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this is the one thing I miss inAngband really. Short term goals restricted to the current dungeon level in and above killing of Morgoth. I know Ownband (and probably some other varients), have them, but I'd really love to see them as an option in official vanilla so that they would be more readily available to varient maintainers, and also, for myself and those who might like them, make Vanilla more fun on it's own. I'm not suggesting some major plot here, simply an npc who says "go and do x" and gives you a reward if you do it. Afterall, you can't be the only adventurer in the dungeon, and there might be morgoth's slaves, lost townsfolk or similar who might want assistance from an adventurer. This would also make the dungeon feel a little more like a real place and give flavour to your over all adventure, which is why I myself rather like quests, even in a single dungeon game.
of course, there should be a disable quests option for those who want the traditional lone hero, exploring unfriendly teretory style.
Quests could work something like this:
When you arrive on a new floor, there is a chance of a tyle near you being designated as the entrance to some location similar to the shop entrances in the town (it could even use a number symbol in ascii).
this would be an encampment of friendly dungeon explorers of one of the pc races, a hide out for some escaped slaves, or some lost individual who's wandered into the dungeon by mistake or been teleported their by magic.
You'd then get a menue similar to the shop menues giving you quests, which you could accept with number keys. Each quest would generate a reward, an amount of gold or an item, which was in quality several levels below your current floor. So, on dungeon level one, you'd get quest rewards generated as though they were items or gold found on dlvl 3 or 4, optionally, have this increased for more difficult quests. Rewards could either be shown on the quest menue directly or sometimes hidden just specified as "give you something good"
Quests could take the following form:
1: kill a given monster, either a unique or a normal monster named as quest targit found on that floor of the dungeon.
2: kill x amount of a given monster, generated on that floor of the dungeon.
3: find item x (again, specified as quest targit), and bring it back to the quest location, a good one for rogues and wizards who might not want to do so much slaying.
4: find friendly monster x and bring them back to the quest location. Good for paladins and priests who can keep the targit alive, and probably an interesting one in terms of tactics.
quests are canceled if the player descends from the level without completing them, or if the quest targit is killed or destroyed, though cancelling doesn't harm the player other than them missing out on whatever the reward was. Also needless to say you could only have one quest per level to prevvent people spamming it for rewards, and once generated, the quest menue with it's choice of however many quests (I'd suggest a maximum of about 5) would be all the choice you got for that level.
Obviously, having the quest giver in the dungeon lets quests be generated along with the dlvl, where as when the player is in town the next level hasn't been generated which would make creating a quest for it rather hard, and also having the quests given by a location that the player can enter and a menue rather than another friendly monster means that the quest giver won't be killed off by dungeon monsters before the player fulfills the quest, which could get irritating.
equally, it'd be easy to just have an option to turn this off, simply either stop quest location tyles from appearing, or have them always be closed.
If a player fails to go into a quest location in the first say 20 turns when entering a dungeon level it closes, thus preventing players from fulfilling quests before they get them, and making sure the quest targits only correspond to what the player has previously accepted.
Needless to say, accepting quests would still take the players judgement, sinse being asked to kill 10 greater wyrms probably wouldn't be a wise choice for a player whatever the reward, though equally if the reward were good enough (assuming rewards were shown), a player might accept a tough quest to get it, thus creating another dimention of risk assessment in the game, as well as the background and flavour such a system would generally add.
As I said, I know this idea might not appeal to everyone, and indeed I would always suggest there be an option not to generate quests just in case players don't want them.
but for people like myself who just get a kick out of background, exploring and accomplishing things, it might add a lot to the game, and indeed be nice encouragement for new players, okay, you didn't kill morgul, but you did help the dwarves with their goblin problem!
Hope people like the idea.
As I said, I'm sure a varient or two could include this, but if it was in vanilla as a possible default option, it'd already be there in the game, plus make vanilla itself imho more fun.
appologies if this suggestion has already been made.
of course, there should be a disable quests option for those who want the traditional lone hero, exploring unfriendly teretory style.
Quests could work something like this:
When you arrive on a new floor, there is a chance of a tyle near you being designated as the entrance to some location similar to the shop entrances in the town (it could even use a number symbol in ascii).
this would be an encampment of friendly dungeon explorers of one of the pc races, a hide out for some escaped slaves, or some lost individual who's wandered into the dungeon by mistake or been teleported their by magic.
You'd then get a menue similar to the shop menues giving you quests, which you could accept with number keys. Each quest would generate a reward, an amount of gold or an item, which was in quality several levels below your current floor. So, on dungeon level one, you'd get quest rewards generated as though they were items or gold found on dlvl 3 or 4, optionally, have this increased for more difficult quests. Rewards could either be shown on the quest menue directly or sometimes hidden just specified as "give you something good"
Quests could take the following form:
1: kill a given monster, either a unique or a normal monster named as quest targit found on that floor of the dungeon.
2: kill x amount of a given monster, generated on that floor of the dungeon.
3: find item x (again, specified as quest targit), and bring it back to the quest location, a good one for rogues and wizards who might not want to do so much slaying.
4: find friendly monster x and bring them back to the quest location. Good for paladins and priests who can keep the targit alive, and probably an interesting one in terms of tactics.
quests are canceled if the player descends from the level without completing them, or if the quest targit is killed or destroyed, though cancelling doesn't harm the player other than them missing out on whatever the reward was. Also needless to say you could only have one quest per level to prevvent people spamming it for rewards, and once generated, the quest menue with it's choice of however many quests (I'd suggest a maximum of about 5) would be all the choice you got for that level.
Obviously, having the quest giver in the dungeon lets quests be generated along with the dlvl, where as when the player is in town the next level hasn't been generated which would make creating a quest for it rather hard, and also having the quests given by a location that the player can enter and a menue rather than another friendly monster means that the quest giver won't be killed off by dungeon monsters before the player fulfills the quest, which could get irritating.
equally, it'd be easy to just have an option to turn this off, simply either stop quest location tyles from appearing, or have them always be closed.
If a player fails to go into a quest location in the first say 20 turns when entering a dungeon level it closes, thus preventing players from fulfilling quests before they get them, and making sure the quest targits only correspond to what the player has previously accepted.
Needless to say, accepting quests would still take the players judgement, sinse being asked to kill 10 greater wyrms probably wouldn't be a wise choice for a player whatever the reward, though equally if the reward were good enough (assuming rewards were shown), a player might accept a tough quest to get it, thus creating another dimention of risk assessment in the game, as well as the background and flavour such a system would generally add.
As I said, I know this idea might not appeal to everyone, and indeed I would always suggest there be an option not to generate quests just in case players don't want them.
but for people like myself who just get a kick out of background, exploring and accomplishing things, it might add a lot to the game, and indeed be nice encouragement for new players, okay, you didn't kill morgul, but you did help the dwarves with their goblin problem!
Hope people like the idea.
As I said, I'm sure a varient or two could include this, but if it was in vanilla as a possible default option, it'd already be there in the game, plus make vanilla itself imho more fun.
appologies if this suggestion has already been made.
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