Are you familiar with gazettes and the way they can be combined with achievement systems?
the gazettes you describe seem similar to the stats in skyrim (general, crime, combat, crafting, etc - IE how many things have i made/killed/etc). i take i you suggest those as possible types of user defined quests?
no so sure about achievements, they don't actually get you anything except bragging rights in most games, right? of course, sometimes its still cool to get one anyway sort of like earning a merit badge. so even though they don't do much, i suppose they're still cool. i suppose i ought to add them to the game.
This is what I would base a system of player-chosen quests on, instead of a random quest generation system.
some confusion - the game will have questgens and a quest editor to supply typical rpg/skyrim type quests - all of which are optional. in addition, the player will have a "i want to give myself a quest/goal" button. this lets them assign themselves any type of quest or goal they want. example: right now in my long term playtest game, the band is trying to build up a stockpile of arrows, about 20-30 arrows per member, so about 200-300 arrows total. so i might select a user defined quest of "make object - wood arrow - quantity 10". the game would figure out the mood boost reward based on the make action (makng is harder than trading, so its worth more mood boost), the value of a wood arrow, and the quantity. you could even add in quality: make 10 wood arrows of 100 or better quality - only arrows of quality 100+ count, and you get more mood boost, cause they're harder to make - need better tools and parts and skills.
so the user defined quests wouldn't be random, the user gets to choose them.
in the game, any quest can be abandoned at any time.
the idea is that roleplaying in game, Grog, the leader of the band, and all the members for that fact, want arrows right now. so getting arrows now would make them happy. while it might not at some time in the future when they have plenty of arrows.
kind of like you were playing skyrim, and looking for potion ingredients. you might give yourself a quest to find 50 ingredients. of course, skyrim doesn't have mood, so i'm not sure what the reward would be.
Quest opportunies that are attached to nearby objects are nice too.
tools wear out in the game, so i often have to send a band member to the nearby rocks to find new stone hammers, etc. "find 5 one hand stone hammers" would be a typical user defined quest for such a case. instead of a quest defining what the player should do next, what the player wants/needs to do next defines what a quest will be. pretty wild, huh?