Quest Hubs and Player Agency

I'm going to get a bit more general on campaign creation for a bit. One element I've been seeing a lot more in RPG's, both on the table and in cyberspace, is the concept of a Quest Hub. If you've played World of Warcraft or any other major MMORPG, or even more recent CRPG's, you're likely already familiar with this technique. The basic concept is that there's a mix of player agency and narrative storytelling to be had by providing the players with a variety of mission options all at once, and allowing them to pursue the one that most interests them.

The trade-off is considerable work. Whereas in a free-form game where the players can do as they like, production quality is generally limited to the abstract -- whatever miniatures are available standing in for what the plot calls for, draw-on-site maps, and seat-of-the-pants adjudication. In a more straight-line campaign, such as the published modules for MechWarrior, you can get away with much higher production value, such as purchasing and painting specific miniatures for units you know will be deployed, plotting maps ahead of time, and generally creating a more immersive experience. In a Quest Hub system, you need to have all available missions ready to go each session, although you can mitigate that by making players choose the next session ahead of time, giving you the inter-session time to build the new session.

I am anticipating four hubs of three missions each for Ten Years on Terra. I'm planning on having the Ground Crew (Clark and Simon), reach the first of these hubs for their first mission, which will contain the information they need to access the next three hubs. Each hub will represent one of the major plot arcs. One will be the one that uncovers the Sarna HPG conspiracy and the role the characters' backstories played in it. Another will be conducting operations directly against the 9th Division in preparation for the next invasion of Terra. The final hub will be connected to the biological weapons research the Word of Blake is doing, and tie in with the development of the Alarion plague.

The real question for me, and one I need to answer soon is what mission might a Terran resistance cell go on that would reveal all of these sites? Simon happens to be an HPG contractor, so I'm planning on having them infiltrate the Denver HPG compound to transmit the latest updates on the movements of the 9th Division to ComStar, with whom they are communicating. While there, they will have the opportunity to find documents leading them to the new locations.

Ultimately, all nine components missions will need to be accomplished to fully explore the story; whether or not the players do so is something of an open question to be discovered at run time. Also, the mechanical awards for each player is also something of a question; I expect each of the 9th Division missions to restore a lost vehicle to one of the ComStar players. The Bioweapons missions more or less is entirely set to drive Clark's story, culminating in his shiny new familiar. The Sarna missions are going to be more or less exclusively plot, which means I still need to find a toy for Simon. I'll have to think on that one.