02-03-2008, 03:16 AM
[1ST]M[/1ST]
aking Writs - A brief overview (feel free to ask questions)
black[/HR]
This little post will focus mostly on the story and organizational aspects of creating a writ quest. Hooking it into the system might be a bit of an adventure, but i'll update as i get more experienced.
Everybody, please feel free to post ideas for Writs, following the guidelines on this page. You don't even have to make the writ yourself, just brainstorm!
black[/HR]
Every writ must have a logical motive. Why does this person want the target dead? This can be explained through dialogue with the guild-leader to a limited extent. Also, if you decide to create the NPC who hired the Tong in the first place, add it to their dialogue. Even if you don't want to make an NPC, check with Razorwing or Sandor to see if you can add dialogue to an existing NPC, just to add a good background to the quest
Second: It is expensive to take out a Writ! Hobos do not have enough money to go around having Arch-Dukes executed. Most people who request an assassination are at least upper-middle class, if not plain old rich. And remember, the cost of a writ is proportional to the danger in carrying it out, meaning the amount of guards. So once again, a poor person will not be able to hire the most elite assassin to sneak past 100 guards and kill Vivec or someone. So keep it in mind.
Third: Make sure that each target is reasonably hard to kill successfully. Remember, the Morag Tong is legal, so it doesn't matter if you get caught. Therefore, most targets should have some type of guardian, so that you either must fight through guards, or evade them. Also, special conditions, such as killing someone while remaining undetected, sparing the guards, heck even just killing everyone. Make it interesting, and not just "go kill x and get paid"
Following these should pretty much ensure that you have an interesting quest from a story and player's standpoint
black[/HR]
That takes care of the story of a writ, now for how to submit a writ idea, make a writ, etc.
First, write a quest overview. An outline-type thing, just giving the background, special conditions, location, and NPCs. Ideally, the location would be somewhere that hasn't been claimed, but in cases such as Reich Parkeep, we might have to commandeer an existing house. Especially important is the difficulty level, so that i know where to hook it into the quest line. Don't want to send level 2 characters to assassinate a level 30 rogue telvanni wizard do we?
Then, once that is discussed and approved, write up the dialogue and quest stages, according to the system in this thread. This it a very necessary organizational step! It ensures that there will be no confusion while setting up the writ and such. Journal entries, triggers, dialogue, and such are very nice things to have in advance, even with a simple writ quest (especially if you decided to go complicated)
Also, please state whether you would like to mod this yourself, or if you would rather have someone else mod it, and you're just throwing the idea out. I'll definitely take a few writs, just to get the hang of setting them up, and especially hooking them into the quest system.
aking Writs - A brief overview (feel free to ask questions)
black[/HR]
This little post will focus mostly on the story and organizational aspects of creating a writ quest. Hooking it into the system might be a bit of an adventure, but i'll update as i get more experienced.
Everybody, please feel free to post ideas for Writs, following the guidelines on this page. You don't even have to make the writ yourself, just brainstorm!
black[/HR]
Giving the Writ a story, and making it realistic
First off, the story:Every writ must have a logical motive. Why does this person want the target dead? This can be explained through dialogue with the guild-leader to a limited extent. Also, if you decide to create the NPC who hired the Tong in the first place, add it to their dialogue. Even if you don't want to make an NPC, check with Razorwing or Sandor to see if you can add dialogue to an existing NPC, just to add a good background to the quest
Second: It is expensive to take out a Writ! Hobos do not have enough money to go around having Arch-Dukes executed. Most people who request an assassination are at least upper-middle class, if not plain old rich. And remember, the cost of a writ is proportional to the danger in carrying it out, meaning the amount of guards. So once again, a poor person will not be able to hire the most elite assassin to sneak past 100 guards and kill Vivec or someone. So keep it in mind.
Third: Make sure that each target is reasonably hard to kill successfully. Remember, the Morag Tong is legal, so it doesn't matter if you get caught. Therefore, most targets should have some type of guardian, so that you either must fight through guards, or evade them. Also, special conditions, such as killing someone while remaining undetected, sparing the guards, heck even just killing everyone. Make it interesting, and not just "go kill x and get paid"
Following these should pretty much ensure that you have an interesting quest from a story and player's standpoint
black[/HR]
That takes care of the story of a writ, now for how to submit a writ idea, make a writ, etc.
First, write a quest overview. An outline-type thing, just giving the background, special conditions, location, and NPCs. Ideally, the location would be somewhere that hasn't been claimed, but in cases such as Reich Parkeep, we might have to commandeer an existing house. Especially important is the difficulty level, so that i know where to hook it into the quest line. Don't want to send level 2 characters to assassinate a level 30 rogue telvanni wizard do we?
Then, once that is discussed and approved, write up the dialogue and quest stages, according to the system in this thread. This it a very necessary organizational step! It ensures that there will be no confusion while setting up the writ and such. Journal entries, triggers, dialogue, and such are very nice things to have in advance, even with a simple writ quest (especially if you decided to go complicated)
Also, please state whether you would like to mod this yourself, or if you would rather have someone else mod it, and you're just throwing the idea out. I'll definitely take a few writs, just to get the hang of setting them up, and especially hooking them into the quest system.