Dungeon Life Quest – Review by TrickQM

By: TrickQM !CbjUudvyps
Originally posted: 31.07.2016
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REVIEW OF DUNGEON LIFE QUEST

Alright, listen. I'm biased. Everyone is but my blood runs hot and I'm more biased than most. But my bias is something I'm telling you about so you can cut through the bullshit and my coloring of events/ideas/whatever. What matters is that you know the Vox experience and to judge for yourself whether that would be up your alley.
Dungeon Life Quest is about one Brianna La Croix – a necromancer with a conscience and a long family line of people who do the things that need to be done. The quest begins with her being sentenced to exile in The Dungeon – a conglomerate of many fantastical things with multiple floors descending further and further into the earth. During her exile she quickly discovers that not only is she effectively immortal – reviving upon each death the very next day, but she also is wrapped up in a plot to free The Dungeon from the evil clutches of an organization of individuals with nefarious goals. The quest is mainly focused on her descending to each floor – of which there is 13 – defeating the “boss” of that floor and continuing on until she can eventually free The Dungeon and save the world. The world is very much fantastical and relatively 'low-tech'.

First of all – the writing. It's very well done. Vox is an experienced/professional writer (whatever the worth of that title means to you) and I feel it shows in how he writes in a way to elicit the reaction he wants from his audience. He has written scenes that made me feel disgusted, vengeful, angry, surprised, tense, on-the-edge-of-my-seat, etc. Within the 2000 character limit that is the /tg/ reply window he almost always manages to write something evocative. He's good at coloring within the lines, so to speak. My major point of contention with him in regards to the writing is his dialogue. It is oftentimes more than not “witty”. And that's not to say I don't enjoy his dialogue. Sometimes the snark comes off as genuine or fun – depending on the character. But almost /every/ character has at least some amount of snark. It is a landmine of quips and jokes, one-liners and oftentimes mentions of sex. I think the biggest UGH moment I had with going through this quipocalypse was when some nameless medic girl jokingly threatened to fuck the main character to death if she didn't accept medical treatment. Anecdotal, but fair warning to be ready for cringey moments like that every once in awhile if you choose to delve into Vox's magical realm.


Speaking of magical realms: this is an OC setting. Which means Vox made it himself. There are some pros and cons to that as well. Remember what I said about /every/ character being a bit snarky. Well . . . the Gods, demons, and angels of Vox's setting are also oftentimes snark machines. The one we've heard from the most in the quest is the Lady of Ravens – the Goddess of Wisdom in this setting. And even she seems a bit too . . . /human/. A bit too easy to relate to. All of the Gods, from what we've heard in the quest, seem like just very loud and powerful people – oftentimes childish. And while I understand this to some degree as I believe they're based partially off of the Greek pantheon who had very petulant Gods in their myths . . . something just doesn't click for me. I don't know if it's the fact that it all comes off as samey. The people, the demons, the angels, the Gods – nothing seems alien or foreign. They have a collective cultural understanding that breaks MUH immersion. I mean at one point we called an angel out of the ether to lecture him about how he was a very poor father. An act like that strips away any mystique he once possessed and also humanizes him to such a degree; what is the point of even calling him an angel? The most distinct group of people are honestly the harpies, who Vox demonstrates function much differently from humans. One of my favorite moments of the quest was when Brianna La Croix experienced firsthand how harpy culture was so radically different from her own – to the point where she misinterpreted the meaning of a very significant act.

How The Dungeon functions is also explicitly detailed by Vox as the quest goes on and that adds a lot of impact to how things have negatively changed since the villains have taken over. Every floor works with at least some of the others in some fashion. One layer grows all the food in The Dungeon. One side chamber allows you to exit onto four different floors. One region contains a library filled with oodles of information. And since the takeover by the antagonists all of these sections have been cordoned off from one another. As Bri descends she discovers these pressing issues, like the prospect of a whole floor starving, which adds a personal touch to the idea that there is an urgent need to fix things. The Dungeon breathes and /lives/. It is neither presented as static nor does it feel static.


The characters: There are a fucking lot of them! And since this quest is centered on one location, if they aren't dead (and sometimes, even if they are) you're probably seeing them again. Which is good in a lot of ways and also /bad/ in a lot of ways. Characters don't just disappear after we help them. They stick around. There is a very real desire on the part of the players to not necessarily burn bridges if they can help it. That person you put in charge on /that/ floor may end up being on the war council and have the troops you need to beat the next villain. The downside is that there are /so many fucking characters/! Cast bloat is this quest's middle name. And it has gotten to me. It may not get to you however and I believe as Vox has gone along he has been keeping documents (oftentimes way too out of date, Vox!) that detail many of the characters.

The quest is way too /easy/. And this is where I delve into the game part of this quest. Wait, quests are supposed to be a game? I don't know, but it certainly doesn't feel that way in Dungeon Life Quest. Pick an option, Vox writes it. Does Brianna succeed? Probably. Remember that reviving upon death mechanic I mentioned earlier? Sounds neat, right? I thought so too. That way the main character could fail horribly, die, and the quest doesn't end. It's a great failsafe. Except . . . it never happens. Now, I've dropped the quest somewhere around thread 74 so maybe I'm completely wrong and Brianna has recently died. But as far as I'm aware Vox has been pulling his punches. He won't even kill the MC who doesn't actually die when they are killed because . . . I don't know? It doesn't seem like there are any trap options or options that lead to failure. Maybe we were lucky or smart. Or maybe there is just no chance of failure. I can't really tell you. Maybe Vox was imagining the players would be infinitely more stupid or expect us to choose the obvious >kill yourself options that pop up every once in a blue moon when Brianna is severely injured and death may seem a faster alternative to waiting for recovery, but so far that mechanic might as well not be in place. All it serves is to neuter the villains in their capacity to play offense. Why assassinate someone who comes back to life? The only villain who comes up with a workaround to permanently kill Bri plays softball with it anyway.

So this really isn't a game. It's a story. Interactive fiction to be sure – a true CYOA book with no bad ends that you can only read once. But that bring with it certain issues. Vox seems very quick to find faults with plans that come from write-ins. That makes sense to some degree. This is a product of Vox's mind and as such he knows exactly how everything works better than you or I. But at the same time he neglects the faults in plans that are obvious in the given list of options he presents to the players. His mind seemingly overlooks these issues.


Let me provide an example. At one point Brianna La Croix is trapped in an ambush. And one anon wrote in a suggestion to fire a bolt of necrotic energy into a melee situation. Vox pointed out that this would have a chance of hitting one of Brianna's allies. Now, remember, this is a quest where there are no rolls. You can't hope to “roll high” and hit the person you're aiming for – like in an rpg. Vox, writer and judge, has full control. If he thinks something is a bad idea or has problems it most likely will result in him writing those problems coming to fruition. So the option we went with instead of the firing into melee situation was talking to the person attacking our ally instead. In the middle of an ambush, we struck up a conversation to recruit one of the people ambushing us. And suffered no consequences. This decision actually saved a lot of lives, I assume. Now, I hate to be the person to bring /realism/ into a fantasy story, but that's so . . . flawed of a tactic that could backfire /immensely/. The fact that /that/ plan was flawless but firing into melee was not seems so . . . /arbitrary/. A rules system is a good way to keep /everybody/ from letting their own opinions on tactics or the best way to handle a situation from affecting the narrative. Without a rules system, I might as well choose the options that will end in the best result. Which are probably going to be the options Vox provides. This harms a player's ability to be creative.

And here's where we come to my ultimate recommendation. Do not play Vox's quest. /HOWEVER/, do read his story. What do I mean by this? Participation and player input is just too difficult to accomplish. If Vox had maybe . . . less than ten players? Yeah, I'd recommend joining right now so as to keep his quest alive. But he has dozens of players. And they'll provide him with the votes he needs to keep writing his very interesting, very in-depth story. Vox's creativity is the alpha dog factor in what happens and you can just archive binge and read it all when it's done.