You find yourselves sitting in a tavern...

[discosoc]

What are some of the better ways you guys and girls have seen or used to start a new group together? Do you just assume they all kind of know each other and let them sort out the details? Do you run an introductory adventure meant to convince complete strangers to together for a common cause? I'm just curious what everyone's experiences have been.

One of the more interesting that I heard about was the group was all summoned by some powerful wizard to fight his enemies, but died right afterwards. The demon or dragon or whatever killed him was so amused that it just left them alone assuming they would vanish after a few rounds. I think they spent the next few adventures just escaping the dungeon.

Anyone have some good stories?

[JoeJ]

I make the players do the work. Every PC is required to have some sort of connection to at least one other PC. They can be family members, childhood friends, Army buddies, romantic partners, employer/employee, or whatever else they can come up with. That way they begin with a reason to be together.

[Razal-Thule]

If they don't all know each other before hand which i don't require. I just have them start more often than not in a tavern where they are looking for work and they are all picked for the job. I make it something small and somewhat easy for the people to get to know each other and see if they will get along. Or another thing i might do is have them all be called to some place. It depends, sometimes its a tavern, or maybe the guards house or some other place. They all got picked for the mission or are forced to go on it depending on there background.

[Liam Warner]

I had one DM who started the party off in a dungeon. Basic plot as I recall was someone who got refused entry to the adventurer training college built the dungeon to kill the best and brightest. Fresh new crop on the graduation ceremony suddenly found themselves in the middle of a massive dungeon with 2 days to escape or they'd die and their souls would power its abilities. Group didn't know each other except vaguely in a "I've seen them around the campus thing" and were missing most of their equipment.

[Lord Mhoram]

I've done the "everyone knows at least one other person in the group and has known of someone else" and then they sort of coalsece into an adventuring group.

The fighter tells the wizard that the rogue is okay, because he's known him for a while. The wizard trusts the fighter because the cleric who has known him all his life is aware of the fighter.. that type of thing. Baked into backstories.

[Lord Mhoram]

I ran a Fantasy Hero game that was transworld - The opening was the wizard on the fantasy world summoning them; and the "make them loyal slaves to me" part of the summoning didn't work too well. So the PCs are from different era's and join together. Had a Jedi, a low powered Super, an Old West Gunfighter, a Cyberpunk street samurai as well as 2 native fantasy characters. It worked well and everyone enjoyed it.

[Mark Hoover]

I did something similar to Liam's. The players all started in the final days of their training in a group similar to the Pathfinder society. The players each received a handout with a letter and some clues. Each followed the clues individually and eventually they all ended up in a seaside graveyard at night. There they saw each other, but not the instructor they were looking for.

Their letters together led them to a particular mausoleum which then turned out to have a dungeon beneath it. The whole thing ended up being a non-lethal graduation ceremony. Once complete they were a party and the game would really get going but the campaign fell apart unfortunately.

[Artemis Moonstar]

One I'm a big fan of when starting off at any level higher than 1....

Every one in the group, whether they knew each other already or not, has pissed off some mage at some point in their career. Usually, through no real fault of their own, they bumbled across whatever scheme this incompetent BBEG had been throwing together early in his career, and thwarted him, maybe even accidentally and without knowing they did it. So, incompetent BBEG powers up, summons all of them in order to run them through a gauntlet and kill them, and get his revenge! (Saturday morning cartoon style!)... Of course, this invariably fails, and if the SBEG (small bad evil guy) survives, he flees, and harasses them at some points in the future as a recurring npc. Really want one to turn out where he becomes the real BBEG of the campaign, but he needs to survive, lol.

[Liam Warner]

Artemis Moonstar wrote:

One I'm a big fan of when starting off at any level higher than 1....

Every one in the group, whether they knew each other already or not, has pissed off some mage at some point in their career. Usually, through no real fault of their own, they bumbled across whatever scheme this incompetent BBEG had been throwing together early in his career, and thwarted him, maybe even accidentally and without knowing they did it. So, incompetent BBEG powers up, summons all of them in order to run them through a gauntlet and kill them, and get his revenge! (Saturday morning cartoon style!)... Of course, this invariably fails, and if the SBEG (small bad evil guy) survives, he flees, and harasses them at some points in the future as a recurring npc. Really want one to turn out where he becomes the real BBEG of the campaign, but he needs to survive, lol.

Good thing you didn't have one group of mine who took the time to hunt down and give the villains (not even particualrly villanous he just annoyed them) butler a heart attack because he buried the villain and thus would obviously return to get revenge (he was 60, arthritic and had a bad heart the butler not the villain). Not a good group they wound up being hunted by the royal army for their crimes and eventually the game ended with them hiding in a mountain retreat.

[Rub-Eta]

For some it's enough to just go along with the "You find yourselves sitting in a tavern", but if they don't:
I make sure that my players understand that there is a plot and a party, they them selves need to make sure to be a part of it, I won't shoehorn them in. If they don't, they won't get to play.

[Tacticslion]

Dot.

[Simon Legrande]

The last homebrew we played we ran kind of Mission : Impossible style with a guild where LFW adventurers hung out. This allowed each player to run several different characters depending on what was needed for a particular week.

[Mark Hoover]

I think there's a few threads out there about this subject. here's one I found just by searching "Campaign start" in the messageboards. There's a lot of good ideas out there.

I think the key to a good start is to begin like your favorite author begins their stories. "You find yourselves sitting in a tavern" might be stale for experienced players, but what if you just changed or added a few words:

- you find yourselves sinking in a tavern
- you find yourselves sitting in a tavern-shaped pile of rubble
- You find others sitting in a tavern, unmoving
- you find your quarry sitting in a tavern

You could begin the party as a group based on region, religion, traits in common or feats known. They might all be different archetypes of the same class or related by blood which may or may not be their own.

I guess it just comes down to what kind of a game you want to run.

[Aaron Bitman]

You could do it the "Rise of the Runelords" way.

Burnt Offerings:

A huge crowd at a festival happens to include all the PCs. When monsters attack the gathering, the heroic types - the PCs - show themselves by fighting the monsters, protecting innocents, or working on damage control. In this way, they grab the attention of the patron who hires the PCs to do some jobs for him.

[Larkos]

Here's two lists I found on TvTropes: One from Dice of Doom and one from David Morgan-Mar.

I tried the first one on the second list which is that the PCs are all hired as caravan guards and/or are travelers on that caravan. It worked well I think.

[Te'Shen]

I've had them wake up in the same jail cell before...

[Mykrox43]

I played with a group once under a geas.

Or...King's Perogative. They have all been conscripted to serve in the

Royal Army. In a wagon on their way to the front.

Adventurers must register. On the way they are stopped at a toll bridge.

An outbreak has occurred and anyone on this side of the bridge is

considered to be infected.They meet under quarintine and must find the

source.Each one has a reason to get across that bridge.

Hope this helps. Happy gaming,M

[KestrelZ]

I have used many methods, and learned the hard way that having total strangers meet might mean player friction (one player favoring their NPC friends far more than fellow player PCs. Which makes sense RP wise, yet causes problems at the table).

1 - Common employer. The group is hired by the same person or organization for a task, or belong to the same organization.

2 - PCs all have some background where they know and trust at least one other member of the PC group.

3 - Common adversary. For some reason the PCs are all hunted by the same person or organization. They also learn of this common fact.

4 - Have trained or worked together in the past. Even if nothing dangerous happened (no XP for 1st level groups), they all at least learned something together while working as a group.

[Bandw2]

they all happen to be the only people willing to fight when shit goes down in some area. so trial by fire.