Dhruin
SasqWatch
No, not the game Quest for Glory. Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a humorous article on the silly RPG convention of complete strangers entrusting their most personal and important tasks to even stranger adventurers. In this piece, writer John Walker (apparently) dons some appropriate gear and hits some real-world streets to see how people really react:
More information.The plan: To take to the streets, dressed as a wizard, with a quest for the good peoples of Bath, England. Would they really help out a stranger with a strange beard? Would they even stop and listen? Is there any truth to this convention we’ve otherwise entirely accepted?
First of all, I should immediately get this out of the way: No one, at any point, approached me to ask for a quest. Short of suspending a yellow exclamation mark above my head, I’m not sure what more I could have done to attract the attention of any passing adventurers braving the cold thoroughfare through the centre of the town. If anything, people did their very best to avoid me, refusing eye contact, moving far away from my pleading face. It was already concerning.