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So let's say you're getting set to start a brand new campaign, and the players have put together a pretty good variety of new characters... or at least characters that they haven't used with one another before.
How do you like to see those characters get together? Do you prefer the old "the characters meet one another in a tavern (or applying for the same job)" standby? Do you prefer that the characters supposedly already knew each other previously, or do you prefer the idea of your party being total strangers?
Personally, if I'm GMing, I like to know at least a little about the characters a week or so ahead of time so that I can tailor my introductions to the individual characters and their backgrounds, if possible. That's just the way I GM, though. I know it's not always possible, so if it's not, I like to see the characters respond to some sort of a semi-public event that affects them all (the sudden death of an acquaintance, a mysterious note arriving, a case of mistaken identity) that nudges them together.
Anyone have any favorite stories about their group's characters meeting one another for the first time, or just have an opinion to share on their favorite way to introduce new characters to one another to 'get the ball rolling'?
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I like to go with the "You all traveled together to this town as part of the same caravan. While traveling you hit it off, and have decided to strike out as adventurers." I like this because I have seen too many attempt to have the party "meet cute" end up more like "meat cleaver" i.e. turn into a bloodbath.
I also admit a certain fondness for the "You are approached by a mysterious wizard in a bar..."
The best way is with COMBAT! In Shadowrun a perfect start to any campaign is when all the characters happen to be in a local convenience store when it gets robbed.
I like the beginning of Burnt Offerings, same concept.
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I chose the beginning, partly depending on the direction I want the campaign to go, partly on how hard it is to get the characters together. Soetimes the chosen characters and their background help, after my players decided for their serenity characters, it was easy to tweak their backgrounds just a bit so some of their characters are related in some way before the campaign starts.
In a B5 campaign starting sometime next year a devastating attack on the colony the pc's live will kickstart the campaign. One of my FR campaigns started in a tavern - with an old "survival horror" adventure I found.
I really find it hard to think of a favored way - I try to find the start that seems to be the most "organic" for the characters and the campaign involved.
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Mine start out usually one on one or one on two (if the players are close friends). We make the characters and then I interview the players to see what they want from their gaming experience. I then send them home with an assignment to create a backstory for their character. I get these back stories and read them and formulate from all that as to what their journey will be to get to the group. I then set a time to roleplay with the players individually. I do all this by appointment and it keeps me fairly busy over a course of many weeks. In the end all the stories lead to everyone meeting for whatever reason they are needed. They have fully flushed back stories for me to draw upon and I usually know how to satisfy my players by going through this process (which I have a blast doing). There is always plenty of intrigue and I try to tailor adventures to personalize the inner struggles of what the players gave me from their back stories.
I sometimes get complaints during this process, but rarely do I get them twice once the player sees what I do with the insight they have given me.
As a player I was invited to play with a gaming group that was already established. They told me to make a character and show up. After my arrival in the downstairs basement, the DM told everyone that my PC was lying in dirt when they found me and I was taken in immediately. I found this so detracting and silly that I was glad when they passed me the root beer schnapps.
Cheers,
Zuxius
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Hmm...
My 3.0 game, started at Level 1: Grouped the PCs into 2 groups of 'You already know each other', based on logical possibility (The Dwarf Cleric, Elven Wizard and Elven Ranger had all been riding in a coach overland for a week or so, and had struck up a modicum of friendship, the players did a bit of fun RPing for this, while I introduced the others), the Half-Orc Monk and Dwarf Barbarian had both been doing odd jobs at the Oak and Apple Inn, helping with the forge at the blacksmith's, labor for nearby farmers, etc...when the coach arrived. Plot of a nefarious nature unfolded, with the Inn being a big part of the adventure, as opposed to just a place for one to start.
First 3.5 Campaign, started at Level 1: Looked at the characters, did the logic thing again.
Campaign has a string Germanic/Celt feel, and the initial setting was plains in the north of the land, with mountains and small copses of woods nearby. Thing ME Rohan. The elvish Scout, Human Fighter (Mounted specialist),Druid and Cleric were all feasibly from the area, and knew each other. The Monk and Wizard were from much further south, and were looking for archaeological digs (The Monk serving as bodyguard, which he mentioned all throughout the campaign 'I'm still on the clock, you know...It was pretty funny). Group two became lost, and happened on group one as they were tracking a Necromancer who had stolen children from the various PCs peoples. Saving the children was the initial adventure arc.
Mini 3.5 Campaign while one guy was on tour with his band:
Started at Level 7.
PCs were (Goofy mix...the players were messing with me, I think): A Necromancer )Some splatbook variant), aSpirit Shaman, a Bard, and a Hexblade/Rogue. Easy enough, as the country that they started in took a dim view on unsanctioned magic. The Bard had seduced a local Magistrate
s daughter, the Necro had been caught gathering 'items of interest' from the Royal Graveyard,the Hexblade and Spirit Shaman were both rounded up for Witchcraft. All the PCs were put on board a prison ship, bound for a very uncool place. PCs allies buy off the Captain, ship never makes it, and the PCs begin an adventure in the jungles along a nameless coast, working as mercs between a bugbear tribe and an invading Flind led Gnoll horde.My Bugbears are more nuetral than evil, btw, and were the underdogs in this.
Latest 3.5 Campaign, Started at Level 1: I wanted some coherency, so I told them before hand to pick a race, and they would all be related. They chose Dwarf, and three of the PCs were all from the same clan, which had been overrun and enslaved by a goblin tribe. The game started in a mine, and the three dwarfs met a gnome there, who, as a Warmage, still had his spells. He formulated a plan for escape, they dwarfs rioted, escaped, and took off down a river on a raft, arrown flying over there heads.
-Uriel
With any good story, the way you start it often determines the tone of the entire story. If you've already got the entire plot of the campaign mapped out, the beginning should be a reflection of that. If you're campaign is more organic and has the characters developing over time without a predetermined story arc, then having the characters meet each other in a natural way is better.
In either case, it doesn't mean it can't be dramatic.
Some samples:
A mysterious start...
All the characters know a common person and that person dies. They all return to the same town/village/city and meet at the funeral. Something from the dead person's past starts the intrigue.
The action start...
You start the story with the characters already in combat. Don't roll initiative, don't give them any story, just set the combat up and tell them it's their turn to act. Then start describing who they're fighting, but don't tell them why. Once the combat is over, or in between rounds, start revealing little bits about why they're in combat. Some authors do this as it gets the reader engaged instantly. It works because the players will constantly see the DM has holding something back from them, and they'll be curious to find out more and more.
The symbolic start...
Allow each PC to quickly roleplay the start of the campaign separately with the DM. The other player can observe, but cannot take part. Each PC's start to the campaign sets the tone for that character. For example, different PCs might take different paths and have different experiences to get to the same location. This allows PCs to think of themselves as individuals first and feel like they had their own identity before joining the party. The beginning of the campaign is then marked as another waypoint in the life of the complete character.
Hope those help.
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This is a cool topic, and one that I’ve been thinking about recently myself. For a while now I’ve had this desire to run an Against the Giants/Liberation of Geoff campaign.
The basic premise of the campaign is that the players have been recruited into the Grand Dukes new Army of Liberation. The adventures would be inline with something like the Red Hand of Doom or the Rise of the Rune Lords AP, with a sort of WWII A Band of Brothers feel.
I thought that the PC’s would start out in Hochoch which would be portrayed as a very rough and tumble frontier city crawling in mercenaries, adventurers, and down on their luck refugees.
I want to get the action started right away so I figured I would begin the first adventure with the PC’s deployed on a scouting/reconnaissance mission to Midwood, and having them come into contact with enemy patrols of orcs to begin with. The beauty of the military start means that the characters don’t need to know each other but are assigned to each other’s unit and are united by a common goal to fight the invading giant forces.
Part of me think’s that maybe I should begin the campaign in media res with the very first encounter being an all out battle. The goal of the encounter would be for the PC’s to turn the course of the battle (sort of like the opening scene in Dances with Wolves) turning them into heroes and then getting them reassigned to a special unit for the rest of the campaign.
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One of the latest campaigns I've been on as a player, the GM created a group of pre-genned characters with backstories that were already penned out, and then we rolled dice to determine which character we had, sight unseen. The main character had amnesia, and as he wandered around, gaining bits and pieces of his memory back, he began to come into contact with the other characters and NPC's who knew his, but whom he couldn't remember. While we were waiting for him to 'find' our PCs, the GM kept us involved by letting us role-play the NPC's based on some basic sheets he'd written up that told us what the NPC's knew.
Although that was far afield of anything I'd probably try, I actually liked it simply because of how much of a challenge it was to role-play... and because it was obviously well-thought-out. But it was definitely different.
Mine start out usually one on one or one on two (if the players are close friends). We make the characters and then I interview the players to see what they want from their gaming experience. I then send them home with an assignment to create a backstory for their character. I get these back stories and read them and formulate from all that as to what their journey will be to get to the group. I then set a time to roleplay with the players individually. I do all this by appointment and it keeps me fairly busy over a course of many weeks. In the end all the stories lead to everyone meeting for whatever reason they are needed. They have fully flushed back stories for me to draw upon and I usually know how to satisfy my players by going through this process (which I have a blast doing). There is always plenty of intrigue and I try to tailor adventures to personalize the inner struggles of what the players gave me from their back stories.
That sounds a lot like what I like to do, Zuxius, although even more involved. A game really hits me hard when I feel like I have a personal stake in it, so I like to work those personal details in for my players, too. It's cool that you ask them what they want from their gaming experience, too. Some people I've played with would say that they like role-playing, but if you press them, you'd find out what they mean is they like the dice-rolling, chop-up-the-bad-guy aspect of it, not necessarily the acting-in-character aspect.
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depends entirely on the campaign...
Ive used: The tried and true Inn where the players are hanging out looking for work, an invitiation to work for someone, A 'mad-mad-mad-mad world like start (party stumbles on person dieing who tells them something, prior to thsi they didnt know each other...), a catastrophe lumps the players together, a raid throws the players together, mutual aquaintences, mandatory joined backgrounds....as examples
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The two faves of mine:
the Cyberpunk game that started with a flashback to the group being in the same platoon in wartime; all injuries determined future cybernetic enhancements.
the Cyberpunk game where it started with a virtual reality fight against two k'zinti; only the pc's didn't know it was vee ree.
I could teach everybody the combat rules, totally frag the characters, and use a variation of the old "it was just a dream" routine to wish it all away.
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I let the players vote to either start off knowing each other or not. Usually they start within the same bar or at least neighborhood and then I weave something together to bring them all in, sometimes combat, sometimes they all witness a foul deed, once I arrested them all at the same time and they needed to cooperate to break out of jail.
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One of the most interesting that we did was when the party were from or in a small region overrun by wild Orc's coming down from the Mountains. The Pc's get together to fend off the surge of low level Orc's then try to find out what caused the attack to begin with, since the Orc's were known not to come down out of the mountains unless there was an attack first or if they were forced out for some reason.
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A little DM fiat is involved, but last time all the PCs independently either booked passage on, stowed away on, or commandeered the same ship. I'll use a similar technique next time I begin a campaign. I try to run a one-shot encounter for each PC which leads them all to the same spot independently, and then the real trouble starts. If you can, try to get some of your players to make PCs with linked backgrounds (brothers is an easy one), to reduce the amount of time the other PCs remain 'off screen'.
Current campaign: the PCs woke up in the middle of a maze carved into the interior of a cube in Acheron, smelling faintly of Styx water, and a programmed audio illusion in the room's center feeding them details (which were completely bogus). Rolling randomly for who woke up first, I rolled for the tiefling rogue (Shar worshipper) who very nearly slit everyone elses' throats. The risks of a decidedly neutral to evil group of PCs on average.
Previous campaign: individual contact with the PCs, blackmailing them with real or faked material or threats, getting them all together to perform their first thing as a group (and start the rollercoaster ride of raging antipathy towards one of the campaign antagonists).
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That sounds a lot like what I like to do, Zuxius, although even more involved. A game really hits me hard when I feel like I have a personal stake in it, so I like to work those personal details in for my players, too. It's cool that you ask them what they want from their gaming experience, too. Some people I've played with would say that they like role-playing, but if you press them, you'd find out what they mean is they like the dice-rolling, chop-up-the-bad-guy aspect of it, not necessarily the acting-in-character aspect.
Its a good strategy to get the players involved. I actually took this a step even further and had the players and I create a continent map. I drew a blob of a continent on bulk paper and then ripped it into 5 pieces and told everyone to draw their region create a 2 page description of the region. We were college students, and we had it done in a week. The thing came together more beautiful than I could imagine. The details of the regions were so extremely different (and some were so different that they seemed almost alien). The characters naturally were derived from each of those regions. Well, you can only guess how they felt about those characters.
Funny to say, but all that build up makes the PCs want to roleplay more, because they have so much to draw upon. They really feel for their characters more and are enboldened to speak their minds within the character's point of view.
Not surprising that my games get a little psychological. I thrive on that channeling stuff.
Cheers,
Zuxius
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once I arrested them all at the same time and they needed to cooperate to break out of jail.
I was in a campaign that began sort of like this. Basiclly the DM told us to all choose a reason of why we would be imprisoned in a kind of work/prison camp. The PC's became united when we tried sevral escape attempts.While we didnt manage to escape we were made a deal by a high ranking noble work for him killing goblin raider's plauging the area or rot in prison for the rest of our lives.
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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I ask my players for any background information they want to incoporate in the campaign, and start there. Generally, 2-3 players will build each other into their background, so they know each other at the beginning. The remaining players are then brought in to the fold based on the campaign setting - usually in a town where an event of some sort is taking place (a festival, fair, etc.).
A good way is to have them all have different motivations to do the same adventure as fits their character.
The druid is going becasue the orcs are ruining the forest.
The fighter is goign because the king put a bounty on orc heads.
The paladin is going to rescue human captives or the orcs.
The cleric was ordered by his church to do something about the orcs.
They all meet along the way there.
I have discovered that parties made up of diffeent characters never works well though. Theres always 2 characters that dont mesh well at all and there is internal conflict.
For all my future games I require the players to make characters that get along or have known each other in their histories before the game even starts.
To may bad experiances have forced me to make this rule.
Ran a d20 Modern - Apocalypse game once. Had some pre-gen characters ready to go, and the players got to pick who was going to play each. The players got to play out the events which led to the apocalypse, which they unwittingly caused.
Once we got to the post-apocalypse setting, their played the characters they rolled up.
Players seemed to really enjoy it. And now, 3 years later, they're still talking about it.
I like the way the APs handle it: Band together out of necessity because the festival you're on is attacked; someone tracks you down because of a common nemesis and tells you where to find him; banding together out of necessity because the casino you're in is attacked; all get recruited by the same guy to liberate a village...
I always tailor this to the campaign. Ways I have started campaigns in the past:
1) The characters were waiting in a long line by the city gate in order to get in. The guards were checking and double-checking everyone thoroughly. This was a city with an evil ruler.
2) The characters were living in the same village, and a political rival threatened their lives. So they all left the village in a Viking ship with a famous captain who went plundering every spring (this was a Viking campaign).
3) The characters woke up in the hold of a ship and had no idea how they got there. None of them remembered the last 24 hours. It created the right atmosphere: "we're all in this together, whatever "this" is".
I am going to start a Victorian/gothic campaign soon which starts out in a train, where the characters will have seats next to each other. The train will be under attack.
I honestly prefer to either have everyone start out knowing each other and friends, however, I have yet to have my players cooperate with that. I think what is going on is that they don't really want to learn the stuff in the players handout I give them (now the players guides for the APs), and so by being from somewhere else they don't need to worry about all that reading stuff... I mean, that is like 8 pages!!!
So... I get more creative... or try to.
Official connections work great. In a modern Call of Cthulhu game I ran each of the PCs were from different government agencies brought together to investigate a murder that could potentially have connections to terrorist activities and/or biological agents of mass distruction. We had an FBI profiler (ala Mulder... and this guy wanted to believe too), a CDC Pathologist, and the team was led by a Homeland security agent as DHS was able to call jurisdiction because of the possible terrorist angle and multi-agency cooperation needed. The fourth player was a grad student studying the physics of sound to recreate the acoustic signatures of building no longer standing but considered some of the greatest play and opera houses. It was her former advisor/lover who was killed and she was used as a knowledgable person of what he might be studying. This worked very well and the players have shown interest in turning this one-shot into a long term campaign (I will likely go Delta Green).
In my Shackled City campaign, I tried to have my PCs replace some of the NPCs who would be found in the initial investigation yet each have a reason for investigating as well (as much as I could swing at least). The rogue was a former orphan who in exchange for training from the Last Laugh had agreed to stay on at the orphanage as the grounds keeper in order to keep an eye on of the childre who goes missing in the initial scene. The ranger was a member of the watch who was with Sgt Krewis watching a meet between a known Last Laugh member and someone else as they investigated the disappearance (the rogue and his mentor who was blaming him for loosing the kid, he was told to find the child or the full brunt of the blame would fall on him). The rogue spotted the watch members and he and his mentor split up and ran. The ranger PC followed the rogue PC on a rooftop chase. A group of PCs who refused to really do much background with me at all had a meeting with a government official named Vhalantru to try and get a contract from the government... as they got there a rival group of adventurers were leaving having just used their political connections to get the contract... the PCs were walking to the bar dejectidly when they overhear a group of thugs attacking the Cleric PC who was on his way back from promising his churches aid to the orphanage to find the missing children. And of course, just about the time a mysterious figure is threatening the PCs below, the rooftop chase bumps right into the figure on the roof. They all wanted to solve the mystery of the missing children for their own reasons and agreed to work together.
My Rise of the Runelords campaign I just started has gone pretty much as written, though I have worked to tie their backstories to other pieces of the story. The druid was trained and lives with Nishka in town, the ranger was trained at Fort Rannick, the soul knife (no real background) was born and raised on one of the nearby farms (his father will replace farmer Grump), etc.
Sean Mahoney
I usally start with "Roll Initiative". My theory is that if you're put in a dangreous enough situation, you'll happily fight alongside others willing to help. This lets the party meet up more easily other than throwing them into a tarven and hopeing for some chit-chat
I agree with the approach that violence is the best way to get players on board. Here are two examples from games I ran...
1. Start at level 1. Everyone is in a village, the player had to figure out how they got there and why. Some were born and lived there, others were passing through with their wizard teacher. Others were abandoned there by a passing caravan. Village is attacked by a horde of orcs, and they are forced to flee.
2. Start at level 2. Everyone is on a boat destined for an island city where the game with take place. Players had to figure out how they got there. Some had just come back from a long journey, others were going to visit friends on the island, others were stowaways. The players have been attending dinner with the captain and other passengers every night for the last several weeks. During that last stop a strange man boarded and is now attending the dinners. He approaches the characters and asks them to "play a trick" on a friend of his on the boat (the characters were all rogue-ish). They agree and perform a series of seemingly banal tasks like stealing the hat of the "friend", leaving a note in his luggage in the hold, and forging his name in a log book. After its all done, the players return to their rooms only to discover a bloody dagger on their bed. An explosion suddenly rocks the boat and the players rush to the deck only to see the strange man, whom they were working for, toss the limp body of his "friend" overboard. He explains he appreciates the players help in killing a prominent city counsel member and vanishes. The boat sinks and the players are forced to swim ashore - deciding to keep the 50 lbs of the starting gold and equipment or sink and die.
... I still get bitter comments from my players about the last one :)
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I still use the Realms (pre-Spell Plague) as my campaign base, with the Pathfinder RPG rule set. I like digging into the rich history of the Realms to find a good story hook that drags them in and *forces* them to work together.
I've used as a background a quest from Evermeet to Myth Drannor (the first two PCs in this campaign both wanted to play elves; everyone else they picked up along the way), the Orc horde attack from the Hunter's Blade trilogy (this one made the PCs the only survivors of in a town now deep in enemy territory), and even a "hometown heroes" campaign (the PCs were all born in or around the same small town on the outskirts of Cormyr.
My latest one is an alternate history campaign. It begins with the idea of twisting everything around for the campaign, with the Good deities being Evil and vice-versa. The basic premise is the that Cyric actually read the [i]Crynishad[/1], but his artifact warped the fabric of reality, creating what I have dubbed the Dark Realms. The PCs all begin as adventurers approached by a traveler (in reality, an avatar of Oghma, the god of knowledge). He warns them the something strange will soon happen and only they will know the truth. They awake the next day, with the traveler gone, to find that things are not what they should be...
I have been working on this idea for a few years now, but other campaigns just kept getting in the way. The debut of the Pathfinder RPG gives me a reason to try this one out. I like to think of it as similar to how 1E transitioned to 2E through the use of the Times of Trouble.
For our current D20 modern game our GM borrowed a character creation concept from another rpg.
We had to write 3 book titles that would describe part of our characters history.
Then we put the titles in hat and pulled out 3 other players book titles. We they had to write a synopsis for the book and include the other character as a guest star in the book. That way we had the characters connections and shared history sorted out before the game began.
My character was an ex police officer now bounty hunter below is the one I worked out with Amelia’s player.
The Tarnished Badge.
Synopsis: Desperately trying to track down the only witness to the
murder of his wife by a corrupt police officer, Cyrus's only clue is a
garbled message left by an old friend, the occult investigator Harry
D'Amour. Unable to find his friend, the bounty hunter turns to his
mentor's daughter, Amelia. Cyrus struggles through a series of deadly
encounters before finding Harry's burnt out jeep with a corpse burned
beyond recognition in the driver's seat.
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My last Sandbox campaign had the party meet up at a Noble's Estate. They were all sent by their respective superior, except the party's cleric as she was brought in in irons. It really set the tone of relationship between the cleric and paladin. It also set the tone of her getting one over on someone in the party.
Party member, "Hey how come you get the widget of coolness?"
The cleric raises her finger in the air in a stroke of genius and as a point of order, "Pirate!"
For our current D20 modern game our GM borrowed a character creation concept from another rpg.
Spirit of the Century (FATE system) is the system you're talking about, and it's packed full of Pulpy goodness!
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Our roleplaying is a bit different. We run 3 games simultaneously, one weekend each. 3 different DMs, 3 different universes (one is in McWod, the survival horror, Faerûn with an epic feel to it and a custom-made universe where we goof around as a dorky but very evil party). We do this because, not only the DM gets to be a PC, but our roleplaying can be very taxing. There's 10 of us, so handling 9 players isn't easy. At all. We try not to use the same strategies nor stories at all.
I hope this makes sense. English is not my first language, so imagine that what's written below this paragraph is better phrased and more immersive. The next time we start from lvl 1 the story will be:
You can remember your life, but somehow, your memories seem... slow, vague, dry. The world is like a dull dream to you. This night, you just can't take it anymore and go out for a stroll. The most natural place to be at this hour would be the downtown fountain. Large enough to have the privacy of your thoughts undisturbed, but at the same time in a place where you feel familiar and secure.
When you look up at the night sky, while looking at the stars, you somehow have this revelation: the catastrophe you've heard about, a handful of gods stopped answering prayers... You'd think you were crazy if not for the deep certainty in your heart that tells you: you were once a god or a goddess. It is time for you to regain what was taken from you. As your eyes lower from the darkened heavens, you see a group of other people that would seem like normal adventurers at first glance, also regaining control from an enthrallment while watching the sky, like yourself. Right then, for a second, you can see an otherworldly glow around them...
These people are just like you: not people at all. There is the possibility that one of those might be your ultimate enemy or had been your nemesis. That matters not right now, for they're all the only way back home.
For our current D20 modern game our GM borrowed a character creation concept from another rpg.Spirit of the Century (FATE system) is the system you're talking about, and it's packed full of Pulpy goodness!
Thanks Ian I couldn’t remember the game. It was a good character creation session. Lots of hooks for the GM to run off….
I personally use combat to start things off. Maybe a minor encounter that simply pulls the PC's together and brings them to one anothers attention (usually if the game starts at 1st level) or maybe the encounter itself actually pulls them into the adventure itself.
I have had exceptions of course.
My longest running campaign had the longest initial gaming session. I ran short 30-45 minute origin sessions with each player capped with a small encounter. These eventually led to them all mysteriously ending up in the same area where another encounter occurred. This campaign had a lot to do with fate and them being 'chosen ones' (I was in high school :-P) but it was one of the most successful and well received campaign beginnings I've had.
One my friend DM'd had dealt heavily with the campaign plot but was quite interesting itself. All of us awoke, nake, on concrete slabs in the lowest level of a small dungeon. Our gear was nearby and after some quick questioning we all decided to stick together due to the strange circumstances. Suffice to say it was an interesting campaign.
With a campaign we started recently we actually started it as the module "Tower of the Last Baron" with the PC's being called in to a Generals office. I had each of them create a background wherein they had one adventure that gave them a reputation in the Darkmoon Vale region and while it wasn't the best jump off it worked out for the most part for a quick start.
Still, I think I want to give some of the ideas on here a shot. There have been some good ones that just require a little effort on my part and that could give a campaign a nice amount of spice.
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My own Campaigns start out well but they decline if I dont make the effort to maintain the story quality and commit to the work required to keep the game quality up.
DM: The village of Burkwart was sacked by Slavers three months ago. The Survivors of that terrible night fled into hiding in the Hills. Here in theShadow of two great hills, the people have settled in to farm terraces and live in caves at the bottom of a steep gully concealed from the view of their enemies.
The PCs begin with a limited supply of equipment suiting their economic situation: Leather Shirts, Simple Weapons.
PLAYERS: "All you remember of your village are the desperate efforts of your Parents and the other villagers to put out the flames that claimed their community during that last terrible night when they lost everything. Between the fire and the raid by slavers who carried off so many, all have lost loved ones to that terrible night."
PLAYERS: "Now your Families huddle from sight in the caves of a narrow gully between two steep hills and farm terraces far from the prying eyes of the Bandits and slavers who have over run the kingdom."
Adventure 1: An earthquake opens a fissure in the back of a Cave occupied by a family and provides access to a larger cave network occupied by something nasty.
Adventure 2: You must raid your abandoned village that is now occupied by Slavers and make off with a hundred sheep in a single night.
Thanks Ian I couldn’t remember the game. It was a good character creation session. Lots of hooks for the GM to run off….
Yeah. The serial numbers could be field off, and instead of books say they are bard tales. It's a good way to tie in higher level heroes, not sure it would work for Level 1 PCs
These days, I try to lessen the workload on my own shoulders by asking the players to come up with reasons for their characters to be together. Ideally, when we first start discussing the campaign, I try to lay out a campaign template in which it is established out-of-game how the PCs will know one another, why they work together, etc.
I'm running an Etherscope play-by-post in which all of the characters live in the same neighborhood, and many of them grew up together.
In the last D&D campaign I started, the PCs were each contacted by someone who claimed they stood to inherit an estate. They all arrived to meet this person at an isolated inn and were framed for murder. All of them were arrested, and were to serve their sentence by serving in the local warlord's army as 'conscripts'. So they had reason to stick together (they didn't have much choice) and had a common cause to work toward (freedom, clearing their names, etc.).
But in general, I think I prefer to have their relationships worked out before the game actually starts. The last times I tried to run a game with everyone having their own distinct origins and no ties to each other, it was so much work trying to come up with a reason for them to stay together that I think the game just fell apart.
Yeah. The serial numbers could be field off, and instead of books say they are bard tales. It's a good way to tie in higher level heroes, not sure it would work for Level 1 PCs
Thanks Ian I couldn’t remember the game. It was a good character creation session. Lots of hooks for the GM to run off….
We started off with 3rd level characters for a D20 Modern campaign so it worked well.
Bards tales, chronicals, poems or songs could work it doesnt have to be epic.
The Ballad of Taval Wayfinder and the Gnomish rogue...
Or ode to Bogan Goblinsmasher and the day he drank Sandpoint Dry.
If I am basing a game out of a village, I typically have them as childhood friends.
For Age of Worms, I did a flashback adventure one year before AoW starts. They were working together under one of the mine bosses. Flash forward, he calls them back together to ask for their help.
In 2e, back when monster summoning spells could occassionally grab low level parties and force them to obey the summoner, I started a Planescape campaign that way. At 1st level, a bunch of characters from multiple game worlds got summoned together right as the wizard that had cast the spell was killed by a minor devil. They spent the first adventure running across the first plane of hell trying to find a portal home. The clueless berks managed to get to Sigil instead.
A friend of mine once started a campaign by running starter adventures for individual characters (with NPCs playing a big role). Eventually, the individual adventures merged together into a bigger story that involved the PCs as a whole.
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I am a big believer in realism. While I find many of the above-mentioned ideas to be a good way to kick off the first session, not many address why the party should stay together afterwards. And why is that important? Let me give you an example:
You were at your local convenient store when a group of thugs stepped in with baseball bats and small arms. Aside from robbing the place, they also started to terrorize the customers. You, along with three other unfortunate souls who happened to be there, intervened and somehow drove off the thugs. As they are fleeing, the thugs promised retribution in the future. After the incident, would you…
A) Band together with the three strangers to protect the convenient store
or
B) Let the local police handle the situation and go home
While there exist many unmentioned possibilities (ie. the store owner hired the party to guard the store), I think the example underscores the fact that people who are forced into a situation together don’t necessarily have/want to stay together. The possibility of finding four random people who would band together to take on a cause that might not be relevant to them = the distance I can throw a pregnant elephant.
I think Zuxius brought up a really good point. Make it personal. In my example, the thugs can swear revenge specifically against the party. Then you’ll have a real reason to stay together. Remember, the world could be coming to an end, but not everyone has an interest in saving it.
I once made 3 of my players blood relatives.
My players never bought in to intricate character backstories or webs of interconnections. Probably because we've never had a campaign last past 4th level and there isn't much sense of investment any more.
So rather than try to create a web of character experiences at the start, I'll just let them pepper it in as the game goes along. I also try looking for adventure NPCs that could be replaced with either relations of the PCs or the actual PCs themselves. For example, I had one of my player's character be responsible for the crop blight that was killing the natives rather than having them happen across it and choose to fix it. In Savage Tide, I'd LOVE to have a PC take the place of Lavinia...
My in-the-pocket campaign starter, though, for when I need a good one and one isn't offered is the after-wedding celebration kick. The players all decide if their character is a friend of the bride or friend of the groom. When the campaign opens, they're all in jail after the wedding festival turned rowdy and one side got into a brawl with the other. A current prisoner will have the first clue to their first adventure and, Mad Mad Mad Mad World-style, the PCs who less than 12 hours ago were punching each other in the face will now have to team up to find the treasure.
No idea for the future campaign I'm designing since half of the players have failed to produce a character yet, but I did bring two fellows together in a mini campaign via magical elements:
The players created their characters without any restrictions about location or class; one is a sorcerer in a small coastal village far to the south-east and the other a northern barbarian.
Sorcerer's village gets attacked by marauders and his half-elf sorcerer mother forces a teleport spell on him, while at the same time the barbarian, his brother and a group of northmen take on a lich-like creature who upon death detonates, causing the barbarian to disappear.
In the end they both end up in a small town far from each other's homes and, being most prominent figures in the town at the moment, decide to work together to reach their destinations. The sorcerer greatly enjoyed appearing in mid-air and falling into a stack of hay.
I am a big believer in realism. While I find many of the above-mentioned ideas to be a good way to kick off the first session, not many address why the party should stay together afterwards.
Some of the reason to stay together is because we all want to play this game :) Not always a good reason, and often certain characters/players need more than that (I've been on both sides of the problem - why do I want to stay with these weirdos!? and why do we want that wacko with us?!).
I've found that methods like the ones given in Crimson Throne work best. Throw the characters together with a short term common goal. Survive the mess they've gotten themselves into, and give them something intriguing and/or vital to deal with next ... keep adding little "nexts" to deal with, and by the time you're into the meat of the adventure, the characters have become a team :)