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Tell them "You all meet in a tavern". Totally different.
Each of them is waiting in line at customs on the dock when the pirates attack.
Posters nailed up all over the city offering employment. The characters all show up for the opportunity.
One character actively recruits a team (the other characters).
A mysterious fortune teller is seen by each of them, pointing them to their common destiny. "Wait...you got a fortune from the gypsy, too?"
One of our favorites: You already travel together and know each other. This city represents your next adventure.
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Write a list of potential character hooks -- tied to the main plot -- that each player can choose from. For example, "You're an understudy for a local wizard and have been tasked with rooting out a cult behind the pirates." Or "You've traveled to [city name] to attend the funeral of a friend. You suspect foul play and intend to investigate."
Then, use the hooks your characters have chosen to determine the most reasonable meeting place. Maybe the local baron calls them in and asks them to investigate one of the ships at the docks quietly, since he has reason to suspect its involvement with pirate activity but can't provide proof yet. Or maybe the PCs' snooping puts them on the cult's radar and are unknowingly guided into the marketplace where they have a huge fireball trap set up.
Consider them writing a back story that makes the related somehow, or makes them likely to be in whatever situation you want them to be in.
Assuming the players are supposed to fight the pirates the easiest way would be for them to be part of a military organization that deals with pirates. Maybe a special unit of the Navy of the country the adventure takes place in. This would also allow you to give them control of a ship without them having to purchase it.
Each player just needs to come up with the reason they are members of the organization. They don’t have to worry about meeting up and suddenly trusting each other. Nor do they have to figure out how they know each person in the party. They simply get their orders to report for duty where the adventure starts.
You could throw them in at the deep end. They're all passengers on a boat about to dock in the city. Just outside the harbour the boat is attacked by pirates, the captain is killed and they must fight for their lives!
Once they fight off the pirates and get to port the harbormaster offers them a job, seeing as they've beaten the pirates once. You could even add in a temporary GMPC "commanding officer"/mentor to point them in the right direction to start with.
Or you could have them be recruited by the pirates, either as part of a sting or because you want them to be pirates.
I think the biggest problem is people think the story has to start at the table. If the campaign will be around persuing pirates as mentioned, have them be part of an military or government organization.
Its perfectly acceptable to say, 'You are all officers in the Kingdomia Royal Navy, go make your characters with that in mind'. Then they can decide why they are there, someone is just a ships cook, but happens to be good with a blade, someone is a midshipman who desperately wants to becaptain one day, someone is a noblemans son who is trying to make a name for himself, whatever. But if you dont want 'you meet up randomly but somehow get together to adventure' then actually make a reason for them to be together. Shared backstory is how you do this. The most basic shared backstory is to be part of an organization.
Ask them to create links between themselves. It's far easier to come up with a reason for them to work together if you have 2 brothers, one childhood friend and a business partner than a bunch of random people in a tavern.
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Have everything change... when the Fire Nation attacks.
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They meet at the funeral of a mutual friend. Everybody else (NPCs) is a teeming family that the PCs don't have anything to do with, so they're the odd bunch on the side who only have each other to talk to. And that's when something happens...
They all went to the naval academy together. Play a "prelude" adventure with hazing/teambuilding activities.
Each PC must already have ties to at least 2 other PCs. This can be family, classmates, colleagues, lovers, drinking buddies - anything. Just tell the players to make sure everyone is tied in to more than one other PC.
Start 10 minutes later, in the inn. The first thing is the bar brawl. After the brawl, talk about why it started and why everyone got involved.
Finally I've returned being a DM and me and my players are about to start an underwater/naval campaign. As usual, I have a problem with beginnings. They should start in a port where they would know about pirates affiliated with a cult and end up stealing a small ship. How could we avoid the 'You all meet in an Inn'?
Have them all start on a boat, a luxurious merchant vessel.
They have all been invited to the union of two of their distant cousins (punchline everyone in the adventure group is related to the 5th degree).Mid ceremony a group of two vicious Sahuagin and their sea goblins (goblin with the aquatic template?) voraciously attack the guests and steal the wedding bands from the best man as he goes overboard.
The villainous creatures escape to a nearby island on their makeshift boat, it's up to our intrepid friends to track them down.
Always remember to have the beginning set the tone for the narrative.
In the last campaign I was in, run by a friend of mine, we were all newly recruited from varying backgrounds into a government intelligence organization. While few of us had met before (my and my friend Sean's characters were slightly estranged siblings, but otherwise we were all strangers), we knew we were now assigned as a team and would be working together for our goals as set to us by the governing organization.
In the campaign I'm GMing now, I designed it to be more of a sandbox, where the players all have their own loose, self-contained goals but end up traveling together after an initial friendship. I did have the "you all meet in an inn" intro, but none of them actually talked to each other after an event (specifically, a group of hobgoblins and goblins attacking the village square) brought them together. After they worked together to successfully investigate the scenario, they decided to travel together, making their way towards the capital since one of them had an important parcel to deliver before the solstice.
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When I was the GM, I loved having a monk in the party. If I wanted the party to gain some tidbit of information, or if the campaign plot required the party to undertake some quest, the monk received a message from someone in the order. Naturally, the head of the order knew the king.
Deus ex machina...
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I once played where the party were all soldiers in the same unit. Our commander was killed in the first session.
In the campaign I ran, I started the PCs as slaves in the same cabin. The party included a monk, a sorcerer, a druid and a summoner. Escaping was not too hard for that group. "Oh, we don't have any stuff? OK. I kick the daylights out of the guards."
I particularly like the Age of Worms hook—basically, one or two guys decide to raid this cairn, each of them invites friends, those friends invite friends, and suddenly it's this whole disaster and the original adventurers' parents come home early.
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Tell the players to figure out how they meet, why they are wherever they are and why they are motivated to do whatever your story is calling for.
As a player I would rather collaborate with my other players to figure out how we interlock our stories.
"I am a rogue street waif, wronged by X cultists, beaten and left for dead months ago. I have been harboring a hatred for them since and found a chance for revenge while listening in on a conversation between PC2 and PC3 about the group. I snuck up on them and offered to join them for a cut of treasure and a chance to eliminate these sickos. When they saw my skills at stealth and saw the sincerity in my eyes, how could they refuse me...besides if they did I would just tail them until they led me to my vengeance."
Sounds much cooler than some slapped together "you got a commission from Duke Nuke M to deal with these cultists", doesn't it?
Also you may draw PCs into having a deeper background with each other such as the possibility of them being childhood friends, related, lovers, classmates at Inquisitor High, etc...
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Have the players be Shanghaied and have to work together to escape the ship. You can have some be captured by slavers or captured directly by pirates. They could even be sacrifices for a sea god. Then run with it.
"Meanwhile at the Hall of Justice....."
It may be off topic, but you should mine the heck out of the pirate AP whose name escapes me right now.
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***Light strobes flash as the scene fades to a picture of a swamp***
***Legion of Doom rises from the swamp***
***Cue evil laughter of Lex Luthor***
I'm a fan of starting in media res. Have them on the boat in the middle of a naval battle with the pirates.
Finally I've returned being a DM and me and my players are about to start an underwater/naval campaign. As usual, I have a problem with beginnings. They should start in a port where they would know about pirates affiliated with a cult and end up stealing a small ship. How could we avoid the 'You all meet in an Inn'?
Roll initiative! defend yourselves against the pirates because they want your stuff. And have them kidnap an NPC that becomes your adventure hook. Argghhh.
Amen, death before introduction. It rocks and it will be memorable! Never expect the unexpected.
If you want something darker and city based to some degree, check out Freeport. Just know that you will need two books, the setting book and the pathfinder companion. The comp does have and opening adventure.
And if that someone fails to save them, it's been the shortest life of a player character in gaming history. :)This is where you obviously use DM Fiat. If they aren't making rolls then you let them sweat for a bit and one of their rolls "succeeds" in grabbing the PC.
I actually meant, an enemy captures an important NPC >.>
I agree with the earlier posts re: weddings or funerals. tailor-make it to what you want to have in your campaign. Just one idea would be that whoever died bequeathed their ship to the players as a group, and work this now-dead person into the backstory of all the player's characters in some way, shape or form.
Beginnings to campaigns are as hard as you make them. Keep things simple and straightforward to start - if you don't know the players make sure you communicate to them the challenges of making a character concept with a backstory that would make them not part of a team. I'm actually a huge proponent of having a backstory just be a couple of sentences and then build the backstory as you progress.
I've always viewed beginnings as incredible opportunities to seed future events not based off what I have planned, but based off the player's actions. That way what they do counts alot more and it helps when you can adapt the campaign to your players.