How To Encourage 'Quest for It'
Reward structures, XP, Gold, and lack thereof
You want it? Quest for it. The moonlight sword, the favour of a cruel prince, the bio-nuclear heart of the Old Machines... These are how you will chisel your fate. So go get them.
Or, you know, just loot coffins for a month to double your stats.
Many games tell you to quest for the things you want. Blessings, magical swords, political favours - the big power-ups should come from going on a quest to get them.
I’ve always liked this concept. It helps to recreate the fiction that inspires these games. Protagonists should go on big damn adventures to get big damn rewards. But I find in level-based games, players rarely quest for it. They don’t need to. They can cash in their XP to increase their capability.
Inadequacy and Power
In my current game, there are no classes or XP. We’ve had great fun being defined by our actions, our values and our gear, but there hasn’t been pressure to quest for it outside of the big narrative objective. That was, until a few of the PCs died, and I showed off some strong NPCs.
When faced with their mortality and the potential of power in the world, the players woke up and went ‘bloody hell, we’re not ready to take on these threats. We’re not strong enough to accomplish our goals, and other people are.’ I think it made them realise their current capability is not the ceiling: it’s the starting point. Seeing a golem with a micro-jet-propelled handaxe will do that to you.
The players have direct power to increase the fictional strength of their characters and their ability to change the game world. Not just by acting, but by going out there and taking the means to do so. They know this because other people are already doing it.
I think the combination of feeling inadequate and seeing the potential of the world is really important. For most of the campaign so far, they’ve gotten by on wits and good teamwork. To be honest, they probably could continue the whole game that way. However, after half of them died, they identified that total failure is possible, and they want to reduce that likelihood. Their preferred option? Quest for it.
Scarcity as a Factor
Scarcity is key. The players did try to buy weapons, armour, and cybernetics in town. Some of it was available, but at a price they weren’t willing to pay: information.
We don’t use gold. You don’t find treasure that anyone would trade for. It’s barter only. The player’s contact would only trade their high-grade gear if the party gave up a lead on a nearby treasure hoard they mentioned. That same hoard where half the party died. That same hoard they want to gear up, go back to and burn.
Predictably, the party refused. This put them in a pickle. There weren’t other arms-dealers around. They didn’t have a universal currency to fall back on and pay their way out of said self-imposed pickling. They could have bartered around to try red paper-clip their way to the good stuff, but that would take precious time. And we hate shopping.
Scarcity is important. Why quest if I can buy?
Setting Goals and Methods
Here was the party thought-process:
We want stronger equipment
We don’t want to trade our limited resources for it
We have the contacts to install implants, but we have no implants
Let’s go find some implants
They befriended a ripper during a bout of carousing, and so asked their new chum if they had leads. Cackling as they rubbed their bloody-gold fingers together, Rick the Ripper croons:
‘Leads? Well sure, buddy. I hired a bunch of goons to loot an ancestral site just thattaway in the Blue Diamond Sea, but, well… Only one of them came back. Empty-handed. You want to give it a go?’
And everyone knows the ancestors loved grafting sci-fi shit to their bones.
It’s the first time I’ve successfully cultivated an environment that has caused players to not just seek XP (because we aren’t using XP), but to identify and action specific self-improvement goals. Mind you, I’m not trying to beat them down until they feel so useless they have no other option. I hope for them to feel they can choose their own methods of success. They can try brute-force. They can try being clever. Right now, they’re looking to gear up with some preem implants, choom.
Conclusion and Gold
You probably could encourage quest for it while having a coin-standard in your game. You could encourage quest for it while having levels and XP and classes. I’ve just never pulled it off before when using those elements.
There’s a fair argument that the currency you claim in a dungeon, be it coin or art or nega-seeds, gives players agency. They can invest in the parts of the game they value. If I value big weapons, I invest my gold in fuck-off weapons. If I value relationships, I invest my gold in carousing. That’s completely valid and a good way to play.
But I am very glad we chose no gold, no levels, no XP. It fundamentally comes down to this: