What hooks have you given to your players that worked ?

[NewJeffCTHome]

• While the players are in the streets of the city, a knight passes by. His horse treads firmly on one of the PCs' feet, and he sighs and tells the character, "Get out of my way, fool of a peasant!" The characters are now guaranteed to follow him.

That would definitely start something in the groups I've gamed with!!

 

[Crothian]

In the second yewar of the campaign I had a door mysteriously appear in the basement of one of the Character's grandmother's home. THat work really well.

 

[twofalls]

Wow... so many games... so I'll choose the last one. Knowing my prefrence for heroic and "good" aligned PC's my players choose at the start of our current game 3 1/2 years ago to all travel to Shadowdale indivdually to try to become accepted by the oraganization known as the Harpers. In Shadowdale they discovered that three young women had gone missing and the locals were stirred up searching for them. The PC's uncovered a nest of Zhentarim Slavers in an old abandoned ruin of a fortress and captured them... and learned that they were responsible. That then sent them on a long quest that would take far too many words to explain here.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Have an NPC thief cheat them of a small amount of money, or pickpocket them for a few coppers. Most player characters will travel to the ends of the earth to find the thief and cut bits off him/her, enabling you to lead them around by the nose.

Oh, yeah.

I led a couple of PCs into a trap once using Silent Image - one PC noticed a guttersnipe brush close by the other PC, then disappear rapidly into a crowd. (Since it was an illusion, the second PC didn't feel it happen... but they just figured it meant the kid was a good pickpocket.)

"Oi - I think that kid just picked your pocket!"
"Let's kill him."

So after a few moments, they noticed the kid in question ducking into an alley (a second Silent Image).

Making their way to the alley themselves, they couldn't see the kid... but there was only one door open in the whole alley, so that's where they went...

... only to find themselves surrounded by Dire Werebats...

They got led around by the nose by someone who didn't pickpocket them for a few coppers.

-Hyp.

 

[The Shaman]

A treasure map.

Easiest hook in the world.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I've never had a hook that failed. However, I have had the PCs get sidetracked in the middle of the quest and not complete it. This is mainly the result of my nonlinear power-matrix style of resolution-handling more than anything else, so the PCs' actions have repercussions which they sometimes find more interesting than the quest in which they are en-route. Also, I don't play my 20+ Int villains stupidly, so sometimes its because the villain has outplanned them (although the PCs always have a good contingency plan for escape) time and again, so they just decide to team up with the villain and attack someone else.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I liked the idea in a module (NeMorrens vault?).

PCs are assembled for the reading of a will. Gives them a run down estate house. Also a cellar full of loot - theirs if they can clear the place out.

Started off the campaign with a nice mini dungeon crawl, where they could all get to know each other.

Then moved on to a campaign trying to build up and run our tumbledown estate.

Had a lot of fun with that one, the DM did such a good job that I ripped it off for my own game.

 

[Torm]

A treasure map.

Easiest hook in the world.

An absolute classic.

Also classic - someone famous and reasonably wealthy (known hereafter as the Princess ) has gone missing, probably kidnapped, and needs to be recovered. Provides an adventuring motive for ANY character - the noble will seek to recover the innocent, the greedy will look forward to the monetary reward. Heck, even the occasional evil but not monetarily motivated party member will want to complete this, so they can ransom the Princess themselves, or use her in a vile ritual, or...

 

[philreed]

Alright, let's face it, as a DM it could really ruin your entire campaign that you have planned for a zillion years if your PCs does not take the FIRST hook to keep things going

Warning! Warning! Warning! You've activated the pimp-o-matic side of my brain. Read the following and suffer my blatant pimpage.

I've written two short PDFs for just the above reason. A Dozen Distubring Rumors and A Dozen Troubling Rumors each contain twelve rumors that are written to be used as springboards to adventure or as background noise.

There are some reviews here at EnWorld.

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2011648

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2122483

http://www.enworld.org/reviews.php?do=review&reviewid=2011617


That ends the pimp-o-matic brain's dominance of my hands.

 

[cincinnati reds]

A young, pretty, runaway half-elf girl in trouble with no one else to turn to.