Lures

Luring is a term most often used to describe a player tricking or deceiving another player by leading them to a dangerous place, oftentimes in the Wilderness. Since 28 March 2007, it has been considered scamming. Luring is usually done when victims have a sizable amount of wealth with them so that when they die, they will lose an amount of items, and their death will give it all to the lurer. Sadly, luring is becoming much more common and highly lucrative, and the rules concerning luring have become more ambiguous. At the very least, however, luring is considered an undesirable player behaviour that should be reported as 'scamming'.

Why do players lure?
Luring is considered by many players to be dishonest and unfair gameplay. Purportedly, there have been many players who have gained substantial amounts of wealth through luring. Players lure for wealth or for fun, but it's mainly done for acquiring wealth.

Types of lures
There are many types of lures: the three main being Wilderness Luring, Monster Luring and Drop Luring.

Wilderness luring

 * For information on more Wilderness lures and scams, see this page.

Wilderness luring is an old lure style seen in RuneScape. It is when Player A (the lurer) brings Player B (the victim) to the Wilderness and immediately kills Player B receiving the victim's loot. A lurer usually brings a victim to the Wilderness with a variety of methods like the following, for example: faking a drop party, claiming to be quitting RS, or selling/buying an item for a ridiculously low/high price. The lurer usually creates an excuse for trading in the Wilderness depending on the location. For example, if a lurer is east of the Edgeville bridge, the lurer will usually say that he's power-fletching or woodcutting trees. Another method of luring was using the RuneScape Official Forums, where the victim is buying or selling an expensive item.

The main flaws of Wilderness luring is that it is usually obvious that the lurer will kill the player, and the lurer must ensure the item is stacked or cash. To ensure the specific item is dropped, a lurer usually lures players that are selling stacked items or are buying in cash. Stacked items or cash are lost no matter what, so this was used to the lurer's advantage.

Backstabbing lure
Another type of Wilderness luring involves the lurer pretending to team up with the victim. Because teaming up in the Wilderness is very common, the victim usually does not suspect anything. The lurer usually gives an excuse for going deep into the Wilderness, such as, "The guy we want to kill is there". Once in Deep Wilderness, the lurer, chatting with the victim as if they're really teamed up, suddenly and abruptly attacks (sometimes, the lurer will lure the victim to a high-risk world before attacking) the victim. Sometimes, the victim can escape if they have a lot of food and if they have "run" turned on. However, the lurer succeeds most of the time, especially if he or she uses Ranged or Magic, because the lurer can still attack the victim while he or she is running away. This lure is more effective than the other Wilderness lure, particularly because in the first type (basic Wilderness luring), the victim may easily figure out that he is being lured while in this lure; he or she does not have any suspicious parts to it (until, of course, the lurer attacks). To prevent this, you should only team up with people you know, such as a real-life friend or relative, and if possible, be with them in real life when entering the Wilderness as you can ask in person for your items back if they do decide to kill you.

German server lure
Another form of old Wilderness luring is the one where the lurer would tell the victim to switch to a German server or a server with a different language the victim could not understand. The lurer would then teleport the victim to the deep Wilderness without the victim knowing because he or she could not understand that the lurer was teleporting them to the Wilderness, or just Camelot or a familiar city. When the victim mistakenly teleported, thinking it was the name of a familiar city or the friendly city the lurer told the victim they were teleporting, they would then end up in the deep Wilderness where he would be killed by the lurer or a team of lurers and then get looted for all the victim was worth.

Remote section lure
Another form of Wilderness luring similar to the one above is where the lurer, after claiming to want to kill a player deep in the Wilderness, leads the unsuspecting player to a remote section of the Wilderness where a gang of attackers (usually the lurer's friends) is waiting for them. They use freeze spells, thus making escaping almost impossible. After they kill the unsuspecting player, they often share the loot among themselves.

The Sawmill Lure
The Sawmill Lure is a popular scam happening as the name suggests north east of Varrock at the Sawmill. After faking a drop party, claiming to quit, or some other bogus excuse, the lurer will persuade the victim to wear his or her own valuable items to "look good" for a video. He or she will lead the victim north of the Sawmill and over the Wilderness ditch where there is a tree. Sometimes, a "friend" will intervene and have the victim pull off the Telekinetic Grab Scam under false pretenses as a means of anti-luring before turning the victim back over to the lurer. The so-called friend is actually the lurer's friend and is in on the whole thing and could, in fact, be the actual player-killer or secondary account. The scammer/lurer will proceed to drop some items and/or a 10K cash stack, which he or she claims is 100M or something since 10K and higher amounts all look the same when dropped, behind the tree. When the victim hops over the ditch and casts Telegrab, he or she will automatically run into the danger zone because the stuff is behind the tree and get ice barraged, spec'd, and killed by the lurer's friend.

The original version
The original version of the Sawmill lure (also known as the "Jojo Lure" so named after the person who created it or more simply, the "10K Lure") was the first lure that yielded rares, which were expensive and highly sought after. The lurer would possess low Combat, such as a level 3 skiller or "talker" donning a rare, and would target someone in or near a bank (e.g. the popular Varrock West Bank) who seemed to have a few million coins. He or she would then start by messaging the victim using moderate language and sounding as mature as possible, and present his or her victim with an offer that he or she cannot deny like buying a rare for a cheap price. Afterwards, the talker would lead the victim to the Jolly Boar Inn pub north of Varrock by feigning a story like needing to gain a level, meeting a friend, or quitting the game. Meantime, the lurer made sure his or her friend, killer or alternate account, who is about the same level as the victim, was out of sight on the minimap, and dropped 10K coins just before they arrive because the cash pile looks like an enormous amount (i.e. 10K looks like mils and vice versa). The talker could either further persuade the victim of his or her intentions of quitting due to the low price on the item and to take the coins on the ground, or not say anything at all. When the victim ran out into the level 2-3 Wilderness after the coins, the lurer's hidden killer would cast Tele Block or just freeze, spec, and kill the victim for his or her loot.

Trade offer lure
An older, common method of luring (usually for luring out of a safe area or into deeper Wilderness) is for the lurer to offer a trade to a victim and then run out of the safe area. This causes the victim to run out of the safe area upon accepting the trade. This is used quite frequently in PvP worlds, so it is highly recommended to watch the person sending a trade offer, and make sure they do not run out of a safe zone before accepting the trade. If the lurer does run to a danger zone, the lure can be avoided simply by not accepting the trade offer.

Baiting lure
Another lure involves simply placing bait, such as a stack of coins or some valuable item, in low-level Wilderness. When the victim goes for it, the lurer attacks him/her. It is believed that this is not against Jagex's rules because it does not involve lying or deceiving.

A variation of this lure exists where the bait will instead carry four noted items, cast Tele Block and whittle down the victim's supplies before the baiting player is killed. After the victim grabs the loot, (s)he will be attacked and killed, and the victim will lose his/her valuable stuff since the noted items will protect over whatever the victim was carrying per the guide prices.

Entrana magic door lure
A lurer would look to buy/sell an item (e.g. nature runes) on the RuneScape Official Forums or Zybez. The lurer would then message a person selling/buying the item and claim that (s)he is alching on Entrana because there are no randoms there. The lurer would tell the victim to go inside the dungeon and enter the magic door near some greater demons and the Dramen Tree, which leads to the Wilderness. The victim is teleported to multi-combat Wilderness without warning, and the lurer's team, with dragon daggers, ice spells, and/or other PKing gear and tactics, kills the victim and takes his/her cash or items.

Although this lure can still occur, an update to random events have made them passive. Thus, one can alch without being pestered by randoms, so claiming to avoid randoms is no longer a reasonable excuse. Also, due to the addition of the Grand Exchange, players can safely conduct all transactions over the system.

The A Lure
The "A" lure is a unique lure method that makes use of the Annakarl teleport on the Ancient Magicks Spellbook. Victims are required to be on Ancients and are given a bunch of random items. The lurers will tell the victims to send them a trade request, and then the lurer will make the victim be on the Magic tab (before they accept the trade). So, the victim will have the magic tab up, and then the lurer accepts the trade and demands that the victim gives back the items in the same order. When the victim gets to the 16th item slot, the lurer will decline the trade. For this lure to work, the player must be clicking the 16th inventory spot as the lurer declines the trade, because once the trade closes, the tab that was just the inventory (during the trade) switches back to the Ancients' tab. The 16th inventory spot lines up perfectly with the "A" teleport on the Ancients' tab, so the player will accidently click it and teleport to deep Wilderness with his or her expensive items. This method of accidental clicking works similarly to the key lure.

Chinchompa lure
In this lure, a player will walk around a highly populated area, such as World 2 Varrock West Bank or Grand Exchange, asking others if they would like to participate in a player-killing video for YouTube. (S)he will then choose a random person (the victim) and his/her own friend. The victim will think that the lurer's friend is a random person as well. The scammer will wear some relatively expensive items and ask the other two to do the same. All three will enter a multi-combat area in the Wilderness with some expensive items. The scammer then trades each player a few chinchompas, which attack everything within one square of a target. The scammer and his/her friend will step within one space of victim. Having made sure everyone is wielding chinchompas and has Auto Retaliate on, the scammer will then attack the victim. (S)he will automatically attack back, and the attack will spread to the friend. Almost identical to the Skull-tricking Scam, this counts as attacking a player, and the victim will immediately become skulled. Then, the scammer and his/her friend will double-team the victim and kill him/her. Because (s)he is skulled, the player will not keep any of his/her items. The scammers will take the items and teleport out.

Multi-luring
Multi-luring is when a person is lured into multi-combat Wilderness and is then killed by one or more people using dragon daggers and other weapons that are capable of quickly doing damage, such as the dark bow. For example, one square north of the Wilderness ditch near the Varrock Palace shortcut is a multi-combat area, so people with dragon spears could then use its special attack to push an unsuspecting player into multi-combat where he or she would then be killed by the team.

Wilderness Ditch
In an attempt to fight combat luring, Jagex constructed a ditch that has to be climbed over to reach the Wilderness. Nonetheless, players have found creative ways to lure other unfortunate players over the ditch (e.g. baiting and the Sawmill Lure).

Monster luring

 * For other examples of monster luring or scamming, see this.

Monster luring is a type of lure where a player attracts an aggressive monster to another player to kill him or her. Luring monsters is one method in which players have been known to kill bots.

NOTE: Due to the updated death mechanics, players will have up to 60 minutes to retrieve any tradeable item on death, which renders monster luring ineffective since lurers have nothing to gain other than grief.

Dagannoth Kings Lure
Monster luring is most commonly seen in the Dagannoth King lair, a very dangerous place where the level-303 Dagannoth Kings lie. Serious Dagannoth King hunters usually bring a Guthan's armour set to extend their time spent on the Dagannoth Kings. Since a player will always lose a Guthan's warspear out of an entire Guthan's set, a successful lure will rack in a large sum of money for the lurer. Although Dagannoth Kings are the most commonly seen, the same principle applies for other high-levelled monsters.

Ape Atoll Temple Lure
Another highly common form of monster luring is at the apes on Ape Atoll. Normally, this is done on a low-level player who would find it tricky to kill an ape fast. The lurer would tell the player to go up the bamboo ladder because of an "update" and there was now an altar up there. When the player went up there and found no altar, the player came back down the ladder and was surrounded by about four or five apes. Since you cannot walk through the apes, and a player can only climb up one side of the ladder, the player gets stuck. This form of luring is almost impossible to get reported for since there is no detailed proof that the lurer did anything wrong.

Ranging Guild Lure
Another place for luring is in the Ranging Guild. Someone may say that they are buying feathers or raw chicken for large amounts of money and a victim will go out to the chicken farm to get it. The lurer lures the unsuspecting player into the minigame area and brings them to the high level rangers. All three enemy archers are aggressive and may attack a player at once. The lurer goes by, but not into, the high-level area and tells the victim to trade. When they try to trade, and the victim is in range of the level-64 archers—they can hit high and could kill a player if he or she isn't suspecting it.

Drop luring
Drop luring is the most common lure type today. This involves getting a player to first drop his or her item, and secondly to remove that player from his or her item (e.g. the Drop & Teleport Scam). Although there have been various methods of drop luring, only the most is notable are listed below. This type of scam has its roots in the old House Table Dupe Scam.

Games Room Lure
The Games Room lure, as the name says, takes place in the Burthorpe Games Room. The lurer will ask the victim to play a game and asks the victim to follow him to one of the games rooms. The victim must then send the lurer a challenge. After that, the lurer will usually give a reason they shouldn't play games and then asks the victim to follow him upstairs. The victim is then asked to drop his valuable stuff on the ground, after which the lurer will give him a large sum of money. However, as soon as the victim drops his stuff on the ground and trades, the lurer will eventually decline, then quickly accept the challenge that was send him earlier. This will result in both players being sent to the rooms below. In the meantime, a third person will have the stuff picked up before teleporting out or world hopping/logging out.

The Key Lure
Hut luring, other wise known as the Key Lure, is a common drop lure. The scammer will approach you with an item of some wealth and offer it to you for free. They then proceed to take you to the Hill Giant house and to trade you a brass key and a lot of items. The scammer aims to make you forget about the brass key in the items and drop your item of wealth in the house and buy the items and key back for less value than yours. If successful, the scammer buys the brass key, and you get locked out of the house leaving the scammer free to go in and pick up the item you just dropped. Do not try to anti-lure as the lurer will decline the trade as you click on one of the teleport tabs you are given, which will teleport you far away with no chance to get back to your items.

The Bridge Lure
The bridge lure is a current scam that takes place in the dungeon from the Temple of Ikov quest. It is centred around a bridge that a player can only cross while having a negative weight. A victim is convinced to drop his or her valuable item or items at the foot of the bridge, and then, he or she goes into a trade screen with a lurer. The victim is promised money off the lurer to gain trust in this trade for dropping his or her stuff. The victim is asked to run across the bridge once he or she has dropped the items and then run back across to the starting side to receive the reward. However, since you cannot cross the bridge unless you have a negative weight, clicking across the river will result in the victim falling off to the side and being separated from their items. Lurers don't tend to use this lure as the chance of being anti-lured is big.

A slight variation of this lure entails another individual, who interjects and tells or shows the victim a false method of anti-luring. Although the third party may sound convincing, he or she is actually the lurer's friend with the sole purpose of sabotaging their victim (i.e. you). As soon as everything is in place, he or she will put down a pet or drop something else on top of your items (e.g. toy mice) making it difficult to pick up your dropped items especially if you happen to fall off the bridge due to heavy weight.

Gnomeball variation
After persuasion, the scammer will trade the victim some fairly cheap armour, such as a bronze med helm and wooden shield, to wear. The victim is taken to the dungeon with his or her valuables to drop. Afterwards, the victim will have to cross the bridge to engage in trade. Instead, the scammer will stall the trade and decline, and he or she will throw a gnomeball at the victim forcing the victim to fall off the bridge due to excess weight.

The Candle Lure
The candle lure takes place in the room(s) that one obtains the boots of lightness. This special properties of this room is that with a lit candle, you can enter the whole room and move about freely. However, with an unlit candle, the room is dark, and you can only go a few spaces into it. So, the victim will be convinced that a lurer will try to make them drop in the back of the lit room. Then, according to the advice from a 'friend', the lurer will ask them to go up the stairs, and sell the lurer the candle for a large amount of money. So, in this fake telling of the scam, the lurer will expect the victim to drop in the back of the room, and once they sold their candle, they would not be able to reach the back of the room because of the darkness. So, the 'friend' instructs the victim to just drop right at the steps while in the room, instead of at the back, as the lurer would not be in the room to check where he dropped. So, once again in this fake telling, the victim is planning to drop close to the stairs, go sell the candle for money, and be able to go down the stairs and loot his stuff in the dark room. However, the trick to this lure is this: if you drop beyond where you can reach without a light source you will not be able to retrieve your items after selling the candle back. Therefore, once the player dropped his or her items in the light room and sold the candle, he or she will not be able to retrieve their items upon entering. Thus, in other words, the player's stuff will be locked beyond where they can reach, and he or she doesn't have to candle to reach it.

Corporeal Beast Lure
This scam deals with instancing at the Corporeal Beast's lair. The scammer(s) will either have the victim watch a gussied-up YouTube video faking an anti-lure or feign an exclusive giveaway by coercing the victim into dropping his or her valuables for a cash prize, which turns out to be a facade. The victim, who must have at least 90 Combat, is told to bank all items beforehand as a safety measure and is led to the Corporeal Beast's lair. Then, the scammer will go over the proceedings before sending the victim back to retrieve his/her items to either perform the anti-lure, which is impossible, or to "look good" for the video. Also, the scammer will have the victim join his/her friends chat in order to make the lair instanced because (s)he doesn't "want PvMers to ruin the giveaway", which, again, is a ploy. Afterwards, the victim is told to drop all his/her stuff (including any games necklaces) before engaging in a trade with the scammer, who stalls and confirms that the items were, indeed, dropped. Once it has been confirmed, trade is denied, and (s)he will promptly kick the victim and snag his/her loot.

Warning: NEVER drop an item when asked to do so, and do not drop or risk an item that is of high value to you especially when a player proposes an empty promise, such as a stalled trade.

Scammers never accept the trade. They only utilise the trade menu to stall and verify that the victim has dropped his/her items. Once the scammer confirms, the victim is immediately kicked leaving the scammer to loot all the items dropped.

Entrana Law Altar Lure
This type of lure is a kind of a trust scam closely resembling the Drop/Teleport Scam. A player, Player A (the lurer), strikes a nice conversation with a victim (Player B) to build up trust. After a period of time, Player A tells Player B that (s)he found a nice way to trick someone else, which will be referred to as Player C (the lurer's friend) who is simply in on the lure and is playing bait. The whole point is they call Player B to drop his/her rare item and play a prize game. To enter this game, they have to go to the Law altar on Entrana. Once on Entrana, where weapons are forbidden, Player A and Player C will start playing a trust game, where one has to enter and re-enter the law altar. At a certain point, Player A will plant a mithril seed to obtain flowers and ask Player B to drop the rare item. If Player B buys into it and then escapes the law altar, (s)he'll be knocked unconscious, hence weapons are forbidden, and flowers are considered weapons. If Player B dropped his/her rare item in the law altar, (s)he'll lose it accordingly.

Entrana Stairs Lure
This lure is a variation of the Entrana Law Altar Lure. The way the lure worked was that the victim dropped his/her items downstairs, climbed the ladder, and was traded a flower. The flower came from a mithril seed, which was allowed on Entrana, but the flower is a weapon, which isn't allowed on Entrana. When the victim went back down the ladder with the flower, (s)he was kicked off the island and sent to Port Sarim. Most people could not drop the flower and travel back to Entrana in time to pick up their valuable.

Another version of this lure exists in which the lurer will use an unfinished Godsword, namely Bandos since it's the cheapest, instead of a flower. A Bandos hilt and Godsword blade would be in his/her inventory, and then, (s)he would put it together at the top of the ladder and trade it to the victim after confirming that the victim dropped his/her valuable. When the victim went back downstairs, (s)he would be kicked off the island.

Fight Arena Lure
As with all drop scams, the scammer(s) will coerce the victim into dropping his/her items for a cash prize, which turns out to be false. Next, the victim, who must have completed the Fight Arena quest, is led to the arena and is told to drop his/her stuff inside before exiting and trading the scammer outside. Meanwhile, either the scammer's noob account or his/her friend is outside splashing a bald and bearded Khazard Guard. Once the scammer has confirmed that the items were dropped, the splasher will lure the guard over, who will prevent the victim from opening the door because "[you] murdered the General's pet", while the items are locked inside for the picking.

Wine of Zamorak Lure
In another lure, the lurer tells the victim to take the wine of zamorak (often a lower level player). When the victim does so, the monks of Zamorak attack the victim. The only way to safely obtain the wine is by telegrabbing it.

Door closer lure
Door closers are types of griefers, in which griefing, not to be confused with trolling (using subtle insults to elicit responses from others), is the act of intentionally ruining other players' gaming experiences by using aspects of the game in unintended ways, that like to prevent players from leaving or entering a building. A door closer might lure players into deadly places with doors. He or she then shuts the door and waits for the player to die. If the player tries to open the door, the door closer shuts it. This was also used to entrap someone who was being attacked by an aggressive or dangerous random, such as the Strange plant, Mr. Hyde, Rick Turpentine, Evil Chicken, Cap'n Hand, and Drunken Dwarf. However, Jagex has been updating several doors so that they are unable to be closed to avoid this. Also, due to the random events update in which players are no longer coerced into interacting with them, they've become passive.

Now, if someone opens and closes a door too much, it will stay open, and whenever that person tries to close it, it will produce the message, "The door seems to be stuck." instead, and they won't be able to close it for a few minutes.

Controversy
There have been many questions as to whether luring is bannable or not. There have been no confirmed cases where players have been banned for luring, and there were also many messages from Jagex that said luring was not bannable. On 29 March 2007, Jagex updated Rule 2 to make "Luring someone into the wilderness under false pretences" a bannable offence. However, with the re-release of the Wilderness back in 2011, this is no longer necessarily true although there has also been cases in which certain Jagex Moderators claimed luring is a bannable offence. In addition, several J-Mods have stated that luring is "against the spirit of the game", and have disallowed threads encouraging it on the forums.

Though several have said that there has been no evidence of lurers being banned, videos do exist of J-Mods directly banning lurers, supposedly wiping their banks.