Moderation - Moderation Information
Information is the most important aspect of the game Quest: GME. Without knowledge of a situation it is very hard to have a major impact on the situation, so information usually becomes the most valuable commodity that a party has.
Information in Quest: GME is mostly short and to the point, with maybe some extra atmospheric IC comments from an NPC. If an NPC is important and they are relevant to the moderation information being given out by the GM then they will be named. If the location of an NPC is important then it will be provided, and so on. However it is often the case that the precise location of an NPC is not required to be explained OOC.
There are several very important reasons for information normally being short and sometimes having details missing.
1. The characters know the details IC so unless it is important that a player knows the information there is no need to provide the information. As playing a game like Quest means the player is likely playing characters that understand varied and strange abilities that there is no way the player could be able to duplicate/understand in real-life it makes little sense to expect the player to be very knowledgeable in other ways. For example it is quite possible a player has combat experience with using a sword from years of fencing, but the same player could not possibly have any experience with calling on the Gods of Quest to aid them. The game mechanics for processing a Quest turn does not require the player to able to explain everything their characters are doing, it is the same with moderation.
2. Collecting and crosschecking information takes up valuable player time. Time that could be spent interacting with other players and their characters, monitoring Special Quests, working out long-term goals, and so on.
3. Creating and crosschecking information takes up valuable GM time. Time that could be spent creating more plotlines, adding new game enhancements, and so on.
4. Reading or writing detailed explanations is more likely to result in mistakes occurring, and the mistakes will be harder to spot and fix.
For these reasons moderation information is often kept short and clear, with only major NPCs normally being named, the address of a location in a settlement is rarely given, a quick overview of an event is given, and so on.
For the above reasons the final result is that the game becomes easier and quicker to play, which is good for everyone.
It is important to remember that information is not automatically passed on to a Liaison; the party needs to decide what it is going to report and then report it by contacting the GM.
You cannot ask to automatically pass details on from an action to a Liaison; you must see the results first. The reason for this is that it is possible that the results reveal that the Liaison is a traitor, or that the party are offered a special item that they want to keep and the Liaison may demand off them. Whilst it is slower to resolve moderation this way, it is a lot safer and gives all players the freedom to do what they want with their results.
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