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I've been DMing for a few years on and off, and I'm going to start running a homebrew adventure in January. I've got most of the adventure written; I just don't know how to start it. My players are thrill-seekers who play mainly for the excitement, so starting them off in a tavern or in any situation that doesn't involve danger usually means they take a while to get invested in the game.
In the past I've done things like have them all roll initiative and be fighting together, not knowing how they got there; then suddenly the cleric wakes up, realizes he was having a prophetic dream, and goes to find the other PCs (whom he's never met) because he thinks his god wants him to.
I'm running out of ideas for exciting openings, though! Does anyone have any ideas?
Let them ball park build level 10-15 versions of the characters and start in a battle, then Flashback and make the campaign tell the story up to that point and likely beyond?
Depends how the adventure goes. Do you want to tie the meet-in to the adventure? If so, then we require some details to get something workable, which of course may be problematic.
Skipping the more fantastical suggestions for a moment.
-Random Orc/Goblin/Kobold raid of town/camp/tavern.
-Bandits/pirates/thugs jump X number of players (a number larger than X can take on but such that the entire party could and preferably the ones who wouldn't go out of their way to help some one else being beaten up)
Have them start at different places in town (wherever fits their personalities, local church for cleric, bar for the fighter, etc.) have the town guard race through town requesting help against (insert your most common enemy of choice for the campaign) who are coming to raid the town, they fight off the attack and are most likely they stick out as far as skill goes considering everyone else will be an NPC, maybe one of them need a party for blah blah blah
I've had luck with flashback and flash forward sequences. take care with flash forwards, of course....it can be hard to circle around.
I once had a group start a campaign playing a half night as some of the villains they would later meet.
Another time I just started them right at the first Big Fight the first night, and flashed back to How they Met in small pieces over the next few sessions. Toss a future villain in as a friendly npc in the flashbacks, and you'll likely earn a satisfying curse or two when the reveal hits.
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Whenever I've started a Spycraft game, the first scene has started with gunfire as the previous mission goes bad. The team extracts, returns to base, gets reassigned and the adventure starts. Often what made the previous mission go bad is important in the current one.
I guess I've watched too many Bond movies.
I'm currently GMing two different player groups in a homebrewed world. One group is smaller and more into heavy RP, the other is all powergamers who love heavy duty action with occasional RP to balance things.
Anyway, in the world I've built, open war was recently declared by two evil factions seeking to control all magic, leaving non-evil aligned people adrift to fight for themselves. I had the PCs all start in a part of the Land that is completely overrun by one of the evil factions; we worked together before the first session to come up with individual back stories and plausible reasons why they would have been there, then they all started on the run; the roads are patrolled and the woods are violent and dangerous. They all had the Fatigued or Exhausted condition, no money, no food, no water, living off their wits, badly beat-up weapons, and no way out.
The first couple sessions was the PCs hearing talk amongst the farmers and innkeepers and other natives of that country about a group of skilled soldiers that were forming a resistance. The PCs then had fight their way (while exhausted) to the rendezvous, which was then brutally attacked, and from there they've been battling their way to meet up with the main force.
The keys that have been working for me are keeping the party totally dogged on all sides and giving them little quarter, but keeping it all plausible within the terms of "you are an enemy in an overrun area." This forces them to be clever and efficient in combat as well as strategically on the ball, but doesn't feel like it's just me dropping meteors on them.
Long story short, we developed clear and plausible character backgrounds within my prep story, then I just plopped them in media res and it's been full guns since then.
The players, BTW, are loving every minute of it. Or at least that's what they say to my face. ;-)
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It's easy to find a way for the players to meet but hard to find an opening that gives them a reason to stay together. I generally try to think of movie, tv, or literature tropes that have worked over the years and modify them for fantasy.
So: LOST - instead of an airplane crash, maybe teleportations in a given region go very wrong, landing a group of individuals in a hostile terrain.
Flash Forward - The Pcs have a vision or dream of a future dire situation where they obviously know the other PCs. The next day they find themselves in that very situation.
A hostage situation - The PCs happen to be at the same shop when brigands rob the place. They band together in their desire to get their stuff back and avenge the shop owner.
Hunger games - They are selected by a lottery to represent their community in some great contest, but when they find the contest isn't what they thought it was, they band together to claim their freedom.
Just a few ideas...
I once started a campaign by having the characters wake-up outside in the middle of a stonehenge-like rock formation near a village with no clue on who they are or what they are doing there (not a copper and no equipment!).
One campaign started off by having all of the players be slaves on a slave ship and having the ship run aground during a storm (old module N1 (I think): Treasure Island). Again, no equipment at the start. The order of buisness was this: Work together, or die!
Old Star Wars adventure modules always started off 'in media res'... So narrate a short story about how the players have banded together as mercs to escort a merchant wagon to the next city and get ambushed by something (like goblins or kobolds) in the woods. Start the game by saying "Roll for initiative!"...
Ultradan
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Start them in a REAL fight... no dream. Simply explain to them that they were in "this town" doing whatever they do during normal downtime (if they're starting at 1st level, doing whatever they normally do to earn the meager living they've been living through now) when the attack started. They each had the time they needed to get their gear and have been pretty much struggling to survive... but have gravitated toward other effective people (the other PC's) who have been offering resistance and have huddled in a position that will soon be overrun.
They can just survive on their own but, if they can work together, they can actually overcome the attackers. Even chaotic characters have enough sense to realize their freedom hinges on being alive so they'll throw in with the others.
The attackers can serve as the link to your first adventure or the BBEG for the campaign in some way.
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A few ideas:
1. The characters' parents/ Grandparents were formerly adventuring partners. An old enemy/ relic that they thought gone forever has emerged again and the old heads are now too elderly to face it. They turn to their young and able offspring to end the threat.
2. The characters wake up amidst a ruined, burning town that had been set upon by an evil force (army, dragon, etc.). As the only survivors of the attack, they set out together for justice (and maybe some revenge).
3. Loved ones of each character have been kidnapped!
4. Random magical energy displaces the characters. They are together in the wilderness. Why wonder off alone?
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I read somewhere years ago (maybe AD&D 1E) of Summon Monster sometimes nabbing adventurers. Imagine starting the game as a summoned monster fighting as a pawn for a wizard!
Maybe something goes wrong and the spell doesn't return the PCs home when it ends and they are stuck. Depending on how the battle goes, they could have the wizard who summoned them to deal with or his enemies. Or maybe both teleport out, leaving the PCs as fellow strangers gathered together in a unknown land after just fighting for their lives in a conflict they don't even understand.
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Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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malebranche, I've been in your predicament before. Here's an opening I used a few years back that my players really enjoyed:
Each PC is invited to the house of a prominent citizen with a cryptic message that his and their lives are in danger. He wants to meet them at his private residence to discuss options for defending themselves and to clue them in on the identity of the people who mean them ill will and the reason behind it.
The PCs each go to the meeting location, unaware of each other and any connection between them, and they meet each other as they arrive.
After waiting a suitable amount of time in the foyer, the prominent citizen arrives and introduces himself. He indicates he has some important information about the source of their concern, takes a drink from his wine glass, then drops dead...
As the PCs begin to react, the bodyguards enter the room (at the worst possible time - preferably as one of the PCs is checking the body), and accuse the PCs of murder...
The campaign is off and running!
Hope this helps!
Do it like a James Bond or Indiana Jones movie: those flicks always start with the protagonist at the final "encounter," if you will, of a previous (hypothetical) adventure.
I successfully did this a few months ago with a new group, where the background scenario was they were looking for this map in a dungeon, a thief had run off with it, and while they were pursuing him they got in over their heads with some trolls. After fleeing they had found a secret door leading to a corridor sloping down into the darkness. Going back wasn't an option because of the trolls. That's where we started playing: in the corridor.
The corridor led to a room with a trap, and an encounter with some basidironds, the dead body of the guy with the map, and an exit from the dungeon.
My group was starting at level 5, but I'm sure something like this could be worked out for level 1. It has the added benefit of giving you a means to provide a little starting wealth. You just need to have players who are cool and won't insist on getting XP for the hypothetical adventuring that occurred prior to the start.
I started a campaign with the characters all washed up on an island after a massive fleet of fishing vessels sank. Their starting gear was what they could salvage from the ship wrecks. Said island was remote, cold, and filled with undead.
Oh, and there was an semi-active volcano spewing out lava, and occasional ground tremors indicating that it was thinking about blowing. So lots of tension and danger.
My favorite game start was when a GM turned to us and said, "Okay, so: you have ten seconds to explain to me why these Stormtroopers are chasing and firing at you."
It was pretty awesome.
Some players don't respond to that kind of pressure well, but I loved it. I also liked the way it got us invested in the start of the story by giving us a detail to handle (but the GM clearly also had a story in mind which unfolded shortly thereafter).
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An old Ravenloft adventure started with a battle that numerically, the party couldn't win, in an enclosed area against a vampire in his crypt. They awoke, memories wiped of anything more than the battle, with vague clues of what they were doing there and why, and with no answers as to how they survived (or if it were even real, though everyone has a memory of it).
Could drop the party into another battle where someone has managed to "summon" them (since summoned can't "die" a party death won't mean as much). How much you'd give them about this entity that has summoned (and may continue to do so) could be part of the plot.
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I really like Larry Lichman's post. It would work for me, however, I will put my two cents worth in as well. The characters find themselves and many more individuals frozen like a forest of statues in a extremely low light cavern (you could even start this ahead of time by sending each player the scenario individually) The characters have no memory of the past (none, if they were married they don't remember, lord? pauper?) The sound of something moving suggests that they are not alone. Up high there is an exit from this chamber into what appears to be daylight....
Each character is stripped bare, cold but alive. the cavern is strewn with rubble, but nothing large enough to provide cover. there are also scores of tunnels leaving the chamber into darkness, these tunnels vary in size and shape and appear to be formed naturally.
Once outside they find themselves______ (alone on a windswept mountain, inside a deserted town/city, in the ruins of an old building, amongst a thick forest, swamp or on a large rock amidst a vast desert). Regardless, once out of the cavern the PC's will meet, see each other, fight one another thinking the other to be the source of the statues? And be off, hopefully returning at some point to discover the cause of the statue people and defeat and possibly free the people.