An open-world gamebook must contain variety. If you’re asking your reader to stay with you for hours of gameplay, spread over months of reading, then you have to provide them with short, rewarding actions and longer, more challenging storylines. I’ve been thinking about this balance in Steam Highwayman: Princes of the West a lot recently, as the length of the book and the number of different things I want to include are both really challenging me.
I have a tendency to inflate even small quests so it’s really important that when I can, I deliver tasty events in as few passages as possible. This was something I always admired about Fabled Lands, and though I have wanted to create something richer and more atmospheric, I know I can go too far. And if I want to cover the entire map with adventures in around 1500 passages, I need to use them efficiently.
Now one criticism I had of my first gamebook was that there was a reliance on fetch-quests. Since then I have done my best to avoid using them too much, but I’m coming round again. There is something steady, predictable and rewarding about completing a simple find-and-deliver, delivering quick success and a boost to the reader’s confidence. And just because the essential idea is straightforward, doesn’t mean the theme or the manner of the quest has to be…
So I’ve done a bit of work on two types of fetch-quest structures, aiming for the minimum number of passages to make them functional, which means that I can plan to include several in Princes of the West, scattered in among other sorts of quests and missions.
Specific Fetch Quests
The Specific Fetch Quest goes something like this: at Location A, which could be a passage such as an inn parlour or a freight yard, there’s a one-time-only option and an option limited by possession of a certain MacGuffin item. Choosing the first option introduces you to a character or situation that requires a MacGuffin – you know the sort of valuable and indefinite thing I’m talking about. A water purification control chip or a pewter falcon or whatever you like. Perhaps the section includes clues to the MacGuffin’s location, or perhaps it doesn’t. In the simplest form, you receive an exact location and your job is purely to go and get it, but it with a bit more complexity you can add some detective-work in here. For example, the quest-giver could give you an approximate location, and you might have to visit several places on a map, or they could tell you that an individual has it, and then you’d have to find that person first. Either way, a Codeword or a unique item acts as the key to obtain the MacGuffin when you eventually reach Location B. There a conditional option gets you what you’re looking for, strips you of the Codeword or unique item and sends you back on your way to Location A to hand it over – this time using the second option.
Now the elegance here is in the minimal use of conditions. Because the first option at Location A is one-time-only, so is the unique item, which effectively makes the conditional option at Location B also one-time only and the second option at Location A one-time-only. This little fetch-quest needs only 3 passages, one tick-box and two unique items to function. Nice.
Generic Fetch Quests
Now here’s something even simpler: a Generic Fetch Quest. Presuming you use pre-existing locations, this only requires two passages and no unique items. The idea here is that at a location such a market or roadside, you are commissioned to fetch an item – probably something with a bit of rarity to it, but it could be something relatively easy to find. A tin of fruit or a fur coat or a boondoggle that could be bought at a market at a bit of a distance – not next-door. Within passage QF2.1, a condition like “If you possess a boondoggle, turn to 801 immediately” responds to your solution of the quest and sends you to a reward passage. This sort of fetch quest can be repeated over and over – which is more likely to be a problem than a benefit, but which can have uses. For example, a Devon shopkeeper could tell you of his need to get hold of Cornish clotted cream for a specific customer, meaning that whenever you cross the Tamar, you might bring a pot with you and drop it off for a nice little illegal profit – such contraband being forbidden by Imperial edict, you see. Perhaps this is prone to spamming, but if a reader is willing to leave all their possessions in a hollow tree or pub bedroom somewhere and fill their saddlebags with clotted cream, I think they probably deserve a multiple reward.
Rewards
And that is really the next part of the equation. A reward for a specific quest is easier to invent: it could be a valuable item (clearly worth more than the effort of fetching the MacGuffin) or cash, or possibly even something more important like the Friendship of a character, access to further missions or locations, a stat-increase, a modification to your velosteam… The list goes on.
When creating something repeatable, it really is tricky not to mess this up. The net gain has to be valuable enough to satisfy the reader but not so valuable as to break the game. Sometimes I like a random table here: one time you might get given £2 in coin, but another time it might be a gold necklace, technically worth more but more bothersome as you have to find someone who will fence it for you – which is not that easy in Princes of the West. And how many are too many? I have something like 120 locations in the current Steam Highwayman volume and really, every single one needs something interesting to happen there – either a mechanic like a repeatable ambush, a quest beginning, middle or end, or a minor encounter. Empty locations are simply a waste of everyone’s time. Right now I am actually struggling just to keep on top of what I have written, so I can’t tell you how many simple or complex fetch quests I actually have in Princes of the West. I’ll have to get back to you.
Now I’m pretty sure you have feelings about this style of quest, or the conditional structures I’ve drawn out about, or experiences in the earlier Steam Highwayman volumes that annoyed or pleased you. Perhaps you’ve got a better way of doing things or an idea to improve what I’ve written above.