Why do players think it's okay to intentionally ignore plot hooks

Why do players think it's okay to intentionally ignore plot hooks

The shit that I planned is going to have more thought put into it than whatever I had to improv because you "felt like going west" this week

Have you tried telling them that?

Did you try talking to them? Maybe they ignored you hook because they 1) didn't like the look of where it was leading, or 2) wanted to do something else specific.

...

Plan more hooks. You have to be ready for your players to go in a weird direction.

>not creating the illusion of choice

>Have you tried talking to them

They said they're doing it to make me learn to improv better. They said it was an "intervention"

I work an actual job for real-person money. I planned a dungeon, not a fucking open world west marches hex crawl

No plan survives the meeting with the players, yet planning is essential. Embrace organic growth between you and your players.

>Why do players think it's okay to intentionally ignore plot hooks

nobody ever wants to feel that they are being controlled.

Create the illusion of choice, dont let them know what the hook is, then the first thing they get invested in leads to the hook.

>I work an actual job for real-person money.
what kind of job user?

Sounds like you have it rough.

Maybe your plot hooks are shit and nobody wants to follow them?

Even if they are shit, pre planned stuff is generally better than the improved stuff.

well you have a choice

>go east
plot hook
>go west
plot hook
>fuck you we're camping here
wake up in the night with plot hook
>we're not goi...
PLOT HOOK

one way to deal with it besides the illusion of choice is to incentivise the players to the main plot hook, make sure that they know that following the main story will lead to the greatest rewards, not just in terms of gear and levels but also other stuff like becoming a noble or learning valuable secrets.

That depends a lot on the players and the GM. If one of the players is a schemer, you get hours of plot development for free.

1. Quantum Ogres.

"Random" or "intermediate" encounters really pad out the session, give powergamers and murderhobos a chance to jack off, and give the party XP and loot.

Whether you go east or west, there's 2d4 ogres guarding [a mountain pass/a bridge/the exit to the grove]. One of them is holding a bedraggled-looking peasant strapped to a stick as an improvised cudgel.

> "Please save me!" he screams.

Roll for initiative.

2. Multiple plot hooks.

Write additional plot hooks. Sometimes east is where shit is going down. Maybe they run into a mysterious traveler who offers to pay them to go west, and is a sign that something is off. Maybe there are unforeseen consequences from running from the quest, that continue to happen until the party addresses the problem or someone else does.

> The storm to the east is intensifying, and the lightning casts an eerie glow across the forest.

3. Just bullshit.

This is the most fun option, but it's not for everyone. I had done minimal prep work, and the Paladin cast a divination spell in a tavern full of orcs and nasty creatures.

> There's a table full of dark elves near the fireplace. They speak in low voices, and something about them doesn't feel right even in this ominous place. You sense a weak aura of Chaos magic around them.
> Player: "Wait, I thought that dark elves were Lawful in this setting."
> I know. It's weird, right?

That particular exchange kicked off three sessions of material that was pulled from somewhere deep inside my ass, and ended with the Paladin getting transformed into a giant ape and drowning a demonic drake in a lava flow.

you need to reverse psychology your players.

>hello travelers, would help us with a goblin infestation, we can pay well.
>no thanks
>yea, you guys dont look up to it.
>fuck you old man, where are those goblins?

>That particular exchange kicked off three sessions of material that was pulled from somewhere deep inside my ass, and ended with the Paladin getting transformed into a giant ape and drowning a demonic drake in a lava flow.

Story time.

You know the deal.

More elegantly, "modularizing".
Make a plot hook module of ambiguous geographical origin that the players wander into.
Re-name the elements as necessary to avoid it being the same exact thing.

They end up where you say they end up. The town is the town you want them to be in. They may have chosen a field over the dungeon, but you still have control over, well, everything. The field is what you say it is. Remember the poppies from the Wizard of Oz? Remember the Swordsward from the Spellsinger books? Don't just let them leave, start marching forth goblins out of that grass. They were too short to be seen in the first place. Drive the players into an escape route, make them enter the dungeon. Make it sound like you were going easy on them by letting them into the dungeon, instead of Deathtrap Meadows. Carrion Crawlers, facehuggers, purple worms, exploding dragon dung mushrooms, evil brownies. "That's right, the grass was full of brownies, not the brownies were full of grass." If all else fails, break out the Dire Cow Vampires. Mistakes are meant to be exciting!

MY GOBLINS ARE TOO POWERFUL FOR YOU TRAVELER

Players do this when playing in a system where they have no meaningful agency in the fiction, like D&D. Rebeling against the rails is the only way for their choices to matter.

You would be surprised how many seemingly system-unrelated problems suddenly stop the moment you play an actual roleplaying game (i.e. with roleplaying mechanics) instead of D&D.

>That particular exchange kicked off three sessions of material that was pulled from somewhere deep inside my ass, and ended with the Paladin getting transformed into a giant ape and drowning a demonic drake in a lava flow.

Oi.

You can't just drop a line like that and not share.

Here's a thought op:

>Quantum/Schrödinger's Plot Hooks

That way, you don't need to fret anymore.

If "I decide to go west" breaks your game you may have some larger issues, user.

Or, you know... bait the hook.
Make it somehow important to the pcs, not just an other 'do quest, get xp, get gold', which is fun but not what they're looking for this time.

Plan less easily derailed hooks.

He's saying that he pulled a deep lava flow from his ass, it smelled like a demon died in it.

>They said it was an "intervention"
Literally kick them out.

And that's how you create a plot hook players will want to follow.

It seems like you expect different things from game. Either seek for common ground, or dont play RPG with them.

If they're your friends, do something different. Maybe LAN party, maybe trip or urbex. If they're just random people you play ttrpg with, find different people. Nothing wrong with that.

>They said they're doing it to make me learn to improv better.
Either they're dicks, or your GMing suck. If former, run. If latter, learn. You've got this, OP!

Either OP's plot hooks are shit or his players are shit. Or both. If they dont enjoy OP's plot hooks, they should tell him and not derail game.

I think its good idea to tell players what kind of campaign you want to play, quite possibly with minor spoilers, so that they can prepare characters interested in plot.

>They said it was an "intervention"
Fuck that, time to bring on the railroad if they wanna play that game

Do you CHOOSE to DM the game? It sounds like your players think you suck at it.

I'm betting that, over the last few sessions/attempts/games, they played out your plot hooks, but any time they tried anything you hadn't directly planned for, it was shit. Probably to the point where they are talking to an NPC, and you couldn't come up with a reasonable name, and just spouted memes.

>They said it was an "intervention"

"That's dandy. You actually don't do that and follow the plothook. Railroading? No, it's an intervention."

>Why do players think it's okay to intentionally ignore plot hooks
Because there are no consequences and it allows them to cherrypick what they want to do. If you want them to take a plot hook, make sure there are repercussions for it. Just use two guidelines:
1. Don't be petty, don't personally punish player characters (like giving them leveling penalties or harder dungeons because they ignored your plot hook)
2. Don't go too far. Make sure that you always keep a back entrance available to return to the plot hook.

Example
>Generic NPC questgiver mayor wants the PCs to help with a goblin infestation
>PCs decide that's not their style/the lewt isn't phat enough and do something else
>They return to find half of the city burned down and the other half barricaded and surrounded by a wooden pallisade
>Questgiver mayor begs them to help them
>PCs ignore you again
>Next time the town is entirely gone, and the goblin infestation has spread to [PC's hometown] where [PC's family] lives
>Are you a bad enough dude to save your own fucking family?
If this doesn't convince them, then they're simply not interested in playing.

>Quantum/Schrödinger's Plot Hooks
Do we assign to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics, or the Many Worlds theory? Are there multiple timelines, one where a certain plot hook was accepted and another where it was rejected? Can we dimension hop between these alternate timelines to collect the phattest lewt?

>Do we assign to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Physics, or the Many Worlds theory? Are there multiple timelines, one where a certain plot hook was accepted and another where it was rejected? Can we dimension hop between these alternate timelines to collect the phattest lewt?
The position of your plot hooks in time and space only exists once you observe them. example.
>alright, I have notes and plans for goblins attacking a caravan and orcs trying to corral worgs that got loose.
>Ok players, which way to you go?
>that way huh? Alright, after about an hour of travelling you.. (roll dice for effect) encounter a caravan, it is being attacked by gobling raiders. what do you do?
this isn't fucking rocket science. Slavishly obeying the "reality" of your setting is gonna give you heartache even when your players will politely jump onto the tracks because you're not Disney.

also what said. Easiest way to get needlessly contrarian players in line is just have everyone treat them like garbage.

>They said they're doing it to make me learn to improv better. They said it was an "intervention"
Find a new group.

Yes, it probably was.

Protip: when 4+ players say you should stop railroading and start listening to them, they are probably right.

protp: 4+ idiots don't magically become right just because they agree with one another.

Well if you're the only one in the room who thinks that you're right, chances are you're either in the wrong group or you're actually wrong.

Are you really crying about this?

Never build Frankensteins, always skeletons.

For most of our sessions, I've been the only player who's been pushing for us to actually do things, while everyone else has been wanting us to do nothing. When I finally gave up, the GM was utterly shocked at this completely obvious turn of events, and as it turns out he only plans for one single eventuality, the whole thing crashed.

What I'm saying is, I know how you feel, but after a certain point it's your own fault for not reading the mood like a functional human being.

>My reaction never

Objectively true.

Because they're not interested in the plot you're hooking them into.

These are good advice, some of the others are, also.

You are not required to improve an entire sandbox campaign if you don't want to.
A game does not belong to the DM or the players, it is everyone's game.

Do the characters have any kind of background or personality? If so, use it.
If not, they might be playing WoW on your time.
Options:
Tell one of them to run a game.
Shelve your dungeon for another day and grab a published module that they say they say are interested in.
This would have made me angry.

A DM needs to be able to improve situations, but doesn't have to put up with jerks.

Briefly describe the characters, and we will probably be able to assess the situation better.

Saying "hey, I planned for you guys to explore the Chamber of Orchiectomy tonight. Why don't we play a boardgame and I'll work up what happens when you wander West for next week" can be a decent last resort approach.

Having the dungeon/ambush/whatever happen wherever the players want to travel works alright too.

The best option though is to invoke past adventures and the characters' backstories to get the players interests. A peddler swears they saw the BBEG on their way to the ruins. A child is missing from the orphanage where one of the players grew up. That sort of thing.

>We're going West this week!
>But all roads lead to Rome.
Everyone's situation is different, but I usually only plan out basic scenario details, character motivations, and a few set pieces.
Players wander around doing whatever the hell they feel like, but what they feel like doing always winds up being what I planned. It's a matter of reading the table, seeing what the players are doing, and finding the best way to get them involved.
If you listen to Veeky Forums, everything secretly being on rails makes me a terrible GM/That Guy/Railroading Faggot, but like you said, you have a job/life, you can't plan for every possible situation that may arise.
Also, I've been in a game where everything was truly improvised and everything we encountered was rolled for off a chart-- It was truly the most boring game I ever played. Holy shit was that bad.

>Holy shit was that bad.

Curious why exactly it was bad. Was it because there was no continuity to any of the encounters?

Honestly I work full time job and an extra job while DMing. It is harsh but to keep away from railroading I ask my players a week in advance what they want to do. I generally have some quickly made up tiny ideas that after I have the vote I decide how it all fits then pick out some characters motives and what enemies are probably close by. I know one day I hunted to a nation up north as a fake noble seal and the party nearly went North away from everything, but I prepared myself and figured out how it could fit in, I was almost sad that one player told them how silly it was to just go to a far north nation because it sounded cool

I would like your finest goblins, quest-seller.

>planning an obvious plot hook
>not planning a skeleton plot and having the players fill in the blanks

Remember, THEY don't know what you had planned. Not unless you played your hand too heavily.
So what if the plot hook was going to eventually end up in spoopy skelly pirates? How will the players know that going east will make them encounter a spoopy secret pirate cover?
Or that going west will make them encounter a spoopy pirate underground lake?
Or that...

If the players keep going far enough down the hook to know what's happening, then keep rejecting it, those players are assholes.

not that poster, but there's no continuity and no motivation to do anything. Random overworld encounters are usually boring because there's no reason for this fight to even happen. At best it's just there as a resource drain

Do your best to make the improvisational story entertaining, but ultimately fruitless. Minimal GP and XP gain, make their character growth noticeably slow to a crawl.
Tough adventure shit doesn't just happen, they have to sniff it out. Sometimes when you "feel like going west" it turns out that there's barely fucking anything out west.
The illusion of choice is always the most palatable solution though.

>Negging the players to get them to take bait
Fuck that's honestly good advice.

>Why do players think it's okay to intentionally ignore plot hooks
Because it is?

Maybe you need to get better at crafting your plots if they're regularly getting ignored.

>All evil campaign
>Setting has all evil races like Drow and Orcs domesticated in an authoritarian society comprised of various cities
>Party are just some outcasts that live in the wasteland between cities
>We go into a city to look for someone willing to deliver food to us regularly in exchange for gold
>A drow elf suspected of being evil is about to be executed in public
>The party being full of evil, selfish fucks, no one feels the desire to save her
>GM just ind of improvises a section inside a train caravan's headquarters where we try to wheel and deal with people, while some of us look for caravan schedules for us to loot if it goes south
>After the game the DM tells me the entire plot of the campaign hinged on the character we let get killed, and now he has to figure something else out

Why do DM's do this? Why have the whole story hinge on something the party isn't obligated to deal with? He did a good job of catering to our evil whims, tho.

Actually the best advice in the thread

So any reason they expected an evil party to suddenly play hero? Should have baited that hook with the drow having knowledge of some huge treasure or whatever

> I think its good idea to tell players what kind of campaign you want to play, quite possibly with minor spoilers, so that they can prepare characters interested in plot.

I've had a lot of DM's get me real excited with their setting and I put a lot of effort into a character with flavor. Even Joe McSwordandShield Fighter I give motivations, hopes, dreams. Then my DM actaully just railroads us along never acknowledging any of the players motivations or personal goals and catering to the inevitable 1-2 Murderhobos in the group. Every time. Dozens of Campaigns. maybe have had 2 that work well. Why I don't play TTG at all anymore.

Because you plot hooks suck, your story sucks, and your players are letting you know that by rebelling.

Git gud or get over yourself.

Intervene them right out the fucking door.

Craft more enticing hooks, or just deal with the fact that some hooks will be ignored.

Sounds like you do need to work on your improv.

Or just admit to them that improvisational DMing isn't your thing, and let one of them DM if that's the game they want to play.

I was going to say something about overthinking, but it sounds like your players are cunts.

We have a very "off script" group. They seem to try to actively ignore the DM's hooks. I'm best friends with the DM and I tend to talk to the players 1 on 1 when we're playing other games to figure out what they're thinking and let the DM know. As such every time one of our lolrandumb PCs has a ridiculous idea, the DM magically has already planned for it.

Instead of Improv, time to try the Broken Bridge and Level Capped world.

The way is blocked, travel is closed, your empire will not let you leave, their empire will not let you enter, the bridge has literally been burned, and the only way arround is combination of sheer cliffed frozen burning jungle Tarrasque country.

But maybe if you complete this quest you can get the bridge repaired. No no, don't try fixing it, yourselves, they will shoot fire arrows at you and burn it again. Did you miss the bit with the empires? You need to convince at least one side to stop shooting fire arrows and possibly stop the other side from doing it. And right now, who the fuck are you to them?

You want through, you earn it. Go east, solve problem, or why risk so much blood for you?

Yeah, he just kind of said "Ok, you're at your base which has these three NPC's. One says you need food. There's a bandit camp two days to the south, and a town one day west."

I guess he wanted us to think "Oh, we could use more allies" and save her, but that's not how my character does things, so I didn't think about it.

He's a first time DM, so I'm not going to be too hard on him. I'll probably see how tonight's session goes and give him a few pointers. He's made a very ambitious setting, from stuff he's told me beforehand.

>Monster Manuel's Slightly Used Goblin Emporium
>For all your dungeon infestation needs

This is good advice.
Also, just start the encounter with something annoying or insulting.
>the Thief has stolen your horses from the stable.
>He took the time to carve "You'll have to find new horses to fuck, horse fuckers. These ones are mine. :P" in the wood of the stall.

Or just dump them in the situation and they have to figure it out themselves.
>A young girl covered in blood runs screaming from a nearby house.
>Three angry armed men follow her.
>She ducks behind [x party member], burying her face in their skirts.
>Please don't let them hurt me anymore!, she cries.

Give them a reason to hang out near the goalpoint.
I used to have wandering PC issues until I started adding comedy NPCs and minor quests to every hub town.
It gives them something to do in between major missions and makes them feel like they have more control over what they do without them having to go anywhere.
Other than that moving the goalpost is usually a good idea when they decide to fuck off in the wrong direction.

They are probably inexperienced and don't even realize what they're doing. I noticed this was something even I had a problem with early on; I wasn't familiar enough with the way these games are managed and so I didn't realize I was doing anything wrong when I was "ignoring plothooks" or just generally making the GM's job a pain in the ass. I got a lot better about this when I started DMing myself, and learned first hand how hard it is to herd the feral cats that comprise most player groups. It's difficult to really do this for everyone, but try rotating GM duty once in a while. Players will realize what a difficult job it can be, and not only more willing to cooperate, but more able to recognize whether they're being constructive to the campaign or making a mess of it.

Sounds like a decent idea.

Make the journey colorful enough so the only people jumping over the edges are the ones who didn't want to play to begin with.

>If your goblin comes mangled, maimed, or otherwise unfit for duty, you can return it at no charge!

This is an idea too, but that sort of includes the "build more plot hooks" idea.

You have a bunch of solutions.
1: Quantum hooks. Every hook leads to the same thing, they're going to bite eventually.
2. Hooks with consequences. When the players ignore the hook, it comes back to bite 'em in the ass. Congrats, while you were fucking around the necromancer completed his ritual and now undead are destroying the town where your HQ is located. So hurry the fuck up and don't mess up again.
3. Player-driven sandbox campaign. Don't prep shit and base everything on what your PCs are doing.
4. OOC talk. "Hey guys, you've spend two sessions planning a trip to the Darklands of Evilbad. I had a whole kickass dungeon planned there. I'd rather you don't suddenly go west to explore Whatever Plains, because I'll have to throw it out. It's not fun for me, plus you keep doing that sort of thing."

Just put all yo shit in the west.

See your problem is you're and idiot
>4. OOC talk. "Hey guys, you've spend two sessions planning a trip to the Darklands of Evilbad. I had a whole kickass dungeon planned there. I'd rather you don't suddenly go west to explore Whatever Plains, because I'll have to throw it out. It's not fun for me, plus you keep doing that sort of thing."
Or you can just not mention it at all and just put the dungeon into the Whatever Plains and refluff it.

A billion smokers can't be wrong!

Well if you're the only one bothered by the smell of cigarettes then maybe you'd be better off leaving than trying to get them to stop smoking. The same applies if you're the only one smoking in the room and everyone else is giving you dirty looks while you puff up in their living room.

Your suggestion is literally the first solution he listed, so I'm not sure why you're complaining.

I was in a situation like this one, years ago. A player would go out of his way to derail the story and go in random directions. No reason for it, he just wanted to fuck with the dm.

Later he convinced the group to let him DM a game. He was the most controlling, insane, CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS dm i have ever had the misfortune of playing under. Try to do anything not in his plot, he would just straight up kill your character. He, several times, ignored game mechanics to force through his plot.

So my thought is the people that get off on ignoring plot hooks are all trying to prove their superiority and bolster their (lacking) self worth. They're all like 'See? If I was DM I'd never let this shit fly, because i'm a great DM and this guy isn't.'

Man, I don't get this at all. I mean, I get wanting to feel player agency, but personally I'm really excited to see what my DM has in store for my group. Dude's got a lot of intricacies already laid out that will make things really interesting going forward, and just saying "Fuck that, go west" seems dumb.

>The same applies if you're the only one smoking in the room and everyone else is giving you dirty looks while you puff up in their living room.

Last time someone did this, I just broke their vaper.

In my defense, he had been told multiple times by the rest of the group to stop because we don't like the smell of it.

>He took the time to carve "You'll have to find new horses to fuck, horse fuckers. These ones are mine. :P" in the wood of the stall.
Thanks user, made me laugh.

Tell them to DM instead.

>A player would go out of his way to derail the story and go in random directions. No reason for it, he just wanted to fuck with the dm.

I had to deal with a single player like this, but he also had the misfortune of not knowing basic facts about the campaign that were mentioned multiple times. Like the time he tried to take a sailboat far out of the mainland (to go on "le epick random adventure xD" you see) and fell off the edge of the earth and died.

We had been playing in the campaign for months and the fact that the world was currently flat was common knowledge that got repeated multiple times.

It's even funnier when these people try to rally the rest of the group about "Wow instant kill CHOO CHOO, what a fucking shit DM amirite guys?" and just get blank stares because everyone else thinks he's being a fucking idiot.

>In my defense, he had been told multiple times by the rest of the group to stop because we don't like the smell of it.
You could've just, y'know, just told him not to come back. Vapers are expensive and if he wanted to, he could've taken you to small claims over the damage to his property.

Then make it have consequences.

You didn't follow the lead you saw? Well no-one else is going to save this place, so you're going to have to deal with the fallout later.

but the guy realized he was acting like a complete dick so he didn't make a big fuzz about it and bought a new one.

I'm just saying man, some people are petty enough to take you to court over a few hundred bucks of property damage.

Good to hear he stopped being a faggot about it though, so cheers on that.

and "some people" are crazy enough to storm into your session and axemurder the whole group, does that mean you shouldn't throw anyone out?
eh, the guy learned his lession. Finding someone new can be tiring.

So they head west and they find the plot.

We told him to stop multiple times. He refused, so we made it stop being a problem. How expensive vapers are isn't my problem.

Predictably he threw a tantrum and left, never coming back. Not for lack of trying anyways. He got kicked out of three other groups for the same thing and tried to come back to us a few times. We just shut the door in his face every time.

>They said they're doing it to make me learn to improv better.

Next time kill their characters to make them learn to make better characters that don't ignore plothooks.

Nope they're explicitly doing it on purpose

Now I want to know which of these stories is the real one.

Let me clear it up then.

You probably didn't have to break his device like a child, surely you could have come up with a more mature way to get him to leave?
If he threw tantrums he should have been right at home in your group by the sounds of it.

We gave him multiple warnings. If he doesn't take them seriously, not my problem. He was also the only one who cared incidentally.

Maybe it'll teach him not to use it when people say not to. If he can find another group that is, since most of the ones in town kicked him out for the vaping problem.