Hi folks, I am in a small guild, we have 6 players all friends. Recently I was thinking it would be fun to create in-game quests for rare items or to hunt rare elites for my guildies. Something fun and a bit different from the usual dungeon runs etc.
I was wondering how you guys go about setting up quests for guildies. Where are good sources to research potential bad guys, items, that kind of thing. Our mains are all lvl 120 (ilevel 360-400), but we all have alts, so whether it’s current content or old content, any info would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance 
Hi there. Loads of people on AD do exactly the thing you describe, in fact just about all the RP Guilds do that, with either the GM, or the members taking it in turns to write plots and story for the rest of the Guild. It can be fantastic fun, and immensely good for character interaction, and really knit a guild together.
I suppose the starting point is: What is your Guild concept? If they are military, then simple: You get orders to go to X place and do Y thing. If you are a freebooting band of Mercenaries/Adventurers you can always be hired by the ‘Mysterious stranger in the Pub’ (Bonus points if said mysterious stranger then double crosses you). You might even just be ‘Monster Hunters’ who want to rack up as much fame as possible, because who doesn’t want to be famous?
So for example using that framework, the Sun Hawks, my Guild, are Dragonhawk riders, we fall under Farstrider command, so the -reasons- we go to places are simple. We’re soldiers, and we get told to. Simple as that.
So next is bad guys. Bad guys are awesome, and cool, but the only thing better than Bad Guys are Bad guys you have to -fight- to get to, where there is a defined sense of struggle against the odds. What would Star Wars be if the characters just rocked up and slotted Darth Vader the first time they met him…What would Lord of the Rings be if they just went “Ehh, Sauron, just poke him in the eye”.
You need a build up, you need to -really- really- make your Guildies -hate- the Mo Fo they are going after, because when they do, then it makes the final victory all the sweeter. Now you have multiple options there. The bad guy/s can be just so horrible that anyone with a working brain would go “This person needs ending” or they could actually have personally -done- something that harmed someone in the Guild, giving a rise for a need for vengeance. In the latter case, you obviously need to check out that your Guildie is cool with it. I mean, it might be cool for them to go all out ‘John Wick’ but only if you went “Is it OK if the bad guy I have planned kills your dog?” People have self determination over their characters and its best to keep it that way. Randomly killing off someone’s Spouse or Children just to make them hate the baddie is a douche move to be honest, unless they have said “Yeah, that’s an arc I want to follow, go for it”
Location:
Now, this is beautiful. You’re -just- over the number where you can use Dungeons, but there are so many Raids you can use. Just Solo the Raid, and Boom, you have your playpen to do with as you will. At 120 you’re looking at anything bar current content you can just smash through on your own, then take your Guildies on an adventure through said place.
Black Temple is amazing to use. Firelands is good for your ‘shiz is going down’ scenario, but you know the king of Raid locations to use? Original Karazhan. Come on, remember that creepy thrill the music gives you, the decayed scale of the place… But there are plenty of places to use that aren’t Raids also, the Crypts under uhh, Ravens thingy cemetary in Duskwood. Flying over the entrance and actually using the completely blank Zul’Gurub. The Haunted Barrow Den in Ashenvale or the terrifyingly high and dangerous peaks of Mount Neverest in Pandaria (Can confirm, great place to run an event).
-How- you run the game is up to your guys own style, some use rolls, some pure emotes, some use raid markers, some tag in buddies with toys allowing them to represent the bad guys, That’s all up to you.
Just think of the Bad guys you loved to hate when you watched TV shows/Films when younger. Channel your Hate, make the Bad Guy them!
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Hi Brigante,
Thanks for the info. This is exactly what I want to try and set up!
The idea behind the guild is that the characters kind of fell together after the end of Wrath. They are veterans, mainly older, but with a few young heroes. We ended up in the same taverns and doing the same quests and from that group of motley heroes and vagabonds a guild was born. So we’re kind of like Dirty Dozen meets the Expendables. In that respect we are mercenaries, with no duty to a higher authority.
I am contemplating using my boost to create a character to use as an NPC and quest giver. That way I can send the other 5 into dungeons (like you said above, 6 is too many) and if we do raids I can log out with the NPC and back in with a normal character.
plots and things like that are pretty easy to set up. It’s finding the balance of challenging fights etc. Like you say, lvl 120 guys strolling into old content is pointlessly easy, so it’s finding content which will be tough to complete. Is this just a case of research, research, research?
It is, yeah. Its a case of -either-, Using raid markers to represent bad guys, or, if you want actual mobs, doing your research as to which raids/zones best suit your needs. Obviously as Dragonhawk Riders we’re a bit different and very Niche, as a lot of our escapades by definition are in the air, but even so with our ground missions, using raids is a good move. Gives for very atmospheric vibes, and obviously they don’t have to be the -actual- place itself. (I forgot to mention Naxxramas, that has a lot of good vibes for spooky shiz) But yeah, if you’re looking to actually fight through mobs of a similar level, then it very much is a case of research, Yes.
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If you’re using raid markers as enemies, how do you resolve combats etc? Would you use /roll or something? I had never considered that as an option before, but having never been involved in an RP server or guild, this is something new to me. I have played many RPG games IRL, but I’m keen to see how it can be brought into WoW
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There are different methods, and neither is right or wrong, and indeed sometimes you can combine them.
There is purely narrative combat. The pro’s of this is no rolls, the cons is, well, things rarely go wrong for the characters, as no one likes to look incompetent.
There are /rolls, the Pro’s of this are that things -can- go very wrong, or very right for the characters. (and indeed bad guys).
I’ll try to explain the system we use in the Sun Hawks, We’re Dragonhawk riders, so a lot of our fighting is in the air, but the same system works on our ground adventures.
The DM obviously narrates what is happening/seen. You can have mundane rolls for abilities, We tend to just go with Scouty types get a bonus on tracking and perception, Magicky types get a bonus on any magicky stuff, Fighty types get a bonus on battlefield awareness, so where the enemy is weakest, that sort of thing. So you roll, and dependent on your speciality you get a +10 if it falls into your character type. (That’s massively specific, it only works for us as we’re Belf only, so are -all- a bit magical/have good eyesight.)
Actual Combat. Well, as the DM you set the foe’s stats, How many hits they have, the TN or Target Number to injure them, and the TN to avoid being hit by them in return.
Its useful for the players to know how many hits it takes to kill a foe in advance (Talking trash mobs, not big bad end of encounter stuff).
The reason this is useful is that it then places a lot of the storytelling in the players own hands. If they know what they need to roll to hit a foe, they know when they have, and can emote it, if they know when a foe has hit them, they can emote it, and if they know they have killed a foe, well, they can emote that too.
Basically it stops it becoming all about the DM telling them what they do, instead -they- say what they do, which is much more satisfying (not to mention less work for the DM) for everyone.
The key is letting the players tell the story, you’re the canvas, so like, a failed roll doesn’t mean you are suddenly incompetent, you might have hit your enemy but the blow glanced off their armour, or they may have been lucky and parried, but I think its important that it is left in the hands of the players as to -why- they failed to injure the target.
How you stat enemies depends on what they are. Currently the hardest ‘mob’ In my Bestiary for the Sun Hawks are Wildhammer Dwarves on Gryphons. They’re obscene! They only take two Injuring hits to kill, but the TN to hit one is 70! They’re all over the skies, this said, because the Sun Hawks themselves are an elite unit, the TN to avoid -being- hit is 40.
That’s tough. That’s ‘settle in for a while of fighting’ tough, you don’t want to stat everything like that, That’s kind of extreme level of tough (Which, lets face it, in the Skies, Wildhammer are)
Most Foes you want to stat at around 30 to Injure, 30 to avoid harm from. But obviously, you can play around with the difficulty levels to hit/dodge depending on what the players are fighting.
The key thing, is that at every stage the success or failure is up to the player, sure, the roll gives the ultimate result, but they emote the ‘how’ of it. It stops your ‘Veteran Warrior of a hundred Battlefields’ from somehow failing to strike a peasant. There was clearly some other factor at play, perhaps they slipped in mud, the sun got in their eyes, the peasant was nimble and dodged. Basically don’t make the players feel crap about bad rolls, let -them- decide what the rolls mean.
On that front and this is a Sun Hawk thing, but I do recommend it. Incorporate a certain level of Bad Luck protection. If you’re using /roll and you keep rolling low, then that sucks, you’re not going to have a fun event. So what we do is, if you fail your roll, the next roll you make, gets a +10 bonus, if you fail -that- the next roll gets a +20 bonus, and so on, it Stacks until you pass a roll, either naturally, or because of the bonus. It basically stops RNG from widdling all over someones fun.
Injuries? Leave them up to the player. Don’t use Hit Points like D&D. One Bad roll could Kill someone off, how does that work for anyone? The Party is down one, the Player is probably a bit miffed, and the story suddenly becomes harder to conclude.
We use Cinematic damage. If you’re hit bad, -you- decide how and where, and people are actually much more accepting of taking injuries if they have some personal say in it. We were doing a DM’d event last night, a couple of Guilds looking for magic shiz in a Nightborne ruin, and we set off a magic trap, basically an Arcane Burst (Ehh, the spherical one) Brigante got decked, deafened briefly, had a nosebleed and his vision was impaired for a while, a bit blurry, not what you want in a Ranger. This Pandaren dude with us got blasted over the stairwell and fell twenty feet. Thankfully they bounce well, so he didn’t break his neck. Couple other people in the Area of Effect were concussed.
One thing I have learned, is that people are a -lot- more willing to injure their own characters, than to have -you- tell them their characters are injured.
Once you have thrashed out a set of rules you like, and explained them to your Guild, and said “Hey, if you roll this, you know what it means, so go nuts with your emotes” You will find it runs like clockwork, absolutely smooth, which leaves you as the DM to just tell the story, or rather, to be the Canvas on which they tell their story.
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Thanks for all your info Brigante. This has given me a lot of ideas and food for thought. I’ll have a chat with the guys and if they’re up for it, I can start searching for some cool places. I like your Nax suggestion… interesting…
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