Dungeons and Dragons in the Slums.

[Shattergod]

One of the finer aspects of tabletop play was the interaction with a fictional community one could achieve greatness, notoriety, infamy and reputation. I contend that the dungeons and dragons online game would do well to engage this aspect of gameplay.

There would be certain requirements. First, it would be a "solo only" zone. Each individual player would rise or fall in this zone on their own merits. Second, the zone would scale to the characters level. A character entering a zone at level 3 would find it much more difficult when they entered it at level 7. Finally, the quests would be "ongoing", meaning that you wouldn't have a small army of NPCs who would each give you a single quest. Instead you would have one master in the zone who would be suited to your talents and who would provide the quests for you, with randomized lesser quests on the way.

To achieve this end, I propose "Slum Quests". The world of the slum is one ripe for intrigues, gallantry, and exploration. In the stormreach slums a wrong word can bring a swift assault, or the opportunity to diffuse a most difficult situation. The primary Slum quest would be random, the character would be granted a "primary" quest each day and as they traveled within the slums completing these quests, random event quests would pop up. You might be accosted by a woman in need, leading you down into a dungeon to rescue her child from kidnapping kobolds, you may find yourself attacked purely at random by street thugs... unless your bluff... or intimidate check is significant enough to scare away the rapscallions. But not everyone in the slums is a foe, and tabbing around won't give everything away, the innocent halfling selling apples might up and reveal herself to be an assassin sent by a rival house.

These random event quests could easily be taylored to suit the individual in a variety of ways as every aspect of the character is already available for the game to know. A fighter may encounter more thugs, a paladin may encounter more damsels in distress. A rogue would find that their services are necessary in releiving the lord of the manor of his banknotes.... as may a fighter who happened to invest a great deal into hide and move silently.

It would be in this singular zone, a decreipt worn down slum that we would find a cast of characters that would provide these randomized daily quests and events for the single player.


As the character gained fame... or infamy within the zone they would find themselves granted housing... followers... and access to a black market... as well as a variety of other rewards...

[totmacher]

as long as I get my real life ability of "forty toss", I'm in full support of this content addition

/forty arm, still strong

[redoubt]

How does this work for groups?

[VonBek]

Hey, TOLERO put this guy's idea on the whiteboard. We've had folks ask for class specific quests. This may or may not be it, but it heads in the right direction. And, perhaps, after a point, it opens into a party oriented quest, requiring heroes to band together from time to time, against the evil menace growing ever more organized in the slums.

[Lewcipher]

After enough favor, would you acquire the title of "Slumlord"?

Had to ask

[Arianrhod]

Kinda reminds me of the Elder Scrolls series...

[Allice]

Just never forget your poison proof or more importantly your desease proof items when you go into the slums.... Trust me you will be greatful for them

[Puby]

Kinda reminds me of the Elder Scrolls series...

Yea. Morrowind...

[Sue_Dark]

hmm.... favor?

sure you cant go negative favor, but you can opt to not gain for a particular house/entity. ofcourse that leaves you out in the cold for alot of quests, but if you're an rp'er you prolly dont care about that anyway.


Dev time better spent elsewhere.... like making things work right again and again and again.

[In_Like_Flynn]

Less solo, more group.

[Dawnblade]

How does this work for groups?

I don't think groups is part of the idea

There would be certain requirements. First, it would be a "solo only" zone. Each individual player would rise or fall in this zone on their own merits.

[Milolyen]

I don't think groups is part of the idea

Unless I am mistaken, I think that is part of his point. There are many people that feel putting to much solo stuff into the game will be bad for it. This game, for the most part, has always been focused on group play and doing the quests with others. To much soloing content could easily lead to a disconnected community. One of the things I didn't like about AOC was the fact that I went from lvl 1-20 in little over one weekend and never really met anyone because it was mostly solo/not hard to solo even for someone brand new to the game. Between that and my computer not able to handle the game made it really easy for me to stop playing.

When I first started this game on the other hand I was grouping up with others the first day and was easy to meet people and make friends (which is what keeps people playing).

Milolyen

[Dawnblade]

I personally would not mind if short soloable quests were to be added. Sometimes I don't have enough time to get into a group and finish the quest. It takes time to find the group and then a while to fnish the quests. Sometimes it takes so long to find a group that even if I had time to group when I first logged on, I waste most of the time looking for a group and end up running out of time to do quests.

I'm all for the group thing but there needs to be a bigger populations with which to group. Either way I don't thing it would hurt to give us some soloable aspect to this game. We can keep the game focused on groups but have a lesser part of it's content dedicated to solos.

That's just my point of view anyway.

[VonBek]

There are many people that feel putting to much solo stuff into the game will be bad for it. This game, for the most part, has always been focused on group play and doing the quests with others. To much soloing content could easily lead to a disconnected community. Milolyen

I see your point. And yet, the soloers just keep on persisting. Pesky soloers.

[Kalari]

While I like the idea and its merits I have to agree that more solo content would take away from the D&D group mentality the game is trying to hold onto. Sure I hate that my rogue really has no place save to scout or take on traps and the occassional sneak attack. But until the game is structured around personality, rp and alignments (assides from gear) Ive just settled with the fact that i'll play my rogue when needed but she wont be a major character. Your idea would make her my main for the simple fact that in other games it was a blast to run threw areas where I could either be a self entitled wench willing to step on those to get what I needed. Or a helpful hero rescuing the down trodded from the evils of the world. In DDO so far you dont see much of that unless you rp and even then its really restricted to a group of like minded individuals. I can only hope that sometime in the future peoples choices of how they wish to play a character is taken more into consideration when developing areas and npcs.

[VonBek]

While I like the idea and its merits I have to agree that more solo content would take away from the D&D group mentality the game is trying to hold onto.

It's doing quite a bit better than trying

I can only hope that sometime in the future peoples choices of how they wish to play a character is taken more into consideration when developing areas and npcs.

I think it is, actually. DDO offers more ways to play than folks usually give it credit. Any quest is just a stage for PUGging, zerging, permadeath, RP, static teams, large guilds, whatever. The design fosters collaboration; the players chose how they perform on that stage.