The Nightfall Society
Quest Cheat Sheet
How to Quest
Quests are a system implemented to help STs manage small group engagements without having to take too much time out of game to run scenes. Whilst not perfect, they provide a ready means to help players tell the story behind their challenges and travails away from game.
Each quest requires the following in order to proceed:
- Define Objectives
- The objective of a quest can be defined either by the players, such as "we wish to seek out an incarna of Helios to aid us against the vampires", or the ST/NPCs, such as when a player approaches an NPC for a rank challenge. The players then may decide how they would prefer to approach the challenge in some cases, and relay that to the ST, which may affect the requirements.
- Determine Category and Difficulty
- Quests have a cateogry (simple, complex, or heroic) which defines how involved the quests is, and a difficulty (1-5) which defines how challenging it is.
- Define Requirements (ST)
- Quest requirements require either a specific aspect (e.g. clan or auspice), discipline power, gift, merit, or background (often with a speciality), or a skill of minimum level 3. In the case of powers, sometimes there may be multiple options - e.g. Scry or Clairvoyance would fulfil a similar function.
Requirements must be covered through the entire quest. The one exception is that the ST may offer leeway in the first month of a Complex or Heroic quest whose requirements have been provided in a downtime to avoid delaying the start of the quest.
- Quest requirements require either a specific aspect (e.g. clan or auspice), discipline power, gift, merit, or background (often with a speciality), or a skill of minimum level 3. In the case of powers, sometimes there may be multiple options - e.g. Scry or Clairvoyance would fulfil a similar function.
- Determine Duration
- Quests require a downtime action each month to be submitted for a period depending on the category and difficulty:
Simple: 1 Month
Complex: Difficulty in Months
Heroic: 2x Difficulty in Months
- Quests require a downtime action each month to be submitted for a period depending on the category and difficulty:
- Perform Challenges
- At the end of each scenario (so each month), all members of the group make a simple test.
Win -> Success
Tie -> Success with Consequence
Loss -> Failure with Consequence
The only retest allowed is possession of the Lucky merit.
As long as at least 50% of the challengers succeed, it is an overall success.
If over 50% of the challengers fail, the group may retry the test, accepting any new consequences on top of those already received. Anyone may choose to drop out at this point, but the retest may happen as long as all requirements are still met.
To avoid large quantities of challenges being done at the start of each game, the ST team will work on the assumption that challengers will always retest unless specifically stated in their downtime.
- At the end of each scenario (so each month), all members of the group make a simple test.
- Tell The Tale
- The ST has the responsibility of providing an outline of what the players will need to overcome during each monthly scenario as well as defining the overall structure of the quest, whilst the players have the responsibility of collaboratively coming up with the tale of how they overcame those obstacles.
Challenges involved should be appropriate to the intent of the quest, those involved, and how they are approaching the quest.
- The ST has the responsibility of providing an outline of what the players will need to overcome during each monthly scenario as well as defining the overall structure of the quest, whilst the players have the responsibility of collaboratively coming up with the tale of how they overcame those obstacles.