How hard is it to "hook" your PCs?

[Crothian]

Know your players. I can hook my players to do anything, I won't do it, but I could. I know them well enough to present any situation in a way that they'll go for.

I perfer to toss a few hooks out for the characters to choose from, but leave it open enough they can cvome up with their own. And the hooks they don't choose still develope in the background. So, they can hear about how something they decided not to do is going.

 

[Altalazar]

I think if the campaign is designed well from the beginning and you know the players, it isn't that hard.

Sometimes even with no work, hooks will be followed - a couple of players I remember from back in the 1E days were very accomodating - often saying out loud, as the others struggled with their "motivations" - "C'mon - this is the DM telling us there's an adventure this way - let's go!"

But of course, it is much preferable if it all fits well into the grand scheme of things. I dislike railroading, though. Even though the DM controls the world, he or she should not presume to control or dictate how the players will react to it.

 

[francisca]

Nearly impossible. They'll sit around the tavern getting beaten about the head by plothooks all day long. I don't even really bother anymore. I just detail one encounter for each night, have a few randomly determined, and rely on my homebrew world notebook for general disposition of NPCs.