We have all played a game that starts off this way, its the most common rpg trope, but what are some of the best or mostthe creative ways you or your dm have introduced characters into the plot to form a group of adventurers?
One of my most memorable was one of the other pc's was playing his background out as a clumsy merchant and ended up spilling sovereign glue on his hand and when he greeted me, we were ofcourse stuck together, and it just so happened that he used the last of his universal solvent to clean us the rest of the mess.
They met as strangers in a seedy tavern, it soon turned to a vicious inside battle, people were dispatched, shot, cut, they fled in each others company.
You wake up in a building, with doves flying all around you, You must help each other find your way home.
This was only good because of some inside jokes, but when it happened, there were some lols.
And a furry faced-dude with a bad attitude says "What's the mission bub?"
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One of the more interesting adventure beginnings I heard went like this:
All of the PCs started out in your typical Medieval Fantasy tavern, with patrons guffawing and beer pouring freely. However, a few minutes later, a man opens the door and walks in. He is dressed in a black cowl and cloak, with a long, gray beard and dark eyes that lack any warmth.
He looks around the room, and at each of the PCs and several other patrons. Then one by one he points to them and count them off silently, and then says to himself "this lot will do." He then snaps his fingers and everything goes dark.
The PCs then wake up naked in an underground dungeon in what looks like a giant laboratory. They are all stuck in a cage. Outside, they see several operating tables on which about a dozen other patrons from the bar have been tied down and surgically split open from neck to navel.
However, upon closer examination, they see the same gray bearded man the saw in the bar. He is an operating tunic with a leather apron. He is lying on the floor next to an unoccupied operating table in a pool of his own blood, clutching at a scalpel that has been lodged in his throat, face frozen in surprise staring up at the ceiling. He is clearly dead. Bloody footprints lead away from his body and out of the room.
And thus the adventure begins: with the PCs having to find a way to get out of the mad necromancer's laboratory.
our group: We didn't meet in a tavern, we actually knew each other for a long time in our small town. Then when adventure time started, we met at one of the PC's father's house.
My current campaign started in a tavern in the River Kingdoms where the various PCs were awaiting portage to other locales when in stomps an Andoran Eagle Knight who demands the assistance of everyone in the taproom (there were but two others in the room besides the PCs) to help him track down some slavers he is closing in on.
PCs are cajoled into helping (they are all good-aligned, which helped) and the other two NPCs are intimidated into accompanying the Eagle Knight. Turns out the Eagle Knight and the two NPCs are the actual slavers and they lead the PCs into an ambush which goes horribly wrong for the would-be slavers. Adventure commences from there.
I just read this article this morning. It talks about a key step in the Dresden Files RPG (which uses the FATE system... which I don't know anything about) for character creation that sets up characters' relationships to each other before the first adventure even begins. I have to say that it might be fun to try something like this for a campaign.
I liked the approach in "Burnt Offerings". The PCs, who don't necessarily know each other in the beginning, go to a great festival, which is abruptly attacked by goblins. By fighting the goblins, the PCs meet, and draw attention from the local law enforcement, which feels that it could use some heroes like these, summons them, and asks for help.
For more information, just read the beginning of any of the "Rise of the Runelords" PBPs on these forums.
Well, we once played a "You all meet in a tavern..." game of AD&D 2e while actually meeting in a real tavern!
As for my personal DMing style, I always ask players to come up with a tangible relationship with two other characters, so as to create a web that ties the group together. Saves everyone a lot of trouble, sets up a nice set of plothooks for me to work with, and gives the group a strong sense of companionship.
The game ended up folding, but I essentially began things like this once:
The PCs wake up in prison cells, stripped of all their possessions. They were caught in flagrante delicto, assassinating the ambassador of a very powerful empire. Convicted of high treason, they are to be executed.
...but someone pulled a few strings and managed to get them exile and outlawry instead. Best high-tail it out of the kingdom before word spreads, since it's open season now.
Nobody remembers anything about assassinating anybody, but they all remember being at the party where the ambassador was killed.
Second time I gotta post this in one week, yay:
Tell the players: "Now, as a group, please come up with a story on how you all met each other and why are you all adventuring together. I'll start running the game once you folks have figured that out."
Works every time.
Yes, that certainly does work, however in my OP I asked for creative ways, nothing personal, but I don't see how you could get any less creative than "y'all figure it out and tell me"
Another creative start to a campaign I've played in, we started out as children in a small city-state, after gaining knowledge of a few plot hooks the dm had the ruler raise taxes and the city-state fell into wide spread poverty, a few more plot hooks and child explorations later we all get kid napped and hauled off into the woods, we wake up an unknown amount of time later alone and in a strange place, (one in a large city, one out in the tundra, one out in a desert, etc.) Being young kids we didn't know how to get back to our original home town and eventually settle where we were. Fast forward a few years till we are "adults" (at least by game mechanic standards) and we finally figure out what the name of the city-state was, we all arrive these many years later at the same time to this completely deserted city-state, through speaking with each other and research we find out that the ruler has become the leader of an extremely large town and is running it into poverty through excessive taxation AND there are reports of children missing.
The childhood part took place over 5 to 6 sessions but we essentially played out our background
I began my most recent campaign with a short drop and a sudden stop. Hanged every last character right at the beginning of the game.
I began my most recent campaign with a short drop and a sudden stop. Hanged every last character right at the beginning of the game.
So they played undead? Or did the rope snap?
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Use "The Hangover" hook. Have all the characters wake-up in a flophouse with no clear recollection of the previous night.
Include some weird and disturbing things in the room and amidst their possessions. One or more of these objects is the device that sets the plot in motion.
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Another thought: Have the characters begin in a town under a large-scale assault/invasion from an army, or gargantuan beast of some sort.
The characters are forced to flee (1st level characters won't last long against an ancient dragon, for instance), and their collective vow is to return and avenge/rescue/liberate their family and neighbors.
Since my example above was when I was playerside, I think the most unusual method I've used personally was the "roll Commoner versions of yourselves as well as versions with class levels. You all start in the same town and know each other from youth." Had them get stuck out in the wilds at night, attacked by the unnatural creatures that stalked the untamed lands after sundown, then rescued by fate and given their class abilities.
The rest have been pretty standard "you all happen to be arriving in town at around the same time, or are locals to the area" and then direct them together via plot shenanigans.
I liked the start of the D&D module "Treasure Hunt"... All the PCs start at level 0 (commoners) who are prisonners on board a slaving ship. Then, during a powerful strom at sea, the ship crashes on a rocky beach of some unknown island. The survivors (the PCs) have to work together, with almost nothing to survive their situation. It's a FANTASTIC way to introduce new players to the game, as they start out as regular joes. You can almost ask them: "What would YOU do in this situation..."
In other scenarios though, I usually state that the group already knows each other... They're either getting back together for some reason, or are going out to an event together when the adventure starts happenning. I also use in Media Res (as Fox above). I started using that when I DMed some Star Wars adventures for a while.
I've played in so many games where just meeting and getting the group together is an ordeal. It always felt like a big waste of time for me. Imagine reading something like the Fellowship of the Ring and the entire first half of the book is about things that happen at The Prancing Pony. Bleh.
Ultradan
Use "The Hangover" hook. Have all the characters wake-up in a flophouse with no clear recollection of the previous night.
Include some weird and disturbing things in the room and amidst their possessions. One or more of these objects is the device that sets the plot in motion.
Hey, I've never thought of doing that! I'll be using it for my next 7th Sea game.
Thanks!
We did the Hangover hook before. One of the clues was a giant dog collar with "Fluffy" stamped into it. I ended up finding out we let all the beasts out of the Colosseum (one party member was a Gladiator), and then had to retrieve Fluffy the Minotaur out of my uncle's hedge-maze.
While I don't pretend this is a new thing, I once used plot cards to form the group. So player A would have a card saying "hire player B as a guide on your way to the capital". Player C had something like "side with player A and B when combat breaks at marketplace".
This plot card system was to be a central element of this game
I usually run very sandbox-y games; if the players don't bite to my plot hooks, I just roll with what they do (these players had a lot of initiative, so that was easy).
This game was meant to be more linear, almost a railroad scenario a la Hollywood blockbuster. To make the game flow more 'naturally', I introduced a system of plot cards where the players had objectives to complete, each with a value in XPs. This way, I openly told the player what was supposed to happen in that game, and they had to figure how it would happen. It worked very well with these players. Unfortunately, that was one of my many games that was never completed...
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I'm running Serpent Skull and have to say the opening to that AP was probably one of my favorites.
It was such a fun beginning that I'll be using something similar for my next home game.
EDIT: included spoiler tag... just in case.
I began my most recent campaign with a short drop and a sudden stop. Hanged every last character right at the beginning of the game.So they played undead? Or did the rope snap?
Nope. They all died. But a paladin of Iomedae on a mission to remove the evil and unjust king of that country had some clerics use scrolls to raise them. I figured that was a good way to get them immediately interested in a rebellion.
I like the hanging schtick, might have to find a reason to use it =)
Asta
PSY
Well you could skip over the tavern and just have them start at the entrance to the dungeon.
I played one where we were all locked up together in a prison with an anti-magic field around it. Some of us knew each other previously IC, others were complete strangers. We ended up working together to break out, and the remoteness of the prison forced us (along with several NPC inmates) to travel together for mutual safety. By the time we reached a town, we had bonded enough for party cohesion.
What do you think the probability that they Don't know each other?
Pretty damned low honestly...
... unless of course they're not all from the same town.
I think the only campaign I've ever run where the players all had the same point of origin was the one where I specifically said "Hey, you're all from this town, and start as commoners". Every single other game, there was only one person who was a local - the Binder in my first game, the Cleric in our Age of Worms game, the Oracle in the current homebrew I'm running - or none at all, such as in my Savage Tide game where nobody was from Sasserine or even Cauldron.
I figured that if I ever start a non-adventure-path campaign, that I'd make my players (all of them) roll up fighters (or fighter-types). I would have them start as slave/gladiators and make them fight other NPC fighters and eventually themselves, with the last PC surviving and escaping his captors and becomming the eventual 'fighter of the group'.
Then I'd make the other players roll up whatever characters they want, as usual.
That would make a hell of an intro session.
Ultradan
Orthos,
I generally insist, when it's first level characters we're talking about, that the overwhelming majority of PC's be made as locals to wherever it is that the adventure starts. Maybe 1 of 4 gets allowed to not be from at least the nearby region. I'm ok though with backgrounds where a PC grew up from, say, age 1-8 or 10 in another nation and move/fled/whatever into the current area.
Ah well that's the thing. I never start at 1st. 3rd most of the time, 2nd bare minimum (and only usually for things like APs and stuff written for 1st).
I also don't like taking that much control over PCs' backgrounds unless it's core to the adventure. I don't think I'll ever pull another "you're all from this town" again. Much more fun to let the players come up with their own backstories. Makes them more varied, I find, which is a good thing.
Doesn't help that unless they all wanted to play the same race it probably wouldn't work in my setting.
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I figured that if I ever start a non-adventure-path campaign, that I'd make my players (all of them) roll up fighters (or fighter-types). I would have them start as slave/gladiators and make them fight other NPC fighters and eventually themselves, with the last PC surviving and escaping his captors and becomming the eventual 'fighter of the group'.
Then I'd make the other players roll up whatever characters they want, as usual.
That would make a hell of an intro session.
Ultradan
Take it to the next level and do that for *all* the PCs. You hold onto the victors until the end. Then throw the motley bunch into the meat of the campaign.