Many Adventures vs a Main Quest - Devlog #8
In the last post I wrote about how adventures are entered into from different potential paths, and then you get different results, based on how you got into it, but I only touched on the different thing I want to do with All Hail Temos from the standard RPG’s main quest & side quests formula.
The definitions I use below are my working definitions for doing game design on this game, and not meant to be universal.
Is it wrong to not have a main quest?
The main quest of a game is typically the ending condition, you finish the game when you complete it. Maybe you can continue playing, but the game world was created around the main quest, and will often feel fairly empty when the main quest is over.
Games usually open with their main quest, so that you are given a reason to care about the world and your missions, and there are usually large stakes, often the fate of the world is at risk, unless a major problem is averted.
Also, the player is often given a special place in this story, as a Chosen One character, who was prophesized or has proven themselves to be the champion that will complete the main quest, and often the game world acknowledges that the player is this person at every opportunity.
This is good for many different reasons, as it keeps the player focused, it can help with the pacing of the story, and all the world supports this problem to keep the stakes high. With high stakes, the player can really care about the outcome, and everywhere they go, they will often see issues that are due to the main problem that must be solved, or villain that must be defeated.
Having a main villain is normally the focus, as you have someone to focus on, which is a specific person you can learn about. If the problem is more abstract such as “the moon will crash into the Earth”, there is less emotional investment. The player will not hate the moon for crashing into the earth, but they can hate a villain that has done villainous things, who they want to stop from doing even larger villainous things that threaten everyone.
This is a very good formula. A Hero’s Journey. It is proven to be entertaining again and again, as it speaks to the core of our emotional state.
But, I want to build the open world of All Hail Temos to be something different than singularly focused on this big problem, or having a central problem and few other big problems, and then many side quests.
Like the real world, there will be problems everywhere. Because there are characters everywhere, who want different things, and they are at odds with each other, and in their own struggle for survival. There is no central problem, and so no central adventures, but many adventures to be found.
If an “adventure” isn’t a main quest, is it a side quest? Not in All Hail Temos.
Side quests are typically very brief, and take the format of:
Taking that apart, it can be seen as a transaction request and transaction fulfillment. You are asked to get X, you bring X and get paid Y.
But, there are more elements to it. The kind of quest tells you about the area, and maybe world history or current events. The character who asked you to go on the quest tells you about themselves and others in their area. The rewards move your progression forward, and you have accomplished something in-game.
There is both potential realism and gaming mechanics going on here as people really do need “3 wolf pelts” to do something regarding leather and fur. But, side quests can often seem like filler, and can be repetitive. So there are many ways to improve upon the standard side quest formula.
I believe it is important not to try to get rid of side quests, but to make them more contextual and optional.
Other benefits of side quests:
Of course, there are many negatives to avoid in side quests, such as too much repetition, not enough variety, with automatically generated quests often being too similar and feeling unrewarding. Also if the side quest is required for the main quest, but it doesn’t make sense, or it has harsh failure states it can make the game frustrating and potentially block finishing the game, because it’s a simple side quest, but you keep failing it, and can’t move the game forward.
So, while All Hail Temos won’t have a main quest, it will have side quests. But they will always be optional, and they will be based on the situations of the characters. I believe there is a place for this sort of a transactional short mission in an open world RPG, so I will keep them and try to put them to good use.
Now that we’ve covered how I am thinking about main and side quests, I’ll explain my vision for what an adventure brings that is different.
To start with, an adventure must have high stakes for someone. There must be risk for some of the characters involved with the quest, which is why it will not just be a list of tasks to do or transactions to make, because it is important to characters in the world.
This gives a spectrum of importance and caring. An adventure might mean that a character is able to realize their dream and start on a career they’ve been blocked from. Or succeed in finding lost treasure, that they need to save a loved one. For that character, this may be a “world ending” event if they fail, but other parts of the world may not notice the change significantly either way.
Because some characters have a large stake in this adventure, you are given a reason to also care about it, to see what happens to the characters. To help them solve their problem.
There are also adventures specifically about the player’s goals, such as the player becoming a desired profession, or getting hired by a powerful person to work for them, getting more adventures and rewards. This may create or increase rivalries that create more adventures as they try to take what you have earned, or otherwise damage you or your employer. Maybe you want your own business, and they are direct rivals or in a different circle or faction.
All of these things have their own risks and rewards, that are not typically present in side quests, but are the bread and butter of the main quest.
However, with a main quest, it is very difficult to have any branching narrative, because that really does mean the content starts getting 9 times bigger, then 81 times bigger, and is just completely unmanageable by a team of any size. So branching must be mostly decorative, so there is a feeling of different actions, without actually having to take different actions and produce more content.
With adventures, it is possible to have branching which can block some adventures, because you chose a different path, and they are mutually exclusive. Or you can still take part in that adventure, but must find it from a different direction, because of your choices, and end up getting a different kind of result because you approached the quest from a different situation.
Several paths into an adventure, many possible outcomes back on your path in.
In an open world RPG, I think this is interesting. And I don’t think completing even a very long adventure means the world suddenly feels purposeless. In fact, as you create more history, there are more possibilities of adventures that build on your previous adventures results.
This feeling and narrative mechanic is what I want to create with All Hail Temos.
It’s good to finish things. Cathartic. Freeing. You can move on, with a sense of accomplishment.
Without a main quest, how will this happen?
This is a problem in all open world RPGs, because the main quest doesn’t define the end of the ability to play. You can keep playing side quests after the main quest is completed in some games, or maybe some other large quests in the game outside the main quest. You can potentially see how your actions have changed the world. But, it’s still good to get a nice ending.
In All Hail Temos, I will accomplish this by what I’m calling “Epic Endings”, as all adventures will have endings with a conclusion, and moving characters further in their arcs, and making changes to the world due your choices and actions.
Some adventures will have an Epic Ending, which you will have to confirm before you start it, that you are now moving into a more funneled narrative experience, that will go to the completion of this longer more substantial adventure, and lead to a big ending. Then you win!
But, of course you can keep playing. And you can get more endings, and play more.
For the initial demo and EA launch I am aiming for just a single Epic Ending and many adventures, but if the game is well received I will keep writing more adventures, and expanding them until they deserve their own Epic Ending.
Stories, characters, theme and world building are part of what goes into making gameplay meaningful. In a game, there is a given set of mechanics, and there is a limit to how much the mechanics can be expanded on and changed in a meaningful way, and still remain coherent.
The meaning of the gameplay can be refreshed, if there are new characters or new stories being told, and you are learning more about the world. The gameplay becomes your ability to navigate and engage with these stories in a way beyond just listening and responding to dialogue.
This should hopefully help keep the game feeling fresh, while also adding more depth to what you already enjoy.
Of course, just having new stories doesn’t mean there shouldn’t also be adjustments to the mechanical gameplay requirements, new types of challenges, new environments, new combat patterns, but I believe there is a much larger space to keep a game fresh in story and characters than only in gameplay mechanics adjustments.
As I add content, I will aiming to improve both the narrative and gameplay variety for a free-choice-feeling role-playing experience.
I hope this illustrates some of my vision for providing a world with a lot of adventures, instead of focusing a world on a single world-ending scale problem. I think that the single-problem model is great, it can be very powerful and all the components in the game can support this problem and you resolving it: walking a hero’s path.
But, in an open world game, where you are free to pick the role you want to play, having a single major issue going on, the world-ending main quest, seems to go against the desire to explore and try to be who you want and approach things how you want.
If you want to see more about All Hail Temos, please Wishlist and Follow.
The definitions I use below are my working definitions for doing game design on this game, and not meant to be universal.
Is it wrong to not have a main quest?What is a Main quest?
The main quest of a game is typically the ending condition, you finish the game when you complete it. Maybe you can continue playing, but the game world was created around the main quest, and will often feel fairly empty when the main quest is over.
Games usually open with their main quest, so that you are given a reason to care about the world and your missions, and there are usually large stakes, often the fate of the world is at risk, unless a major problem is averted.
Also, the player is often given a special place in this story, as a Chosen One character, who was prophesized or has proven themselves to be the champion that will complete the main quest, and often the game world acknowledges that the player is this person at every opportunity.
This is good for many different reasons, as it keeps the player focused, it can help with the pacing of the story, and all the world supports this problem to keep the stakes high. With high stakes, the player can really care about the outcome, and everywhere they go, they will often see issues that are due to the main problem that must be solved, or villain that must be defeated.
Having a main villain is normally the focus, as you have someone to focus on, which is a specific person you can learn about. If the problem is more abstract such as “the moon will crash into the Earth”, there is less emotional investment. The player will not hate the moon for crashing into the earth, but they can hate a villain that has done villainous things, who they want to stop from doing even larger villainous things that threaten everyone.
This is a very good formula. A Hero’s Journey. It is proven to be entertaining again and again, as it speaks to the core of our emotional state.
But, I want to build the open world of All Hail Temos to be something different than singularly focused on this big problem, or having a central problem and few other big problems, and then many side quests.
Like the real world, there will be problems everywhere. Because there are characters everywhere, who want different things, and they are at odds with each other, and in their own struggle for survival. There is no central problem, and so no central adventures, but many adventures to be found.
Is an adventure a side quest?
If an “adventure” isn’t a main quest, is it a side quest? Not in All Hail Temos.
Side quests are typically very brief, and take the format of:
- Talking to a quest giver, they ask you to do something: “Bring me 3 wolf pelts.”
- You go kill 3 wolves, and bring the pelts. Or, acquire them another way, like buying, stealing or finding them.
- You bring the items back to the quest giver and get rewarded in money, items or XP.
- Maybe you get a follow up quest, or unlock information you need for a different quest.
Taking that apart, it can be seen as a transaction request and transaction fulfillment. You are asked to get X, you bring X and get paid Y.
But, there are more elements to it. The kind of quest tells you about the area, and maybe world history or current events. The character who asked you to go on the quest tells you about themselves and others in their area. The rewards move your progression forward, and you have accomplished something in-game.
There is both potential realism and gaming mechanics going on here as people really do need “3 wolf pelts” to do something regarding leather and fur. But, side quests can often seem like filler, and can be repetitive. So there are many ways to improve upon the standard side quest formula.
I believe it is important not to try to get rid of side quests, but to make them more contextual and optional.
Other benefits of side quests:
- They encourage you to explore local areas, or travel to distant areas. You have a reason to go do it because the quest gives you that reason. You can find other new things along the way.
- They allow you to switch to doing something else if you don’t feel like continuing with your last goal right now, or just finished something.
- You can do them fairly quickly, so you can have some fun playing even if you don’t have a long time to play this session.
- It gives you a reason to talk to new characters, because there will be many more opportunities for side quests than just going to shops and pursuing the main quest.
Of course, there are many negatives to avoid in side quests, such as too much repetition, not enough variety, with automatically generated quests often being too similar and feeling unrewarding. Also if the side quest is required for the main quest, but it doesn’t make sense, or it has harsh failure states it can make the game frustrating and potentially block finishing the game, because it’s a simple side quest, but you keep failing it, and can’t move the game forward.
So, while All Hail Temos won’t have a main quest, it will have side quests. But they will always be optional, and they will be based on the situations of the characters. I believe there is a place for this sort of a transactional short mission in an open world RPG, so I will keep them and try to put them to good use.
What is an Adventure?
Now that we’ve covered how I am thinking about main and side quests, I’ll explain my vision for what an adventure brings that is different.
To start with, an adventure must have high stakes for someone. There must be risk for some of the characters involved with the quest, which is why it will not just be a list of tasks to do or transactions to make, because it is important to characters in the world.
This gives a spectrum of importance and caring. An adventure might mean that a character is able to realize their dream and start on a career they’ve been blocked from. Or succeed in finding lost treasure, that they need to save a loved one. For that character, this may be a “world ending” event if they fail, but other parts of the world may not notice the change significantly either way.
Because some characters have a large stake in this adventure, you are given a reason to also care about it, to see what happens to the characters. To help them solve their problem.
There are also adventures specifically about the player’s goals, such as the player becoming a desired profession, or getting hired by a powerful person to work for them, getting more adventures and rewards. This may create or increase rivalries that create more adventures as they try to take what you have earned, or otherwise damage you or your employer. Maybe you want your own business, and they are direct rivals or in a different circle or faction.
All of these things have their own risks and rewards, that are not typically present in side quests, but are the bread and butter of the main quest.
However, with a main quest, it is very difficult to have any branching narrative, because that really does mean the content starts getting 9 times bigger, then 81 times bigger, and is just completely unmanageable by a team of any size. So branching must be mostly decorative, so there is a feeling of different actions, without actually having to take different actions and produce more content.
With adventures, it is possible to have branching which can block some adventures, because you chose a different path, and they are mutually exclusive. Or you can still take part in that adventure, but must find it from a different direction, because of your choices, and end up getting a different kind of result because you approached the quest from a different situation.
Several paths into an adventure, many possible outcomes back on your path in.In an open world RPG, I think this is interesting. And I don’t think completing even a very long adventure means the world suddenly feels purposeless. In fact, as you create more history, there are more possibilities of adventures that build on your previous adventures results.
This feeling and narrative mechanic is what I want to create with All Hail Temos.
Without a Main Quest, does it end?
It’s good to finish things. Cathartic. Freeing. You can move on, with a sense of accomplishment.
Without a main quest, how will this happen?
This is a problem in all open world RPGs, because the main quest doesn’t define the end of the ability to play. You can keep playing side quests after the main quest is completed in some games, or maybe some other large quests in the game outside the main quest. You can potentially see how your actions have changed the world. But, it’s still good to get a nice ending.
In All Hail Temos, I will accomplish this by what I’m calling “Epic Endings”, as all adventures will have endings with a conclusion, and moving characters further in their arcs, and making changes to the world due your choices and actions.
Some adventures will have an Epic Ending, which you will have to confirm before you start it, that you are now moving into a more funneled narrative experience, that will go to the completion of this longer more substantial adventure, and lead to a big ending. Then you win!
But, of course you can keep playing. And you can get more endings, and play more.
For the initial demo and EA launch I am aiming for just a single Epic Ending and many adventures, but if the game is well received I will keep writing more adventures, and expanding them until they deserve their own Epic Ending.
How will this affect gameplay?
Stories, characters, theme and world building are part of what goes into making gameplay meaningful. In a game, there is a given set of mechanics, and there is a limit to how much the mechanics can be expanded on and changed in a meaningful way, and still remain coherent.
The meaning of the gameplay can be refreshed, if there are new characters or new stories being told, and you are learning more about the world. The gameplay becomes your ability to navigate and engage with these stories in a way beyond just listening and responding to dialogue.
This should hopefully help keep the game feeling fresh, while also adding more depth to what you already enjoy.
Of course, just having new stories doesn’t mean there shouldn’t also be adjustments to the mechanical gameplay requirements, new types of challenges, new environments, new combat patterns, but I believe there is a much larger space to keep a game fresh in story and characters than only in gameplay mechanics adjustments.
As I add content, I will aiming to improve both the narrative and gameplay variety for a free-choice-feeling role-playing experience.
Conclusion
I hope this illustrates some of my vision for providing a world with a lot of adventures, instead of focusing a world on a single world-ending scale problem. I think that the single-problem model is great, it can be very powerful and all the components in the game can support this problem and you resolving it: walking a hero’s path.
But, in an open world game, where you are free to pick the role you want to play, having a single major issue going on, the world-ending main quest, seems to go against the desire to explore and try to be who you want and approach things how you want.
If you want to see more about All Hail Temos, please Wishlist and Follow.