Questing IC: Do You Pick and Choose?
“Killing a lot of people probably fucks you up.” But let’s face it, most of the people we RP in WoW have killed lots of people. We’ve killed scarlets and trolls, grimtotems and sin’dorei. We have killed people. in fact, I would venture to say that this is probably the hardest thing that we have to deal with as RPers. In this, our characters are fundamental that different from us. They deal with that constantly.
–from Itanya’s reply to one of my points on the assassin thread.
There are thousands of quests available to us, from the moment we push the “enter world” button and zone in for the first time. In Elwynn and you go from killing wolves to kobolds to Defias before you ever leave Northshire. Enter Deathknell, and you’re putting down Scourge first thing, then after some bats and spiders, you go hacking away at Scarlets. There’s blood all over your character’s hands before they ever set foot in their first inn and get a good night’s sleep.
So how do you deal with all of those “Go out and bring me his head” quests in-character? If Bob killed Garrick Padfoot, what happens when you roll his brother Bill and have to do the same? On top of that, is Bob likely to go out and slaughter the Defias en masse in the firstplace? I’m trying to imagine Threnn hacking someone’s head off for a bounty for two silvers and a cloak and failing at it utterly.
Likewise, Davien would never have gone and wrought havoc upon the Hillsbrad farmers, then added insult to injury by poisoning their dog.
I definitely find myself reading the quest text to figure out whether or not whatever I’m about to do for gold or XP is in-character. Some things lend very well to character development — the Fordring quest chain in Eastern Plaguelands for Threnn, the Howling Fjord plague quests for Davien — but others don’t fit in so easily with who the characters are.
I’d love to hear both sides from you guys — has anyone out there ever considered every quest in-character? How did that affect how your character developed (or if it had no effect, why not)?
If you only consider some of them as canon for your PCs, tell us a bit about the characters and which quests were most significant for them. Which others did you do out-of-character (or not at all) because they were tasks your character would have avoided? Have any of your characters ever ICly refused to do a job they were given once they heard what the job entailed?
Filed in Character Development,Open Thread,PVE,RP 14 Comments so far
Itanya Blade on 03 Nov 2009 at 1:45 pm #
Northrend was the first time I really stopped to look at the quests and decide. This has left some of my characters in a bit of quandry.
While Kel and Dorri did all their questing in-character. So much so that I had things to write every night, there are quests that Then’liath, my priest, refused to do. Then has never done any of the scarlet crusade quests or anything that the apothocaries requested. Something about venomspite made her very uneasy.
Corspilla has never done Wrathgate, though technically she was there. I have two reasons for this. One is because I don’t want to have to spend the time going through the battle for Undercity. The other is because Pill would refuse to go. She hates Sylvanas.
Still, I find it hard to believe that there is a character that has made the transition to Northrend with their hands clean. Azeroth is nasty place.
Linedan on 03 Nov 2009 at 2:31 pm #
Linedan refused to complete the “farmer’s skulls” quest in Hillsbrad (in fact, that inspired the first piece of Lin-fic I ever wrote). He did do the Venomspite quests…partially because I wanted to level fast OOC, and partially because Lin, despite misgivings, really was gullible enough to buy the Hand of Vengeance’s explanation that the plague would only be used against the Scourge…until Angrathar proved him wrong.
Shizukera Nightfury on 03 Nov 2009 at 2:52 pm #
I think everything our characters do in game is a part of who they are, much like how everything we experience in real life become part of who we are. So most of my questing is in character, on all my characters. Even their raiding experience is incorporated into their stories – I full-cleared BC on Shizu, and she has stories about the fights against Illidan, Kil’jaeden, and the rest (not the “I killed him all by mahself!” kind, of course; more like “I took part in those battles and let me tell you how bad it sucked, and also Kil’jaeden is ticklish.”).
Therefore, it’s very rare for me to turn down a quest based on whether or not it would be in character. The only quests I don’t do are pvp ones, partially because my characters are united in their belief that the opposite faction is small fry compared to threats like the Burning Legion and the Scourge, and also because I focus more on leveling than quest-related IC/OOC issues when leveling (plus I suck at pvp but we don’t talk about that). They’ll do pretty extreme things to defeat those larger threats. They don’t always like what they have to do, but Azeroth is a world constantly at war and as Itanya said up there, it’s hard to believe anyone could come through their adventuring experience with clean hands.
falconesse on 03 Nov 2009 at 4:54 pm #
Still, I find it hard to believe that there is a character that has made the transition to Northrend with their hands clean. Azeroth is nasty place.
I find it hard to believe, too — I wasn’t suggesting that people choosing to leave some of the quests they did in the land of OOC made it to 80 by picking flowers and singing about unicorns for XP.
Doing even a tenth of the quests in-character means that somewhere along the way, your character probably killed someone or something — either for pay or because he or she was following orders, or trying to eliminate a very real threat. That definitely doesn’t leave their hands clean.
But, for example, for one of the Stranglethorn quests, Skullsplitter Tusks, a goblin wants you to go kill trolls for their horns because it’s too hard and expensive to kill enough tigers to fill his order for tiger fangs.
I can’t see any of my characters going, “Oh, okay, sure, brb with the tusks” to that.
Shizu, I had a bit in my original draft about the raid bosses, but I cut it because I am am a master of digression. However you touched on what I had clanging around in my head about them. In a lot of ways (and this was part of a chat I had with Illithias’ player. Hoping to wrangle a guest-post out of him (hint hint Illi)) the game credits our characters with these victories, so why not take said credit? Gryan Stoutmantle out at the Westfall Brigade welcomes you like an old friend. Tirion Fordring’s all “OH HEY HEROES, SUP” throughout ToC.
(My digression (she says, digressing) revolved around the RPer who DOES go “I kicked Illidan’s ass ALL ALONE. Maiev? Maiev who?” For the record, I think you’re doing it right.)
Poop quests: SO NOT IC. This is mostly player-rage and my refusal to do them is a weak form of protest. But, seriously, amberseeds? “Oh look, a random bucketful of something that someone left here NOMNOMNOM.” My girls are smarter than that, no matter what the quest text says.
Itanya Blade on 03 Nov 2009 at 5:05 pm #
Yeah, that first part, Falconlady, is why I took a step back from the original post. Because I didn’t get my point across. I wasn’t trying to say that all quests apply to all characters, but that I didn’t think any character could escape the realities of the world in which they live.
As for raid bosses, I think it’s a matter of how you deal with it. I know I treat those places as being constantly under siege. We make forays into Ulduar, Naxx and the tourney.
If you catch the Prophecy of Light actually discussing current events, you’ll hear them mocking the tourney and hating that it is keeping them from where the real war is at. yet the go. because that is what they were ordered to do.
Corise on 03 Nov 2009 at 5:11 pm #
This is a slippery one for me that I tend to leave somewhat undefined. Yes, my characters have done many quests IC-ly; yes, they are soldiers in wars being fought on many fronts; yes, they’ve spilled a lot of blood. However, I tend to believe that they’ve all killed far fewer people than the game mechanics would suggest. I mean, in theory, Corise has killed almost four thousand humanoids — and that’s just since the achievement/statistic feature was implemented in game. If every character who quests IC-ly had really killed every mob that their avatar has killed in the course of questing, I imagine that there’d hardly be any Dark Iron dwarves, or black dragons, or Defias, or goblins, or… whatever left on the face of Azeroth. (Scourge and demons, on the other hand, can probably always raise more dead or summon in more troops from other dimensions.) And, of course, in the case of named mobs… well, how many times has any given individual been killed?
So while I do tend to try to keep much of my questing IC, and I have turned down quests that felt just wrong for the character at hand, I don’t hold to the exact details of a quest unless it’s important for my character’s RP. Maybe my character was one of several people working on a given quest — sure, a dozen Scarlet Crusaders and their captain were killed, but maybe Karreth only took out a couple of them and created a diversion while a rogue snuck in to assassinate the named guy. So she’s responsible for the outcome, but she didn’t kill every single Scarlet Crusader in the encampment all by herself. Perhaps Lakena was sent as an advance scout on a particular mission and didn’t actually do much killing, herself. Or maybe Yelgah stood back and healed while someone else rushed into battle and slewn encroaching waves of bad guys.
Also, I’m definitely not 100% IC on every single quest. I’ve taken quests that my characters probably wouldn’t really do because I wanted the reward, or I was helping a friend, or — somewhat mind-bendingly — because a quest further along in the quest chain WAS very appropriate for my character’s RP. When possible, I justify it as my character having found a way to deal with the situation that was more morally acceptable to him/her and still accomplished the necessary goal.
Itanya Blade on 03 Nov 2009 at 5:14 pm #
A lot of times, I will substitute generic dude #1 for a named guy. There is a dragonblight quest that has you go torture the torturer. When I wrote it up and the way keltyr and Dorri played it was that they were just going after some generic scarlet.
Dorri kept killing them
Corise on 03 Nov 2009 at 5:27 pm #
Another thought — it’s also always possible that the quest isn’t actually being presented to your character the way it is in the quest text. For example, I doubt that the warlocks under the Slaughtered Lamb would really try to offer my paladin the quest “A Noble Brew” without attempting to disguise their motives a bit… not only would she not accept a quest to poison a member of the House of Nobles, she’d be calling the Stormwind Guard on them! I give NPCs a little credit for intelligence to play to their audience and employ deception as needed, just as certain quest-givers already do in game (good ol’ Abercrombie, for example).
Sarai on 03 Nov 2009 at 6:22 pm #
The first quest that came to my mind was the “torture quest” at Amber Ledge, where the Kirin Tor have you capture a mage and torture him to get information. Some of my characters would actually go ahead and do that. Arvoss, for example, would see it as a grim necessity. (ICly, he and Windstar did that part together. Arvoss did the torture, while Windstar waited outside. OOCly this didn’t actually happen since we did the quest at different times.) Many of my Horde toons wouldn’t be too squeamish either. My Alliance toons are a different story, mainly because most of them are druids (O_o). My Nelf death knight Barraccus would never do it, because he was tortured himself in the process of his becoming a death knight. So ICly for those characters, they never actually did the quest.
Shaurria has been IC almost the entire time I play her. She doesn’t have much trouble with the “Go out and kill X number of Y” quests, because she does it in kitty form, and her kitty is almost a different personality than when she’s an elf. When she’s a cat, she’s not killing so much as “hunting”, and cats hunt all the time, even when they don’t need to (think of how many fat housecats you’ve probably seen stalking birds in a yard somewhere). Also I’ve leveled enough toons now that I know where the “trouble” quests are, and she just avoids those areas. I’m not really sure what I’ll do when she gets to Northrend. Guess I’ll have to figure that out when it happens.
Kelesaria on 04 Nov 2009 at 3:30 am #
As Sarai said, that torture quest is a problem. Not only did Windstar not do it, my pally Arien refused to do it ICly as well. RP-wise, I wrote that my hunter Kelesaria came in as Arien was telling off the Kirin Tor dude, and Kel had Arien go wait outside while Kel did the dirty work. Because Kel has a hardened personality like that >.>
I’m not sure if Tadrith would do it or not. He would not want to use torture, but he would see the need for getting the info from the prisoner ASAP. Guess I’ll have to see when he gets there.
Bricu on 04 Nov 2009 at 3:07 pm #
Bricu tortured the Amberledge mage. He was with Tarquin at the time. Then they turned the torture device on the Kirin Tor. Then, Bricu, Tarquin and Ceil got into a fist fight. It was a very hollow victory for Bricu…
Bricu has gone off and done most of the quests ICly. He didn’t chop down the trees for the Tourney, he didn’t kill Scarlets for the Ebons and he doesnt’ do the daily PVP IC; however, he has brought back bounties, heads and tusks to less than savory people. He’s been less-than-idealistic since launch, and I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.
He does struggle with quests, and it does take a toll on him; however, Bricu has a tendency to twist things back on his handlers. Sooner or later, everyone is off their high horse–or their moral high ground–and at eye level to Bricu.
To quote Logen NineFingers, “You just have to be realistic about these things.”
Mommacow on 04 Nov 2009 at 9:03 pm #
Rashona hasn’t done the majority of the Forsaken quests in Howling Fjord, and never will; there’s no way she’d be plague-bombing living beings or lobbing bucketfuls of it onto clean earth. The Amberledge mage, OTOH, was fair game because he was in service to someone she considered an enemy. (Rashona is tolerant as all hell. This doesn’t necessarily equate to nice.) She did both that and the Scarlet torture quest with a fairly businesslike approach: get in, do an unpleasant job, get out.
Rashona’s my main and I do pretty much all my quests IC on her, so if she wouldn’t do it, I don’t take it on her. Alts, I’m a little more lenient on, but I’ve played Rashona so long that it messes with my head to be terribly OOC on her. Hell, she’s barely even touched the Argent dailies, because I just can’t get her to give a damn about it.
Aleros on 05 Nov 2009 at 3:45 am #
A lot of the quests Aleros would not do ICly, however that does not mean he has not KILLED a lot. Just somewhat ignored some of the more morally ambiguous ones despite being a Loremaster. However it is acknowledged that sometimes he goes out and sates his feral tendencies. I’m still working on transitioning him from being a “healer” to being feral even though I’ve been totally feral for 3 years now.
Xionn on the other hand, having lived just as long as Aleros most likely ICly does every single quest. Why? Well he spends his gold faster than he can acquire it and while he may not do something if the pay isn’t right, he isn’t going to turn a job down if it’s FUN. Fun to him involves spilling blood and having a monetary excuse to do so. If a quest only offered experience, and was to help someone’s dear grandmother carry a crate of supplies, he’d not do it. Decapitate 10 blokes for 10 gold? Sounds good to him. I made this character more than 10 years ago, and I keep trying to drop him but he keeps coming back. He’s the perfect Id. He drinks, he smokes, he’s a womanizer, a murderer, a thief and a bit of a politician when it comes to controlling people.
A little bit off the subject of those two, I’m not sure how many of you played Lord of the Rings Online. That game did quests really well. I felt a justification for my character doing just about every quest, especially the starter quests. Humans of Bree mostly dealt with orc incursions and evil humans. In some of the later starting levels they dealt with the undead. Dwarves on the other hand dealt with goblins a lot, but many of their actual leveling quests dealt with CRAFTING. I’m not talking about actualy player system crafting, but helping some guy find his crafting tools, or gathering materials or this and that.
Then Hobbiton. Oh Hobbiton. From levels 1-10 the only thing you ever killed were crop flies. All of the starter Hobbiton quests were errand quests. Deliver mail, deliver pies, help granny, brew beer. Once you got up to level 13 or so you had to clear some spiders out of the Scary quarry, and then at level 15 you had to face your first real danger, goblins! The quests in the game made it genuinely athentic, and I felt each of my characters had a reason for doing the various quests they were told to do.
Teltanara on 06 Nov 2009 at 3:55 pm #
I’m not a huge RPer, but Viljo, my troll mage, outright refused to do the Kirin Tor torture quest at Amber Ledge. That quest almost severed any desire he ever had to work with the Kirin Tor again. His constant questing companion, a shaman, gave him so much shit about being a mage after the Kirin Tor’s disgraceful behavior.
That torture quest still makes him angry. He is no stranger to death and killing, but the complete disdain that the Kirin Tor mage had for Viljo’s honor was just too much. (“*I’m* not allowed to torture, it’s against the rules and morals I follow. But *you* can do the torturing. *You* don’t follow those morals…or any.”) Especially since if you’ve done any other questing in that area, or even flown out of Warsong Hold once, you already know the location of the prison they are trying to find.
In general Viljo tries to avoid more ethically dubious quests, especially from the Forsaken Apothecaries. He has since he was a young troll sent to Undercity for magical studies. However, I did cave in and have him do the leadups to Wrathgate. If I’d kept him strictly RP I would never have trusted the Apothecaries. I only did that because I wanted to see the Wrathgate stuff. :/