Olympus Incarnation Quest - Review by archivebro

Alright, Olympus Incarnation. The second quest I’ve read where the MC is played as a straight villain with no morality pets that lasted more than a thread. I think that says more about the average /qst/ player than my personal tastes, but most of my quest consumption dates back to the /tg/ days from archive diving so maybe it’s confirmation bias mixed with outdated info.

Sadly I do not remember the name of first quest, I probably read it a decade ago.

Regardless, it’s made for an interesting quest, especially since a) I would expect that you would be more prepared to write a more neutral or heroic character and b) you admitted as much in one of the threads. That said, the surprise character direction hasn’t altered the story or supporting cast in ways that feel rushed or unnatural, so kudos to that!

The overall quest style, where anons are playing would-be god (of ruin in this case) with relatively little to channel them in any given direction besides “get stronger” and “don’t die”, is the right call for really flexing the creative writing muscles. I’d wonder how you could ever feel safe knowing you’ve anons basically free rein to do almost anything that isn’t considered OOC thanks to decisions they’ve already made over a couple threads, but I accept that insanity as intrinsic to all QMs to some degree and both you and your anons engage with it well.

The overall list of abilities, traits, items, powers etc. that are available are pretty good as well! They fill a large variety of niches and surprising combo opportunities keep revealing themselves. I know anons were just realizing how the authority that makes the MC scream really loud seemed useless at first, but the Whispers upgrade to let it infect others through any sound the MC emits makes it worth considering for levels. It’s impressive for any quest, even more-so a first try.

That said, things do feel like they move far too quickly in updates. There was never any real dialogue or interaction with mortals early on, no real weight to the sessions at work to make it seem like a slog compared to our paths, no feeling for how much or little money the MC had and how that’s affecting her, no indication of how weak or powerful her authorities are compared to others, and so on. I can’t say most of those are necessarily a wrong take for the quest - the most important interactions are with other incarnations by design, I admit bias towards writing with more narrative fluff in it while others prefer something quicker, and reading about boring work (surprisingly) can be boring. But the lack of narrative feedback, heavy emphasis on the (as-mentioned good) mechanics, and what was for much of the beginning a constant string of successes with seemingly no chance at failure (could anons have really failed the boar fight without being absolute idiots?) makes me feel like it’s a modified form of a LitRPG where anons were voting to get numbers up so they would be up. Streamers, influence, level, divinity, authorities, life expectancy. Some anons are all for that crunch. I just can’t deal with it for long without a lot of story stapled to it everywhere. That’s being alleviated with the introduction of the pantheon and working longer missions as a result, but it’s not quite at the level yet where I’d be content. I expect it will get there though, the stakes can’t shrink back down at this point. Anons are going up against organizations, they’re too large to curbstomp quickly and that gives time to expand other characters.

Onto one major mistake you already learned from, and one I’ve noticed that you maybe have, but I didn’t look at enough anon votes to tell. The major mistake - no sudden character shifts when anons have no idea that’ll happen ever. You mentioned it was like a PoV switch in a story and you like those, but you thought the time it took to resolve dragged it down. I’d say a more appropriate analogy is inviting people over for a D&D session, letting them play for a couple weeks with their characters, then taking their sheets away suddenly, handing them a new one you filled out, and telling them “this is your current character”. Hits different when it’s put that way, but it’s closer to the truth. Most quests here boil down to a QM running a campaign with one player character, and anons get to share that character. You can’t take that away from them through PoV changes, railroading, or character assassination without pushback. Spell the rules out in advance or ask if anons want to change things up and you’ll get a much better reception.

For the smaller issue, I’ve noticed a fair number of “filler” votes. Things like getting a level-up and having one vote option to check the shop for new items, or voting on which awards to read through first when three or four have stacked up. Thing is, those votes themselves are irrelevant at best, wasteful at most. Got three different types of awards and no intention of surprising anons midway through with an attack or scare that stops them from looking further? You can just open the loot boxes all at once and use 3-7 posts, then let them figure out what to do with everything with all the info on the table. Anons vote to look at the new shop items, decide they don’t want them, and back out? They’ve just taken two votes to get to the same “wat do next” prompt. That’s not fun for you or for them.

Best way to avoid those pitfalls is to restructure things so they don’t happen. Each level-up results in new shop items getting checked by the MC automatically and posted, or they get added to the shop tracker with a “shop item list updated” notice. Rewards technically need to be resolved in the order they’re processed. ecause of authority limits and such, sure, but bend the rules to let them see all of them at once and handwave it as them coincidentally opening them in the right order so you can move onto the crunch. Anons won’t chide you or complain about making things more convenient on a meta level for voting purposes, especially since anyone in your quest is already used to dealing with multi-part votes thanks to how the shop and leveling systems work. I don’t think you’re trying to create “gotcha” moments by having anons vote for one prize only to open another prize immediately afterward and realize they made a bad choice either, so why let that happen?

Last item I’ll comment on is the execution of the one-time love interest. It was a good character-building moment, with anons having a crisis of faith before resolving themselves as a villain for the rest of the quest… but any vote where anons can do one thing and immediately vote the exact opposite afterward leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It’s true to life, sure, but most of the time there’s no new info so anons will regurgitate what’s already been said. Normally they dig in harder unless something happened that wasn’t expected, so all that will normally change the vote is some anons getting too burned out/busy to care the second time around and that’s not fun. I’d give it more time between a vote and the opportunity to take it back so more can happen. Then anons may reconsider their previous positions.

All told, you’re doing good for a first auest. The villian MC is a little hard for me to deal with personally so I’ll only pop in occasionally, but you’ve got a good core of anons and plenty of engagement thanks to the open-ended nature of the quest. Keep at it and figure out what you like to see and run in your quests!