A type of Play-by-Post Game heavily inspired by Interactive Fiction and Gamebooks, the Forum Quest, Quest Thread, or simply Quest, is a unique style of roleplaying that first appeared at the tail end of the Turn of the Millennium, and started spreading across the internet over the course of The New '10snote . As in tabletop roleplaying, the protagonists are controlled by the players and the rest of the world is controlled by the Quest Master, but in a Quest there is usually only a single protagonist, with every player calling out potential actions. A "player" in this sense is simply anyone who visits the thread that the Quest is taking place in, with the playerbase as a whole collectively deciding the actions of their shared character. The QM has the liberty of interpreting these commands as they wish, whether they take the one with the most votes, combine every non-conflicting input, or use the one that they feel would best serve the story.
They are often titled "<subject> Quest", a tradition dating back to the Trope Codifier Ruby Quest.
Is the Roleplay version of Interactive Fiction (for Video Games) and Gamebooks (Literature). In particular, there's a lot of overlap between this trope and Interactive Comics (Webcomics) when the QM draws images for the Quest.
Examples:
- Ad Astra Per Aspera Quest
- A Destiny of Strife, a Hollow's Quest (Bleach)
- A Dragon of the North
- A Dynasty of Dynamic Alcoholism
- A Geek's Guide: Corporation of Occult Research and Extermination
- A Geeks Guide Death World Earth
- A Knight's Quest
- Alanna
- Alchemical Solutions
- A Man's Dream Never Dies: A One Piece Quest
- And Justice For All: A One Piece Quest
- Apotheosis Quest
- A Shock to the System (Roleplay)
- A Slime Quest
- Asuka Quest
- A Sword Without A Hilt
- Battle Action Harem Highschool Side Character Quest
- Biohazard
- Bleach Quest (Cosgrove)
- Bleach Quest (Rihaku)
- Cauldron Quest
- Cherno Alpha vs. the World
- Collection Quest
- Communication
- Conquest Quest
- Covered In Blood And Surrounded By Spirits
- Crystalwatchers Magical Girl Quest
- Danger Time
- Dorf Quest
- Dreams and Destiny: A One Piece Quest
- Dungeon Life Quest
- Embers in the Dusk
- Fen Quest
- For The Tyrants Fear Your Might
- Harry Potter Nasuverse Quest
- Hatchling Quest
- Iliad Quest
- Inferno Quest
- Insane Quest
- In the Beginning, There Was Man
- John Quest
- The Long March (a TNO-sequel Comintern quest)
- Lego Quest
- Meow Quest
- Mudy Quest
- Musou Verse
- Neuroi Quest
- No Matter What Happens I Still Won't Become An Anime Character
- Panopticon Quest
- Persona: HEAVEN (Afreaknamedpete)
- Projection Quest
- Puella Magi Adfligo Systema
- Rain Quest
- Re Incarnation Quest
- Rise A Warhammer Fantasy Game
- Rumia Quest
- Sayaka Quest
- Shadow Quest
- Shotaquest
- The Glorious Restoration
- The Light Of Our Solus
- To Boldly Go... A Starfleet Quest
- To Rule
- Towergirls: TV Tropes Edition
- Usagi Quest
- Victoria Falls
- What Time Is It, Mr. Wolf?
- Witch Quest
- Xander Quest: Reborn on the Hellmouth
- You Are Patient Zero
- Zeon Quest
- Acid Soup
- A Little Town Called Coxwette
- AsteroidQuest
- Dive Quest
- Dungeoneer
- Enemy Quest
- Tiny Cat People
- Knight Blades
- All of the MS Paint Adventures except Homestuck fall into this format. Homestuck itself started out this way, but the author turned off player submissions after a while and took full control of the narrative.
- Nan Quest
- Ruby Quest
- Trashy Vampire Romance Novel
- Unnatural Selection
- Viral By Committee
- Questden (formerly known as tgchan) was created to host these.
- Spacebattles has an entire section of its forums for these.
- Sufficient Velocity has an entire section of its forums for these.
- Viridian Dreams hosts a large number of these.