Player bait

[RingofThorns]

This thread is more or less for stories about a DM doing something just to bait you into a quest, dungeoun or other such adventure.

For example I as a player am kind of a magic weapon/magic artifact hoarder, to put it nicely. This tends to leak over into my characters, DMs tend to know this so they set up 'the great dungeoun maze of death and destruction' every pc knows there is a good chance of character death but sign up any way. My character says nope and turns to leave and that's when the DM says that at the end there is a magic weapon one with a name and legend....So I wind up out front checking for traps.

[BowStreetRunner]

This reminds me of a realization that once struck me halfway through a campaign. DMs are like parents dealing with young children. They use all the same psychological tricks - reverse psychology, rewards for good behavior, little white lies and all of that kind of stuff. And in the end it usually works.

My favorite 'player bait' example is actually a former PC of mine. I played in a game where my chaotic evil PC turned villain and nearly pulled off a party wipe. The DM turned the PC into an NPC after that and that NPC became the party's nemesis. Whenever the DM wanted to make sure the party did what he wanted all he had to do was drop some hint that their nemesis might be involved and that was enough to get the entire party going. They HATED that NPC. :smallbiggrin:

[RingofThorns]

This reminds me of a realization that once struck me halfway through a campaign. DMs are like parents dealing with young children. They use all the same psychological tricks - reverse psychology, rewards for good behavior, little white lies and all of that kind of stuff. And in the end it usually works.

My favorite 'player bait' example is actually a former PC of mine. I played in a game where my chaotic evil PC turned villain and nearly pulled off a party wipe. The DM turned the PC into an NPC after that and that NPC became the party's nemesis. Whenever the DM wanted to make sure the party did what he wanted all he had to do was drop some hint that their nemesis might be involved and that was enough to get the entire party going. They HATED that NPC. :smallbiggrin:

A DM friend of mine did something similar with a goblin ninja named chaos. The little jerk gave my character the roots treatment to this day every game that guy DMs I try and kill chaos and he never lets me.

[atemu1234]

An anime-esque NPC asking for help usually works for me.

That or a former party member (a former character, whose player had either left or got a new one) doing the same helps too.

[Eno Remnant]

In the campaign I'm currently running, the party is trying to restore a kingdom that has been destroyed by demons and taken over by kobolds (don't ask - the backstory is needlessly convoluted and includes a little RNG). Two members of this three-man team think that their best option is to go to the capital of the kingdom's snow elf allies.

Now, the party wizard isn't interested. He'd rather go off and adventure, gather up some wealth and fell arcana, and build a stronghold from whence he can go out to adventure for gold and xp.

This wizard, as it happens, is possessed. Formerly by a chicken god (his idea, not mine), and now by a seemingly twelve year old goddess of darkness. I tend to convey cryptic or inane comments through her. In this instance, I decided that the party would probably need him. So my little GoD implied that there were rare and powerful artefacts to be found in the area they're headed to. Worked like a charm.

[Crake]

I tend to ask my players to have goals for their characters. Then they go about pursuing those goals, and all I have to do is design what happens along the way and when they get there. That way the players don't feel like they're being led on, but rather are leading their own adventure.

You lose a little bit of freedom as a DM, since you're not designing what you want to design, but I'm more than happy to design things that the players want to do, and if I happen to come up with an interesting idea like having the PCs get lost in a snowstorm only to end up having wandered into a little pocket demiplane, then that's what travelling on the road is for (doesn't work after level 9 if the party has a wizard though).

[Inevitability]

One time, one of my players had been talking about a Belt of Dwarvenkind for several sessions straight. Not too surprising, seeing this player saw dwarves as the best thing since sliced bread. When an NPC offered them a very plot-relevant quest and this player declined, I just blurted out: 'the NPC offers you a belt of dwarvenkind if you complete the mission'. I don't think I've ever seen someone change his mind so fast.


The funny thing is that after finishing the mission, they ended up not returning to that city for a few months. Eventually, the party's rogue just went there and stole the thing.

[BWR]

The best bait I've ever come across boils down to this: "You know this really cool NPC you met earlier? Well, s/he needs X done".
Kidnap them, kill them, have them ask for a favor; we jump at a chance to get involved.
Have an NPC we meet and interact with and get to like and we'll do just about anything, no matter how foolish.

[prufock]

I tend to ask my players to have goals for their characters. Then they go about pursuing those goals, and all I have to do is design what happens along the way and when they get there. That way the players don't feel like they're being led on, but rather are leading their own adventure.

You lose a little bit of freedom as a DM, since you're not designing what you want to design, but I'm more than happy to design things that the players want to do, and if I happen to come up with an interesting idea like having the PCs get lost in a snowstorm only to end up having wandered into a little pocket demiplane, then that's what travelling on the road is for (doesn't work after level 9 if the party has a wizard though).

This is pretty much what I do as well. The story I have in mind may not fit everyone's goals, but I'll always try to work them in some way, and the story arc just becomes another goal that I introduce and try to get them interested in. I also periodically check in with the group to see what they want to do next. Case in point, they wanted to get involved with a war that's going on, I make some excuse to have them put back in the combat zone. This still progresses the main story arc (locating planar portals to shut down), albeit in a different way (the two war leaders have items that are planar portals).

[Red Fel]

I tend to ask my players to have goals for their characters. Then they go about pursuing those goals, and all I have to do is design what happens along the way and when they get there. That way the players don't feel like they're being led on, but rather are leading their own adventure.

This is pretty much what I do as well. The story I have in mind may not fit everyone's goals, but I'll always try to work them in some way, and the story arc just becomes another goal that I introduce and try to get them interested in.

Seconded. The best way to get the characters interested in the plot is to make it what they wanted to do anyway. The best way to make a player feel emotionally invested in the game is to make them feel like it's about that player's character specifically. And the best way to do both is to know in advance what the player's goals are with that character, what the character's goals are, and to keep appraised of any new goals or changes to those goals as the game progresses.

An exceptional DM can take each character's objectives - from "become the world's greatest swordsman" to "discover the secret lost society" to "expose the evil cult" to "find my long-lost father" - and weave them together into a singular plot, where each is related. (For example, the evil cult is dedicated to resurrecting the calamity that destroyed the lost society, and is seemingly led by the long-lost father. Also, something-something-swordsman.) This allows each character a moment in the spotlight, a chance to feel like the plot is all about that character, while at the same time the game itself spirals inevitably towards the resolution of that individual's arc, just as it does for all the PCs.

I'm not saying a great DM abandons his own campaign in favor of building one of the players' design. Rather, I'm saying that a great DM doesn't ignore free labor. The players have not only handed him excellent plot hooks, they've handed him plot hooks that will get them involved. That's less hassle for the DM! Work that stuff into the story, make it part of the world, and your players will love you for it!