Does this thread belong here?, pieces of quest Options

[ghastley]

Most of the threads in this forum are naturally about "my character's adventures in a TES world", and the rest are meta-threads about writing them.

I'm coming from a completely different direction, or maybe not. I'm trying to create quest mods for Oblivion with a whole lot of NPC's who have linked stories, and I need all the help I can get with those. It's not entirely a different problem from writing the support cast in a regular FF, but it does leave out the central character, who will be the player, and I don't want to write that one.

I like to build a character in Oblivion and play it for a while before making an NPC from it, as this helps to give me some idea of how a pure mage thinks, or an archer, or an axe-wielding Orc, and I can make the NPC more credible that way. I'm currently playing a stereotypical big dumb blonde Nord called Hidy Heidi, who aspires to joining the Imperial Mountain Riders and patrolling the Jerrals on a white bear. I started her off trying to use poisoned daggers and stealth, but found that it's not too viable at low levels, because the damage she could inflict was never enough for a one-hit kill, and using a dagger put her too close for comfort in the remainder of the encounter. So she switched to a Claymore to better use her Blade skill, although she still tries a sneak attack with a dagger first, some of the time. She'd probably use the Claymore if she got a bear to ride, so maybe it's for the best.

This experience now has to be distilled down to some dialog for the NPC in-game, and that of her colleagues, and that's the sort of thing I'd want to post here for criticism and advice. And the content of books, notes, journal entries for the quests. Many of you have experience of rewriting bits of lore for your narratives, or fitting a new piece into the incomplete jigsaw puzzle Betheda provided, so I know it will help me if it works.

Heidi is intended to become part of this mod, of which only the first two quests have been released as a beta. I have another dozen or so in development, including an arc of quests that happen after the player is both CoC and Madgod, based on the idea of Dagon taking revenge on the player by opening gates in his/her new realm.

[ghastley]

Well I guess that means the link worked.

She wears more in bed - this illustrates the cuddly toy - and the little plush bear as well.

another view of her office

The bar and the dining area of the Lodge.

Svana's room

And here's a view of the outside.

And while the links are working - the whole mod's documentation.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Sep 25 2019, 03:14 PM

[mALX]

Well I guess that means the link worked.

She wears more in bed - this illustrates the cuddly toy - and the little plush bear as well.

another view of her office

The bar and the dining area of the Lodge.

Svana's room

And here's a view of the outside.

And while the links are working - the whole mod's documentation.

Love the lodge you built - this is AWESOME !!!! I went to the full documentation and looked up the different quests - I am getting very excited about this mod !!! How much fun, and how in the world you thought of all this - I love it !!!

[ghastley]

...and how in the world you thought of all this...

The Schnapps ad was the challenge - create a credible reason for her to exist in the TES world - and it made a good mod to try out the whole Construction Set. I needed to create costume models and/or textures, rework animations so she could ride the bear, create a quest, write some scripts and dialogs. Essentially there was a bit of everything.

I released a single-quest mod and got some positive feedback that encouraged me to add some more riders, so then I needed a story to tie it all together. That's the piece I came here to test out before it gets released as playable code.

It isn't all there in my mind yet. I still need a way to bring the Riders into play in the Deadlands after the Oblivion Gates in SI are closed by the player (with Mazken/Aureal help), so that the story completes the circle. There is another character I'm working on - Heidi, a stereotypical pneumatic dumb blonde - who'll turn out to be the exact opposite (well, she'll remain big and blonde). I don't have much of her tale thought through yet, but she'll probably be the one Rider that goes to SI with the player. I need some brilliant ideas to become her brilliant ideas in the resolution.

Heidi

The hardest part is keeping it tongue-in-cheek at the same time as letting you play it as a serious quest line if you prefer.

This post has been edited by ghastley: Jul 13 2011, 10:25 PM

[mALX]

...and how in the world you thought of all this...

The Schnapps ad was the challenge - create a credible reason for her to exist in the TES world - and it made a good mod to try out the whole Construction Set. I needed to create costume models and/or textures, rework animations so she could ride the bear, create a quest, write some scripts and dialogs. Essentially there was a bit of everything.

I released a single-quest mod and got some positive feedback that encouraged me to add some more riders, so then I needed a story to tie it all together. That's the piece I came here to test out before it gets released as playable code.

It isn't all there in my mind yet. I still need a way to bring the Riders into play in the Deadlands after the Oblivion Gates in SI are closed by the player (with Mazken/Aureal help), so that the story completes the circle. There is another character I'm working on - Heidi, a stereotypical pneumatic dumb blonde - who'll turn out to be the exact opposite (well, she'll remain big and blonde). I don't have much of her tale thought through yet, but she'll probably be the one Rider that goes to SI with the player. I need some brilliant ideas to become her brilliant ideas in the resolution.

Heidi

This is so fascinating !!! It is exciting to see the mod forming and the inner workings of how the quests are set up - then get to see the finished product as it develops !!!

I guess she could either be pretending to be dumb because she is some form of double agent for a faction and is infiltrating - or she could be an academic airhead - like people who are genius in one way but lack common sense in another.

(Maxical in my story is an academic airhead. In Maxical's original story (and later on in this version) - Eyja the maid from Skingrad is a double agent infiltrating - she comes across as dumb so no one bothers watching her - then takes over in a quick flip of events)

I loved the links you provided, they tripled my excitement over this thread !!!

This post has been edited by mALX: Mar 3 2011, 04:34 PM