>>5845142You're not being a cunt, it is an absolutely valid opinion.
If I count the total hours I put in, if I didn't fuck around, procrastinate and think about random shit while working on the quest, it would amount to about a month of consistent, reasonably-spaced out work in my free time (so not all-consuming but doing it in addition to other stuff). I don't think that's too much effort.
The reason I'm doing this is because I tried many times doing a quest with minimal preparation and it always became a patchwork monstrosity of hastily built-up lore and random situations with minimal central narrative and ad hoc mechanics tacked on. They devoured a lot more of my time than I planned.
I don't want to repeat the past, so I'm preparing and testing most of things in advance. It is well-known that players tread paths that the QM didn't even think of, so it may, indeed, all be for naught, but I hope this preparation will lessen the effort I need to put in during the quest itself, even if only a bit.
I don't think it will fail, I'm reasonably sure I can net at least 2-3 players even with my admittedly low writing skill. Unless you have a definition of failure other than abandonment of the quest by its players.
>>5845165I will most definitely introduce various characters as the quest goes on. However, systems, in my opinion, are important if not for player engagement, then for the ease of running the quest for the QM (why exactly I explained in the first part of this post in reply to another anon). Thanks for the advice and good luck on your quests as well.
>>5845140>QM questionidk some people know precisely where they borrowed their ideas from, like books, articles, comics, manga, anime, films, but I don't have that, I usually just consume various media and browse threads, accumulating ideas as they morph and combine together into random assortments of plot points and atmospheric elements that I introduce into my current quests.
For my current quest however, Dominions 5 is a big inspiration, I took most of the magic system from it and some races, however I mostly constructed the lore myself. The most ripoff piece of lore is probably Nihon with its oni kings over humans, but even there I added the drug-addicted population, tea magic and trade power to make it different.
>Player questionAlso idk, it depends on whether the player character has a formed personality or is a blank slate. In the former case, it is acceptable to have less control, in the latter, more. I think most QMs understand this and offer reasonable levels of control, I don't remember any quest where I could complain about it. Perhaps I have simply played too few quests. If we're talking about setting-affecting choices, it's up to the QM to include them.
