How to make a Writ quest

[Seniosh]

[1ST]M[/1ST]

aking Writs - A brief overview (feel free to ask questions)

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black[/HR]

This little post will focus mostly on the story and organizational aspects of creating a writ quest. Hooking it into the system might be a bit of an adventure, but i'll update as i get more experienced.

Everybody, please feel free to post ideas for Writs, following the guidelines on this page. You don't even have to make the writ yourself, just brainstorm!

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black[/HR]

Giving the Writ a story, and making it realistic

First off, the story:
Every writ must have a logical motive. Why does this person want the target dead? This can be explained through dialogue with the guild-leader to a limited extent. Also, if you decide to create the NPC who hired the Tong in the first place, add it to their dialogue. Even if you don't want to make an NPC, check with Razorwing or Sandor to see if you can add dialogue to an existing NPC, just to add a good background to the quest

Second: It is expensive to take out a Writ! Hobos do not have enough money to go around having Arch-Dukes executed. Most people who request an assassination are at least upper-middle class, if not plain old rich. And remember, the cost of a writ is proportional to the danger in carrying it out, meaning the amount of guards. So once again, a poor person will not be able to hire the most elite assassin to sneak past 100 guards and kill Vivec or someone. So keep it in mind.

Third: Make sure that each target is reasonably hard to kill successfully. Remember, the Morag Tong is legal, so it doesn't matter if you get caught. Therefore, most targets should have some type of guardian, so that you either must fight through guards, or evade them. Also, special conditions, such as killing someone while remaining undetected, sparing the guards, heck even just killing everyone. Make it interesting, and not just "go kill x and get paid"

Following these should pretty much ensure that you have an interesting quest from a story and player's standpoint

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black[/HR]

That takes care of the story of a writ, now for how to submit a writ idea, make a writ, etc.

First, write a quest overview. An outline-type thing, just giving the background, special conditions, location, and NPCs. Ideally, the location would be somewhere that hasn't been claimed, but in cases such as Reich Parkeep, we might have to commandeer an existing house. Especially important is the difficulty level, so that i know where to hook it into the quest line. Don't want to send level 2 characters to assassinate a level 30 rogue telvanni wizard do we?

Then, once that is discussed and approved, write up the dialogue and quest stages, according to the system in this thread. This it a very necessary organizational step! It ensures that there will be no confusion while setting up the writ and such. Journal entries, triggers, dialogue, and such are very nice things to have in advance, even with a simple writ quest (especially if you decided to go complicated)

Also, please state whether you would like to mod this yourself, or if you would rather have someone else mod it, and you're just throwing the idea out. I'll definitely take a few writs, just to get the hang of setting them up, and especially hooking them into the quest system.

[Dephenistrator]

YEEEEEHEHESSSSSS! This is exactly what I wanna be doing! I made up so many of my own Morag Tong quests in Morrowind! YAH! I've gotta do a couple things before I get started but afterward I wouldn't mind filling up the entire Morag Tong Storyline!

[bob196045]

Super Job Seniosh

:goodjob:


Thanks for posting this


Enjoy
Bob

[Dephenistrator]

I'm gonna do a house and a couple requests but after that I'm gonna focus on this quest line. I like the guidelines but I wonder How strict they are? for example.... I won't be satisfied with a mere ten quests for a guild, I like having a lot to do at a guild, it's something that makes it memorable. As I will have deep story like quests I would also like to add simple "Go get him" quests as well and these are my reasons:

A: If every quest were grand or deep they wouldn't seem special, the mundane pose a balance in it all. Also in Morrowind it felt more like you were in a guild because they gave you an occasion chore like task that the guild would need to be done, like the hlaalu sending you to deliver a letter.

B: As a player it's nice to have a breather, or a simple mission.

C: Even if the back story is small, the events or challenges within the quest may be great. For example: Once I designed a room where the ceiling would collapse as you entered.

D: Secrecy, I would like to do the occasional, Your on a need to know basis, kind of thing to implement a seriousness to some of the writs. I also could leave easter egg clues to that information if I wanted to.

E: these missions can range from stealth to kill them all. What's wrong with something like "He killed my father, go kill him and his gang". Simple yes, but that's all there has to be to someone wanting to kill someone.

F: Finally, In Morrowind there was no explanation whatsoever of nearly any of the jobs. Usually just mission critical rundowns of the job.

As a final note, I greatly enjoyed the Morag Tong missions in Morrowind and will give this great attention, adding many quests. I'm not saying I want the majority of the quests to be simple background but I would like to have the freedom to do so.

P.S. This site is awesome :goodjob:

[bob196045]

Originally posted by Dephenistrator
I'm gonna do a house and a couple requests but after that I'm gonna focus on this quest line. I like the guidelines but I wonder How strict they are? for example.... I won't be satisfied with a mere ten quests for a guild, I like having a lot to do at a guild, it's something that makes it memorable. As I will have deep story like quests I would also like to add simple "Go get him" quests as well and these are my reasons:

The main questline is Seniosh's call, I think he is open for options for more detail, as far as more quests go, I agree the more the better, if we can fit others in that fine with me

A: If every quest were grand or deep they wouldn't seem special, the mundane pose a balance in it all. Also in Morrowind it felt more like you were in a guild because they gave you an occasion chore like task that the guild would need to be done, like the hlaalu sending you to deliver a letter.

This is true, but the Morag Tong had no "filler" quests until the player began collecting the Sanguine items. I agree we should have a few "go do this" type quests

B: As a player it's nice to have a breather, or a simple mission.

:check:

C: Even if the back story is small, the events or challenges within the quest may be great. For example: Once I designed a room where the ceiling would collapse as you entered.

:check:

D: Secrecy, I would like to do the occasional, Your on a need to know basis, kind of thing to implement a seriousness to some of the writs. I also could leave easter egg clues to that information if I wanted to.

Agreed, We did discuss this idea. as the player increases in rank they will become prevy to more of the information as to the "WHY" of the Writ

E: these missions can range from stealth to kill them all. What's wrong with something like "He killed my father, go kill him and his gang". Simple yes, but that's all there has to be to someone wanting to kill someone.

I do not understand your meaning ?

F: Finally, In Morrowind there was no explanation whatsoever of nearly any of the jobs. Usually just mission critical rundowns of the job.

As above with item "D"

As a final note, I greatly enjoyed the Morag Tong missions in Morrowind and will give this great attention, adding many quests. I'm not saying I want the majority of the quests to be simple background but I would like to have the freedom to do so.

I am sure you will and thanks much for your kind words. I have no objection. We will need to await Seniosh's thoughts. Just keep in mind whatever you do, please post your ideas for discussion and consider we have to keep it within the scheme of ES lore and Silgrad
(I do not mean by the book!)


P.S. This site is awesome :goodjob:

Thanks



Enjoy
Diet Bob
Now with a splash of Lemon

[Seniosh]

The writ quests are intended to be completely separate from the main quest. This follows with other guild structures, where you get glimpses of the main quest in-between smaller and more ordinary (though not boring) quests.

This means that writ quests can be independently modded, and then hooked into the overall quest structure with minimal work. I've been extremely busy in real life, but i should be finishing up the steadhelm guildhall soon, at which point i will mod the first few writ quests myself. At that point, i will update this guide more fully, and make lists of scripts you should have, scripts i'll need to update, etc.

So in a nutshell, yes there will be many more than ten quests, and the majority of the quests will be simple assassinations.

Background at first will be very fuzzy, though i'd really really like modders to leave clues about why someone was assassinated. for example, business documents lying around a house which record gambling debts, stuff like that.

Also, if you have ideas for a writ, i would like them to be posted in separate threads, just so that we have this one more specifically for discussion of the implementation of writs- guidelines and such

Thank you for your interest! I'd love to start hearing some ideas