How many plot hooks should a DM have before starting a campaign?

[Hyozo]

I'm working on making a campaign for PbP here, but I'm fairly certain I don't have enough plot hooks. I don't want to end up like the DM of the rings, railroading players right and left, but I also don't want to have too many plot hooks ready, since player goals usually trump plot hooks they have no interrest in.

What I want to know is how many plot hooks should I have ready before starting the campaign.

I think both the players and myself would also benefit if I had a better idea of how to motivate the PCs to do something. I already have the usual "goblin slayers wanted, good pay, no insurance" plot if the PCs are motivated by money, and a murder mystery-esque plot which the PCs would want to solve because it would be easy to see that they could become victims, but I would enjoy some other ideas on how to get the players and characters to want to get involved in one of the plots.

[Xuincherguixe]

Helps to know what the individual players, or characters are interested in.

Might help to appeal to their curiosity. "Suddenly, 20 men and women with blonde hair die. All examination of the bodies reveals no clues." Mind you it's hard to go anywhere with that one, what with no clues part.

Or, "A Paladin all of the sudden grew tentacles and devoured all his comrades."

"There are a lot of pixes hanging around at the graveyard, and people claim to have been hearing strange moaning noises at night."

Or the always popular, "You didn't really notice at first, but upon further investigation you see that your body is covered in now covered in eyes."

[Shishnarfne]

I usually think that you should have no more than one plot hook per two characters at a given time. This allows them enough time to pursue each one decently. Generally, unless one plot hook applies really well to the entire party, I'd suggest having multiple so that they can pursue any one of them. The first time I ran Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, I gave each party member a different plot hook, the second time I only gave one plot hook for the whole party. I'd prefer to avoid both of those in my next campaign.

[nargbop]

Some players never get interested in the side plots if they're introduced AFTER the main plot. I know; I've done it myself :) and seen two of my players get exceptionally annoyed by "irrelevant" stuff.

One thing I'm going to do in my next campaign is do a "character introduction" session where everyone is present, and do ten or fifteen minutes of playing out a scene from each individual's past.

In Werewolf, appropriate scenes to play are the player's first transformation and when they first encounter others of their kind. These scenes allow you as the GM to name important friendly NPCs and enemy NPCs and create archetypes for them that you can flesh out later - then work them into the main story or side stories as you see fit.

In D&D, you have to work a little harder and encourage your players to be creative. Why did Bob the Monk decide to cloister himself for those necessary years? Did Brandt the Wizard throw himself into his work after losing a loved one? Why is that Loremaster travelling around instead of teaching?

This approach will please role-players more than power-players, but it allows you to introduce those dreaded plot hooks with a minimum of annoyance.

[AKA_Bait]

Get backstories from your players about their characters. Short backstories.

That will usually provide you with a wealth of plot hooks like:

Someone out there loves you: A friend or relative of a PC invites them to X place and stuff happens when they arrive.

A friend is in danger: Friend or relative has been kidnapped/killed/is asking for help.

Someone out there hates you: x person from their past is out to get them. Hires badguys for that purpose etc.

These kinds of hooks are good because players feel like their character is more 'real' by having connections to the world that impact the plot and because typically 'someone murdered my brother, lets go find the bastard' gets people motivated.

[blacksabre]

I recommend 3-4 plot hooks, 2 General and 1-2 specific to the party or party member.
the trick is to have all the plot hooks connected so that they either flow into one another, or lead to the same point...this is where plot twists arise.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Hooks? As many as possible!
As a matter of fact, each PC should come with one factory-installed.
Its nice to give the PCs something to cut their teeth on - or even just give them a feel for your DM'ing.

PlotLINES, however, there should only be one.

[Deepblue706]

Well, you generally only need one line, but hooks? At least a handful (don't clench your fist!). Sinkers are also necessary, if you want to catch anything in the ocean. Bobs can be good for Snappers, I hear.

[Fiery Diamond]

I've never done PbP (and don't intend to), so I don't know what DMing styles work best for it. However, as far as DMing in general: how many plot hooks/plot lines you should have available before starting depends entirely on how you want to DM. If you want to make a particular story, you only want one plotline; if you want to create an in depth setting and have the players make the story, you can have either a ton of available plotlines or prepare no plotline at all (but in the latter case you need to flesh out the world REALLY well). As far as plothooks go - again, your DMing style makes the difference: you could have one single one ("you all have been enlisted in the army, this is your first mission", this isn't necessarily railroading if you give them the option of defecting, for example) or a ton of them, or none at all- the last being in the case of not preparing a plot.

I'm an impromptu type DM, I started with 0 plotines, 0 plothooks, and game up with the first plothook during the first session. I'm creating the plotline as I go.


- Fiery Diamond

[Prometheus]

I am a DM and Fiery Diamond has it right - it depends on your DM style. I've done two major campaigns in opposite styles and they both have a lot of merit.

1) PC-driven: Here you need almost as many plot hooks and you can come up with. True, they won't be able to address them all at once, but how they do address them and the ones that they don't are consequences that lead to new plot hooks. As oftentimes as possible, I try to retroactively relate new conflicts to past actions and events, so it appears to (and does) realistically flow from their actions. In addition to this flexibility, the other advantage of this is as a DM you can be fairly short-sighted with your plot, in fact you have to, because anything you plan could get scrapped at any moment and because you want it to be based on the present. Eventually a long-term plotline does emerge, but other than that it is pretty inconsequential.

2)Plot-(DM-)driven: Here you make your beautiful story and the only dominant variation in it is how long it takes your PCs to get around to it. You still should have about 2-5 plot hooks, but the key difference is that some wrap themselves up before the PCs move on to the rest, and some significantly advance the plot and lead to the next things. The players don't have to feel constrained by their choices, but in the end, they are not the storytellers.

Something else I might caution, though, when drawing from player's backstories and character interests, is that if you do that than that player will always want to do that plot hook first. If two character hooks are opposed, this could be a dangerous conflict that drives apart the characters of even the players (once my party split up, because the two main plot hooks were a slandering of a paladin's church and anti-wizards mutants were attacking another island). They will always prefer a personal hook to a major plot device and they will get impatient when their hooks don't come frequently enough. They make for a very important way to engage the PCs in the story, but it should coincide with the interests of all and/or the plot.

[VanBuren]

Helps to know what the individual players, or characters are interested in.

Might help to appeal to their curiosity. "Suddenly, 20 men and women with blonde hair die. All examination of the bodies reveals no clues." Mind you it's hard to go anywhere with that one, what with no clues part.

Or, "A Paladin all of the sudden grew tentacles and devoured all his comrades."

"There are a lot of pixes hanging around at the graveyard, and people claim to have been hearing strange moaning noises at night."

Or the always popular, "You didn't really notice at first, but upon further investigation you see that your body is covered in now covered in eyes."

"Your PC awakes one morning to find that he/she has been transformed into a gigantic cockroach"?

[bosssmiley]

3. That's generally a good rule (learned from "Planescape"). For every three clues you drop into an adventure, the PCs will pick up on 1. The same goes for plot hooks.

After you've dangled the initial delicious worm-on-a-hook in front of them the players will give you more plot hooks than you can actually use (the technical term for this is 'character-driven plotting'). Just keep your ears open for the player's worst fears ("Man, I hope we don't run into them again!", "It couldn't be...", etc.), darkest suspicions, paranoid fantasies and so forth, then exploit them mercilessly.

Oh, just to be on the safe side. Require each player to have a juicy hook in his one paragraph character intro. Even something as cliche as "The orcs burned our farm and killed my family" is exploitable.


Hooks? As many as possible!
As a matter of fact, each PC should come with one factory-installed.

Heh, hivemind. :smallamused:

Remember: GMing = structured, purposeful sadism. :smallcool:


"Your PC awakes one morning to find that he/she has been transformed into a gigantic cockroach"?

"I thought I already told you: no Thri-Kreen characters!"

[Narmoth]

I feel allwaays that direct quests, eg. a person asks the group to do something for a reward, and attacks are marwellous plot hooks.
That is, if you have a backstory. Then all the subplots will merge into one larger, making the players realise what the story really is about.
Then again, I have players who go where I want them to without railroading, simply by having 1 - 3 concrete things they can do at a time.

[VanBuren]

"I thought I already told you: no Thri-Kreen characters!"

:smallfrown:

'Tis a sad day when the first thing that comes into people's minds at that sentence is "Thri-kreen" instead of "Kafka".

[Kyeudo]

You may find this somewhat disturbing (since I'm DMing your game) but I tend to have no plot hooks prepared at all. Most of the time, the next plot hook the party wants to investigate either arises from the roleplay or is contained somewhere in their backstories.

Just have a general overarching plot idea in mind, and you can fairly easily direct the action of the plot to follow the way you wish while using your players own ideas against them. Works best in a play by post enviroment though.

[Hyozo]

You may find this somewhat disturbing (since I'm DMing your game) but I tend to have no plot hooks prepared at all. Most of the time, the next plot hook the party wants to investigate either arises from the roleplay or is contained somewhere in their backstories.

Just have a general overarching plot idea in mind, and you can fairly easily direct the action of the plot to follow the way you wish while using your players own ideas against them. Works best in a play by post enviroment though.

Figures. No plot hooks AND random encounters with magical vermin. Well that campaign has been good so far (if you ignore the squirrels) so you might have a point, mostly I was trying to decide on what to offer them until a good roleplay plot hook comes up.

Using your players' ideas against them? We ARE going to run into archer porcupines!

[bosssmiley]

:smallfrown:

'Tis a sad day when the first thing that comes into people's minds at that sentence is "Thri-kreen" instead of "Kafka".

Thought Kafka first. But Kafka's hardly very D&D, is he? I mean the guy was so totally a "Paranoia" gamer. You can tell from all the game-fic he wrote. :smallwink:

[tainsouvra]

That will usually provide you with a wealth of plot hooks like:

Someone out there loves you: A friend or relative of a PC invites them to X place and stuff happens when they arrive.

A friend is in danger: Friend or relative has been kidnapped/killed/is asking for help. These are also dangerous to exploit more than once in a rare while, however, because it can quickly teach players that anyone who gets close to their character is in mortal danger--making the obvious solution to not have connections to other people. Additionally, if it really worked this way, the common folk would learn to avoid adventurers worse than a plague.

[AKA_Bait]

These are also dangerous to exploit more than once in a rare while, however, because it can quickly teach players that anyone who gets close to their character is in mortal danger--making the obvious solution to not have connections to other people.

Obviously you don't use this all the time but it's good to get a hook going at the beginning of an adventure. After that, as people have said, players will create more than enough hooks for you all by themselves, particularly if you have NPC villians who don't have any particular desire to go down fighting and will get out of dodge if things go south.



Additionally, if it really worked this way, the common folk would learn to avoid adventurers worse than a plague.

Well... in games I run most of them do if they don't know the PC anyway. An unknown wizard walks into a bar, people will discreetly leave. Why? Staying near someone with access to the abilities of even a 5th or 6th level pc is equivalent to hanging around a guy with a loaded AK-47 strapped to his back.

Sure some folks will do it, because some folks enjoy hanging around dangerous people. Other folks will do it because they actually know the guy isn't a maniac. But if I'm in a bar and some stranger walks in with an assault rifle I'm going to look for a new watering hole for the night.

Commoners and adventurers, same thing. Until the PC's have a reputation in an area as being cool commoners will pee their pants when they come along.

[VanBuren]

Thought Kafka first. But Kafka's hardly very D&D, is he? I mean the guy was so totally a "Paranoia" gamer. You can tell from all the game-fic he wrote. :smallwink:

:P

But seriously, I wonder how many references like that you could fit into a campaign, or design one around?

"Look, we've slain 15 Ancient Dragons, the kings of 20 evil nations, and most of the lesser deities. Can we advance the main plot now?"

"No, Godot still hasn't arrived."

[OneWinged4ngel]

I'd say it's good to have at least a dozen good plot hooks for any given session, and possibly include a few that might not come up for the long term or may not involve the PCs and play out whether they choose to interfere or not (for example, hearing news from another nation). Gives the players freedom to drive the plot, a sense of a living world, and foreshadowing for your overplots. And it's totally okay if some are subtle or if the players don't encounter them all as a result of making their own choices. However, don't go far off on tangents... try to tie everything or most things into the overarcing themes or overplots for your story.

Also, play up character-driven hooks! Know what your players' motives, goals, and backstory hooks are, and play those up! Get the PCs personally involved and invested in the success of their adventures.

On the other hand, DMing a PbP is ridiculously easy with respect to hooks compared to a normal game. You probably don't need to think of any hooks right off the bat except your first one, seeing as you get HOURS between posts.


since player goals usually trump plot hooks they have no interrest in. Make your plot hooks interesting. If they're not interesting, you're not being a good DM.


What I want to know is how many plot hooks should I have ready before starting the campaign. You should probably have your main plots and themes ready when you start off the campaign, as well as a really kickass, attention-grabbing first adventure. Good pacing generally demands a strong beginning, and then rising tension until a climax. This is actually fairly convenient, because you get a whole lot of time to prepare your first game before the campaign even starts, and you get a whole lot of time to think about your climax.


I think both the players and myself would also benefit if I had a better idea of how to motivate the PCs to do something. I already have the usual "goblin slayers wanted, good pay, no insurance" plot if the PCs are motivated by money, and a murder mystery-esque plot which the PCs would want to solve because it would be easy to see that they could become victims, but I would enjoy some other ideas on how to get the players and characters to want to get involved in one of the plots. Character-driven plots are the best way to get a player strongly involved. Play up on hooks from their backstories or their stated personal goals, motivations, and values. Foster NPC relationships. Make your villains, encounters, obstacles and adversaries memorable and compelling. (NEVER have "goblins in a series of generic rooms in a cave and you go kill them to get money." That's boring as sin. In fact, I can't even remember the last time I gave my players a straight up fight. There's always set pieces or special objectives or circumstances or interesting enemy tactics or plot unravelling or puzzles or something when they're fighting. Never "there's a monster in a room. It attacks you and fights to the death. Then you get treasure.") Make the players care about the world, their characters, and the scenarios you set up.

[F.L.]

:smallfrown:

'Tis a sad day when the first thing that comes into people's minds at that sentence is "Thri-kreen" instead of "Kafka".

Kafka was a totally awesome villain in FFVI.

[ReproMan]

Plot hooks for PbP are easy. You don't really have to think of all that many off the bat, just have a general idea of where you'd like the plot to go and drop clues as needed along the way to subtly steer your players in the right direction.

In my current game, it looks like my PCs are going to royally miss one or two (...*cough*oneortwodozen*cough*...) plot hooks I've dropped them to pursue the plot in a different direction. I am totally cool with this. Why? Because once they get to this new destination, I'll just drop the plot hooks on them again in similar but new patterns, and maybe this time it'll stick. I can also make adjustments to the place they actually want to head to have it take the place of one of the scenes I was planning on earlier. In a traditional game, this would be borderline chaotic, but with PbP I literally have days to work these details out to my satisfaction.

[VanBuren]

Kafka was a totally awesome villain in FFVI.

Dear sweet Jesus, you had best be joking when you mix "Kafka" and "Kefka".

[PnP Fan]

Just off the top of my head. . .
1 You need to have something that your campaign is based on, especially if it's a story driven campaign (and not just a series of unrelated adventures, strung together by having the same characters in them).

+1 Sometimes you'll need a good way to bring the PC's together into the main plot. This may require as much as one plot hook per Player (sometimes less if some of the players choose to know each other before the game begins).

+1 for the first mini-adventure, the first chapter of your overall story.

+1 for the next step, something you might introduce at the end of the first chapter (see previous entry) to get the ball rolling into the next story. This one is kinda optional for pre campaign planning, but you should have it done before the players are ready to run across it.

Or you can just wing it. Sometimes that turns out best.

Good luck!

[Hagentai]

Enough where you don't have to rail road everyone because your not prepared for game.

[Triaxx]

I've always found that 2 per PC is just about right. Make sure each is going to hook more than one party member.

For example, to hook a slightly inconsistent bard, and a very hardline paladin, I used a playhouse without a play, and a dragon threatening a town. The Bard wanted to go help the playhouse, Paladin wanted to kill the dragon. The Cleric who was the third member finally pointed out that if the Bard came along to help slay the dragon, he could turn the adventure into a play, and the Paladin would get to slay his dragon.

[YancyS]

I'm working on making a campaign for PbP here, but I'm fairly certain I don't have enough plot hooks. I don't want to end up like the DM of the rings, railroading players right and left, but I also don't want to have too many plot hooks ready, since player goals usually trump plot hooks they have no interrest in.

What I want to know is how many plot hooks should I have ready before starting the campaign.

I think both the players and myself would also benefit if I had a better idea of how to motivate the PCs to do something. I already have the usual "goblin slayers wanted, good pay, no insurance" plot if the PCs are motivated by money, and a murder mystery-esque plot which the PCs would want to solve because it would be easy to see that they could become victims, but I would enjoy some other ideas on how to get the players and characters to want to get involved in one of the plots.

This is a really interesting question, because I've never had it come up. The only games I've ever run are BRP call of cthulhu and D&D--though only one-offs in this dept--and I've only ever had 1 plot hook at any time. I've never had a problem, especially with CoC.

The D&D campaign I'm in has a very unconventional--and very talented--DM. That said, we've only got the one plot hook and all of us are...hooked. We play in a sort of late bronze-age/early iron-age oceanic culture. Our island has a very tribal culture (mostly obsidian weapons, interestingly enough) and all of our characters are brothers (there are six players not including our DM, which must be exhausting to manage, I'm sure). We all started as level 1 Human Paragons (from Unearthed Arcana, the single best D&D book besides the PHB) and had to play through that 3 level progression after which we all had to pick a primary spelllcasting class (not including paladin) and he urged us to go with the generic Spellcaster from U.A.

I think a secret is that, our characters being brothers, makes it so that any hook that appeals to one of us is going to appeal to all of us, even if only indirectly. Obviously, plot hooks exist, but they don't FEEL like plot hooks, mere devices, if that makes any sense.

That said, the campaign has been running about 3 months and everyone can't wait for Thursday night. The unique setting (that we all sort of helped to build) and the feeling that the DM is actually steering events while we have a considerable amount of freedom WITHIN his framework both for building the world and acting in it (things like making NPCs and naming them to designing our own spells, and deciding where to sail our magical ship, etc) have built a highly dynamic world using basically just the D&D ruleset and not really playing in any conventional sense, mere Dungeons & Dragons.

I think it's always going to come down to style. The idea of plot hook is foreign to me because they've never really been a big emphasis in any campaign I've ever played with this particular DM, and only sort of coming up in other campaigns I've been in.

The big problem with this campaign is that it spoils us. It makes it really hard to do conventional dungeon crawl adventures and save the princess adventures because they are simply not interesting. This world is so compelling (in that we had a hand in its creation and in that somehow we've come to care about it in some way) that it's hard to get excited about another campaign.

This guy, our DM, is one of the single most creative people I've ever met as a player and as a DM. He loves doing both and we always want him in games that we run.

I think he would fit into the free-form category, but I am certain that he has a big plan already in place and that we will eventually be drawn inexorably to it. So a little bit of both, maybe?

Edit: Oh, and one other thing that's weird about this game is that in probably 12 sessions, we average maybe .5 combat encounters per session. That's 1 combat encounter per two sessions, roughly. The last session, I never looked at my character sheet once. Very little combat. And yet.... more fun than any game I've ever played.