This recent video by Sly Flourish is one of many short DM advice videos that he has released recently. They are rather nifty, and brilliant for those with busy lives.

The reason I’ve embed the video and talking about it here is that I think this advice is pretty universal to which ever RPG system you are playing.

The three common quest models Sly briefly covers in the above video are:

• Kill the boss quest
• Recover the artifact
• Rescue somebody

Sly points out that it’s the flavour that makes these quest models interesting. To aid in that flavour I think the adventuring party needs a patron of some kind. Whether that patron is a crime lord, guild leader, a fixer, wealthy, powerful, a corporation (I think you get the idea) they are a handy plot device to use to introduce one of the quest models above, and not just away to give the party useful equipment.

For instance they could have to eliminate a rival crime lord, steal a top secret device/plans from a rival corporation, or rescue hostages.

This isn’t the first time that Sly has talked about quest models. In the video below he talks about “The Three-of-Five Collection Quest”.

“The Three-of-Five Collection Quest” is a variation of “recover the artifact” quest. Sly also lists three other quest models within the above video, the “heist”, “kill the lieutenant” and “destroy the thing”. But in reality to the initial list from the quest models video we are only adding one new quest to our tool box.

• Kill some-one
• Recover the thing/heist
• Rescue somebody
• Destroy the thing

I would argue a heist is a variation of the recover the thing quest model, if not the same thing. I don’t see any difference between the “kill the boss” and “kill the lieutenant” quests. They are basically go kill some-one for some reason. So I think count as one.

UPDATE: adding a fifth quest model escort/protect someone/thing.

With these handful of quest models it should be easy to come up with quests for your campaign or even at a push on the fly.

Oh while I’m talking RPGs. It struck me as I was binge watching Leverage for the third or fourth time that the Leverage team is the perfect party make up for a cyberpunk (Red or Android) party.

I’m not sure what the mastermind role would map to, but they are basically the brains of the group. But every other role maps I believe. At a push this could be a D&D party too. What do you think?