Tim Cain outlines nine core RPG quest types

Pcgamer reports that Fallout co‑creator Tim Cain has identified nine core types of quests in role‑playing games and warned that adding more of one type can mean less of another when budgets are fixed. Cain lists murder, kill, fetch, collect, delivery, escort, talk, puzzle and timed quests, and explains how some categories differ: murder targets a "particular person or set of people," while a kill quest asks you to dispatch a number of generic enemies; a collect quest requires gathering a set amount of items, distinct from a simple fetch; delivery sends an item to a destination and escort requires delivering a person — the piece notes all of The Last of Us can be seen as one long escort quest.

Cain also calls timed quests "frequently modifiers on all the existing" quest types, though they can stand alone. Cain argues that a wider variety of quest types generally increases player agency and gives the original Fallout's Tandi rescue as an example, where players could kill raiders, fight the boss unarmed, buy Tandi, or convince the boss to release her — solutions Cain maps to kill, murder, fetch and talk respectively.

He also cautions that "If your budget is fixed, which is 99.999999 percent of budgets, more of one thing means less of another," because supporting multiple quest types raises additional design, code, art and QA needs.

Key Topics

Culture, Tim Cain, Fallout, Tandi, Quest Types, Escort Quest