Quests

So fourth edition introduced 'Quests' that give you experience and rewards. This idea is most likely borrowed / partially inspired by MMOs. The typical usage is you meet someone who has a task for you. You complete this task, return to them and get a reward as well as experience points. In my own game I am taking a little different approach.

I am trying to make my game very story oriented so I decided to use the quests to essentially spur the characters along their own plotline. Instead of being given generic quests by NPCs I am simply assigning them experience for goals that they basically have anyway. One aspect of this is to have very large rewards for very serious and important goals. This focuses the players on the goals of the characters and rewards people for working on their storyline. This also gives me some room to adjust experience in case one person lags behind. I can focus the story on them and increase their experience point bonuses from their story.