Adventure hook
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Adventure hooks, also known as Plot hooks, are how a DM usually gets an adventure to start. These are generally meant to work because the party is expected to "bite" the hook and get pulled into whatever plot this is supposed to lead to.
Railroading DMs usually make their hooks unavoidable, either by refusing any alternative actions that were not planned for or by making anything they do lead back to the initial hook, regardless of how nonsensical the action is.
There are but a few general possibilities for plot hooks:
- Tavern: "You All Meet in a Tavern..." Old Reliable. The Tavern is both a hook and location, and some homebrewers make it the starting point for different plotlines, if not the center of the plotline itself. Usually used in combination with one of the below.
- A job offer: "The Local Lord is offering a reward for finding his nephew." Also usually tied into one of the others.
- Strange events that need investigating: "People are saying a star fell into the lake last night."
- A mysterious NPC: "A dark, cloaked stranger is hanging around the inn, and the innkeeper asks the party to get him to leave, since his off-putting smell is disturbing the other patrons."
- A known NPC: "Elminster wants to talk to you."
- You get caught up in events: "Orcs attack the village you're in!"
- 'Because It's There' Monsters: "A Dragon has been seen in the northern wilderness."
- Politics: "Somebody is pressuring the City Guard to pressure you to leave town."
- Blockade: "Bandits are blocking the road."
- Debts: "The guild did you a favor back then, now you have to do a little something in return..."
- Whodunnit: "The lord's son, found dead behind the tanner!"
- Objects can be hooks: "The head bandit had a sword with strange Fiendish runes engraved on it."
- Maps can be fairly direct hooks: "We found this map of the Dread Desert, with certain spots highlighted. Care to investigate?"