[Quest Design] - Troublesome Guar

sasquatch2o · Post by **sasquatch2o** » Thu Nov 13, 2014 12:54 am

The Troublesome Guar:

Farmer has a guar that has been nothing but trouble. He wants to be rid of it, but doesnt want to butcher the guar. She (the guar) is too old, too tough to be any good for stew. He is a busy man and has work more important than dealing with the guar to do. Give him X gold and take the guar to nearby market to be sold at profit. Easy enough you think, but its not.

Give farmer the money and he will give you some food items to help control the beast. After feeding guar her will follow. On the road there are several passerbys she will attack all of them causing them to flee. Guar will not chase, but becomes distracted and will wander each time until fed. Arriving at the guar stalls outside OE speak to the handler. He will inspect the guar and be over eager to buy her off you. For double the money guar handler will buy guar. With adequate barter skill player may receive more.

FOR DISCUSSION

Tondollari · Post by **Tondollari** » Thu Nov 13, 2014 3:22 am

The part about the guar attacking passersby sounds a little too complicated to implement for this kind of quest, especially considering the player can totally bypass them by not using roads.

Why not just make it a straightforward escort-for-profit quest?

ihavefivehat · Post by **ihavefivehat** » Thu Nov 13, 2014 4:06 am

Escort missions are kind of a drag in Morrowind so I like that you're spicing it up a bit.

If the thing with the passerby is too complicated, maybe the guar will just attack the player at a certain point if it's not given the medicine. (I think some weak calm creature or command scrolls would make more sense).

Also, the merchant might get the sense that something fishy is going on, and would have to be persuaded a certain amount to buy the guar.

Then, as a funny easter egg, several days after the quest is finished, the merchant could show up as a dead body somewhere on the road with a wild pack guar standing nearby. The alert player would realize that it's the same merchant that he scammed in the quest. (I don't know if this sort of thing is easy to implement in Morrowind, but I think it would be a nice bit of environmental storytelling.)

Post by **arvisrend** » Thu Nov 13, 2014 5:42 am

I fear that attacking passersby will be way too hard to script safely. Maybe the guar could attack a guard at the gates of the town where the player is to arrive if not handled properly?

sasquatch2o · Post by **sasquatch2o** » Thu Nov 13, 2014 7:45 am

THe guar attacking innocent AI and becoming distracted is the entertaining part of the "troublesome guar." Simply leading the guar or anything point A to point B is boring. Guar could be set to wander every 60 seconds or so. Feeding would be required to get her to follow again for another 60 second duration. The problem with guar attacking anyone other than AI specifically placed for it is that most would attack and kill. Player could be told to go directly to OE following the road. Is it possible to restrict the guar's movement to the road and have the other AIs flee the into woods to escape it? This could be explained by the guar being afraid of strangers and woods at the start of the quest. Maybe that would be revealing too much.

Again, the whole point of this quest is to be humorous and make it clear that reselling the guar wasnt worth the trouble. Player is conned into making this seem like a fairly easy great deal, but it works out in the end. I like fivehat's idea about the guar causing further trouble too. Maybe a dead body is too much, but a short blurb about getting bitten or damaging the guar pen would be nice. The guar handler missing a hand up to the elbow would be pretty funny.