How to write video game quests (for beginners)
A basic template for writing video game quests.
Quest writing basic template
Decide the theme of your quest
OR Choose an event or character that fits the setting and theme
Shape the plot and characters into relevant themes
Create one or more characters that represent your themes - the chosen one, the mentor, the noble friend, the romantic interest (just make sure he/she becomes their own character), the laughably evil wizard etc. Develop them along the way with basic principles: relationships and dimensionality.
Give the player choice. Use items and abilities for extra options, dialogue options only, or previous choices.
For each major choice, create one relevant ending.
Optional: connect quests - decisions and endings in one quest may affect choices in another.
The purpose of quests
The purpose of quests is to provide characterization and spur the player along on adventure and good gameplay.
Both characters and the world - a character of its own - will be developed through the quest, move from simple NPCs to heroes of their own story.
The player's understanding of the world, involved characters and themes will be greater when facing the consequences.
In abstract, think of quests as means to develop the world, the gameplay, and player immersion.
The quest may begin from a joke - perhaps you're bent on subjecting the player to a theme-park less relevant to the setting. If so, rewrite the quest to fit the setting, create an ending relevant to major themes.
Pick a theme for your quest
The standard way to design a quest begins with choosing a theme - falling in love, revenge, honor in the face of adversity, freedom, becoming a self-reliant adult etc.
Ideally, the theme is relevant, treated in a way that fits the setting. When the theme is vastly divergent to the setting, justify the change within the laws of the world. For example, using surrealism, magic realism, weird fiction in a universe already accustomed to them. When complicated, resume the quest to one major theme.
One easy practice is to begin with the ending.
Decide what trial players will face, ideally influenced by choices. Move backward from the end, planting events along the way, shaping the characters to fit the theme and events.
More so, the player will have a choice in dealing with the end. If you want to make a specific point, you can forego choice and use a set ending. This may reduce immersions and player engagement, so the theme must justify it and the player made aware of it, through diegetic means.
Your characters are themes and ideas
If you have difficulty writing characters, remember the obvious: characters represent themes and ideas relevant to the world.
In the beginning was the cliche. Starting characters as archetypes will help you leap over the first writer's block. Ideally, characters will not remain cliches, but will evolve into their own story. A character may remain a cliche if you know you are doing this specifically to make a point.
As with stories, you'll find it easier to start with the end. To make a certain point, write a character's conclusion first, gradually plan previous steps and tie them to a beginning which makes sense for the player.
Create connections between quests
Good characterization, for both people and setting, uses two major principles: relationships and dimensionality.
Relationships are the connections between characters, ideas, locations, events, every world concept. Each character will have something to say about different ideas, which in turn influence other concepts.
Dimensionality is composed of the time and space a character or idea occupies in the past, present, future. A character may not have a past before the story, but will still have an opinion and relationship with what came before.
As means to develop the world, quests use relationships - between characters and between each other. For greater complexity and characterization, quests may influence and be influenced by external decisions.
Do not make the mistake of telegraphing - explicitly telling the player - when a decision will have consequences.
Contrary to modern game design, jostling the player with inane messages about how characters will remember a decision is not good design. Let players discover the consequences of their action on their own.
If needed, partly telegraph a consequence through diegetic means - a character may say it explicitly or an event foreshadows the consequence. Otherwise, don't take away the player's joy and understanding in discovering the conclusions on their own.
Make items and skills useful
Use lateral design and put all resources to use: think of ways character stats, abilities, items may be useful in more than one way.
Modify dialogue and action ques to use available skills, traits, items. When appropriate, make choices yield specific endings and consequences.
If you wish, you may create complex RPGs without using items and abilities in quests.
Simply give the player choice through dialogue, different options that have a clear impact on the quest conclusion.
You don't need myriad dialogue options - two are often enough, as long as they herald different outcomes or means to achieve goals.
Consequences before needless options
Put your resource where they matter. Avoid inconsequential dialogue options and action ques. Reduce the number of options if needed, make the available ones matter with different consequences.
Quests may be simple or complex, as needed, or as you wish them to be. If complexity becomes an obstacle, edit the plot stages to relevant events, those which most evoke the theme.
Use the golden rule: the quest must be engaging for you. You should be the first to find value or fun in going through the story or facing the conclusion.
Choice and reactivity are better than myriad options or plot points that lead to a pre-established ending. Forcing the player onto one ending is no fun.
The essential exception is when dealing with determinist themes, a story about choices that don't matter or yield the same result.
Ideally, the player will understand the theme clearly. Otherwise, offering choice throughout the quest may result in disappointment when faced with a pre-established ending.
A diversity of quest-givers
A quest-giver may be anyone and anything you can think of.
The hero may receive quests, tasks, or clues from a person, a talking object, an otherworldly entity, a dream, by witnessing an event, by random exploration, by reading, from a choice or ending in another quest etc.
If an idea for an adventure is too enticing but you have difficulty beginning the quest, remember the quest-giver may appear in endless shapes and sizes.
Not only is it more interesting when the hero engages with different entities, but said forms of intelligence are themselves facets of worldbuilding. They are natural means of understanding the world, even without explicit means of characterization.
You can avoid violence
In the game.
Violence is engaging at a raw physical level and to focus attention thanks to pumping adrenaline. Thus its prevalence in games.
Thankfully, video games have the unique advantage of choice and reactivity, and can easily avoid violence in the right context.
In RPGs, Immersive Sims, hybrids of all kinds, violence is likely an option, but it should not be the only one. More so, it can be obfuscated, delivered through indirect means: by another character, in non-lethal manner, or as unexpected result.
Your preferences and design quirks may decide that an RPG can be built only on violence. It cannot. Unless the theme of the story and quest are violence, games need choice in accomplishing tasks to be proper RPGs, sims and hybrids.
Players can fail quests
The world will not stop existing simply because the hero does.
Well, when you must stop the impending apocalypse, it does - we're working with a specific theme.
To maintain naturalism, do not force the player onto a set path that leads to "completing" the quest with a satisfying conclusion.
Again, another exception - if determinism haunts your themes, one ending may be enough, and Hero Protagonist will have no choice.
Story endings can be unsatisfying - if we know our choices justify it. More so, you can connect the ending to another quest, or have this ending begin another story, telegraphed or not.
The best reward can be acquired early
One way to entice the hero is to provide an essential reward before the quest has concluded.
A reward may be more than an item: a revelatory plot event, a fun ability, meeting an interesting character. You do not have to wait until the end to reveal the quest's strong point.
It is enough if the denouement - a fancy pulpy word for conclusion - makes sense for the quest, linear or not. Otherwise, the highlight of the story may be found along the way, providing impetus for progression.
Write a quest you enjoy
Nothing works if you don't, and the adventure is not the same without you.
When facing obstacles - lack of story ideas, brevity and complexity, difficult themes - detach from the story and plot, think of the quest as made by someone else.
The quest should be interesting and engaging for you. Play the story in your mind first, subtract tedious elements, add characterization and choice, sprinkle fun as needed, top it with relevant endings.
The quest - and game overall - should be fun, enticing, immersive in your mind, before starting production.
You should be giddy about it, maybe get chills while imagining the amazing adventure you're beginning.
Practice makes perfect quests ✍🏻
Decide your theme or start with an interesting event or character
Create your characters, archetypes or not
Write multiple endings for major choices
Only telegraph consequences diegetically
Write a quest you enjoy. Get giddy while you're at it.