About Quest Related Items.

berhudarol

In my story, player has to loot a single necklace from a corpse and with that necklace he has to use a portal to teleport to an another map to continue his story. Neclace is a prequity for portal and portal consumes necklace after player use portal.

Everything works fine. BUT i am just doing brain storming about what-if scenario. Lets say player took the necklace and trashed it. He will be stuck in the foundry. Because he won't use portal.

What can i do about it? I want my item to be quest related item that can't be trashed by player. What are my options in this ?

essenti

ALL quest items can be trashed by players. Relying on quest items means you *must* trust the player not to trash them.

However, you can have the portal be revealed/unlocked upon Component Complete -> [whatever gives the player the necklace], rather than for having the necklace in the player's inventory. But then there is no easy way to "consume" the necklace. But, the necklace will be removed from the player's inventory once the quest is completed (usually).

eldarth

While you can't ever prevent the player from trashing the item, I'd suggest making them aware that they will need it later.
Perhaps have the ghost of the corpse appear and inform them they will need the necklace to open a portal or something similar. That way they are at least aware that they shouldn't trash it.

melinden

You can't entirely idiot-proof a quest although some authors try. If they are stupid enough to discard a quest item they get in a foundry while still in that foundry then that should be their problem, not yours.

On the bright side, complete idiots also won't be able to finish your quest if they do this so won't be able to 1 star you.

The only way to keep someone from throwing something away is to never give it to them as described by Essenti.

angrysprite

berhudarol wrote: »

In my story, player has to loot a single necklace from a corpse and with that necklace he has to use a portal to teleport to an another map to continue his story. Neclace is a prequity for portal and portal consumes necklace after player use portal.

Everything works fine. BUT i am just doing brain storming about what-if scenario. Lets say player took the necklace and trashed it. He will be stuck in the foundry. Because he won't use portal.

What can i do about it? I want my item to be quest related item that can't be trashed by player. What are my options in this ?

Here's how to handle these: Any player that trashes quest items given to them while in a particular map deserves to get stuck. Most with even the slightest of common-sense will not do this, so your players will reach and use the portal.

The quest is then how to carry the "Necklace" as in this example over to the new map: have the very first interactive re-give the Necklace. If it's a door or other inert object just add to your dialog something along the lines of "you dropped the necklace and pick it up again" or whatever. If it's an NPC have him request to look at it, then he gives it back. In either case you simply give another copy of the Necklace to the player, etc.

You also can build-in a "safety" like so: Have the object that gives the necklace NOT be in your storyboard. That way the player can go back to get another one. OR you can have the portal appear when dialog - the dialog that gives the necklace. In the story it is the necklace that opens the portal and it will still seem that way; but it's not really the necklace that makes the portal available.

There are a couple ways around the scenario.

As for people trashing quest items - they usually only do that after completing the quest and it's a sign of sloppy authorship; all Foundry quests should clean-up (consume) all quest items before the completion of the quest.

My own purview on inventory quest items, for example: giving an actual necklace item: is it necessary? Thats the first question the author must answer for themselves; saying the player has a necklace is the same as actually giving them one - in their mind they have a necklace. The only real reason to give an item is when it genuinely affect quest progression: for example: the necklace can only open one of two doors, which will the player choose - they get only one choice. THAT is where having the inventory items is actually useful.