Discussion: Bulletin Boards - Quests by Players for Players
Hello everyone!
I should preface this with something that gives a little bit of a background as to where I am coming from with this discussion.
I am a slave to the almighty Isekai Anime/Manga genre; aka. "Isekai Trash". The Isekai Genre basically means someone has been transported into another world (usually by dying irl and being transported or reborn in a new world - most often a fantasy world).
The big Isekai works out there are Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, The Rising of the Shield Hero, That Time I got Reincarnated as a Slime, No Game, No Life, Visions of Escaflowne, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, .Hack, and many many many more.
But I didn't start this discussion about Isekai, I wanted to talk about a feature in Isekai: Adventurer Guilds and their Quest Boards.
With the only information on the wiki about the bulletin board available being "Players can sponsor quests via the bulletin board" and nothing else, I would like to talk about my hopes and dreams surrounding player created quests and my experience with them.
First let me start with an explanation on how these Quest Boards work in Isekai:
Adventurer Guilds are a place of service where anyone can go to and hand in a request for a certain reward.
The Adventurer Guild will then analyze the request, give it a difficulty rating and post it up on their Quest Board.
Depending on the difficulty of the quests, new or seasoned adventurers come by the Guild and pick out certain requests to go and fulfill those requests.
The requests range from bringing back a lost cat, gathering herbs and mushrooms, slaying boars, escorting someone to another town, to anything you could think of that requires the aid of Adventurers.
Adventurers who want to take on these quests may need to have a certain Rank within the Adventurers Guild to accept these quests to ensure they are properly prepared to handle those requests.
To ensure their Guild Members are properly equipped to handle certain requests, the Guild will give out ranks to their Members.
A new Adventurer starts out at the Wood rank, and will progress through Bronze, Iron, Steel, Silver, Gold, etc. depending on their success with the quests they go on.
After doing a certain amount of Wood Rank quests, they can undergo a Rank up Quests to prove they have what it takes to take on Iron Level Quests and so on and so forth.
When it comes to Ashes of Creation's Bulletin Boards and not having a lot of Information on the topic, I would like to express my interest in having the option to post, accept and maybe even curate player made quests through said Bulletin Board.
Players could post their request for 20 Iron Bars, to bring home 15 boar flanks, slay the great Frost Dragon living up the mountain and bring back one of it's eyes, help escort a trader's caravan, etc. while other players arriving at the node can check the board and go on these quests.
Now I have seen a Quest Board somewhat realized in Neverwinter but it came with world building tools to create your own storylines, etc.
While this had some really cool stuff, most of it was just abused to grind EXP en masse and not really what I am looking for.
I would love for this to be as simple as possible.
Anyone - or maybe only residents of the node - should be able to approach the Board and open a form to fill out.
In the form they can choose to show their name or maybe post the request anonymously.
They should then be able to choose what item(s)/monster(s) and quantity/quality they are looking for and put in the reward be it money, another item or more items or both.
I would also probably have them deposit the reward at the time of the creation of the quest.
In addition to that a body where they can type out any instructions or lore behind the request.
Then add maybe a time limit until it has to be fulfilled. If no one hands in the requested things upon the due date, the request will be removed from the board and the deposit returned to the person making the request.
Any player/brave adventurer can then visit the Bulletin Board to see available requests and browse/accept them.
Upon accepting the request, it should show up as an accepted quest in the players quest log.
It should not need a quest indicator on the map but it should maybe count the quest progress and show when it is completed.
If the quest is not finished until the due date, it will be removed from the players quest log.
Multiple people accepting the quest could be possible under the condition of first come, first serve.
Whoever finishes the quest first and turns it back in at the bulletin board will receive the deposited reward and everyone too slow will have the quest removed from their quest log and receive a notification that the quest has been completed by someone else.
The person making the request should also be notified about the quest completion and should return to the bulletin board to receive their requested stuff.
The Adventurer Guild fantasy could be role played around the board's existence. Role players could form an adventurer guild and basically be the middle man. Having people turn in their requests in role play and members of the adventurer guild would then make the request on the board.
This would also make it possible for "outsiders" or other non-citizens of the node to use the Adventurer Guild to make requests in their stead - if Bulletin Board usage was restricted to Citizens of the node only.
What do you think?
Is this a cool idea or not?
Too much of a hassle?
Would you use a system like this or are these just ramblings of a lost role player?
