Quest Reward Groups

I've gotten some questions about the "Reward Group" concept in the quest builder. Let me explain that a bit.

When a character completes the requirements of a particular step in the quest, there's always a chance for the quest designer to supply "rewards". In many cases, the rewards are clear cut, but suppose you want to give the player a choice of rewards?

There are 26 rewards groups (A through Z). If you specify more than one of these reward groups, RealmSpeak will provide the player with a choice of options. If you play the DragonSlayer quest, you see this right at the beginning, when the player gets to choose starting equipment.

There's also another reward group marked only with a dash "---". This reward group is ALWAYS given, regardless of the player choice. Say for example you wanted the player to have a choice between a horse, weapon, or 10 gold, but you want the "Old Man" to join as a Minor Character regardless. You would make the "Old Man" reward as a dash "---", the horse as "A", the weapon as "B", and the gold as "C".

Of course, you can have more than one reward land in each group. If you want the player to have the choice between a Warhorse or a weapon plus 10 gold, you would set it like this:

--- Old Man
A Warhorse
B Weapon
B 10 Gold

Version 1.0.24.0 Released

Here's a new release (finally) with a few minor changes, and one big change. The big change, you may have guessed, is that this is the first to support any form of "questing", an idea I originally heard about from Jay Richardson's "Book of Quests" (find information about that here).

Now before anyone get's too excited, keep in mind this is more of a quest-beta than the final product. In other words, there's still a long ways to go. That said, there is actually ONE quest in this release based on the Book of Quests: Dragon Slayer.

When you start a new game of RealmSpeak, you'll notice a new "Victory Conditions" section:

To try out the quests, you'll want to select "Sudden Death", and "Book of Quests" like I did above. The other two questing options do NOTHING, so no need to even select them. Choose a character like normal, and then you'll see new gold button on your character pane:

Click that button, and you should get a quest chooser popping up, with the lone quest "Dragon Slayer" as your only option. Notice that you can click on the little shields to see how the quest all fits together. Click OK, and the game is on!

Notice now that there is a new quest tab:

This is where you'll periodically want to check back to see what it is you need to do. The gold shield with a Green check mark, is the setup step, and you've already done that. The two gold shields without a green check mark indicate the next possible steps in the quest. The gray shields are not achievable until you've completed those. Click on the shield, and there is a description about what that quest step requires. Once you have completed the requirement, the shield will automatically get a check mark, and gray shields will turn gold. Complete that last shield on the right, and you win the game. (I'll be honest, this is a bitchin' hard quest to complete)

Now if you've played the Book of Quests before, you'll immediately notice some shortcomings. Remember, this is supposed to be a beta!! I'll get to that stuff eventually, but this is what I have now. Also, there is only the ONE quest...

If you look in the download, you'll see a new batch file called "launchQuestBuilder.bat". This will actually launch the beta version of the Quest Builder for you to play with. WARNING: I will likely be changing things about the builder, and any quests you may assemble now will likely be broken later. Please don't put a lot of work into any quests with this tool! Once it is a bit more solid, I'll lock it down, and you can design to your hearts content!!

Ok, my wife is bugging me to wrap this up so we can go grab a bite to eat (is it really 8pm already?) Here's what's new:

NEW FEATURES:

• Quests
  
  • Completely revamped the victory options in the setup dialog:
    
  • Choose between Endless, Timed, and Sudden Death games
    
  • Optionally select one of the questing choices: Book of Quests, Questing the Realm, or Guild Quests (only Book of Quests works right now)
    
  • Currently only "Dragon Slayer" from Book of Quests is provided. Many more to come, as well as a tool to make your own!!
    
    • The quest itself, should work. From rescue, to looting, to slaying the dragon, to returning the girl home to her family.
      
    • Some aspects of the quest not yet implemented (for example, you still earn fame/notoriety even though the quest states that you do not)
  • New Quest tab added to character window for following quest results
• [1744] - New house rules to make character development easier
  
  • No VP Ramp: 1 VP per chit regardless of level
    
  • No VP Restriction: VPs count towards level regardless of initial allotment

BUGS/ISSUES:

• [1748] - Fixed a bug that caused the SEARCH function to crash when the character is located in a clearing that doesn't lead anywhere.

Quest Actions

Just for fun, thought I'd list some of the actions that can be applied for a given quest step, once the requirements have been met:

Information	Displays a dialog with information in it. This is a good way to inform the player what is happening.
Item	Add an item to the character inventory, or take one away. Allows for choosing items from a group.
Attribute	Modify Fame, Notoriety, or Gold. Can either add or subtract points/gold.
Hireling	Add or remove a hireling.
Companion	Add or remove a monster ally.
MinorCharacter	Add or remove a Minor Character. Must create Minor Characters BEFORE creating this reward.
Teleport	Teleport the character to a new location. Must create a QuestLocation BEFORE creating this reward.
RelationshipSet	Set the relationship of the character with a particular native group, or all natives in the clearing.
RelationshipChange	Modify the relationship of the character with a particular native group, or all natives in the clearing.
QuestComplete	Tells RealmSpeak that the character has completed this quest.
QuestFailed	Tells RealmSpeak that the character has failed this quest.
SummonGuardian	For a specific quest location, summon the treasure site guardian (if any)
ScareMonsters	Randomly move all monsters in current clearing to other clearings either in the same tile or other tiles, as defined.
AlterHide	Change questing character's hide status (from hidden to unhidden, or the other way around).
MarkDenizen	Mark a particular denizen for later reference. This is useful if you want to make sure a character kills (for example) a particular monster.
StripInventory	Removes ALL inventory and (optionally) gold from the character.
LostInventoryToLocation	All future lost inventory from this quest will go to a specified location.
LostInventoryToDefault	All future lost inventory from this quest will go to wherever they started the game, including treasures. This is default setting.

I should mention that there are actually more actions planned, than those listed above, but these are the ones I have going so far.  This list also covers everything I need to complete the Dragon Slayer quest.