New Player Guide

Glossary of Quest Terms

AGM: Assistant Game Master. AGMs help out the GMs (Game Masters) during a given game, writing parts of the plot, directing scenes, overseeing the NPCs (the game staff)... in short, whatever the GMs require.
Board: The Board of Directors is the governing body of Quest, a group of about ten people who have been nominated by the Quest players, and then elected by preceding Board members. The Board is responsible for overseeing what goes on in Quest.
boffer: a type of fake weapon, with a solid core and foam padding. Quest uses a certain type of boffer weapon to simulate combat.
CG: The Continuing Game world, a recurring setting where the majority of Quest's games take place. In particular, most events take place in Hesket, a continent not unlike medieval Europe. Players generally play the same character at each CG game.
Character Points: each PC starts with a certain number of Character Points, with which s/he may buy skills (such as Awareness, Weapons, or Magic). At each game that the PC attends as that character, the character earns more points (also known as Experience Points).
Check-in: Check-in is where participants (including staff) register and pay for the event. Players sign out whatever props they need from Quest's stock, such as weapons, spell books, make-up, whistles, coins, and any cards to indicate skills such Stealth or of Status. During check-in, players also create new characters and make changes to existing characters (such as buying a new skill with Experience Points).
Check-out: the part after the game's action is over, where players return any Quest items, both the equipment received during check-in and any items acquired during the game. Check-out staff will also update your character sheet at this time, noting the Experience Points your character earned for being at the game.
Crunchie: a nickname for an average monster that the players face at a game. Crunchies are usually low-powered and are encountered in hordes or groups. (An individual creature with a distinctive personality or above-average prowess would not be considered a "crunchie".)
Disad: Disadvantages are character flaws that grant extra Character Points to a character. Thus, skills and advantages cost points, while disads give extra points.
DOp: Director of Operations. The head of the Operations Committee, and the person in charge of supervising check-in, check-out, and other logistical tasks.
Events Committee (EC): the group that approves which games get run. People interested in running an event make a proposal to the EC, who vote on the proposal. If it passes, the proposers become the Game Masters for that event.
Experience Points (XP): Additional Character Points that participants earn from attending a game. Experience points allow characters to get better at their abilities, or to learn a wider variety of skills than they began with. They also allow characters to buy off any disadvantages.
Fendel: The old term for "Miracle". (See Miracle, below.)
FPC: "Fixed Point Character". An FPC is a character created for the Continuing Game world with a higher-than-normal amount of character points – but unlike regular characters, the FPC can never advance beyond that starting number. FPCs are good for characters who you do not intend to play very many times.
Game World Committee (GWC): the group that supervises a given game world. The GWC approves player characters that do not conform to the usual rules, and oversees anything else out of the ordinary that will have an impact on the game world.
Game Master (GM): The Game Master is the person in charge of each individual game, a combination of writer, director and producer. There are normally two or three GMs running any given game. GMs ordinarily conceive of, write, and run their game, directing AGMs and NPCs alike.
Miracle: The "extra life" mechanism for the Continuing Game. Each character starts with a certain number of Miracles, and you can exchange character points to buy more of them. If your character dies and is not brought back to life during the game itself, you can use one of your Miracles to restore your character to life. (This used to be named "Fendel," after a high-level cleric at an early Quest game. When people died, sometimes "Fendel found them" and brought them back to life. This can still be used as an in-game explanation for Miracles if players want to use it.)
NPC: Non-Player Character. Any character that is not a PC, and is therefore played by the game staff. This may include the local law, the townsfolk, the high nobility, and all the various monsters. They are responsible for carrying out the game according to the GMs' wishes, in response to what the PCs do. (This term is sometimes used to refer to the staff people themselves, rather than the characters they are playing.)
Operations Committee (Ops): The Operations Committee runs check-in procedure, financial matters, overseeing official Quest documents, and generally everything that relates logistically to the running of a Quest event. However, GMs retain autonomy in terms of running the actual game.
One-Shot: "One-Shot" games are events that do not use continuing characters from other games, and occur in a world or setting that exists for that game only. The GMs are free to invent anything they want about this new world, and they can also make rules modifications to reflect this unique world.
One-Shots allow GMs to play with alternate game worlds, and allow players to create characters they might not ordinarily want to play. Often, characters at a One-Shot are allowed to start at a higher level of points (such as 20 or 30 points) than new characters in a CG game. This allows players to create more powerful characters than they might otherwise play (and the game may have a larger scope to reflect this). This also means that every PC at a One-Shot will have the same number of points.
Out-Of-Game: Something that is "out-of-game" means that it is not taking place from the viewpoint of the actual characters. This can refer to both the technical mechanics of the game that do not actually exist within the world itself, as well as things within the world that a specific character may not know or understand (such as out-of-game knowledge). For instance, when you buy the Lore skill, you will receive a sheet representing your character's knowledge. This sheet does not exist in the world of the game itself, and is thus "out-of-game". However, the knowledge contained on the sheet does exist within your character's memory.
PC: Player Character — the characters played by the players, and therefore the protagonists at a given event. Players make up their own Player Character based on their own preferences and decisions. Each player determine their character's own history, their own abilities (within the limits of the rules), and their own motivation and personality. During the game, the players roleplay the characters that they have created, in a manner somewhat similar to improvisational theater. The GMs, AGMs, and NPCs provide the setting and situation in which the PCs roleplay. (This term is sometimes used to refer to the players themselves, rather than the characters they are playing.)
Props Staff: the group that maintains Quest's props and costumes.
Reality Flag: A reality flag is a strip of cloth that, when worn or held, signifies that the wearer is "out-of-game". The wearer is therefore part of reality and is "out-of-game", not part of the game.
RPC: Requested Plot Character. An RPC is a character whose player has asked the GM to give his/her character a special sub-plot.
Rules Committee (RC): the group that maintains Quest's rules for balance and fun, and makes changes and rules interpretations.
Shadowface: A person wearing a black hood that covers the face; this hood denotes that the staff person does not actually exist in-game and is "out-of-game". They may be there to act as "stage crew," or may be there to provide out-of-game descriptions or information.
SPC: Special Player Character. A player who has been asked by the GM to perform some action during the game in order to further the game plot.
Spirit Veil: a gauzy piece of cloth denoting that the wearer is in the state of a spirit. This can either be because the character has died and his/her spirit is wandering around, or because the character is under a magical effect (such as the Wraith Form spell) that prevents him/her from being affected by (or affecting) the material world. Either condition allows the character to be seen, but s/he cannot interact in any way with the material world (i.e. they cannot harm another with weapons and cannot pick up items.)
State-of-Being Scroll: a small strip of paper attached to an item that contains data about the item. The scroll is out-of-game. If you pick up the item and "use" it (e.g. for jewelry, this means you don it; for weapons, this means you wield it), you should then read the paper to see what happens.
Some items may have a note attached to the outside of the State-of-Being Scroll, indicating who can identify the item without using it. For instance, a potion might read "Alchemy 2" on the outside, indicating that only characters with 2 or more levels of the Alchemy skill may identify the potion without drinking it.
Tavern Night: a nickname for a one-day Quest event, so named because they often occur in the evening at a tavern setting. The average tavern night has check-in around 5:00 on a Saturday, with the event ending around 11:00.
TOW: Test of Will. TOW refers to certain spells that are only effective if the caster's level of the Will skill is higher than the victim's.
Two-Day: A "Two-Day" is an event that runs on a Friday night, followed by a day-long section for most of Saturday.
Unique Event: A "CG Unique Event" is a game set in the CG universe, but which doesn't use regular CG characters. The characters at a Unique Event are created for that event only, and may not even use the regular character generation rules. For instance, a CG Unique Event might have all the PCs as nobles of a certain country, gathered for a court event.
Weapons Workshop: The weapons workshop is an informational workshop describing the use and safety of Quest weapons, as well as the various rules that govern our simulated combat. All players are required to attend the Weapons Workshop in order to play the game, and to use weapons. Before each game, one of the Weapons Masters gives the weapons workshop, to insure that everyone understands the rules associated with weapons in Quest.
Weapons Manager: The Weapons Manager is a Quest official in charge of weapons use, maintenance, and general safety. The Weapons Manager runs the Weapons Workshop, which details the use and safety of Quest weapons. He or she also determines whether or not a player is safe to use a particular prop weapon, and may ask a participant to refrain from fighting if he or she feels that that person is not safe.
Weekend Game: a weekend-long Quest event that usually takes place at the 4-H camp in Pomfret, CT. It begins Friday evening around 7:00pm and lasts through Sunday afternoon around 3:00pm. Players and staff stay on-site at the camp, either in cabins or the camp's main lodge. Beds, bathrooms and meals are provided.