Gunnar's Ground
Another controversial one: this quest, somewhat infamously, replaced the classic Romeo and Juliet. As with a lot of older players, I'm a bit sad about that: I liked the Romeo and Juliet quest, and taking it out feels a bit like removing Cook's Assistant or something. At the same time, though, I understand why they did it: it just really doesn't fit the game. The plot is a wholesale ripoff of the play, and doesn't tie into any elements of the actual game's world. It's just a bit strange.
Instead, now we have this quest about star-crossed lovers from two different worlds. We begin by talking to Dororan, an unusually verbose dwarf sitting, dependent, outside of the Barbarian Village.
Turns out he's madly in love with Gudrun, a barbarian in the village, but he's extremely afraid of talking to her because her culture values men who are tall, strong, and wealthy, and he is none of these things. Because the Internet doesn't exist in Gielinor, Dororan can't just go on Twitter and complain about how unfair it is that women won't speak to him, so we have to actually do something about this.
Dororan's idea is to engrave a ring, which we need to get from Jeffrey, the angry dude guarding the Edgeville furnace, whose jewelry is apparently renowned throughout the land. I want to take a moment here to reflect on this passage from the wiki guide for this quest:
Who is standing outside of Barbarian Village and thinking "how can I get to Edgeville from here?" Has efficiencyscape really gone so far that we're taking an Edgeville teleport from freaking Barbarian Village? Seriously?
Sidenote unrelated to the quest, but I'm of half a mind to declared Twoie a no-teleport build, or at least no teleporting purely to reduce travel time. I'm finding that hopping from lodestone to lodestone makes me less immersed and less engaged with the world, which is the opposite of what I want. I dunno, we'll see.
Anyway, Dororan gives us a love poem to use to trade for a ring, which seems like the kind of thing that could be taken the wrong way, frankly:
Me: Hello, I have a love poem for you. Please give me a golden ring in return.
Jeffrey: ...is this how you get an RSGF?
Shockingly (or perhaps not shockingly), that's not the way the exchange goes, and I've got a golden ring that Dororan asks me to engrave for him, and then give to Gudrun. Y'know, on account of what a massive coward he is? Fine, I can go talk to women for you. Incidentally, I think I'm starting to see what he sees in her:
Guys, even dwarf guys, only want one thing, apparently. Luckily for Dororan, his crush is more open-minded than her kin, and is absolutely delighted to be wooed by, well, let me let her describe it:
Three out of four, that's a solid B for Dororan. Unfortunately Gudrun's father, the chieftain Gunthor, is opposed to the match, on account of Dororan being an outerlander and Gunthor being, ostensibly, at war with outerlanders. Yes, all of them. Trying to talk him out of it gets us absolutely nowhere, but Dororan has an idea: he'll write a poem so moving that Gunthor will be convinced to give up his "war."
This sounds like a terribly stupid idea, but it's actually kind of brilliant. The Fremennik (of whom barbarians are just an offshoot) are just fantasy vikings, after all, and Norse culture has traditionally held poetry in very high regard. So story-wise, this is a fun detail.
I also really like the puzzle we have to do to help Dororan complete the poem. The framing is that we have to pick a word to fit into the poem, so it's essentially a dialogue puzzle. But what's different and interesting about it is that Dororan gives us clues to narrow down what word to give him. The first choice doesn't matter, just give him anything, then he'll say something like "needs to be one syllable" or "needs to rhyme with 'slay'", and you need to find a word that fits closer. It's a neat puzzle, though not a particularly hard one, and I enjoyed it immensely.
Needless to say the poem works, and Gudrun and Dororan finally meet. Dororan gets a job as the village poet, which comes with some perks...
Man, I wish my father-in-law gave me a house. Incidentally the house Gunthor gives them is the one that used to belong to Juliet, the one literally steps from the West Varrock bank. How exactly is that Gunthor's to give?
No time for questions, quest complete!
Considering the quest's remit, that it needed to replace Romeo and Juliet, hitting many of the same story beats, it was probably as good as it possibly could have been. It's overall an improvement, I would say: better puzzles, more original story, less of a shaggy-dog ending.
I think it's interesting to contrast this quest with Rune Mechanics, because they both focus on helping a sad sack. Dororan is similar to Clerval in a lot of ways, such as that his primary character trait is feeling sorry for himself. But Dororan didn't annoy me the way Clerval did, and here's why:
- Dororan is an active participant; he contributes to the plot, for instance by coming up with the plan to write a poem. Contrast with Clerval, who is very passive: he contributes nothing meaningful beyond the initial quest hook
- Dororan grows as a character, overcoming his self-doubt in vital moments: he provides the poem that changes Gunthor's mind (with some help from us, admittedly), and actually ahs the courage to talk to Gudrun at the end. It's not much character development, but it's better than what Clerval gets
- Dororan actually shows the capacity for self-improvement; he makes efforts to confront his fears and overcome them, while Clerval prefers making excuses for his failures and distracting himself from them
Take this as an object lesson in how slight changes to dialogue and characterization can make all the difference in how a character is perceived.