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WIP Hogwarts Quest - He who was not

Discussion in 'Almost Recommended' started by Ishaq, Feb 2, 2019.

  1. Ishaq

    Ishaq First Year

    Joined:
    Oct 26, 2013
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    Title: He who was not
    https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/a-harry-potter-quest-he-who-was-not.47920/
    Author: Tabula Rasa
    Rating
    : T
    Genre: Quest
    Status: Ongoing
    Length: 38k words
    Fandom: HP
    Pairings: None
    Summary: The main character is a young, riddle fascinated Ravenclaw who was created by the player base. He is in the same year as Harry, but it is not a Harry-centric story. The quest started in year 3.

    Important fact: It's still early in the game, but there are so few decent HP quests that I thought you guys might want to give it a shot and influence the story while it's fresh.
    The author has a good track record of delivering content.
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
  2. s0ng2Sing

    s0ng2Sing Third Year

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2013
    Messages:
    104
    Great quest. Avoids most of the trappings of other HP quests by starting in year 3 so you avoid the pitfalls that are found in early quests (Diagon Alley buying sprees, trying to befriend everyone, early metagaming, etc.). Instead the QM started in year 3 and you play as a curious but anti-social Ravenclaw with a passion for mysteries. Another positive of this is that the MC has no ties with Harry, Hermione, or Ron. He is outside their clique which is refreshing in a way.

    What really brought me into the quest though has been mysteries, or cases as the QM calls them, that our MC tries to solve. I won't spoil the first, and only one that we have participated in, but he managed to present a pretty horrifying mystery in such a way that it could believably occur under the nose of Albus Dumbledore and the other great teachers of Hogwarts and only be solved by a young student.

    4/5 for now. The only real problem I have with it are a few spelling/grammar errors that occur every now and then.
     
  3. Nazgoose

    Nazgoose The Honky-tonk ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter DLP Gold Supporter

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    Will check it out, but you put it in the wrong place @Ishaq. WbA is for stuff you're working on, this should go in the Review Board.

    Mod should be able to move it though.
     
  4. Ishaq

    Ishaq First Year

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    Thank your for pointing that out! It has been moved now and is finally open for ratings.
     
  5. Nazgoose

    Nazgoose The Honky-tonk ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter DLP Gold Supporter

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    Got around to reading it, 4/5 for me. I like the premise and the system, but the MC is antisocial so we're low on fun supporting cast, and it feels like the first big mystery got resolved way too quickly.
     
  6. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

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    Took me a while to figure out where the story started here since this is a quest and there were character sheets and rules and whatnot to read first.

    I struggled to get into this at first but once we got to that first mystery everyone mentioned I found that I was interested. I've read one or two takes on it before but not many, and I want to keep reading to see what this author does with it. Curious what the mystery is about but don't want to actually be spoiled? Click below (it's a spoiler, yes, but I'm only going to spoil what it involves, and if I had known beforehand I'd have been more interested to read the story, not less):
    Sally-Anne

    While I'm curious about the above I find myself borderline apathetic to everything else. He's an interesting character and I like him and his backstory (parents, home, past, etc.). The writing itself is good. There's just not enough plot or direction/agency for me, in part because I think the author is having to write scenes based on votes and we're not far enough into the story for things to start coalescing properly? I don't know.

    But I'm curious about the mystery and while I skim parts unrelated to that, for now, I stop to read his investigations there. And it gets creepy. And it's something new that I haven't seen before in fanfiction. And I second @Nazgus that it was solved rather quickly for something that could have stayed in the story far longer.

    I recently reviewed Rep's quest and one thing I pointed out was how his quest format differed somewhat from a typical fanfiction format. I see that even more clearly here. Like every scene is a specific answer to a vote.

    Voted for joining the Runes club? Here's the scene for that. Voted to ask someone about a thing? Here's the scene for that. Voted to take this particular class? Here's the scene for that. Voted to look into this mystery? Here's the scene for that. Etc.

    Maybe later once the character and plot-lines are more established the story will feel more organic, but this early it just didn't gel for me. I'd rather that these scenes all melded together better, with things from one 'vote' affecting how another 'vote' went in a more obvious manner. More overlap between aspects of the story.

    There's some, don't get me wrong. And I suspect that this aspect of the story will fix itself as it continues. But right now I can't rate it higher than a 3/5 for the solid writing and mystery. I can see it going up to a 4/5 later, however.
     
  7. Seratin

    Seratin Proudmander –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    I liked it. Once I stopped trying to figure out all the buffs or debuffs that come with this kind of quest it's just a good story.

    The first mystery is well handled and you can tell there's tons of room for more. The MC is interesting enough and he hasn't just shot up in power but he's making steady progress through fortunate rolls.

    4/5
     
  8. Paradise

    Paradise Paraplegic Dice DLP Supporter

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    Really, really, really friggin good.

    The mystery is tight and enthralling, and holds your attention to the end with an amazing twist. I just wish it updated more. The character is interesting with a good background, and realistic actions.

    The author manages to balance the autism of SV's voters well, and still makes an interesting story.

    4/5
     
  9. Zombie

    Zombie Black Philip Moderator DLP Supporter

    Joined:
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    For a HP quest ran by someone over on SV this was better than I thought it would be. I rarely give anything a 4/5 anymore. This one borders on that. I feel like it would be a disservice to give it more than that though because the nature of quests, the formatting, unless its ran really tightly, and the author has a fuckton of creative ingenuity, its usually hard to pull off. I'm interested to see where it goes.

    To everyone, if you could, give this a peak and tell us what you think. Ignore the fact that its a quest, I usually do. Read it on readermode and pay no attention to the peanut gallery. It then becomes like a SI or OC main character.

    3.5/5. Its not HP as a main character. That's rule 1.
     
  10. Stealthy

    Stealthy Groundskeeper

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2014
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    I didn't like this. Granted, I wound up dropping this before reaching the end, but I made it through the first mystery and then some and was near enough to catching up.

    The writing itself is rather plain. It's fine and functional, but just okay. Not a huge notch against it, but certainly not one for it. The character work is... well the MC is boring and there is no supporting cast to speak of because apparently voters don't really care about making friends, nor is the author concerned with providing any. While an antisocial protagonist can be interesting if done well, here I just find Jacob irritating. Goes double for whenever he uses intelligence as the chief metric of a person's worth, because it's always a bit of a crapshoot whether that sort of arrogance is meant to be a flaw that has consequences or something the author expects me to nod and agree with. Didn't get the sense that Tabula Rasa is one of the latter, but didn't see the former either. Jacob has no friends and is a bit arrogant, which are character flaws, but I never saw these things act as obstacles or setbacks for Jacob. Rather than making the story more engaging to read, it just made Jacob a more irritating character to read about.

    And these things all mix poorly, because what's left to engage me? Not fun character interactions, or fun characters, because the MC doesn't interact with other characters if he can help it. I don't like the MC -- the one character I do spend my time with, and he's just not interesting enough to carry the story all by himself. And the prose on its own just isn't good enough to draw me in.

    This leaves what, worldbuilding? No, certainly not enough. The plot? The Sally Anne mystery was rather nice, but resolved itself far too quickly, there was nothing left to grab me after it was done with, and as for everything else it's all rather disjointed. The quest format used here does Rasa no favors and they aren't skilled enough to pull it off. Posts just went long with stretches where I felt like nothing was happening aside from box checking. And there certainly isn't some other "it" factor to it that inexplicably raises the whole thing.

    Going with a 2.5/5. While I wouldn't call this bad, it's not a long piece yet I still couldn't reach the end, so my gut is saying round down.
     
  11. Halt

    Halt 1/3 of the Note Bros. Moderator

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    I'm not super into it.

    From a technical standpoint, it suffers a problem of many quests in feeling it has to explain everything and subjects us these ugly, blocky paragraphs all strewn together. It also gets into the habit of "you voted X, here's scene X of that happening", even when alot of it isn't relevant to the plot. Really weakens the quest.

    Now if perhaps the individual scenes had the spark of magic and whimsy, they might have worked. But as stealthy points out, the writing is functional and the magic itself is quite mundane.

    It starts off fairly slow too. Until the first mystery, it's not a particularly interesting story and spends too much time and words in the setup phase in my opinion.

    I will admit that the first mystery was an interesting take on it, but my issue with it was the resolution. It happened too fast, and considering how many words were actually spend on it vs resolving it, lacks a sort of weight to the conclusion. At no point did I feel like the mc deserved to solve the problem instead of being handed the answer via mind dreams or what have you. There needs to be a progression of blocks in a mystery that build off each other - that wasn't present here.

    2/5
     
  12. Ishaq

    Ishaq First Year

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  13. Ishaq

    Ishaq First Year

    Joined:
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    Anyone caught up with today's chapter? It hit me just like the first revelation about Sally-Ann. I'm feeling rarely inclined to hear other people's opinions on this.

    While I had some suspicions, I didn't see the scope of the revelation coming.
     
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