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Message: <blockquote data-quote="maddman75" data-source="post: 1783278" data-attributes="member: 2673">When I get stuck, here's what I do.Pick an environment, generally whatever town the PCs are in.  Think about this town, who is there?  Any temples?  Powerful nobles?  A keep/army?  Guilds?  Merchant groups?  Any wierd locales or places of interest?After you have a list of interested parties, think about what each of these might want.  You don't have to make it all part of a whole, but do try to give some of them opposing goals.  Resist the urge to cleanly split them into 'good guys' and 'bad guys'.  So now you've got these different groups with different goals.Let's call our town Farpoint - its on the end of a long pennensula at the frontier of the kingdom.  There are several groups here.- The Temple of Auros is powerful and respected.  They have had troubles recently however, as the graveyards seem to constantly be filling with undead, and the people are questioning the Sun God's ability to protect them.- The wizard's guild is seeking people to make...extractions from the graveyards.  They need the bodies for research, the headmaster is preparing a treatise on human anatomy.  The temple blames them for the recent uprisings of undead, but the wizards are certain that this is unrelated.- The owner of the Merchant's League is trying to squeeze his way into the nobility.  There have been attempts on his life, but he isn't sure who is behind them.  - The thieves Guild needs help as well.  The Merchant Owner thinks they are responsible for the attacks, since he is a big advocate on cracking down on crime.  They claim innocence, and want someone to find out who is behind the attacks and putting a stop to it.- The Lord is looking for worthy heroes as well.  There's a band of goblins outside the town that have been raiding a lot.  If someone were to do away with them he'd not only offer a healthy reward but take them into his confidence.  He needs advice about whether to let the merchant into the noble class.  There are nobles for and against this that will try to curry the PC's favor.Then you set the PCs loose in this environment, dropping these different hooks and seeing what they bite on.  They can fight undead, sneak bodies out for the wizards, go and kill goblins, hire on with the thieves guild, or get involved with politics.  You'll have to think on your feet for this style, because the PCs faced with this freedom may decide to assassinate the Lord and promote a puppet to the throne to basically take ove the town or something.  My group has a running joke about never being able to return to a town they've vistited before...After you find out what they're interested in, then work on an overall plotline.  Even work a couple of the old hooks back in so that it looks like what they decided is what you had planned all along.  Another great part of this style is after you get all the players and motives set up the game pretty well runs itself.</blockquote>

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