I also have trouble with hooks. In my last campaign, I simply had the local nobility put out a call for mercenaries to solve local problems. As to why they didn't use their own troops/guard, there was a war in the south so local manpower was extremely limited. After the party was successful on their first mission, the powers-that-be granted them an ongoing contract. The war in the south also gave the players and out if they wanted to get off the rails for a while, they could just go down there and see what they could do to help if they wanted to.
Classic D&D tropes you've never mastered
- Thread starter Viking Bastard
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
I've had good luck with hooks by making players care about the NPCs, first by making everyone be born in the same village (and ran the first few adventures there -- protecting your mom from goblin raiders is a hook everyone can relate to), and then by making all of their actions have consequences for those they cared about. (The ranger's sister is now a lady in waiting in the baron's court, for instance, so they're not all bad consequences.)
Of course, if your group only plays sullen loners (katanas and trenchcoats optional) or don't trust you to not stick their love interests and grandparents into a woodchipper, this won't work for you. (Of course, in that case, they're unlikely to find any hooks engaging.)
Of course, if your group only plays sullen loners (katanas and trenchcoats optional) or don't trust you to not stick their love interests and grandparents into a woodchipper, this won't work for you. (Of course, in that case, they're unlikely to find any hooks engaging.)
Pheonix0114
Explorer
The BBEG. All of my compelling ones that my players actually like they end up talking to instead of killing, or in the fight they layer on the cheese to win (i.e. Bard dominates, then BBEG's hands are covered in Sovereign glue while the barbarian that dumped most everything into strength holds its hands together, after glue dries they take his artifact dagger and leave him...alive...)
I wouldn't insult such players (mine included) with epithets like "sullen loners." My group finds the whole "your parents/relatives/well-loved neighbors are threatened by villains" thing to be kind of trite, to be honest.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
One thing I've done with diabolic contracts in the past which worked well is to make the players write up the contract. Let them try to make it loophole-proof.
If it's too generous, the devil will never sign it. So you modify it and give it back. They do all the work.
If they somehow do manage to avoid a loophole, that's its own reward. However, the three times I've done this the players all missed something and the devils capitalized on it.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
It's the motivation for most people in world history to take up arms.
EDIT: And nearly all fiction, come to think of it.
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Crazy Jerome
First Post
Puzzles aren't everyone's cup of tea.
But who doesn't like death traps?
What's your secret to running and especially improvising death traps? Don't make me suck it out of your brain cause...er, my brain sucker death trap sucks. I mean it doesn't. *sob*
No, no! Play to your strengths. What you do is lock me in a room where the only ways out are to spill my secrets or solve a fiendish puzzle ... Wait a second ...
Think of a death trap as its own little side adventure/side trek. It's a closed loop, because if you aren't trapped in it and having to deal with it, it isn't much of a death trap. And in your case, you can include a puzzle as way to short cut out of it--just don't make it too obvious at first, and don't make it the only way out.
Then you need things for most everyone to do--if only run around like cockatrice with their heads cut off, looking for secret doors. And you need a time pressure that is obvious. You need a theme that holds it all together--like water flooding. Some kind of gas is good, too. Then finally, you need to go full gonzo. I don't much see the point in deliberately designing a "death trap" any other way. It practically conjures images of Adam West Batman. If it turns into something more like a boulder chasing Professor Jones because the players get nervous--well, that was still a gonzo death trap, even if Jones running left him little time for campy dialogue.
As for improvising, I do two basic things:
1. I'm on the alert for things that aren't death traps now, but might turn into them depending on player actions. Water flooding is really easy this way. The key is to not get to set on having a death trap. For example, I had an underground dungeon that the party explored which, if certain doors were opened, flooded parts of it. This stirred up some of the denizens, who then opened up their own secondary passages to avoid the water. In a way, the whole place was one giant death trap, if the party wasn't a bit careful. But it was also possible to navigate it and never feel that pressure. The likely result is the one I got--a couple of times, the party got mixed up in other traps/features/fights that were made into death traps by the water.
2. Once you have an idea for how something is turning into a death trap, stop a second and visualize it. Make a few guesses about what people will do. Then include elements to make those activities interesting. Remember the garbage pit in the first Star Wars. Closing walls are trite. Closing walls with garbage concealing some creature that runs, not so much.
It's the motivation for most people in world history to take up arms.
EDIT: And nearly all fiction, come to think of it.
Conan never had that as his motivation, that I can recall. To name one prominent example. Anyway, it's been done in too many campaigns not to elicit groans at the table if I try to use it.
Conan never had that as his motivation, that I can recall. To name one prominent example. Anyway, it's been done in too many campaigns not to elicit groans at the table if I try to use it.
Wasn't Conan's family and village wiped out and that provided his motivation to kill Thulsa Doom?
It's kind of the same thing, only revenge instead of protection.
An adventuring Halfling on Athas is NEVER out of rations until he is alone...
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