do you usually build-in plot hooks in impromptu RPG sessions?

[ed]

saturday, the mrs and i were home. we alreayd knew we were going to spend the day in and were trying to figure out what we wanted to do.

so i turned to her and said, "hunny, i'd like to game."

she rolled her eyes. yeah, she games sometimes but it isn't usually one of her favorite things to do. so she said, "well...OK...do you wanna run, or do you want me to? and what game?"

i thought quickly. running a game is more work than playing it of course. i had a setting all ready to roll for D&D that i keep on hand for just such contingencies.

"i'll run, you give me a D&D3.5 character. anything in the PHB."

4 hours later, we concluded a self-contained adventure. she played a human clr 4 and wisely ran from the owlbear (those things are brutal!), but otherwise, it was a very satisfying session, esp b/c she's always been anxious about running a spellcaster. she used her spells to good effect, though, and turned quite a lot of undead (good rolling on those turn checks!).

what's weird of course is that i built in plot hooks for future sessions. it wasn't something i thought about consciously: it just happened.

when you guys run an impromptu session, do you guys ever build-in plot hooks? if so, is it a conscious choice or does it just happen?

ed

[Cranky Dog]

I always have more plothooks that adventures.

Last year, I asked the board for some rumors that I could adapt to my game. In our particular game context, all of them were true so it gave us more opportunities that we'd ever imagine. There was no meta-story, just lots of stuff to do. It's fun to realize that a D&D campaign does not have to have a world destroying evil that the characters have to beat. Mine were content with taking over the city in their spare time by getting elected.

The rest of the time, I have to devise some plots to link different pre-gened adventures.


Cranky Dog
"I have a plot building opinion, international!"

[Parzival]

I run pretty free-form. So I always throw out lots of hooks.
Once the players bite on a couple, I can start tying things together for them.

[Grendel]

I don't waste time on future plot hooks in a one-shot adventure. But that doesn't mean they won't come up naturally during the course of game play.

[Wook]

I run pretty free-form. So I always throw out lots of hooks.
Once the players bite on a couple, I can start tying things together for them.

Ditto. .

[Lost Soul]

Actually... despite having gamed for the last 15 years (damn - that long?) this never really came up. I've run random dungeons with barely a page of story to link them in grade school, overly dramatized (and railroaded :) ) epics in high school, and one fairly coherent set of campaigns in which there were plot hooks to pick up, but ultimately only from one adventure to the next. Coming back to pick up a plot hook left five adventures ago wouldn't have worked very well.

The evil campaign I'm running at the moment will pick up on the bits and pieces left by our round-robin DMing (after all, it's a continuation of the same campaign) but other than that... it will have to wait until next campaign. :)

[Detritus]

What are these "impromptu RPG sessions" of which you speak?

[Origen]

Hooks are something that a player bites into, and gets dragged along or follows. I don't think that accurately describes what I do. In the organic process of cooperative storytelling, possibilities emerge through interaction and conflict. Sometimes it's my idea. Sometimes a player comes up with something I never anticipated.

[JasonStarfire]

If I'm running an impromptu session that is part of an ongoing campaign, I always throw in plot hooks (or create plot hooks based on the players' actions). I don't even bother remembering what some of them are, unless the players bite. Then I run with that plot until I drive it into the ground... er... I mean until it's come to a nice resolution, and then I repeat the process.

I even throw in random plot hooks into one shot games if I really have nothing else to go on. Some pretty memorable sessions (that I can't remember at the moment XD) have started out this way.

[Baelfyre]

Always. Plot complications, twists, and turns are the lifeblood of keeping campaigns fresh.

[nermal2097]

My own experience would be a mix of free form GM style leading to hooks naturally turning up to players adding their own things over the course of the game. Like Parz most of my games tend to be freeform in the details of day to day adventuring but with a general thread holding the campaign together (ie Crusading Elves versus Islamic Dwarves leading to a Zulu like adventure in which the Dwarven PCs defend a farmstead from a thousand Elven warriors)

[Kalzazz]

Eh, I try to, but sometimes its more after the fact

As in, when it comes time to think up the next adventure I wind up thinking back to past adventures to see if anything that spurs idea for the next one

Sometimes players come up with adventure ideas all on there own to continue past adventures

ie
Mission objective, rescue Miss Butterfly Princess (a papillon) from the Giant Evil Spider Demon Thingy living in old subway tunnels
They do this, Im happy, its about time to end anyway, all good, time for CP
But no! They decide new mission objective! Collapse tunnels on top of Giant Evil Spider Demon Thingy!

[Justice]

I never thought of Plot Hooks as something to "hook" the characters with, though that's appropos and how I use them.

I just think of them as Daddy's Little Friend... :D

I did love having Plot Bait to dangle in front of the PCs. My favorite:

V&V in Space: Recently our PCs had been joined by a "Capt. America with Ht. Speed device" type guy. Indestructible shield and a harness that COULD later become armor if he did some inventing. He was cool but untested.

We had in ANOTHER campaign (same universe), a legion of Galactic Knights. They were devastating. They were scary.

Our guys went to the prison planet where these Knights put their worst prisoners. This is thousands of parsecs from Earth.

They get there and they are about to be obliterated by the robotic Galactic Wardens orbiting the planet -our PCs do not know any of the passcodes, nor what this planet is for, just that the trail ended here - when suddenly the Wardens back down upon hearing the full name of one of the heroes. Our Capt. America/Speedster is somehow KNOWN by them! They are HONORED he has come!

They are permitted to pass, no problems whatsoever.

They go from welcome to the wonderful world of plasma disintegration to Be our guest, be our guest... in three seconds.

One PC secretly taps into a terminal to find out why CA/Speedster - "Randall Simpson Grant" - has this privilege. Computer informs him that said PC started the Galactic Knights some 2000 years earlier. (My Player's eyes bulged. Other Players noticed.)

Players: What? What did you find out?
Player Who Knows: Uh... nothing.
Players: Bull! What did you find out!
Player Who Knows: I'll tell you later.

They did not like waiting. Then once they knew, they did not like destiny unfulfilled.

Suffice to say, it was easy to get them to accept a time-travel adventure in which Randall Simpson Grant did go back in time to "save the day" and start the Galactic Knighthood.

Like I said: Daddy's Little Friend. :D

[Haze]

What the hell's an impromptu gaming session?