I don't know why I was thinking about this, but I guess

I do t know anything about quests, but I too struggle to make the players more proactive.

So far, all of my campaigns have been Be In Town > NPC gives plot hook > Go into dungeon > Kill Monsters & Get Treasure > Go back to town > NPC gives plot hook in a different town > and so on and so forth...

I don't really know how to encourage a more proactive style of play, and I feel like I'm suffocating the players under a series of adventure hooks that they can't ignore because that's obviously the content I have prepared.

I try to give the players down time or breathing room between encounters to role play or maybe decide on a different course of action - but nothing much comes of it. They're a lot more proactive during combat - however.

My dream campaign is a sandbox hexcrawl, where I just establish an engine to calculate the consequences of the players actions and prepare the sessions around it.

>>50038932
The way my DM did it was that once we had the first two-three sessions following some clues of a kidnapping we found out that something big was going on... But once we returned to town we ran out of clues and thus the GM said "So, where too next?" We had no clues on how to continue so we just had to move on, no plot hooks or carrots on sticks. Just a big ol mystery and implications of impending doooooooom.

start small.

When the party meet an npc, tell one of the players that their character knows this person, then get the player to tell you what their relationship is with the npc.

>>50038932
I think it might be helpful to create NPCs that are a little more mocking of the PCs.

Now, I don't know the spectrum of busy-bodies you generally make, but start off with a very clear plot hook in a tavern or what-have-you. Have that plot hook point to "the old miller who lives alone over the hill yonder", then at some point nearing the end of the conversation, have a person interject and mock the players for being so naive and that they should probably start looking for the 'miller' at the 'mill' next to the nearby river, on the other side of town to the hill.

The idea is not to try and jump start their thinking, because they are too incompetent for that (right now). The idea is to make them familiar with the idea that all their clues and hooks and relevant plot-NPCs have believable connections and grounding.

After a while of derisive condescension towards the players, test out your hard work and offer them a clue that doesn't point to anything by itself and see if they start trying to spitball the 'believable connections' themselves. You can even play on their conditioned response and give them a plot twist experience, but try not to break their instinct completely or you'll have to start over.

Or you could just talk to them about their play styles like a proper human being.

>>50039156
Simplest and quickest response I have to this is to literally switch the themes.

>Party finds their GenericPlotHook.mp4
>Party heads to obscure and abandoned caves via GenericPlotHook.avi
>Party surprisingly find no bad guys to beat down at all
>Instead find InterestingPlotHook.gif in the caves
>Points to the captain of the guard back in town being the bad guy
>After a quick scan of the caves for lootables (naturally), party scarpers back to town to confront guard-captain Reginald
>Fight ensues inside Gaol, spills out into the streets of the town with civilians running about
>???
>Profit

When I dm dungeon world I have a short session zero where the players let me know what their character's goal is. Then I find a way to work them together.