So you all are in a Tavern: 88 ways to open a campaign and unify the party


Homebrew and House Rules

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69. While buying the last of their 1st level gear the PCs all happen to be in the market together when giant rats attack. The guard is conveniently absent and the crowd is beginning to panic. PCs must save themselves from the creatures, then combine their efforts to keep the mob from hurting the PCs or themselves. Of course, in the midst of all of this a heavy cart has toppled, injuring a little girl and pinning her to the cobblestones. Her big sister is there, swatting at rats and doing her best to be strong, but she won't last long. "MY BABIES!" a woman cries from over the din of the crowd, "Please someone... ANYONE! SAVE MY BABY GIRLS!" Now isn't the time for panic and fear or selfish acts. Now is the time when heroes rise up...

70. The party begins as agents of the local church. Not all of them is a cleric, or particularly holy. I use the Golarion pantheons so an easy one here is Erastil. The wilds are being despoiled; the Lodge of the True Shot has put out the call to a cleric of the faith, a ranger/trapper who does business with the clergy, a fighter/woodcutter who has paid for a blessing on his felling axe from time to time and a sorcerer with a green dragon bloodline who has been studying his ancestors witht the help of the clergy's lore. Prelate Huthryn Smallgrove, a halfling ranger herself, has knowledge of a debased fey tainted by the Plane of Shadow who intends to trick the townsfolk into a war they cannot win...

71. The PCs have all seen the same figure in their dreams in recent days. They don't remember much but they remember the Woman in Silver; a beautiful but sorrowful figure who seems to plead with them. Tonight she comes to their rooms, wherever they are, while the PCs only half-slumber. She begs them to help her, to gather their things and save her. Before she can explain she is captured by some unseen force behind her with a menacing voice. As she is drawn away and she begins to fade from view she begs them now, before the moon reaches its zenith, to gear up and find a path through the wilds to save her. If the PCs do as she bids no matter where they are in the world if they go out into a field, the forest or any other place of nature they find a path that should not exist and leads them into a clearing at the heart of a pinewood forest where they find one another... and a sealed tomb.

Sovereign Court

72) The PCs are in an open-air marketplace at the same booth (a popular food stall?) when a bounty hunter and some city guards confront them calling them by the wrong name, clearly intent on not arresting but killing them, I.E.:

"Sloorg, we finally caught up with you and your gang. Your disguise won't work this time, but we know it's you from that sword/armor/medallion you've got. Arresting you last time didn't work, but that's ok because we're here to kill you now. Surrender and it will be painless!"

Silver Crusade

One I used to start a somewhat goofy campaign (and one of the few I actually started at level 1)

73) The party is hired by a group of adventurers to keep watch over their horses while they explore a dungeon and to help haul all the treasure out once they're done. Unfortunately the adventurers didn't think to leave them any food or supplies, so the group will have to fend for themselves in the wilderness until their employers return.


Echos Myron wrote:
Fergurg wrote:

58) A wanted criminal walks into the throne room, offering to surrender and give up the criminals who have been acting under the radar. These are the big movers and shakers, the ones pulling the strings of the criminal/heretical/rebellion world. But he will not reveal it to just anyone; he will work only with the PCs, who he mentions by name and location.

They have never met him before, and they are low on the adventuring totem poles (if on it at all), yet he insists on only working with them.

And would this criminal's list of names be referred to as the blacklist???

And a gold star for you.


Dazz wrote:

One I used to start a somewhat goofy campaign (and one of the few I actually started at level 1)

73) The party is hired by a group of adventurers to keep watch over their horses while they explore a dungeon and to help haul all the treasure out once they're done. Unfortunately the adventurers didn't think to leave them any food or supplies, so the group will have to fend for themselves in the wilderness until their employers return.

I like this one. I might use that in the future. Here's an idea I have more a more lighthearted campaign start.

74) The PCs all belong to the same Reincarnation support group. They all used to be X race, but now they are their current PC races.

"Hi, I'm Eldrad..."

"HI ELDRAD!"

"... and I am an elf!"

"YOU'RE AN ELF, ELDRAD!"

"I'm an elf, no matter if I have no hair and my skin is slimy!"


75. The PCs all meet on the road... as part of a cross-country race. They need to work together because there are cheaters in the race and obstacles along the way. At the finish line though there can be only one winner.

76. A merchant and former rogue has selected each PC for a specific skill to be part of his crew. He wants to pull one big heist and then retire.

77. Look at the PCs skills and make some connections, then put them in a work crew based on those skills. For example if you have a dwarf cleric with stonecunning and diplomacy, he's the foreman. The human wizard with craft: calligraphy is the bookeeper. The tiefling rogue with acrobatics is the finesse worker and the half-orc barbarian with animal handling is the labor and mule handler. Together they've been hired to clear a small area outside town and build a new shrine to the dwarf's patron deity.

78. Each PC is a manifestation of the tortured dreams of an imprisoned good outsider. They have been made flesh by it's power in order to save it from its torment. They are close in proximity to one another but begin the game with no knowledge of one another. All PCs however seem fixated on getting to a place no one else thinks exists.

79. Its a 3 day festival in town and each PC is there. During the games each PCs notices another and all realize they all have the same runic tatoo on their neck but none can explain where it came from.

80. The PCs were all once animals that belonged to a kindly adept who kept them on her farm. Over time they were awakened, fed magically enchanted feed and what not, making them more and more like mortal beings. However one night there was a terrible storm and their mistress disappeared. When they awoke in the morning they were fully mortal, though not all the same. They had been evolved into humans, or dwarves, or grippili, or even other races. They armed themselves with what they found in the ruins of the farmstead. There were, however, other animals on the farm with darker personas than the PCs; they have disappeared as well...


81) 5 years ago, the PCs and their families or town retreated into a bunker the town built against an impending disaster that would destroy the region/world as the PCs knew it. Today, the PCs go outside.

82) A younger girl/boy NPC has come of age and is being introduced to high society by their parents. The PCs have been invited as security for the coming of age party, or they may have snagged an invitation due to their own high-social status. The younger NPC is tremendously interested in adventuring, seeks to talk to the PCs and if possible accompany them (against the wishes of parents, and without their knowledge).

83) The PCs got to know each other through the cult meetings they attend. The current meeting will feature a great revelation, where the nature of the object of worship is revealed to be dark and evil (fiendish/alien/cthulhu-like).


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84) The PCs have all awakened in Hell, and an archdevil has contracted them to run a few "errands" for him.

Perks include:

Not being able to die - you're already dead and if you "die" you just spawn back at the boss's office. Unfortunately, you don't get paid.

Getting cool loot. Obviously this has to be given back when it comes time to torture you for eternity.

Invasion of Heaven. Kill all the angels you want. Eventually.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

85) The party members tricked into becoming guinea pigs for a mad alchemists's fleshwarping experiments and they escaped together.

That's the one I used.


I always work in how the party knows one another as part of the back-story of the campaign, even as part of character creation. This way, minute one of day one of the campaign is spent actually doing things related to the campaign.

To me, there is no bigger waste of time than spending hours of game time trying to get a bunch of willfully contrary players with a wide variety of character motivations to somehow coalesce into an adventuring group. Also, it's silly to think that a group of unrelated people will suddenly become a group of trusting adventuring companions after a single incident like a bar fight.


Saldiven wrote:
it's silly to think that a group of unrelated people will suddenly become a group of trusting adventuring companions after a single incident like a bar fight.

That's dangerous thinking, boy-o.

You trust your party, they trust you, and that's all there is to it.


Rabbiteconomist wrote:
40) through 45)

I'm sensing a common theme here.


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@ Sally: my best friends through hs/college were three guys at a lunchroom table. I was introduced, sat down and said "have you guys ever played D&D?" Our "party" coalesced from a 5 minute conversation about a shared hobby.

As such I never have a problem w/ludicrous intros. I don't know if everyone runs this but me and a lot of GMs run worlds where adventurers are the exception to society. Whether this elevates or devalues them is irrelevant; their chosen profession gives them all the shared trauma of being outsiders to culture at large.

Right off the bat this unites them on some level. If 4 such strangers survived a potentially lethal battle together, staggered away and then realized that all four of them are outsiders in society just trying to get along, they have a common ground from which to grow.

Now as time goes on the initial commonality may wear off. In one game I played we began as a tight knit group but we all really played up our alignments. Over the course of a few levels my CG fighter/wizard really clashed with the LG paladin to the point where me and the other player hijacked nearly an hour in game debating personal liberties versus the greater good and such. By the end of us we were ready to trade blows.

Whatever; tenuous connections are a staple of party creation in my game. Others may disagree.


86) The party members are all imprisoned by the watch and charged with a crime.

A )They somehow escape (or get out on parole) and try to find the real cuplrit together to get their charges dropped.

B) They are release and plan a heist/dungeon dive together. (i.e. the usual suspects. Extra points for a secret mastermind behind it all)


Thanael wrote:
86) The party members are all imprisoned by the watch and charged with a crime. They somehow escape (or get out on parole) and try to find the real cuplrit together to get their charges dropped. (i.e. the usual suspects. Extra points for a secret masterming behind it all)

87) As 86, but one of the party members is the mastermind behind it all and either still is, or has somehow forgotten.


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88) The PCs are co-litigants in a class action lawsuit in a country that practices trial by combat.


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89) The PCs met through a joint drug trip.

90) The PCs meet because one of them has to move an unwieldy load (perhaps treasure, perhaps a body).

91) The PCs know each other as political organizers in an election with literal backstabbing.


92) The local town guard take all the PCs into protective custody. Zombies have been rising from the town graveyard over the past few nights and the guard captain is worried about outsiders/travellers being used as scapegoats. He advises you to get out of town, but also mentions a crypt several miles from town where there are rumours of undead creatures. If you can solve this problem there might be a reward...

(The crypt is home to a not-particularly-evil lich. After beating a couple of his skeleton guards he confronts the party, telling them the zombies are none of his doing. He will scry who the real culprit is if they'll stop making a mess and leave.

There's actually a person in the town who has just awakened their sorcerer/oracle powers and cannot control them, accidentally-on-puprose creating the zombies while experimenting. Herbert West: Reanimator sort of thing.)


93) The PCs are travelling through the wilderness to the next town separately, each with their own reasons. The bridge across a deep chasm has collapsed, and they meet by the ruins. The only alternative route onward is on a forest path known to be dangerous, and there is safety in numbers.

Liberty's Edge

94) You are all accused by different witnesses of destroying some merchant's cabbage cart (ruining the merchandise in the process). They take you all into custody while they sort it out, then forget about you when a local war breaks out. While imprisoned you all become friends and eventually break out during a siege on the town. You never do figure out who broke the cabbage cart.


95) The party wake up with terrible headaches outside a cave. You may have met in a tavern but the details are a bit fuzzy, like the inside of your mouths. The only clue what's going on is a scrawled note found in someone's pocket:

"I, Ervin of Allerton, bet 100gp per head that each of the following cannot reach the bottom of Slackwater caverns and return with proof."

You can make out your signatures amid the wine stains. You introduce yourselves, look for breakfast and try to formulate a plan.


96) Each of the PCs is in a junior management position in a smallish town: guard sergeant, aide to the Mayor, acolyte priest and so on. Their characters may know or recognise each other but may not. One day the town leaders mysteriously disappear (Mayor, Guard Captain, Head Priest etc) and the town looks to their juniors - the party - to solve the crisis!

Sovereign Court

A magic demonstration by a hedge wizard at a harvest festival results in a surge of wild magic that happens to send the PCs - and just the PCs - to a far away land.

Liberty's Edge

The Human Diversion wrote:
A magic demonstration by a hedge wizard at a harvest festival results in a surge of wild magic that happens to send the PCs - and just the PCs - to a far away land.

This reminds me of the premise of a campaign I was in once: All of you are going about your day-to-day lives, but one day wake up in a stone circle, each PC waking up under a specific stone. Each stone has a symbol you don't recognize on it, but there is some writing you can read that describes a prophecy: One day, in the darkest hour, heroes will be summoned to this place to save the land from eternal darkness. (Or something like that. It's deliberately vague.) This world is not the world you're from, you have no connections here, and it is your best guess that your only way home is to save people from this "darkness" the inscriptions speak of.


Its too bad poison works the way it does in Pathfinder. One of my faves back in the day was...

99. You're at your feed in the local tavern, as are many other patrons tonight. Smed, the barkeep, seems strangely quiet and subdued tonight. Suddenly the main door swings wide revealing a well-dressed man dressed well with a black beard and goatee neatly trimmed. Flanking the gentleman are several burly warriors. "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!" he addresses the assembly with a smile full of teeth. Here in my hand I hold the antidote to the poison you've just consumed. You will work for me now..."

Sovereign Court

Mark Hoover wrote:

Its too bad poison works the way it does in Pathfinder. One of my faves back in the day was...

99. You're at your feed in the local tavern, as are many other patrons tonight. Smed, the barkeep, seems strangely quiet and subdued tonight. Suddenly the main door swings wide revealing a well-dressed man dressed well with a black beard and goatee neatly trimmed. Flanking the gentleman are several burly warriors. "Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!" he addresses the assembly with a smile full of teeth. Here in my hand I hold the antidote to the poison you've just consumed. You will work for me now..."

Make it a curse or geas and he holds the scroll that only he can activate.


100. An half-orc barbarian barges into the tavern and says "I can lick any humanoid in the place," He promptly pulls out a massive war axe and starts swinging. His retinue is outside tying their horses.


101. As PC X is walking through the streets an urchin runs up to him/her and asks if his/her name is X. Without waiting for a reply the urchin hands him/her a sealed letter with an address and a time on it and runs off, disappearing into the crowd. The same happens to all of the PCs and the address is the same but the times are in 5 minute intervals.

This can be an amusing problem for the illiterate. It is best not to have anyone at the address to explain the letters, but the players have to be right type to do that.


102. The PCs meet and get to know each other before their turn to be auctioned off as a slave.

103. The prophecies say that any one of the PCs could be "The Chosen One"

104. The PCs all got fired on exactly the same day. But they'll float on, because good news is on the way...

105. The PCs meet at the funeral of a mutually beloved person.

106. The PCs meet as they all do the "walk of shame" home, with all of them having lost their shoes and possibly more parts of their clothing the night before.

107. The PCs are each stuck somewhere because the caravan they were waiting for was hijacked.

108. After failing to defeat a dragon far to powerful for them, the Dragon healed them and made the PCs his butlers and lackeys in exchange for their life and the lives of those they love.

109. They meet at familiar and animal companion obedience class.

110. They meet at a protest rally that could get violent.


111. The pc's are all in or outside of a local tavern that is actually a local thieves guild recruitment office when the town guard performs a raid on the tavern. The pc's are all considered guilty by association. Now the pc's must either decide if they want to join the guild in earnest and exact revenge on whoever tipped of the town guard, or set about clearing their name while acting as thieves in that thief guild.

This is my favorite way of starting a campaign so far.


112. Your party meets a half-giant who gives one of you cake and says "You're a wizard, Harry!".


113. Each of the pc's arrive at a location with explicit directions to follow given to them by a wizard. While the location of the directions is accurate, what the pc's have to do conflicts with what each of the other following pc's has to do. After some tomfoolery, the pc's discover all of their directions came from the same wizard, but they were all written on different days. None of these days are close to each other, for instance, the first player's directions may have arrived yesterday while another's arrived 2 years ago with details on when to open it and follow the rest of the instructions.


114: A powerful wizard "collects" the PCs for an adventure. He promises each of them something they want: revenge, freedom, power, or fortune. His apprentice is kind of weird. Turns out, he just needed bodyguards to get someplace, and the MacGuffin he was looking for didn't even end up being there. On the way there's probably some character growth, the high-Charisma swashbuckler gets knocked down a peg or two, and the barbarian and ranger make out...


115. Something in the neighborhood is stealing or killing domesticated animals, from parakeets to guard dogs. Is it a disgruntled druid who wants these animals to be 'free'? Is it some sort of monster? Is it Old Man Higgins? Well, each of the PCs has a pet or familiar of some kind, and they don't want to be next.

116. The PCs all need dates to be allowed into a fancy ball (why they want to get in there is another matter entirely). Through friends-of-friends and blind dating services, they end up being brought together.

Grand Lodge

117. The PC's all meet on the Steps of Shame monday morning in front of the local Temple of Healers after being stricken with an STD at the same pleasure house. Each receives a Cure Disease they must leave an IOU for. Thus begins their quest for redemption, glory, and possibly revenge.

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