Quest Webs & Emergent Opportunities

Chapter 42 — Quest Webs & Emergent Opportunities

The simulation creates rich conditions — pressure, scarcity, faction goals, NPC obligations, district drift, companion dynamics. Quest Webs turn those conditions into structured things the player can intentionally pursue: contracts, bounties, favors, supply runs, investigations, escorts, recovery missions, and faction jobs.

These are not authored quest trees. The world offers work because it needs things. An NPC with a bargain goal and favorable trust offers a contract. A district in supply crisis spawns a supply run. A faction under pressure posts a bounty. Every opportunity traces back to a specific world condition.

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Opportunity Kinds

Kind	Trigger	Example
contract	NPC bargain goal + favorable trust	”Deliver this shipment to the docks”
favor-request	NPC obligation (player owes NPC)	“You owe me — handle this quietly”
bounty	Bounty-issued pressure	”Bring in the deserter”
supply-run	District supply < 20	”The clinic needs medicine”
recovery	District instability > 60	”Restore order to the market quarter”
escort	Companion personal goal	”Help me reach the shrine”
investigation	District instability > 60	”Find who’s been poisoning the well”
faction-job	Allied faction + low alert	”The guild needs a representative at the summit”

All 8 kinds work in every genre. Genre flavor comes from tags, not separate kinds.

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Opportunity Lifecycle

[available] → accept → [accepted] → complete/fail/abandon/betray → [resolved]
     ↓                       ↓
  decline              timer expires
     ↓                       ↓
 [declined]              [expired]

States

Status	Description
available	Offered to the player, can be accepted or declined
accepted	Player committed, timer counting down
completed	Successfully resolved
failed	Attempted but failed
expired	Timer ran out
declined	Player chose not to take it
abandoned	Player walked away after accepting
betrayed	Player turned against the quest-giver

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Visibility

Opportunities have a visibility progression:

Level	Meaning
hidden	Exists in the simulation but not yet surfaced
rumored	Player may have heard whispers
known	Player knows about it but hasn’t been offered
offered	Directly offered, can be accepted

Visibility escalates over turns. Hidden opportunities become rumored, then known, then offered. NPC-spawned opportunities start at offered.

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Evaluation

Every 3 ticks, the engine evaluates whether a new opportunity should spawn. Seven independent rules generate candidates:

Rule	Source	Output
Scarcity	District supply < 20	supply-run
NPC goals	NPC bargain/recruit + favorable trust	contract, favor-request
Obligations	Player-owes-NPC, magnitude >= 4	favor-request
Pressure-linked	Active bounty/supply-crisis/summons	bounty, supply-run, faction-job
Faction	Allied faction + alertLevel < 50	faction-job
Companion	Companion with personalGoal set	favor-request (personal-ask tag)
District	Instability > 60	recovery, investigation

Scoring

Each candidate is scored:

score = (urgency × 0.3 + feasibility × 0.25 + reward × 0.25 + relevance × 0.2) × 100

The highest-scoring candidate spawns. Ties broken by urgency.

Guards

• Capacity: Max 5 active opportunities at once
• Interval: Min 3 turns between spawns
• Evaluation window: Only runs when tick % 3 === 0

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Rewards & Risks

Rewards (discriminated union, 7 variants)

Type	Fields	Example
reputation	factionId, delta	+10 with Merchant Guild
leverage	currency, delta	+3 influence
materials	category, amount	+5 medicine
economy-shift	districtId, category, delta	Components +15 in docks
obligation	npcId, direction, kind, magnitude	NPC owes player a favor
item	itemId, description	Unique reward item
rumor	claim, valence	Positive rumor about the player

Risks (discriminated union, 5 variants)

Type	Fields	Example
heat	delta	+10 heat
reputation	factionId, delta	-5 with rival faction
alert	factionId, delta	+15 alert on local faction
combat	difficulty, description	Ambush during delivery
obligation	npcId, direction, kind, magnitude	Player owes NPC on failure

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Fallout

Resolution produces typed OpportunityFalloutEffect effects — 14 variants mirroring the engine’s effect vocabulary:

Effect	Trigger
reputation	Most resolutions
leverage	Completed bounties, faction jobs
materials	Completed supply runs
economy-shift	Supply-run completion (supplies up)
rumor	Completion, abandonment, betrayal
obligation	Contract completion creates NPC-owes-player; failure escalates player-owes-NPC
spawn-pressure	Abandoned contract → investigation-opened; failed faction-job → faction-summons
spawn-opportunity	Completed contracts can chain into new opportunities
heat	Abandonment, betrayal
alert	Declined faction-jobs, betrayal
npc-relationship	Trust changes on completion/betrayal
companion-morale	Failed escort → morale hit
milestone-tag	Completed bounties and investigation
title-trigger	Completing enough contracts

Key Fallout Patterns

Kind	Completed	Abandoned	Betrayed
contract	+rep, +favor, positive rumor	-rep, negative rumor, +heat, investigation pressure	large -rep, fearsome rumor, heat spike, NPC revenge obligation
bounty	+rep, +blackmail, fearsome rumor, milestone	-rep	—
supply-run	+economy-shift, +rep, +legitimacy	mild -rep	—
faction-job	large +rep, +influence, faction rumor	-rep, +alert	large -rep, heat, spawn pressure
favor-request	obligation cleared, +trust	magnitude increases, -trust	—
escort	+trust, +companion-morale	—	-trust, -companion-morale

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NPC Integration

NPCs become quest-givers through existing systems — no new NPC fields needed:

• NPC with bargain goal + favorable trust → offers contracts
• NPC with player-owes-npc obligation (magnitude >= 4) → requests favors
• NPC bargain action from npc-agency tick → can spawn spawn-opportunity effects

Quest-giver NPCs reference active opportunities in dialogue:

• Ask about progress
• Grow impatient near deadlines
• Express gratitude on completion
• React with anger or fear on abandonment/betrayal

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Pressure Integration

Bidirectional linkage between pressures and opportunities:

Pressures → Opportunities:

• bounty-issued → bounty opportunity
• supply-crisis → supply-run opportunity
• faction-summons → faction-job opportunity

Opportunities → Pressures (on failure):

• Abandoned contract → investigation-opened pressure
• Failed faction-job → faction-summons pressure

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Move Advisor

The move advisor detects available high-value opportunities as a situation: 'opportunity' state, boosting urgency for leverage actions that align with accepted opportunities.

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Strategic Map

The strategic map includes an activeOpportunitySummary section listing active and available opportunities by kind, source, and deadline.

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Narration

When opportunities are active, the narrator receives opportunityContext — a compact string describing the player’s current commitments. System prompt rules:

• Active contracts create ambient awareness in narration
• NPC quest-givers subtly reference deadlines
• Completed contracts echo in the world

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Player Commands

In-Game (freeform text)

Input	Action
accept job/contract/bounty/mission	Accept an available opportunity
decline job/contract/offer	Decline an available opportunity
abandon job/contract/mission	Walk away from an accepted opportunity
betray job/contract/client	Turn against the quest-giver
complete/deliver/turn in job/bounty	Complete an accepted opportunity

Director Mode

Command	Description
/jobs	List available opportunities with kind, source, rewards, deadline
/contracts	Alias for /jobs
/contract <id>	Detailed view: description, objective, rewards, risks, linked pressures/NPCs
/accepted	List accepted opportunities with progress hints

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Session Recap

The OPPORTUNITIES & CONTRACTS section appears in the session summary when opportunity activity occurred:

  ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  OPPORTUNITIES & CONTRACTS
  ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  accepted: Deliver Medicine — Supply run from Dr. Mora
  completed: Clear the Dock Rats — Bounty from Merchant Guild (+10 rep)
  expired: Guard the Shipment — Contract from harbor master

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Chronicle

Opportunity events are recorded in the campaign journal:

Event	Significance
opportunity-accepted	0.4
opportunity-completed	0.7
opportunity-failed	0.6
opportunity-abandoned	0.5
opportunity-betrayed	0.7
opportunity-expired	0.3

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Design Decisions

1. Opportunity state lives on GameSession as activeOpportunities: OpportunityState[], serialized to SavedSession. Not in profile.custom (too flat) or world.quests (that’s authored-quest infrastructure). Follows the partyState, districtEconomies, npcObligations pattern.
2. 8 opportunity kinds, universal. Genre flavor via tags, not separate kinds.
3. Rewards use discriminated union mirroring FalloutEffect / LeverageEffect.
4. NPCs become quest-givers through existing goal system. No new NPC fields.
5. Scoring formula follows move-advisor pattern.
6. Max 5 active, evaluated every 3 turns. Keeps cognitive load manageable.
7. Bidirectional pressure linkage. Pressures spawn opportunities; failed opportunities spawn pressures.
8. Pure functions throughout — all opportunity logic is deterministic, no LLM calls.
9. ~15 token narration budget — opportunity context costs negligible tokens.