When you were a kid, you played what was your first role-playing game: "Cops and Robbers", or "Cowboys and Indians", or something similar. You all pretended you were someone else, and then went about acting like that character, without a pre-determined story line. Of course, conflict resolution was probably pretty crude: "I shot you first!" "No you didn't!" "Yes I did!"
Maybe when you were older you played pen-and-paper role-playing. You dreamt up a character, and then you and the other players sat around a table and participated in a sort of mutual story-telling: you decided on actions, and a "game master" described the scenes and acted out the parts of all the other characters. Conflict resolution was a lot more advanced: you rolled dice, and a set of rules determined how those dice rolls translated into successes or failures.
And maybe you did traditional theater in school. You'd put on a costume, assume a character, and act out a part. You weren't making up your character's actions -- the script did most of that for you, and it pre-determined the outcomes of conflicts -- but you were letting yourself get absorbed in a role.
Quest is a combination of all of these, and more. As with make-believe, you'll be imaging a character, determining motives and character traits, choosing personality and background. As with pen-and-paper role-playing, you'll be resolving conflicts with a set of rules (though thankfully without dice) and you'll be reacting to scenes established by a "game master" and his/her staff. And as with traditional theater, you'll be acting out your character's behavior -- and dressing like your character too.
We call what we do "interactive theater". In traditional theater, the cast knows the whole script, and knows right from the start how the story plays out. The audience knows none of the script, and does nothing throughout the show; they just watch.
Quest's events are markedly different. The GMs (Game Masters - the folks running the show) develop a setting, and a sequence of events, but they don't pre-determine the ending. How the event runs determines how the story will wrap up. Most of the story is improvised by the participants.
More importantly, there is no "audience". You -- the players or "PCs" (Player Characters) -- are just as important as the roles the event staff (the Non-Player Characters, or NPCs) are acting out. Your roles and decisions are just as important as the material that the GMs provide. You improvise your "part" based upon your character; this is why we call it "role-playing". You determine your character's traits and motivations beforehand, and then react to the events based upon how you, the player, think your character would act. For the players, a Quest event is an exercise in improvisational theater.
The interplay of the staff's roles and your reactions are what forms the "plot". Your actions as players, and your responses to the setting and the events, determine what happens and how the story ends. Rather than having an all-knowing "cast" and a wholly passive "audience", the fun of a Quest event comes from the shared drama between the staff and the players. There are no seats and no stage, to segregate the people involved. Every participant interacts with everyone else.
To these theatrical elements, Quest adds a system for modeling conflicts, since no drama would be complete without obstacles. We use a system that simulates forms of conflict without real dangers. This is why we call our events "live-action"; the conflicts take place in real time, right before your eyes.
For instance, since our events take place in a roughly medieval world, our armed conflict uses swords. If two characters come to blows, they can face off in combat. But we use foam padded swords, so that there is no real risk. To this, we add a rules system that simulates the injuries you'd be taking if those foam swords were real. Since our events also incorporate elements of the fantastical, we have a system to simulate "magic" as envisioned in fantasy writings and works.
However, conflict goes beyond martial contests. If your character is supposed to be adept at sneaking around undetected, but you the player are clumsy, we have a mechanic to let you assume your character's skill, so that you're not limited by the constraints of the real world. After all, this is role-playing, and we want to let you play the character you want, without the burden of your real-world self limiting your choices. Is your character supposed to be learned? So too we have a system for giving you extra knowledge. Your character can be sneaky, or a smooth talker, or nimble with traps -- even if you, the player, are not.