When I first started this campaign, the biggest hiccup that occurred happened right out of the box. Everyone was prepared to "have an issue" with Cheliax or Westcrown specifically, but the wheels nearly feel off with the party crashing that started the campaign.
Actually, they nearly fell off when Janiven made her speech.
Up to that point, the party kind of got the idea that they might be hunting down conspiracies, acting as vigilantes, and building some clout to potentially influence the city in ways they would like to see.
They didn't expect to see someone invite them to a secret group, give them a speech that was pretty much a call to rebellion, and then have the whole thing get raided by Hellknights. Several of my players felt like they were forced to work with the Children of Westcrown because of the guilt by association. At least one said that, even if he had a problem with Westcrown and Cheliax, Janiven's speech would have made him turn her in on the spot, and he had to do a lot of thinking to figure out how his character would not do exactly that.
I've see the above brought up before, so what I wanted to do here is to call out other ways to start the campaign without changing it greatly, but without some of the pitfalls the standard starting point might create.
Essentially I came up with three alternate starting points that would require very little change to the overall campaign, but might help frame the motives of the PCs in a much more palatable manner.
Alternate Start #1: Previous Knowledge and More Buy In
For this starting point, all you really would need to do would be to clue the PCs in on a bit more than they are assumed to know. The PCs start as members of the Children of Westcrown.
Lay out on the table that Arael wants to be benign vigilantes that lead by example, and Janiven is more of a mind to push for rebellion after the group has some momentum, but the PCs know what the Children are all about.
This way, the group isn't quite as shocked by Janiven's speech, and it also warns them before the campaign starts that they are already likely to be on the wrong side of the law, and not just a little bit.
In this version of the starting point, the PCs aren't meeting Janiven in order to be invited to the Children of Westcrown, they are meeting her so that she can tell them that the Hellknights have arrested Arael. Morosino could have been with Arael and "allowed" to escape to let the Hellknights track him.
Having a bigger buy in and more of a rebel bent means that this opening to the campaign probably isn't the best if any of the PCs are aspiring Hellknights or adherents to Asmodeus' faith, but beyond that, the rest of the campaign can play out pretty much as it is assumed to play out.
Alternate Start #2: Pathfinder Agents
In this alternate starting point, the PCs are all potential Pathfinders recruited from Westcrown by Ailyn. The PCs are suppose to join up with the Children of Westcrown for the main purpose of finding out what they know about the shadow curse or any other conspiracies in the city.
The main change here is that Ailyn shows up sooner in the story, and the PCs all have to agree to start out as prospective Pathfinders. They may not be completely up front about why they want to join the Children of Westcrown, which may cause some interesting roleplaying situations later in the storyline.
Given that the PCs should still be from Westcrown, even if the PCs eventually split from the Children of Westcrown, its likely they will still want to save their hometown, even after the main thrust of the mysteries of Delvehaven are solved.
Because the PCs may not be totally up front with the Children of Westcrown, its not likely that paladins will have an easy time with this version of the campaign starting point. Also, this campaign beginning also makes it harder to have PCs affiliated with the Asmodean Church or with the Hellknights, since the Pathfinders are operating under the radar in a manner that's not likely to endear them to law enforcement in Cheliax.
Alternate Start #3: Agents of Thrune
I've heard several people say that they really wanted to be able to be true Chelaxians in campaign set in Cheliax. This would be the best way to pull this off. In this alternate starting point, the PCs are actually contacted by a cousin to the Queen, one that wants House Thrune to have more direct control over Westcrown, and also wants to make themselves look good in the queen's eyes.
The PCs will be infiltrating the Children of Westcrown. They will be finding out where they are, what they know, and exploiting them to find out what else is going on in Westcrown. Since the Council of Thieves is a problem for Cheliax as well, and since the Lord Mayor's excesses are of interest to House Thrune, the PCs don't need to even run afoul of the Children of Westcrown until late in the campaign. In fact, if the PCs have grown to like the Children of Westcrown, it makes for a good role-playing exercise to see how they will handle their role as agents of Thrune balanced against their friendship.
Other than having the PCs all meet one another before they join the Children of Westcrown, and having them being hired by a mysterious Thrune benefactor, much of the campaign will still play out the way it is assumed to play out, with one big up side: if the PCs get caught by the authorities at various points in the campaign, its easier to extricate them from danger when their benefactor can drop a word in the right ear and get them free.
Of course, if they run afoul of the authorities because they are wantonly spreading chaos or directly aiding enemies of the crown, they will probably be dropped as agents pretty quickly.
This option definitely is a challenge if there is a paladin in the party. On the other hand, this is the campaign set up to use if you have players that want to run Asmodean faithful, and especially aspiring Hellknights.
Final Thoughts
I know I'm probably late to the party with a lot of this, but I'm hoping this might be worthwhile to some GMs just starting the campaign, and I'm interested to see other thoughts on the subject.
Man, option #3 is a big "why didn't I think of that!?!" for me. My group decided early on to be all-evil, and since I thought that might fit well as long as they stuck together, I went for it. Our current setup is that the PC group is trying to grab the reins of power in the city, and as the Children (or "The Guardians of Westcrown" in our game) is the only subversive game in town, they "interface" with them once in a while. They saved Arael to get some vengeance on the Hellknights and make the Children "owe them a favor" and intend on looting Delvehaven without telling the Children anything of what they find.
And so, looking at it, your "you are secret agents of Thrune" would have worked PERFECTLY as a setup, and probably made the group a bit more cohesive (my group has the recurring problem of not making characters that play well together). It's a great idea for allowing an evil group while still following a standard RPG "good guys"-plot.
So yeah, just three months late to my party, and I will never forget it.
As I noted in an earlier thread, I'd probably go with #1 (starting off as a member of the Children of Westcrown). But #3 sounds like it could have potential too, for some groups.
