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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 5125715" data-attributes="member: 15470">It really depends why this is happening. To figure that out, you need to talk to your players. Explain how much effort you put into preparing material for them, and how much it sucks when they go in a different direction. Ask why its happening; request that they give you two week's warning before heading off-script.  . . . .If you've got a problem player who simply doesn't want to bite on any of your adventure hooks, I think you're well within your rights to say, "Okay, if so and so wants to go hiking on a random direction out of the city, he hikes out of the party and out of the game: the TV cameras are focused here."If you're repeatedly having a problem with the same player, you may need to ask him to leave the group: I've certainly gamed with somebody who simply wasn't interested in joining the collaborative story-telling that the DM and the rest of the party were engaged in; he created four straight characters, two of which marched off camera, one of which was voted off the island by the other players, and the fourth which simply formed no connection to the other characters at all. At that point, our DM said, "Look, this isn't working." . . . .On the other hand, if all of your players are looking at plot hooks and asking "why would we get involved in that?", that's a totally different scenario. For instance, in your set of examples, a dwarven fighter from far away lands might be utterly uninterested ... but a paladin who is from this locale or serves the local lord would probably be very interested. If that's what's going on, you really need to work with your players to build character backstory that ties them to specific plot hooks.Several examples:The fighter has been inducted into an order of knights based near this location.The ranger's family lives in one of those outlying farms.The cleric's twin sister was an even more powerful divine than she is, but was kidnapped at age eight. Where is she now?The paladin has sworn an oath to serve the local Duke. The druid views the great forest as hers: and its under threat from both dragons and orcs.The rogue's mentor was killed by merchant guild that is now making a play for the town.Somebody's family crypt is right next to those which have been robbed.The rule of escalating tension is: "Make it personal."To do that, you need your players to give you enough backstory plot hooks that you can make it personal, and get them invested in your plot hooks. . . . Some other ideas:Rather than closing with victory in a climactic battle, .. don't ever close a session without the party committing to the next plot hook. That lets you write the next set of the plot.  (Our DM has a good balance there: he stops at the climax, but demands that we talk it out over e-mail and commit to a direction by about ten days before our next session.)  ... Alternately, think "24", and write cliffhanger endings.Allow every plot hook that they've ignored to escalate, to come back and bite them in some way. Unchecked, the orcs succeed in sacking the town. Unchecked, the grave robbers find the powerful artifact that they were looking for, and become a lot more dangerous (or sell it to somebody really evil.)Defeat the party, sometimes. Its pretty tough to ignore a plot-hook when its got the name of that guy who lay down a bucket of hurt on you.Alternately, get out of the habit of pre-preparing: seriously, just roll with it. Make stuff up on the fly, jot down notes about what you said for internal consistency later, and let 'er rip. Have some interesting NPC's in mind, have some interesting encounters in mind .. but see where the players want to go.(We've done things so unexpected, our DM has said, "Okay, we're gonna break for dinner now. I'll be back in ninety minutes or so as soon as I've figured out what's next...")</blockquote>

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