QuestDigest 21/11/95

From: ">>-Josh->" <J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk>

Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 00:00:00 +0000

___         _
  / _ \       | |             Twenty First of November
 | |_| |UEST__| |IGEST                  1995
  \__  |   / _  |
     | |_ | |_| |  An e-mail discussion forum for the fantasy
     |_ /  \___/   play by mail game;  "Quest".  Compiled  by
                   Josh Gallagher. J.P.Gallagher@durham.ac.uk

o  This isn't one of those automatic list thingies, so could all
   articles be sent clearly marked with paragraphs initalled to me.

o  If you want off the list, just say!  No hassle, no pressure.

o  All material here is the exclusive property of the author and may
   not be used elsewhere without their permission.

o  For answers to specific Quest-related questions, you may want to get in
   touch with the Quest Helpline; queries sent to quest-help@kokodan.vivi.com
   will be sent to a panel of experienced Quest players, who will endeavour
   to answer your problems quickly. Thanks to Bruce Cota for his help.

___
 / _ \          Another good week for contributions; thank you everyone.
|  __/DITORIAL  Glad to hear that KJC have figured out that we can't keep
 \___|          remembering all the new rules!  The amount of times I've
                flicked back through old turns just because I couldn't
remember how to change the sex of a character, or something just as
mundane.  I wouldn't mind getting hold of a new rule book when that's
done out.  Anyway, enough of my drivel... what am I _meant_ to put in an
editorial? :)
Oh, by the way, hello to any new members of the list.  I quite often
forget to say that, but you are all very welcome.  Please feel free to
contribute any piece of information, or ask any question you want.

_
   / \            o Ben Walker on rules sheet, newsletters and dungeons
  / /_\ RTICLES   o Roger Littlefair wins todays shortest entry competition
 / ___ \          o Stefan Anderson advertising his own Quest page
/_/   \_\         o Ewan Jones wins contributor of the week for his report
                    on the Blackpool pubmeet
                  o Ewan Jones again with an advert for his homepage
o Paul Noble LOSES contributor of the week for criticising my sig, which
  has now been changed... peer pressure, huh?  Oh yeah, he mentions other
  stuff too. :)
o Comments against posting a spell list up, from ...?
o There's a lot isn't there?
o Finally Jim Sparshott reporting on a new monster

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From: "M.B.Walker -Ben Walker" <M.B.Walker@open.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 95 11:40:00 GMT

BW> Hello Again !

BW> I've just received my most recent turn and realised that half my last
e-mail was pretty pointless. KJC have just produced a rules sheet summary
which is available to everyone anyway.

BW> What is the general feeling about having the game newsletters as part
of the actual turn sheet. I for one would prefer to have mine ready folded
and actually looking like ma newsletter rather than a Blue Peter style do
it yourself attachment.

BW> Also, does anybody know how deep dungeons can actually be ? I'm
currently on level 10 and this is as low as I can go in my current
dungeon. Most of the other ones I've been in have only been 3 or 4 levels,
with one going to 7.  Am I wasting my time searching for ever deeper ones
if they don't exist ?
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From: roger.littlefair@unn.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:29:37 GMT

RoJ) (sorry no V brackets on these terminals ).  Just wanted to moan about
     the 5p increase per turn coz I`m a student.  Thanks...
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From: Stefan Andersson <t94stean@und.ida.liu.se>
Date: Sun, 19 Nov 1995 19:46:02 +0100

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From: "Ewan Jones" <c2ej@dmu.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:27:20 GMT

EJ Blackpool `95
   *************
   Apparently I have been nominated as pubmeet correspondant to the digest so
having just got back from the pubmeet here comes the latest from the Questing
hot spot for the year. All in all not a bad turnout for the main pubmeet of the
year, perhaps not as many as in previous years but I suppose Blackpool is not
the best places to have a central pubmeet, don`t even mention Birmingham as a
suggestion though  since we all know about the antics with Celtic supporters
away match colliding with a quest meet. As always this years pubmeet was held
at the Ramsden Arms in the center of blackpool.
   Anyway, attending this year were both Neil, Quest programmer extrodinaire,
Steve, Kevin himself, Nigel from first class and the new guy moderating (or
something) BSE. Again the inputters failed to materialize although I suppose
this is only to be expected. As usual there was a good range of games that
were represented there including a few newsletter editors and most kjc games
quest games and even a couple of crasi quest players despite the fact it wasn`t
advertised by crasiworld!
   As I said most of the kjc staff were around answering questions and
discussing the game, a couple of things were quite interesting, Neil brought
with him a print out of the test stuff for new services to be introduced to
temples, these are namely Depetrify, ressurection and Use Etiquette. The way
the first two will work is that a character will be labelled as DEAD or STONED
so the idea of carrying around statues and dead bodys wasn`t implemented, I
could be wrong but I think that resserctions cost will vary depending on how
good the character was and i suspect that some loss of stats will be involved.
Use etiquette is an interesting one, with it you will be able to train your
charisma up!! Other ideas coming from players and discussed by neil and kevin
were that of increasing the number of monsters in the game so that there would
be a lot more monsters in the wilderness and around towns for people to fight,
also kevin said the total number of monsters in the game at any one time is
8000. Also mentioned was the idea of giving hints to new players so that they
would have some idea of what to do when they start, for example a townperson
might come up to you and suggest which monsters to fight, how to do temple
quests and so on. Also on show were the new kjc flyers, very colourful and
flashy, kevin also said memberships packs (cards and stuff pressumably) would
be making their way to players soon, also there is a rules update sheet out
with the lowdowns on all the orders and improvements made during the past couple
months, i`m sure i heard also that the rules book would now be updated every
6 months to keep up with all these changes.
   Anyway, all in all a good time was had by all, much drinking done and as
usual a lot of discussion of tactics, threats and battle arrangements made. If
you haven`t been to a pubmeet yet i would strongly suggest going to one, it is
a great opportunity to get the lowdowns on the latest questing tactics as well
as to share your ideas to kjc in person, a member of which is always sure to
attend the major pubmeets.
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From: "Ewan Jones" <c2ej@dmu.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:35:07 GMT

EJ>  For all of you haven`t yet visited my questy page on the web it can be
   reached at the following address

***********************************
   * http://www.cms.dmu.ac.uk/~c2ej/ *
   ***********************************

Have fun! (oh yeah, there is a complete spell list for games 1-16, game 17
   and crasi quest game 1 for whomever was requesting one).
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Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 15:15:56 GMT
From: editor@elbon.demon.co.uk (Paul Noble)

> > PJC > Has anyone noticed the monsters are actually any tougher?

PN> You havent been reading the papers either, I've seen
characters being killed by gnolls, rats, halfbloods and other
junior monsters.

> AH> Some variation to quests might be nice as the TQ routine quickly
> "Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to waste NOBBY(6666)
> last seen in the Decaying Goblin in Relorge(14). For completing this mission
> you will recieve a bulk sum of X,000gp's"

PN> this quest is a top idea, more of this sort of long term
quests should be introduced, stuff to actually give a player
something to do over about 3-5 turns and have him/her feel
satisfied when the job is done.

PN> Also Allan mentioned boosting the NPCs, agreed, but perhaps
the NPC assassinations should be to kill 1 NPC but he's guarded
by some other specialist NPC characters, like Bouncers and stuff
<grin> but each NPC class should be dfferent, ie farmers should
cause a disease when he injured you - coz his pitchfork has had
a load of shit on it. The NPCs that run away should shoot you as
they nash. Dwarven NPCs should or maybe violent NPCs should
start on 1 of you characters and have 1-2 free rounds of combat
before you party realises what has happened, then you slap him.
This could also introduce racial hatreds, the Dwarves would
always duff up on the elfs in your party.

PN> Bad quote there Josh.
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From: m-24864@mailbox.swipnet.se
Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 23:07:10 +0100

JB> This way you would build a fair and helpful list, with which everyone
takes part in.

JPG> Jonathan, there are a lot of players here who have been in the game
for a long time, and hence have complete spell lists (like me).  I'm sure
it will be possible to email you one if you would like, but to put the
spells up on the Digest might be a bit of a spoiler for people.  If
nobody minds, I _could_ put one up...  Let me know what you think.

Nooo!!!! Please let me play this game the slow and ineffective way if I
want to. My experience of role-playing PBMs is that it's only fun as long
as you have something left to discover. If someone else want to power-play,
I don't care, but don't spoil my fun.

AH> At the moment its gain 2000 exp, do temple quests, build up skills and
either join an alliance and/or keep going until you get bored.

See what I mean?
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From: Jim.Sparshott@jet.uk

JIM - MIST REAVER (900) - Mist Reavers are soul-less
          entities of the night. They appear at sundown and wander the
          lands of Kharne in search of victims on which to feed. Mist
          Reavers are powerful undead monsters, and as such they
          require living beings from which they can drain precious
          life-energy, which often results in the death of the victim.
          They are also drawn to the magical energy inherent in mages
          and priests alike, and they have been known to attack
          adventuring parties, feeding on those killed by their lethal
          touch.

JIM - The above is one of the 'new' monsters I've come
          accross. Luckily, as my group is +22 to Ythcal, they left us
          alone. Anybody else met any newbies?
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JPG> Okay, all done!  <phew>  By the way, Ewan, Birmingham pub meets
would be fine if they were arranged on any other day than a B'ham City
match against anyone faintly gaelic.  And anyway, we _did_ move pubs
after a short while.  It was amusing, I have to say...

Bye for now, people!  Happy Questing...

>>-Josh->
          "But I still haven't found what I'm looking for..." - U2