The Fall - Last Days of Gaia Diary #5

RPGVault continues their designer diaries for Silver Style's upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG, The Fall - Last Days of Gaia, with the fifth installment discussing the game's quest design. A snip:
We're trying to keep the number of fetch quests at a minimum. Of course, it would be impossible to build a larger RPG without any of them at all. It's the quest designer's task to embed them in the gameworld in such a way that the player perceives them as interesting challenges to be mastered instead of a tedious, generic grind to be bored through.

How can that be achieved? Well, there are several helpful design rules one can take advantage of. First of all, the situation has to appear and feel believable to the player. Picture the following situation. You encounter a lonely NPC standing somewhere in the desert. He desires, let's say, a special necklace. After having solved a number of problems, you'll hand this particular object over to him and receive some experience and maybe something in exchange for it.