4. HQ25 - Story Arc discussion

[knightkrawler]

I will make one last plead that we turn it into several smaller independent story arcs.
I think most here can manage to put together 4-6 excellent well thought out quests with a tight story.
Making one big high quality 25-quest story just seems like too big a bite.
And if someone is dreaming of a BIG story it's still possible to make the quest distribution something like 3-5-4-5-8 (a short intro arc and a big finale arc)

I do still think my arc breakdown suggestion from months ago is
a. a nice storyline,
b. exactly what G-K pleads for
c. easy to resolve as a succession of quests
d. a good starting point for twists and tweekings from the get go if you don't like the details

[gootchute]

Okay okay... I know I might be coming off a little negative, but I'm really not - just excited for the project
But I've been thinking about this quite a lot the last few days and reading and re-reading this thread...
I know we've all put a lot of effort into making the current story, and maybe it's just me, but personally I'm having a really hard time taking it on when I begin to think about how to actually turn it into quests.
I don't know... The leads... Gathering four items... It sounds too filler/repetitive for me.
There are just too many big blank pages in the story at this point.

What I'm suggesting is that we "kill our darlings"!

I will make one last plead that we turn it into several smaller independent story arcs.
I think most here can manage to put together 4-6 excellent well thought out quests with a tight story.
Making one big high quality 25-quest story just seems like too big a bite.
And if someone is dreaming of a BIG story it's still possible to make the quest distribution something like 3-5-4-5-8 (a short intro arc and a big finale arc)

Now I've said how I feel... If nobody agrees I'll shut up about it and let it go

Also this:

With 25 quests I think there are bound to be a few filler quests (Castle of Mystery anyone?). I was intimidated at first by the amount of quests and trying to make a coherent story. I am going to partially agree with you GK, we can all make a great set of 3-5 quests with a tight story... which is kind of like the "lead" idea. I believe we can achieve Both GK and Sjeng's ambitions.

Maybe if we loosen the explicit overarching storyline to be more in the background in the initial notes, and create several chains of quests (with or without returning to town as decided by the chapter's author) which seem only loosely related, we can drop a big reveal around quest 20 which reveals the big-bad and pulls the other arcs together for the final few quests.

Sounds kind of like the Gathering of Storms huh?

There are a lot of great ideas here! But if there is one thing I have learned about online group think-tanks, without a project leader it will stagnate in indecisiveness and fail. Someone has to make the hard decisions of which direction to go, what ideas to cut etc... Someone needs final say and will be responsible with pulling the other chapters together at the end... which may require sending it back to the author for changes.

Included in our outline should be a difficulty (simply name an official quest it should be roughly as hard as). I'm still on board with this being a fresh set of heroes, so essentially they should be as powerful as heroes after the base game and kellers keep (24 quests).

[knightkrawler]

My ideas revolve around Kobold Dragonpriests and Dragonshields flooding the swamps and convincing the Fimir that the Great Wyrm is supposed to be awakened somewhere deeper in the bog where even the Fimir who worship dragons in general and the Great Wyrm in particular didn't think it is.

Of course, the two factions work together grudgingly to find the resting place, all under the eye of Morcar who wants the body of the Great Wyrm as a vassal all for himself (his essence), sending his chaos henchmen to steal the surprisingly young and little dragon thingie.

Morcar finds out it fell mystically asleep as a mere hatchling (or was "convinced" to do so) and abducts it into the chaos wastes for the beastmen and chaos dwarfs who have been called from their own industrious purposes in their own bloody brass city to watch over it and for their practitioners of magic and science to find ways to accomplish Morcar's plan.

If anyone cares.

[Sjeng]

I was gonna ask you to repost your idea kk

I agree with KK and gootchute. We can make several small arcs that loosely tie into the big story. But we need a theme for each arc. A small outline maybe. Which is kinda in the OP. Not set in stone obviously.

So the question is, who is willing to write up a "sub-arc" for this pack? I suggest everyone who wants to make some quests does the following:
1. post how many quests you think you can make
2. post the subject (mini arc)
3. post which monsters there will be in this arc
4. write up a plot before the end of july, doesn't need to be 100% perfect yet.

Then after that, start actually creating maps. We need to get rolling here, if we want to finish the whole thing before december.

I'd be happy doing one of the 3 species "lead" arcs. The amount of quests I'm thinking of atm is 4. I'm interested in the greenskins, as I think KK should do the dragonkin/kobold arc, as he has a pretty nice idea about those.
So for me:

1. 4 quests
2. the greenskins lead
3. goblins, goblin archers, orcs, a few fimir and perhaps an orc shaman, some undead perhaps.
4. greenskins all over the place, being driven away by forces of evil (as of yet unknown source), raiding whatever village they come across. Heroes sent in for help. A town under siege / tracking the path the greenskins came from / trying to drive the greenskins away from populated areas / finding out why they swarmed out, finding an orc leader to question, traces of chaos beastmen found. Something like that.

I'll elaborate the story later, as I think of maps to make.

[knightkrawler]

As honored as I am that you suggest me, I'm really really bad at this. First, from a creative standpoint and second, life is taking a toll on me right now.
I think there are plenty of people creative enough to weave their own details into that one sentence I outlined for the kobold/fimir connection.

just to balance the monsters out for that subplot, I'd propose
Fimir with regular stats and Kobolds (1 AD/ 2 DD; YES, THAT WAY AROUND! The Kobold miniatures I've seen are sculpted in a way that they look cowardly/careful, some are heavily armored; and they MUST be very different from Goblins, else nobody's gonna be interested in them anymore, after these quests) as the main cannonfodder monsters, rounded out by Bog Zombies (regular Zombie stats).
A chaos warrior and some Goblins here and there.
As special monsters/bosses: Fimir Hag (spellcaster), Kobold Dragonpriest (spellcaster) and some champions of both species as a quest suggests. Maybe some kind of Dryad/Treespirit or something. Be creative here.
In the last quest of this subplot, there should be some chaos warriors, shielding off those who are abducting the dragon egg, leading the heroes into the second act/subplot.
Also, for one or two quests, some bog-themed special rules could apply (labyrinth problems, stinking gas, will-o-wisps, I don't know. Lots to weave into this.

For whoever wants to write that subplot (IF anyone), I can definitely help with balance, ideas, stats, mechanics. But someone must take the creative responsibility. I can't.
It may sound like I have a very firm and rigid status in mind, but I don't. These are just first-off suggestions of what one could do in this subplot.

[Goblin-King]

I could probably go for something Chaos Dwarf/Beastman. If I don't have to consider the quests coming before or after my arc it could be something like...

Rumors whispers about something dark having taken residence in the long-abandoned Dark Castle (placeholder name ). Disaster if the forces of evil get a foothold in that area.
Go there, reveal any evil forces and eliminate them

Q1. Travel through the ancient ruins to get to Dark Castle. Ambushed by beastmen and fight your way through.

Q2. Secret entrance to Dark Castle. STEALTH QUEST! Some mechanic where monsters can somehow call for assistance if not killed quickly. Exit is guarded by... Chaos Dwarfs! Dun dun duuun!

Q3. Now it's time to kill some chaos dwarfs and figure out what they are up to. Find chaos forge: They are preparing for war! Free several prisoners which reveal they were meant to be sacrificed.
(new printable: Prison cell door? Could be useful in a lot of quests, even outside this pack)

Q4. The sacrifices can only mean summoning of powerful evil magic. The chamber of sacrifice can only be entered by possessing two relics guarded by powerful chaos dwarf sorcerers. Get the relics and gain entrance to the final confrontation.

Q5. First half: the heroes are too late and a demon has been summoned. Kill it. Second half: Escape the castle as it begins to collapse!

There you have it...

[Sjeng]

I love it! both your ideas! and these quests call for custom tiles too

Anyone who wants to collaborate with KK for the dragonkin quests? Big Bene perhaps?

TMU might want to do the introductory quests, where fresh horses heroes can get some gear slowly, like in the original quests, and get ready for the really challenging quests later on

MrBigB also wanted to do some quests. Let's keep this ball going!

[gootchute]

NK, I really like your ideas for Fimir and Kobolds so I may take it and start running.

If we make each arc slightly smaller we can have input from more people. Also Undead are not being utilized in an arc yet. We should not limit ourselves to exactly 5 quests per mini-arc, if someone wants to make a 3-4 quest set, so be it.

For example:

Code: Select all

1) Intro quest like the Maze.
2) Greenskins Arc
   3) blah
    4) blah
    5) blah
    6) waagh. (Gain artifact 1)
7) Kobald/Fimir Arc
    8) stuff
    9) stuff
    10) more stuff
    11) other stuff (Gain artifact 2)
8) Undead Arc
    9) bones
    10) bones
    11) dry bones (Gain artifact 3)
12) Beastmen / Chaos Dwarf Arc
    13) chaos
    14) chaos
    15) chaos
    16) i ran out of jokes
    17) chaos (Gain artifact 4)
18) THE BIG REVEAL
19) Captured by Big Bad's minions
20) City under siege
21) Kill the lieutenant to end the siege
22) Get info on big bad's weakness, discover it was the 4 McGuffins you found in the mini-arcs
23) Quest to get the 5th artifact to unlock the power of the first 4
24) Part 1 of finale
25) Part 2 of finale

Thought? I tried to weave the 4 artifacts idea, added an additional mini-arc while not keeping them always 5 quests long.

[Goblin-King]

Actually the orc village raiders could be a good intro arc in it's own right.

Q1. Village is raided by orcs. The heroes are just ordinary travelers from their respective homelands who just happen to be in the village. They don't even start the same place on the board, but in the end they meet up and find out they work together well.

Q2. Mentor also "happens" to be in the village. He quickly spots the heroes as the only survivors that can actually take care of business. He tells them to go kill the orc raiders and free any prisoners. The heroes tracks the orcs back to their lair.

Q3. The heroes slay the orcs, frees the prisoners and kills the boss. Back in the village Mentor proclaims them heroes: They are destined for great deeds! And that is the new beginning of HEROQUEST!

Three easy/medium quests to introduce the new heroes and re-introduce mentor.
This way it will even work if the players never played the original quests.
It will also (re)introduce the concept of "chapters" without shopping in-between, but being a short chapter it's bearable.

The village-raid can either be it's own confined introduction-thing or it can be a prelude of sorts to something bigger.

[Teldurn]

I agree insofar as I'd like to see a shorter but more fun quest pack actually completed rather than try to come up with 25 quests cohesively and fall short of the goal ( which is where we are now). I think 6 to 8 quests is a good number to aim for - not too short to feel ripped off but not too long to be a hassle to put together. It also gives enough leeway for a tight story without needing to add filler quests.

I also think we can distill the quest outline we already have down to 6 or 8 and it will not lose the feel or pacing. In fact I think pacing will be improved because of the own of filler quests.