|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Their kingdom had been occupied by overwhelming force and the war is lost.
The PCs (zero exp) wake up in the deepest prison-dungeon in the known world and the only way to escape is to slip out of the salt mines through a crack in the back wall of their cell which leads into a series of natural caverns that intersect the salt-mine on various levels. Grego (the creepy old dude who cut your hair off while you slept) reveals he know has a fifty foot rope woven of human hair and can probably lower you down to the ledge through that crack.
@yellowdingo: I might just have to "borrow" that intro at some point...
Y'know what I'd like to see? Party starts off in a military unit and... boring military stuff happens.
I've actually played one like that. The party all started out as apprentice assassins. Spent the entirety of first level doing exercises in stealth, subtle diplomacy, lying, subterfuge, and assassination. Second level was a routine training mission of "lure some dummy enemies into a trap for the higher-level agents to take care of" (with some pre-arranged 'unforseen complications' that tested our ability to improvise). Third level was our graduation, first real solo mission that required us to be teleported out into hostile territory to our destination. Upon successfully completing the mission, we found that the agent who was supposed to be there to teleport us back home was nowhere to be found.
Spent the next four levels trying to work our way through hostile territory and back home. Slowly came to the realization that the organization we were trained by were the biggest villains around, had to ally ourselves with our once-enemies and raise an army supplemented by evil dragons, which led up to a massive clash of ninja vs. dragons.
The dragons won, and we then found out that they'd only allied with us because the organization that had trained us were the only ones in the area with any real ability to fight back against a dragon empire. As the only remaining members of that organization (and fairly powerful characters by that point) it was up to us to use our skills at fighting dirty to take down a dragon empire that nobody had any hope of fighting directly.
" After your last binge you slowly start to regains consciousness only to find yourself in the top of a belltower with a crossbow in your hands. Below, in the town square the crowd is staring at your while the baroness lies dead with a bolt in her throat"
Huh, Replace Crossbow with Musket & bolt in the throat with bullet wound in her chest. You will have exactly what happened with my current gunslinger...
I did just start a campaign with the party being classmates and Nakama at a military academy Final Fantasy Tactics style. The Academy is located in their homeland's closest ally. They are now trying to take back their fallen homeland.
Y'know, here's another thing I've noticed among almost ALL our starts: we run really DARK campaigns? Seriously: overwheming evil controls your land, you've been setup for the crime of the century, your new mentor is kidnapped right in front of you, your village is burned to the ground... dark.
In fact, the last really "light" campaign I can remember running was WAYYYY back in 1E. One PC was a halfling, the remainder were humans. The halfling then was the envoy of his village, leading the party into the wilderness. Y'see, they'd outgrown the serene pasturelands and needed to scout for a new homestead.
So the first couple adventures were wilderness clearing. Within a few miles they found a nice, open hill with a few surrounding knolls which were grassy and fair. They were occupied though by an evil cult that was planning a rite to despoil the region. The party went toe to toe w/them, several members died and were replaced by an elf and 2 more humans (a fighter and a wizard). In the end they were victorious and pulled a decent horde.
In truly "light" fashion they gave the entire horde (minus traveling expenses) to the halflings to help them with the expense of the move. Their employers repaid them with everful bags of pipeweed and magic pipes that could empower the smoke rings with a number of minor special effects.
The game only lasted a few more sessions but was forever remembered as the Halfling Campaign.
Does stuff like that die in college?
^ The most recent light starts to campaigns I've had all feature goblins. Despite the evil they're generally taking part in, the comedic ineptitude of goblins just seems to lighten the mood of any situation.
I recently run a campaign where the PCs were the main villains...
But I have had a few light campaigns.
My current ones I am running and playing in we are all part of a Guild and are just taking random missions for the guild.
So far the most evil thing that has appeared has been a Skeletal Champion. Everything else is usually just something causing trouble for villages and such.
2 words:
River Styx
Is it bad that I thought you said River Song...
There's a few campaigns I began that I feel stood out a bit from the Ye Olde Tavern archetype.
1) My brother once begin a mini game that evolved into a many faceted campaign that led to post-20th level. The game opened with his kobold sorcerer out and alone in the cold snowy mountains after getting booted out of his homeland and then getting eaten by a dog. Well, sort of. He encountered a lone wild dog who tried to eat him, and probably would have except that I was intending to introduce an NPC during the battle, yet he was downed too quickly. It added to the scene as he woke up in a little tent buried in a snowbank, with a small fire, and a tiefling who saved him. The two were inseparable thereafter.
2) In another campaign the party was traveling with a caravan through a cold wilderness and forest in a hill and mountain region dotted with forest. The campaign began with an avalanche taking out the caravan with the PCs being the only survivors due to being mostly out of the path of the falling snow and debris. Now lost and alone, they had to take what they could and reach civilization, while realizing that the avalanche was started on purpose and that they were being followed by something...
3) In an Eberron one-shot at a friend's Birthday party, all the PCs began captured by an enemy of their nation. They were all locked tightly in their cells when the base fell under attack by someone (their military allies in fact). Structural damage cracked one of the walls in the prison and allowed one of the PCs to escape, get the keys, and then release their companions. They then issued a prison break by overpowering the guards, acquring the pass to grab their equipment from the storage area, and then raced to the top of the building to face off against the first boss of the game, the Jailer, before making off on a mighty flying vessel as their half-orc, trenchcoat wearing, cigar smoking, ol' friend from the military greeted them and explained that something big was going down and their help would be appreciated.
|
My first game I ran I told the players that their characters will have responded to a flyer looking for sailors. One of the PCs was randomely the captain and they initially were doing small trade deals or escort missions until the central plot swept them up.
I started my current world telling the party they were all members of the countries aristocracy and presented them with the 10 noble families they could be descended. I worked with them on coming up with their parents and siblings and incorporated those generated NPCs into the greater aspect of the entire campaign. The party played a group of nobles who were pressed into service as personal agents of the king. The party started out with a female Half Elf Wizard from the wealthy family, a human blade bound magus from the devil-worshipping family, a paladin from the ambitious and coastal family and an inquisitor from the warrior family. An assassinated king and two civil wars later and the PCs have been able to shape the game nearly as much as I have.
I've been thinking for my next one about running a game similar to Kingmaker but set in Tian Xia. I'm trying to currently come up with a premise for it that isn't ripped right out of Kingmaker.
|
Starting players as slaves, servants or prisoners is not a good idea. The last is overdone in games like oblivion and skyrim, and they all take away mastery, power and prove quite (initially) un-enjoyable from what I have seen and heard. E.g. the person that is playing a char that would rather die than be a slave, feels put out to start as a slave. A person starting as a highly skilled rogue will feel bad about starting caught, as it were.
Well, I have never played Skyrim or Oblivion. I do not know whether any of my players have played them. They have had fun with the beginning, and they all wrote good backgrounds for their characters. They proved quite equal to the challenge of escaping, neutralizing two sets of guards (without killing them, at the paladin's insistence) and freeing two dozen other slaves. But most important, they are having fun playing the game.
|
The Elder Scrolls have started you as a prisoner in just about every game-- at this point it's a running joke. I never had a problem with it in Oblivion, seeing as how the escape route is also the tutorial.
I probably need to work on how my campaigns start. Usually it's just "you're adventurers, you gathered together as a group for mutual protection and benefit (and I expect you all to act like you chose to ally with each other) and here's the lead on the adventure du jour".
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've had my players gauge each others equivalent ability score in the real world, and then take an everyday scenario like "you all are hanging out in front of Starbucks..." Usually something catastrophic will happen, or a bit of subtle foreshadowing that leads them into flipping their worlds upside down. With these game I've had them only start with what would normally be on their person at the time.
The longest iteration of one of these games, happened while the group was out on a backpacking trip in Northern California, when minor tremors turned into a massive earthquake that opened a crevice. The players climbed down into the crevice to investigate and find a globe sized crystal, still buried to its top. After they search the immediate area and attempt to dig it out, the crystal begins to emit a white and purple aura, another tremor happens, and they fall onto the globe. They were instantly teleported across our plane and into the Forgotten Realms smack dab in the middle of The Moonwood forest. This campaign lasted about a year.
Most of the time, they would try and find a way back to our universe, but you'd have one or two the players that would be a bit over-zealous and try and strike a claim in the fantasy world.
I've done an alien invasion where they'd have intelligent mounts (a black panther, velociraptor, white lion, and a "chocobo") locate (and scare them at first), then guide them to the safety of the 'good' alien race to better inform them.
Another one of my favorites was that a friend of ours was a super-secret agent who was part of a para-military agency that had its location under his house. This 'friend' had been training the players in real life via Halo where each of them would take control of their own Spartan to do various missions, where in each mission they would go up in military ranks, command other squadrons and platoons.
In regards to the fantasy setting, one campaign, the PC's had dreamed about an event, and would feel an incessant pull to its location until the party would be gathered to stop or witness the event.
An early game of mine, I made the PC's start off as classless, child versions of the race they wanted to play. They were all already friends, and would meet up in the town center to rough-house and play 'stick wars'. Just a simple game where they would either throw or hit each other with sticks, but one of the NPC kids that ran with them accidentally murders another kid with his innate and at the time unknown magical powers. Depending on how they played during the encounter would determine their class.
Those are some of my unique ways of starting campaigns...but I'll usually default and have everyone meet up in a bar and get into a bar fight xD
One thing I'm planning to do for an upcoming campaign I'm running is to start out the party with enough exp to be halfway to level 2 and 300-500 gold above normal to represent a simple mission they completed beforehand. Maybe it was clearing out some goblins, maybe it was retrieving an item. I'm going to let the PCs decide before we actually start. (Giving them a little bit of freedom and flavor because each PC could go on a different type of mission)
Anyway, they were successful, and brought back some really nice stuff that they obviously sold off or turned in. From that, each mission recovered something inconspicuous, but connected. The person in charge of their initial missions realizes this and sends them a summons to meet at a very specific time at a safehouse/outpost about a mile out of town. The message is specific about time that evening and location, but otherwise vague, and sounds rather paranoid.
The PCs likely meet up on the road and arrive just in time to see the safehouse/outpost engulfed in flames, an NPC be shanked (silhouetted against the flames for flavor), and several forms fleeing into the forest.
The PCs manage to find another lead on the body they saw cut down (since the enemy had to flee before taking that evidence) in the form of a note or object. Or, if the PCs have no healing yet, the info could be given with the PCs dying breath (even placing a hard limit on the number of questions the NPC can answer before dying)
You all wake up (roll d100)...naked with (roll d100) YOUR hand in...(roll d100) HIS lap.
And action!
A rag tag group enters into a bar...and then suddenly they hear screams and see bright flashes outside. The exit the building to find dozens of dead bodies and small fires spreading through out the city. All the while, thousands of papers are fluttering in the wind
The party has been caught in a terrorist attack by a group of magical extremists. This organization's MO is the use of lethal letter bombs- they prepare thousands of sheets of paper covered in explosive runes, and dump them over a crowded public area. This not only causes massive loss of life and destruction, but leaves a difficult clean up that needs to be extremely thorough (since missing a sheet caught behind a box costs lives, and the fear of that prevents people from coming back to town).
The interesting thing here is that the player's own eyes are the greatest enemy. And their second greatest enemy? The eyes of their party and the random survivors. So blindfolding themselves and just crawling out might not work, since they could bump into an idiot that looks and blows them all up. So it is a race against time where they must balance the risk of looking versus the risk of not looking. And along the way, players might have to make tough decisions (crying, singed kids are good- you might get an argument about whether they are old enough to actually read)
There will likely be deaths for the party (maybe just make randomly generated appearance/backgrounds, and just let the players keep the one that survives; good for players that are bad at starting that kind of stuff; they can build from there with the 'we survived' angle). They will have few ways at early levels of dealing with any of this. That makes them feel powerless- and that is the point. Done well, the players get to feel the anxiety felt by the random bystanders- they are helpless and desperate. This builds sympathy with the NPCs, and it also makes the antagonists into both a threat and a hated enemy. And that can give them a shared motivation to become player characters and take down this threat.
In the current, Wild West themed campaign I am co-DMing, all the PCs started on a train heading to the last remaining city in a desolate wasteland.
Sure enough, they all expected an attack. So when the train stopped suddenly and the bandits began firing, none of them were surprised.
When the ancient blue dragon landed in the middle of the combat however, that raised some eyebrows.
The dragon proceeded to smash the train right off the tracks and destroy almost everyone with its lightning breath.
After the dragon fear wore off and the PCs walked back to the wreckage they found themselves and a few NPCs were the only survivors - including a bandit or two.
The game then turned into "Survive together in the desert with little supplies and untrustworthy prisoners"
Good way to have them bond.
We once had a DM who started a campaign by turning on his TV and showing us part of a movie where a ship was being battered by a storm. It really helped set the mood for the shipwreck which stranded the PCs on a tropical island without any equipment. As it turned out the far end of the island was a base for some folks using slaves to harvest coconuts.
The PCs eventually managed to sneak about one of the slaver ships, kill some of the crew, and press the rest into service to help them sail away and escape. Unfortunately they later ran into a naval ship from the closest port, and its captain arrested the PCs for piracy. This resulted in the PCs going to jail and being graphically tortured. It was kind of an odd campaign in some ways.
Eventually I want to do a campaign myself. While very few details are around I do know two things.
1) There will be a guild with a gnome guildmaster.
2) The starting town is on fire.
Eventually I want to do a campaign myself. While very few details are around I do know two things.
1) There will be a guild with a gnome guildmaster.
2) The starting town is on fire.
Are the two facts related? Is this the fireworks guild?
You only need two things. A wagon and 1d6 goblins.
I used 6d6 goblin. And i rolled 24. Fun times.
One of the most interesting I have heard of: "You have all claimed a seat at the local tavern a ship crashes through the back wall. Roll initiative."
I once started one of my own campaigns with the party arriving in a small village not marked on their map. There was evidence that a great celebration had been interrupted even the food was still warm. The town was now deserted.
|
I have done the "party of adventurers summoned to perform a country-saving task by a benefactor of great renown" angle only to have the benefactor turn out to be the biggest bad guy.
I have also enjoyed the "various guests at a harvest festival/state fair" where the first few sessions are individual focused where the PCs play in tournaments or competitions and then something cataclysmic happens - Neverwinter Nights 2 starts off that way.
Mark.... the darker the night the brighter the light!
My favorite start was the group was summoned, without ever having met, by a Summon Monster spell to a battlefield where an army was facing an army of undead.
The mage who summoned them was pretty surprised to see them and the players were not expecting that start.
The over-arching story line was for the players to get home, but they always seemed to be side tracked.
Are the two facts related? Is this the fireworks guild?Eventually I want to do a campaign myself. While very few details are around I do know two things.
1) There will be a guild with a gnome guildmaster.
2) The starting town is on fire.
No, they are not related. Said gnome is planned to be a toned down version of Guildmaster Wigglytuff from the second Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games.