The COUNTERINTUITIVE SOLUTION when players IGNORE PLOT HOOKS in Dungeons & Dragons 

𝗛𝗨𝗠𝗕𝗟𝗘𝗪𝗢𝗢𝗗 𝗧𝗔𝗟𝗘𝗦 𝗢𝗡 𝗞𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧𝗘𝗥 ▶▶ dm.humblewoodtales.com/ 𝗕𝗘𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗔 𝗗𝗠 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗣𝗔𝗧𝗥𝗢𝗡- Get Lair Magazine (5e adventures, VTT maps, puzzles, traps, new monsters, and more), play D&D with me, and other perks ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair 𝗟𝗔𝗜𝗥 𝗖𝗢𝗡 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟮 October 7, 8, and 9 in Pensacola, Florida ▶▶ www.thedmlair.com/lair-con/

I would also recommend stepping out of “game mode” and talking to them directly about why they aren’t taking the plot hooks. Are they just disinterested in the type of adventure you are offering? Did they just totally miss the plot hook? I’m often amazed by how something that seems obvious to me as a gm can be totally missed by the players.

I tried my best with making the quentissential Cult in a small town because 4/5 were newer players. Bright colors. Yelled at people(including the party) about their world altering goal. Tried to even kill the party and they found their lair. They left the first room of the lair and said "this isn't our problem". So the Cult went ahead with their plans, destroyed a town, flooded the nearby river and caused chaos. This created a new adventure and they journied to stop further destruction

I have a similar but different solution. "Okay, so you're not taking any plot hooks? Gotcha. You spend the rest of the day doing bugger-all, achieving nothing and being bored out of your skull! Erase some rations or costs of accomodations for the day, the next day begins. What do you do?" I only used this trick once, but players quickly begged me to rewind it, whined that they just didn't know what to do and suddenly started brainstorming and finally picked a quest to follow.

I actually had a DM who gave up on making his own stuff. He just used pre-written adventures and tailored them to his game world because he was tired of the players not wanting to do the plot hooks that he had developed. Instead, whenever we were about to finish a plot hook, he'd email us with 20 "plot hooks" which were copy/pasted directly from an adventure and he'd tell us "Pick 3 of these." Then any of them that overlapped, that's the next one we did. If there were multiples, then organically we'd be given a choice which one we'd go towards because we chose them, so we better go do them. If none of them overlapped, which only happened once, he'd take the ones we chose and have us pick another three, and go from there.

"Stare at them" Is the single greatest piece of DM advice I've ever heard 😂

People complain about railroading but having a thousand options is the same situation as having over 2,000 TV channels but having nothing to watch. That is also a problem too.

Stare at them lol. My players have the problem of picking the most insane plot hooks that I didn't create. For instance they decided to rob a temple of their holy symbols and tried to ask the God of that temple for a new bow for the ranger instead of just buying one. Needless to say they did not end up with a new bow and some divine annoyance has ensued

Opening line. Perfection. solved my biggest session one problem with my current party when we started about three years ago. I kinda felt bored myself and they’re both vets. After the fourth hook they dropped I just got frustrated and stared at the screen silently and mildly shifting til one of them came up with something from his background. Goddam! Now they’re reaching the dragon slaying/god defying/nation building goals they went for.

I haven't roleplayed in years but I am amazed that some DMsfeel such a feeling of responsibility for solving these session 'problems' like this one. It's a COLLABORATIVE game. When did it becomes one guy/gals JOB(!?) to deal with this stuff. Totally agree with you Luke. The group makes the game and the whole group needs to contribute to working that out.

Genuinely good advice. It worked like a charm. My players are now more active in the game. Thanks, Luke.

I used to be that plot-hook ignorer. My brooding edge-lord dark loner characters sat around waiting to be motivated by personal, character-specific revenge stories. When I recently got back into dnd I had to consciously decide to make all my characters with some element of either wanderlust, curiosity, daredevil-ism, lust for research or knowledge, or any other thing that would cause my character to say 'yes' to just about any plot hook. Maybe that's part of the problem, people might be making characters and there so into RPing their motivations that every hook they bite has to be something personal.

Had a session last week where the party ignored the first plot hook, killed the second, and proceeded to eat the last one.( This one left me speechless) Have the next session tonight, and they still have not given me anything over the last week. I wish we were playing in person, cause just staring them down sounds like the perfect solution

The emotion in your "role-play" of that screeamed "this has happened to me ten thousand time"

My last campaign I ran fell apart because my players were not biting into any plot hooks for the last few sessions. After the last session, I discussed with my players about why they were not going along with the many hooks I had prepared. Their reasoning was that their characters had no personal incentive to go on the adventures, and therefore would ignore them as if they weren't there. "That's what their characters would do." I explained that the campaign would be more enjoyable for everyone if they went along with the plot hooks, but they didn't want to play that way; they only wanted hooks that involved a strong, personal connections with their characters. This made me realize that explaining DM styles and campaign organization and types during session zero is crucial for players and the DM to have fun throughout the campaign. I had not clarified this in my session zero for this campaign, but I will for my future campaigns.

A few games where all they can find to do is sweep out the inn's cobwebs or muck out the stalls in the stables tend to get them thinking that "hey, remember that plot hook from a couple of games ago? maybe we should check that out." With nothing else to do, it doesn't take long before they're ready to actually play the game. You can also create the tropey "job board" if they need stuff spelled out for them and load that with your hook options. If they know that these are their options, period, they'll be more likely to bite on a hook. Or develop breadcrumbs that lead them to the hooks or even create urgency to complete the hook by having the reward be something they're really wanting or having impossible-to-ignore events occur that lead to the hook. Develop consequences if they don't bite - maybe they hear word that the wizard you were trying to get them to go confront just got ahold of the item they've been after that WOULD have been their reward if they'd done the thing. Whatever. There's options here. When you have a plot, you have to drive reluctant characters to the plot points somehow. It's not really railroading if you make that journey interesting and fun, it's just the nature of the game.

Another option is to throw encounters at the players that the only way to ignore is to flee from. They are allowed to long rest when they accept a plot hook, the encounters will continue until they are dead or pursuing a plot hook

"Help me help you". I have really never experienced this problem in all my years as DM. Usually it is a case of the party not agreeing on which plot hook to pursue next.

I just want you to know that I love that you have a little cat-cam and your cats are AWESOME

I had a campaign where we had been playing a while. There were a couple of open plot threads and the players essentially said "We have no reason to do either of these things". I thought about it, shrugged, and said "Okay, well ... campaign's over then." ... not in a "I'm taking my toys and going home" style huff. Sometimes it's just a good time to end a campaign, and that seemed like it.

Stair at them with the “sharks with fricken laser beams on their eyes” look. 🤣

Oh snap, more Humblewood is coming out? Awesome. I still use Vulpin and Mapach in almost all my campaigns since WotC has been so stingy on beastfolk races.

Haha, awesome rants 😎 An easy cheat is to have 2-5 hooks in mind, start the session with a recap of where the party is and then open it up to them. Gives you a solid baseline and them the illusion of complete open world. Easiest game of scrabble you'll ever GM 😉

Ah, the old "angry dad" approach to DM'ing. A classic.

I had one remaining level-appropriate mission for my players. I gave them multiple plot hooks for it, including tying in one of their character’s background to it. But they kept pushing the town NPCs for the higher level missions until I ran out of believable reasons for not letting them try one. Now I just have to figure out the consequences of not doing the mission. Some resources will not make it into town as the monsters will be able to continue raiding shipping lanes, but also the town might hire another group of adventurers to clear the mission, taken the loot and severely complicating resolution of one character’s background story, as the other adventuring group now has what he seeks.

The only caveat I will put forth to this is that most of my plothooks come with stratified set of pass/fail conditions based on how well, or poorly players do and refusing the plothook just incurs an immediate moderate/severe fail condition. The idea being that if my players don't want to happen to the world then the world, in absence of the heroes of prophecy that I've their characters up to be, will happen to my players.

I ran a campaign that was like a confrontation of 2 large factions and the players get involved in one way or another, so, they started off as a trucker and his friend, they were on a job, got attacked by the receivers over a misunderstanding, became criminals, there was some like basically magic item level loot for early game players, pretty rare and OP, but I was like, if they are confrontational and go to hunt the faction, they'll need this, it was a virus that gave them special powers, and then, they leave the place they were attacked at, thinking about what to do, both fail the check to know what this is, and decide to throw it out, okay, they basically threw away a plot hook and an op item, but I'm full on brainstorming what to do, I throw a random encounter type thing at them where they're attacked by raiders, but the raiders (who work for the bad guy faction and want to arrest/kill them) are killed by an eccentric figure, working for another faction, that want to destroy the bad guy faction, and what they do is send him away (second plot hook disregarded) and just tell him where the virus is, he curses them out and I'm sitting here with 0 ideas for a third plot hook, also since it's an internet game where we just play whenever all players of the group and the GM are online, I run sessions around 3 am. Do any of you guys have tips on what to do? I don't want to just sit back and watch them do whatever, or throw another raider at them.

As long as you are putting multiple plot hooks out there at a time, and they are not following up on any of them, then you definitely need to just pause the game and point out what they are doing and let them know how that is affecting the game and your prep work. I know, as someone that has been on both sided of the screen, that sometimes a player gets so immersed in their character, they may not see the plot hooks as relevant. It's not always as obvious to a player as the DM may think. While this may not be true for the whole group, it only takes one player to grab onto a plot hook to get the story moving in most cases.

Watching this after completing my "1d100 adventure hooks" for my campaign...

"You gotta work with me here." Great advice. As I have said before, much of this is about trust. If there are 3+ (or 10+) plots hooks, and the players don't like any of them, there is a "trust of the DM" issue. The players do NOT trust the DM to make a good adventure for any of the plot hooks. This not about the usual crutch, excuse: "My character would not do that," this is about trusting the DM to have a good game, and the players want to be pleased *before* the adventure starts. I've seen this before. Every time we dug into this, they players didn't trust the DM to have a good adventure, and blamed his in game presentation and the hook as not exciting and enticing enough.

The west marches style game is a good answer to this problem. The players figure out what they want to go do, which of them are going to do this thing and when they can all meet to to do it. Then they give all this information to the DM to create the content for them. I run a hybrid style, where I ask what they plan to do next session. If they don't give me answer then I decide what their doing, it's that simple. The options I prepare in the latter case are based on my available time to prep.

Players like that probably don't understand what a DnD game is.

How about ask them what has happened over the last few sessions then hum and harr until they start guessing before deciding which one you'll decide to appear correct before getting them back on route to the next game. Be interesting to see what else they come up with that you can use to coax them onto the next stage...

I think, if your players are snubbing your plot hooks, you need to reexamine your plot hooks. It is common for a plot hook to fly over the head of a party. It is common for one or even two players in a party to not be interested in a plot hook. But if between 3 and 5 players (more if you are insane) stub a plot hook, your plot hook is not as good as you think it is. And yes, players have to input some effort to make a game work. But as a gamemaster you have the responsibility of creating plot hooks that the majority of players enjoy. Start with this. If the party doesn't want to follow the main plot. That sounds like a good chance for character development. Pick a character, it doesn't matter which, and drop a little nugget from their backstory. It doesn't have to be an entire adventure, though I can promise you that your players are more than capable enough to turn it into that on their own. In the meantime, let the characters interact with each other. the world, and the NPCs and while they are doing that, start looking for opportunities to drop interesting details about the main plot. Now, what you drop into the game might not interest them. But that Is fine, your plot isn't important, and something as simple as mentioning that "this thing is happening" at the very least provides a backdrop for what the characters are doing. I know that might sound wrong but it is true. Your plot only serves as a guidepost, and just like a guidepost you and your players can pass right by it without ever interacting with it. Your characters are still characters regardless of if they follow the plot or not. An unresolved plot is still a plot regardless of what those characters do. So what if the BBEG steals the power of the god of death while your characters are visiting Bob the fighter's childhood home to resolve a trade dispute between grub farmers? How does that change the world? Arguably it makes the world more interesting. One of the problems you might find in examining your plot hooks is that you are not giving the characters stakes in the plot. It is one thing to walk into a town and pick up a quest to deal with a werewolf. But it is an entirely separate thing to walk into a town beset by nightly werewolf attacks, and have to barricade yourself into a long house on the first night to avoid getting turned into a chew toy. One of them has stakes, the other doesn't. If your players snub the plot hook once they have actual stakes in the plot that is fine too! They leave the town the next morning and head off looking for more adventure. So now there is a werewolf on the loose? Great. Maybe have the werewolf start hunting the characters, never actually attacking, but always there, stalking, waiting for the right moment to strike. Maybe if a character gets cursed it will be interesting. Bottom line, a gamemaster should never just "pack up and go home" if the players snub the adventure. The game is not about them, it's not about their plots. It's about having fun.

Perfect... I love it! “Stare at them!”

"Days pass. As your characters get bored and lazy they grow rusty. As a result they will roll disadvantage on every check for the first day of their next adventure." Reintroduce Plot hook "As even more days pass they suffer a temporary hit if 2 points to any ability for their first day of the next adventure" Reintroduce Plot hook "A month passes and you are forced to live off of your savings. Let's roll to see what percentage of your gold you sank through" Reintroduce Plot hook

I think that question hit a little too close to home lol

I do one, if they don't take it, i let them wander. And they've realised its better to not ignoring plots

It has to be a 2 way street with players cooperating with the DM to make the game work well.

Not taking plot hooks? Indecisive about what to do? Won't create their own plot hooks? All aboard the choo choo, you all going for a ride!!!

Honestly this is why if you DM/GM you need to talk to your players, let them know what's wrong. This will work only in a senario, where the players obviously know that there are plot hooks, alot of times I have this problem as a player, where we don't know where to go, and end game dm recaps it and list plot hooks we missed, my entire party goes waaaait what. Like make sure it's clearly communicate in game what the hook is, sometimes players will completely miss it and your staring at them, while they're going, Whaaaa?

Love the video, but could of been a RU-vid short. You summed it up in the first 10 seconds! lol love it

this was me dming for my ex and her kids. they literally would do nothing, then blame me for not having anything to do...

Note that Luke didn't even suggest that the DM could do anything wrong.

tfw I accidentally created two heavy hooks for the rogue and the druid because I didn't prepare the zone they were going to enough (They would had been hooked on purpose otherwise lol)

I just have plot hooks happen and consequences happen. If the players don't deal with the orcs. Some orcs show up to cause trouble. This keeps happening until the players go to the Orc camp.

The point beyond the game is to get together and have fun. I thought. Don't sound like you have fun when your pc get indecisive or don't follow your hooks. It can happen not a good reason to not keep ball rolling for sake of the gathering an having fun. Just roll them dice🤷 Sadly sounds like a little bit of dm burn out to me😥 Are you ok?

Drop a fireball on the local shop that .... used to.... carry healing potions. Lets see them ignore that plot hook.

Hell yeah, that's interesting! I'm gonna watch it right now 😉😉

For us DMs, it can be frustrating when our players ignore our plot hooks. Deliberately or not. When my players ignore my plot hooks, I’ll say to them “hey, guys! Why are you ignoring my plot hooks? What’s going on? Work with me here! Tell me why you keep ignoring my plot hooks”. The best thing you can do is talk to your players and try to find out why they ignore your plot hooks. Do they not like the plot hooks? Do they think they’re too boring? Are you being too subtle with your plot hooks? These are all things you should take into consideration when talking to your players. Also, as DMs, we spend a lot of time planning adventures for each game session and what may seem like an obvious plot hook to us may not seem so obvious to our players. When we talk to our players, we should be as non-confrontational as possible

Having something occur from a player's background (you did ask for player backgrounds, right?) should generate some interest.

At the very least; ask them what tf they would find enjoying if they keep ignoring your plot hooks

Luckily I have not had this problem with my groups

You fail every quest you don't embark on. The cult summons the demon and wreaks havoc, the dragon burninates village after village, the necromancer's army of undead continues to grow and spread across the kingdom, the good king gets assassinated and replaced by the tyrant brother, and the layabout heroes that quickly earn a reputation of drinking themselves under the table will quickly become the most unpopular people in your world. Each one of these quests is a problem to solve that is quite manageable if solved early on. If ignored, however, the problem becomes much more difficult, dangerous and expensive to deal with, and the problem comes looking for them (either directly showing up on their doorstep or by removing something they care about from the game). Without the support of merchants, taverns, guards, or any NPCs they'll find themselves facing these massive problems alone. If they still haven't figured it out then they deserve the inevitable TPK. If they want to roll new characters then you give them a mandatory character trait that each PC WANTS to be a hero this time (and spend some time talking about what that means).

Frustrating but I'd prefer psychology. Roll a d20 behind your screen. Studiously look up the result. Sit back satisfied you understand the result, and look back at your players. If they still make no decision make sure to clarify *exactly* where each player is positioned and what they are doing. Then repeat charade of rolling the d20. There's only so long before paranoia pushes them into action. Variations including asking for perception or investigation checks.

Ahh yes, the 15 mins of dead air generated by an unsolicited staring contest is the ultimate tpk...on a side note, how do you even have the focus to even do your streams when you have an army of cute kitties to distract you?

I think you might have missed the Mark here. The player group doesn't seem to be the type that clings onto organic plot hooks. They may just do better being told what to do for a while. Have a patron that says go do this for me the patron could be an organization or a specific person. They may actually do well being their own little mercenary company with the meta of a larger company doling out contracts. That's just my two cents. Not everybody is a active player like that, and some people need to learn to become like that. But just leaning back in your chair and lecturing them sounds a little smug.

Maybe it was not a good plot hook? If everyone tells the party not to go to the Cave of Inevitable Death, can you really blame them if they don't go?

Yes, but: Have you considered taking your players outside? And beating them?

"Are we going play D&D or are we playing UNO?" DM shuffles the UNO deck.

I always remind my players: "You are the Heroes of this story. When a hero receives the Call to Action they leap at opportunity to BE HEROIC!"

Someone give that DM a snack ! Jk jk when I have been lost as to how to advance the story I would talk to NPCs and do class like stuff. Like heal the sick as a Cleric or something untill we figure it out. Luckily our DM has always given us at least some solid clues. Good stuff !

I love bacon 🥓 but I love more your videos.

Luke had a chance to say ALL the things he's thought to himself when he's been in that position before. lol

Last time I was in this situation, well I have not talked to any of them in quite a while now. >.

All the kitties gather 😻

In my experience from talking to others and n owing the kind of people that do this. It's people that don't really even want to play D&D. It's yard to explain. They basically wanna show up and roleplay the entire session and walk around town just screwing around. They don't wanna do anything that isn't something they SPECIFICALLY are interested in. They just want a sandbox to hang out in.

Love it!

Stare at them

If the party is not willing to follow a plot hook then why are they plying DnD? Everyone who plays DnD is there to play the game. Ignoring plot hooks is not playing the game, it is wasting everyone’s time. Players who continuously ignore plot hooks should not be invited back to play the game.

Just throw a TPK at them and ask if they'd rather go do a plot hook when they're all dead.

IMO, PCs who choose to do nothing are inviting the DM to decide for them. If they don't bite the hooks, then it's time for the DM to just cast a big ol' net right on top of them. Whatever crazy story arc the DM has always wanted to do, now is the time! You hear that "choo choo" sound? That's the DM's rail roady run-away freight train headed right for the PCs! Cast all previous plots and schemes aside, go off-script and just have a ball. Did the PCs do something to break the law in the past, or does the party "coincidentally" resembles wanted criminals? I think there are bounty hunter's looking for the PCs! Do they have a valuable magic item or three? It sounds like some thieves and / or assassins might suddenly show up to liberate the loot from the PCs! Have you always wanted to burn down the city with an ancient red dragon? I think I hear big flappy wings coming closer! Have you ever wondered how long they would last fighting the zombie apocalypse? Patient zero is sitting next to them at the bar! Now, the reality is almost certainly that the players are not enjoying whatever story and hooks the DM is giving them, but they don't know what to do about it. And they may not know enough about the world or their PCs to just pull a background story arc or side-quest for Raistlin's staff out of their butt. So it's up to the DM. Don't just stare at the them. You're a story weaving master of worlds and destinies! Make the magic happen!

Been here before.

I'm sorry but I get so frustrated lately with his lackluster advice. I know this is recorded live so I can't really blame him too much but still. 1. Go over the players options again. They might have missed something, they probably aren't ignoring everything just to be jerks. 2. If these are new or misinformed players, remind them that D&D is a *role playing* game. Ask them what their characters would do. Did they create characters that would be particularly upset or motivated to solve any of the plot hooks in particular because it reminds them of something in their backstory or has to do with their race or home area. 3. Talk to your players about if they even like this type of campaign or what they are looking to get out of the sessions.

At some point I stopped staring them down and just went for TPK adventures. Especially when they started complaining that they felt like they were missing things or people were keeping an inordinate amount of secrets from the group when the point was for players to interact with each other and not just the DM. They had all the moving pieces but never worked together to figure things out - even with me saying, "you have all the pieces you need to solve this problem"... That's when I realized I needed a break from DM'ng and to step away from D&D in any capacity of play as possible.

They ignore all plot hooks, take away the bacon. Good players will want the bacon.

Tpk and get a new group

won't take the plot hooks? guess you don't get to do anything but suffer my random encounter tables~ until you do

Less is more.

I just ask them what they want to do and roll with it lol. They don't have to bite a plot hook, they can do whatever they want. Honestly my favorite players are the ones where I don't ever make plot hooks. Please Be Ambitious 😋