually finishing all goals you knew, the quest might be deemed a failure (say... while you did save the town, you came too late to save the king). The opposite might as well be true too... The "true goals" (the ones the DM have in mind) are not always so very clearly revealed for the player.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Is that fair?

[Dorganath]

Yes, it is fair.  Here's why:

You, as a person, don't get to script life.  You can have goals, but there are just over 6 billion other people in this world that have goals as well, and some of them just may conflict with yours.  They won't tell you or seek your approval...they may not even know about your goals. They'll just carry on with their own plans and if it happens to crush yours:  Ooops!

Same goes with GM-led quests.  If you ever played table-top D&D (or any other RPG system), you should know that it's that beady-eyed guy behind the screen who calls the shots.  Your character can have plans but so do the NPCs of the GM.  It's the GM's job to RP those goals to their ends, not yours.

The same goes here.  The GM is here to make the world come alive for you, and that includes NPCs, plots, schemes and plans that keep on moving on with or without your character.  It's the way the world works, real and virtual.

So is it fair?  Is it fair for a GM to take your stated goals and morph them into something world-relevant and perhaps in a slightly different form without telling you the details of it all before hand so that you have an advantage in completing them?  I think it's completely fair.

As a player, I should not know what is in store for my character...ever.  I can know what I want to happen, but beyond that, it's not my place to say which way events will go that affect my character.  As a GM, my responsibility is to the events of the world, which move on regardless of who wants what.

Here's an example:

Say you stated in your WL app that you wanted to oust Lord Rael and return the rule of Prantz (and eventually Dregar) to the hands of those more deserving of the crown.  A lofty goal, to be sure.  But the thing is, Lord Rael is not some tin-horn dictator.  He has a huge amount of resources at his disposal, a well-trained guard and militia, and so unseating him would be a rather monumental task...one that is likely to fail, and fail miserably.

However, in planning, this plan would probably be rejected anyway, in part because it's too big in too little time.  That being said, the "true" goal may be that you instead become the founder and leader of a resistance movement against Lord Rael, one that acts through sedition and subterfuge rather than direct action.  One day, this resistance may, in fact, oust Lord Rael, but it surely won't happen by the end of a WLDQ.

So in this case, your goal was not met, but the "true" goal was, and along the way your character gains responsibility, influence and enemies, and there may have been a lot of other things that happen that you did not expect, good and bad.  How is that unfair?

To put it a simpler way...

If someone asks you what you want for your birthday and you tell them, but they go out and buy you something else, something you didn't quite ask for and probably didn't know you wanted in the first place.  When you open the gift, you expect what you asked for.  Instead, you get something more meaningful.  Is that fair?  Does "fair" even apply?

[EdTheKet]

Yes, that is fair. It's a WLDQ, your WLDQ and probably one of the hardest quests you'll ever be on. And remember, you submit yourself to that voluntarily

What Weeblie means is that we're not going to tell you upfront "You need to solve this to succeed." We never do that on quests, although in many a quest the problem is clear from the start. On others it's not (e.g. you are still totally clueless on what the problem is in Dissolution for example).

You just get tossed into a situation and take it from there. You wouldn't be the first one that didn't figure out what had to be done, or didn't figure it out in time and hence failed the WLDQ due to time running out.

So yes, it has happened that people thought they were successfull but weren't, e.g. like they solved the most obvious issue at hand, but didn't pursue the root cause, or pursued the wrong leads (yes there can be false leads). They thought they had succeeded, but actually hadn't and weren't aware until the end that there was something far larger afoot then they initially thought.

So yes, it is fair. As mentioned before all WLDQs are discussed, reviewed and approved for difficulty, success/failure, and length by Leanthar, Harlas, myself and the GM who runs it, so that nobody can say "But his was far easier!" People can still say that, but it is up to the player and his party to play the quest, respond to the events and drive the story of the quest forwards.

Hopefully towards a successful conclusion, but the choices the player makes determine the outcome and it doesn't get fairer than that.

[Acacea]

@ Dorg, I think the issue of fairness came up with the idea that you'd do your thing and check everything off your list, but the DM had some secret list that was totally different from yours and deemed you a failure. I think it brought to mind the image of getting your girlfriend/wife all the presents on her list, only to have it thrown at you because it was all a test to see if you could understand her enough to know what she really wanted. Which wasn't what was intended. Part of the goal of that kind of quest is to find out, and that the clues were all there, but the character failed to uncover them or act on them... or pursued red herrings all the way to death without ever wising up, despite evidence. Sometimes the biggest challenge is what you don't know. Personal example: Acacea didn't know who the 'bad guy' was on her epic until about 30 seconds before she killed him. If she had done things differently and not found out certain pieces of information, she may never have known at all and the main goal of the quest could have collapsed.

Another way differing views of success/failure can be looked at is to remember this: it is still up to you whether your character considers his way a success or not. In my (first) overly long post, I gave an example of a really morbid way to squeak by on a WL, a rock bottom success in the worldly sense. Clearly the character would live forever with his own failures even though he deserved what he got.

The ideal path to success would have led to the accomplishment/rescue of personal goals, as well as the overarching plot. However, let us assume that for whatever reason, some actions taken on the quest, the ideal result was already thrown out the window. Already blew the A+. In the WL sense, perhaps he might end up with the above. It could be a really great story.

However, just as cool a story is turning your back on the world. I'm not talking about the "good" of the world necessarily so much as the "impacting of the world in the manner you desired" kind of way. So, evil world impacting plans, too. If you throw the true goal out the window in order to dive for something else that may 'fail' your quest, you may have let down whatever big things you needed to do... but perhaps that ended up being the only route of personal success for the character. Lookin' at the throne being taken over by dark elves... tossin' it all aside to save your daughter that got involved through your actions (since unless you are an evil character or something, that really should never be your only option from the get-go). If that's the only thing you accomplished, I don't think you'd be slapped with all the WL stuff and the quest itself would probably be a failure for most characters. IC for the fiercely devoted father, though... *Shrugs.* It's all perspective. 'Failing' the quest in the worldly sense can be just as cool and developing as succeeding if you play it right, and it really should be a big goal for DMs to have even failure make you want to play more, to get involved, motivate.

Sometimes maybe you just totally suck and fail to pick up on anything. Fair! Other times, maybe a DM just gets too wrapped up in his own cleverness or something and start going kind of heavy on artistic symbolism and riddles so convoluted you don't even ever recognize them as riddles nor realize that your entire quest was 'just a dream' you were trying to escape from or something psychedelic, with all the big problems happening in the 'real world' that you never knew about. Yay, the demon horde has been put to the sword! And then you wake up, and the kingdom is gone and you're just left with this big '??'. Probably not as fair. With the right hints and context though, hey, could be a cool quest.

Thing is, you should be trying to aim for a DM whose style you are familiar with, and that understands (or is willing to learn) what is important to your character and all that. With all the communication lines intact, it's all riding on player actions, not loose DM interpretations. So no wiggling out and trying to blame it elsewhere...hehe. You might not have gotten what you expected, but you won't fail without plenty of opportunity to succeed...even if you choose the former over the latter for personal reasons.

((Edit, I know, I'm soooo slow today, but there really was an additional point there when I started...))

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

@Ed and Dorg

What I meant was is it fair to leave the "hero" without a chance to know what the "Real" issue is.  will there be hints and clue, if very subtle, to what really needs to be done, even if only available once?  I asked if thats fair cause I would think it would be horrible for a player and character to never be able to figure out what he "WAS" supposed to do, and fail.

Now, am I saying that we are all bright enough to notice what needs to be done or make the right choice?  No...  But are the chances there to find out?

[Dorganath]

Of course there would be clues, trails, suggestions even the odd brick with a note tied around it.  The trick is always putting them together correctly and then acting on them.

A big part of any quest is figuring out what to do based on the information given.  WLDQs are no different.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Well I hope mines a real dozzy once i can actually apply for it.  I think I know what I want Shiff to become, or would like to become.  

This thread has been rather informative, and is helping em understand what the WLDQ is really about.  I hope though when I submit the App I do it right >.<  I copied the basic format from somewhere and have been working on it for a while but its really short still...

[Frances]

General Dragonheart was never the same after he lost his family to the demon's ritual.

Not quite the end I had pictured for Val...

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Three things.

One, Acacea. Love your posts as always, but that fluff about "General Dragonheart..." Reminds me why you play such a bloody good bard.

Two, fairness. Yes, it's fair (as they explained) but it was a fair question, too.

Three. Shane, you, just like I, still have to GET to 20th before even applying. Never know when the Mother might strike. But good luck, buddy. You know I'm rooting for you.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

3 SS left and about... 300k or something XP wise to go...  And I don't die (much) anymore...  I'll get there  >.<  I know I can *chug* I know I can *chug* I know I can *chug, toot toot!*  

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Not quite the end I had pictured for Val...

Me too! So don't encourage them...

[Nehetsrev]

*Grins evilly and thinks about applying for the next DM opening...*  Mwahahahahahaa!

[Script Wrecked]

I have found this thread very illuminating, and would like to thank those who have contributed to it, and Shiff for starting it and asking all the "right" questions.

So that it isn't lost, I suggest it would be worthwhile for this thread be moved/copied to the "World Leader Development Quests" forum and/or stickied.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Just Change the Title..