Today we'll inspect and deconstruct the concept of a quest giver. Following that I'll start implementing the quest I devised last time.
Quest Givers
In stories, characters are one major source of movement/change. One specific figuration of that is a quest giver. Such characters provide the player with quests and are function thus as initiators of sections of game experience.
Initiation
By their very nature quest givers are the main component for setting up a quest. Here the promises/ dissonances will be introduced, which need to be reflected in the subsequent progress/decisions and final payoff/resolution (see posts #17 and #20). The quest giving is the moment were the transition to a new story and experience happens and it is the designers task to make that transition right.
An initiation can also be seen in a more abstract context of going off into the Unknown, allowing yourself to learn something new, exploring unchartered territory. A quest giver in that sense is the liminal threshold, the access point to a new world or "palace of meaning". Even if the meanings are based on fictional signage, the meanings themselves are real and may be transferred to reality if they belong to a constelation that exists in realiy aswell.
On a more technical note, initiation by a quest giver carries the issue of "How to tell player this NPC is to be a quest giver?". There are various solutions to this
"have all quest-givers directly approach the characters automatically" and related to this: introduce the quest giver in the context of another quest
"clearly mark all relevant quest-givers somehow, such as having a sign float over their head"
"make the quest-giver stand in a prominent place and say things that suggest their function"
"don't mark quest-givers at all, players won't know if the character gives a quest unless they ask"
These are all taken in more or less verbatim way from the respective tvtropes site.
The above video shows an example of "automatically approaching quest givers" in Fable.
Trope Deconstruction
As the existence of the tvtropes site suggests, the concept of a quest giver is not particularly new to video games and indeed, it has been used quite often in many games so far. However especially in the early days of quest games these characters tended to be rather flat in their conception and often had a mostly functional use (at least that is my impression). This I found mirrored in books like the one Lee Sheldon wrote, where he devotes a large part of his section on quest givers on a commentary advocating that
There are many functions NPCs can have. But none of them need exist only as sterotypes or mannequins cut and pasted from town to town in a game.
A lot has evolved since 2004, and we find now that video games tend to divert more and more from characters that feel purely functional and lifeless. But I think it is an important lesson to have in mind for every designer newly entering this industry (as I am): For they probably didn't experience the origin of these developments and thus maybe need to understanding in retrospective why it is important to give special care to these NPCs.
Further Reading / Inspiration
Jeff Howard (2008) Quests - Design, theory and History in Games and Narratives, p. 26ff. Howard inspired my paragraph on the idea of quest givers as access points to new meanings.
TVTropes contributors (2021) Quest Giver. Link. The go-to site for tropes in media.
Lee Sheldon (2004) Character Development and Storytelling, p. 85. On this page, Sheldon discusses the shortcomings and needs for quest giver design of his time.
A Diabolic Witcher Quest: Implementation
So, for this post I've implemented the quest I devised in the last post:
Have fun. It's better played in fullscreen.
Ideas for Feedback
- How do you think the function of quest givers might be used in storytelling?
- Do you think my implementation fit the tone of my design?
Conclusion
So today I talked about the topic of quest givers and their meaning to story and quest design. I found the idea of those figures as transition points very sensible. Furthermore, I implemented a second quest design as interactive novel of sorts. I'm content with the result, even though the result did turn out quite experimental.
Have a good time!
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