What's in it for the GM?

[TabulaRasa]

Hello,

I am a Game Master. By this I mean that I far prefer the role of GM than the one of player.

What will Pathfinder Online offer me?

Will there be a way for people like me to contribute content or adventures for the wider community to enjoy?

[Scott Betts]

Probably not in the sense that you're imagining. We don't know very much about the project yet, but few and far between are the MMOs that spend the development time on allowing players to create their own content.

[Mark Kalmes]

This is a feature we would love to have eventually, but it is not on the roadmap yet. On the other hand, there will be a lot of need in the game for people who simply are good at organizing and motivating other players. Maybe you'd feel best in a leadership position within a kingdom?

[Scott Betts]

Mark Kalmes wrote:

This is a feature we would love to have eventually, but it is not on the roadmap yet. On the other hand, there will be a lot of need in the game for people who simply are good at organizing and motivating other players. Maybe you'd feel best in a leadership position within a kingdom?

This is sort of what I imagine most chronic DMs turning to.

[Drejk]

Gather some gold at the very beginning and then you will be the cloaked stranger in tavern that issued the quests ;)

[Sean Byram]

I almost exclusively DM, but I'm not one for direct leadership roles in RPGs. Maybe a King's wizard-advisor. I'd love the ability to draw up plans for fortresses and watch over time as NPCs and players turn plans into reality. Don't know how doable making underground structures will be, but that would be excellent. Player created content, even in the vaguest of senses, will be what brings me to this game.

[Elth]

I'm not sure how possible or exploitable this would be but It would be really cool if there were a way to create quests for other players.

Say if there was an interface where you could add a goal, destination and reward, then present it to a player in quest format. This would allow players wanting to "GM" to be able to lead or present a story from their character in game.

So instead of having an NPC tell you to go collect 10 wolf nipple chips, a player can now do it too.

like any concept though, how can it be done without being exploited by munchkins. It could easily be exploited if it rewarded experience or skill points but what if it provided an outlet for players to get rid of items they don't want?

example... you are a veteran player that has collected a few useless items that neither you or your guild can use but would be useful to a novice player. Using the quest interface, you quickly create a quest to kill an NPC goblin who resides in a nearby noob dungeon. You set the reward as one of the low level magic items in your bag and a small amount of coin. How a player delivers or presents the quest is upto them, if they want to try to enthrall players in a story, they now have a simple mechanic that may or may not draw in surrounding players.

[Sean Byram]

As far as I know, quest giving doesn't need a built-in feature. Let's say I recently sacked a caravan of daggers. I'm disappointed, because seriously, who the heck just has a caravan of all daggers?

I tell players that I'll give them a dagger for every set of goblin teeth they bring me. The way I do this is likely very easy. Every 5 or 10 minutes I say it in the town chat channel or whatever. Or I make a post on the game's forums. I do this because not too far from the town I'm staying in, there's a den of goblins. I do this mainly for giggles, and because I can't offload the daggers. Or maybe I know an alchemist who'll give me mucho gold for goblin teeth. Who knows.

Anyways, as a character I've just used a non-existent quest giving system to give a fairly stereotypical MMO quest.

[FoxBat_]

Sean Byram wrote:

I tell players that I'll give them a dagger for every set of goblin teeth they bring me. The way I do this is likely very easy. Every 5 or 10 minutes I say it in the town chat channel or whatever. Or I make a post on the game's forums. I do this because not too far from the town I'm staying in, there's a den of goblins. I do this mainly for giggles, and because I can't offload the daggers. Or maybe I know an alchemist who'll give me mucho gold for goblin teeth. Who knows.

The only problem is no-one is going to take you up on your offer. If you can't offload daggers it's because no-one wants them. If someone managed to pick up some unwanted goblin teeth they might trade anyway for fun, but no-one will specifically head out in the wilderness to grind goblins for your offering.

In most MMOs players quest primarily for XP anyway, until you can give that out they likely won't be interested.

Now if clearing out a local goblin population (something you can't do alone) allowed you to claim that area or some other advantage, and you paid everyone that helped something worthwhile, we might be getting somewhere. Using goblin teeth as proof they were clearing out your particular locale though would require that said teeth are unique to your location.... not to mention if "quests" like this became common, we'd see people saving up these teeth over a long period of time and cashing in whenever. (i.e. I got teeth from 10 months ago, now you want the goblins cleared out and pay X for teeth, suddenly people unload a stash that benefits you zero.) In short we need some basic systems that directly or indirectly support honest transactions beyond simple item trading so your quests/services can mean anything;.

[Sean Byram]

You might be missing my point. I meant to illustrate that despite a system developed for giving quests, it's still very doable.

As for my specific example, you'd be surprised what some brand new players will do for a little direction. Personally, I like to make my own way, but others need that order. Also, with the possibility that every creature has some token loot that is unique to it's creature type or the individual (for unique NPCs), like goblin teeth, that possibly have little market value (unless you had the player connections to access niche markets) there's the strong likelihood a new player would trade a "worthless" item for a weapon, or several weapons that they can perhaps hand out to all their (also new) friends.

As for doing quests for xp, this game has a skill based mechanic. Meaning that reporting back completion of a quest is not necessary for character advancement.

Anyways, again, the original intent of my example was to illustrate that despite a system developed for giving quests, it's still very doable.

[LibraryRPGamer]

It is true that most quests hand out XP rewards. So, player created quests should have XP rewards too (although, item rewards can be added from the quest giver’s inventory for extra incentive). At each level-up, players would be awarded some amount of XP whose sole purpose is to hand away to other players for quests.

[Coldman]

This is not an effort to blatently plug my own thread, more to direct people to a relevent idea I had to which the title can be a little misleading as to what I'm talking about.

Read this thread for an idea on how tabletop GMs can potentially influence the game.

[Sean Byram]

LibraryRPGamer wrote:

It is true that most quests hand out XP rewards.

That's nice for the games where that is true. From what I've seen, it appears that what they're planning does not do that, at least not directly.

[Scott Betts]

Sean Byram wrote:

LibraryRPGamer wrote:

It is true that most quests hand out XP rewards.

That's nice for the games where that is true. From what I've seen, it appears that what they're planning does not do that, at least not directly.

I'm willing to bet that certain substantial activities in-game (whether they're called "quests" or not), especially of the theme-park variety, will award some kind of non-material prize - something that boosts your character's intrinsic power. In most games this is experience points. As you note, they might not hand out XP.