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Greed, Heroism, and Wonder

by Mike on 23 February 2026

Motivate characters to go on quests by pulling on their drives of greed, heroism, and wonder.

What motivates the characters to go on adventures? Why would they risk their lives delving into dungeons deep and facing lethal traps and brutal monsters instead of staying safe in their village tending to the goats?

There are lots of motivations but here are three big ones:

Greed. The characters want riches and treasure. They want tangible rewards.

Heroism. The characters want to save the world, protect the weak, and thwart evil. They want to make the world a better place.

Wonder. The characters are driven by a desire to explore the unknown, learn lost secrets, and uncover that which has lain buried in the ground for thousands of years.

These three hooks can help motivate the characters in your games to go on adventures. You can reinforce these hooks during your session zero ensuring that characters have some reason to go on adventures. Ideally, they might be motivated by all three.

Tying Motivations to Quests

When we put quests in front of the characters, we can ensure we're tying in one or more of these motivations – again, ideally all three. Let's give it a shot by generating a quest with some random tables found in the Lazy GM's Resource Document.

Halia Oxbelly, a dwarf archaeologist, wants the characters to disable a flooded serpentine glass eye at a giant-kin ziggurat inhabited by animated plants.

What motivates the characters to go there? How about the potential for lost and undiscovered treasure (greed), the satisfaction of uncovering the lost lore of the ziggurat and its giant-kin creators (wonder), and the need to prevent the kudzu-like growth of the animated plants due to the flooded serpentine glass eye (heroism).

Hopefully one or more of those goals is enough to get the characters off to that giant-kin ziggurat!

Other Motivations

Greed, heroism, and wonder are three strong motivations but there are many others. Here's a list of twenty other possible motivations:

Revenge
Personal discovery
Fulfilling a family obligation
Seeking an heirloom
Burying a secret
Running from something
Hunting someone
Fulfilling a vow or prophecy
Building an organization
Dethroning tyranny
Revealing a secret
Curing a curse
Saving someone
Building a reputation
Protecting fellow adventurers
Ending a threat
Acquiring a trophy
Proving one's self
Escaping from somewhere
Enacting justice

Each character may have their own motivations driving them towards adventure. Again, you and your players should ensure that their characters' motivation leads towards the quests you plan to put in front of them during your session zero.

The Continuing Motivation of Greed

Another consideration for a character's motivation is that they continue to motivate. If a character's motivation is simply to earn enough to live comfortably, that puts an end-state on their motivation. Once they earned enough money to retire, why would they still continue to go out on adventures? Wonder and heroism are endless but greed may not be. Luckily, it seems greed as a motivator in the real world has no end and it need not end for the characters either. The accumulation of wealth and treasure can continue indefinitely.

Implanting Motivations in Characters and Quests

Having three big motivators for adventure – greed , heroism, and wonder – gives us a powerful tool we can use in two places: character creation and quest creation. Keeping these motivations in mind helps us tie characters to quests so players can always answer the question about why their characters would partake into such dangerous adventures.

Motivate the characters to go on adventures with greed, heroism, and wonder.

More Sly Flourish Stuff

Each week I record an episode of the Lazy RPG Talk Show (also available as a podcast) in which I talk about all things in tabletop RPGs.

Last Week's Lazy RPG Talk Show Topics

Here are last week's topics with time stamped links to the YouTube video.

Patreon Questions and Answers

Also on the Talk Show, I answer questions from Sly Flourish Patrons. Here are last week's questions and answers.

Talk Show Links

Here are links to the sites I referenced during the talk show.

Last week I also posted a couple of YouTube videos on Hack Counterspell and Sel'ket's Sting – Dragon Empire Prep Session 56.

RPG Tips

Each week I think about what I learned in my last RPG session and write them up as RPG tips. Here are this week's tips:

Watch out for monster combos that make it impossible for characters to break free.
Use a monster’s action denial abilities sparingly. Players want their characters to do stuff.
Know the dials to increase and decrease monster threat for your RPG of choice.
Get as quickly as you can to “what do you do?”
Offer meaningful choices.
Be ready for NPCs to join that party or have a good reason that they can’t or won’t.
Give dungeons multiple entrances.

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