A fetch quest is a term to describe a tedious gameplay cliche that involves getting an item and delivering it. These are usually a bad thing. They are seen by most gamers as boring and needless, as if the developer were trying to artificially lengthen the game. The worst fetch quests are simple but long. You get an item, trade it to a far away NPC to get another item, give that item away to get a new one, etc, on and on.

RPG games tend to be more inclined to having fetch quests than others, though some 3D platformers also have copious amounts of fetching.