How do you get your 1st level PCs together?

[Khayman]

Meeting in jail works wonders.

In my campaign set in the 15th century, one character was sleeping off a drunken assault charge in the local gaol, and another was recovering from a mugging (and being a foreigner without money was classified as an indigent until someone vouched for him).

 

[thalmin]

Anyone remember "Kasaka. Kill Kasaka."

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Right, I want you all to create 1st level characters.

You can be from any background you like, but in your background writeup, please explain how it is that you came to be captured, enslaved, and thrown into the gladiator pits in the decadent city of XYZ, where at the start of the adventure, an ogre with three heads and four noses is preparing to feast on your liver in front of an audience of ten thousand people.

 

[Arnwyn]

As with others here, I let my players decide how their characters will meet and/or know each other.

 

[Sfounder]

When I start a new cmapaign I have a new website for the campaign. The first time the players visit it, they (in this case) were met with the following:



NEW BLOOD

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with but a single step."
- Proverb of Farlanghn ​

The beginning. The beginning is the most important part of a story. The fate of a drop of water can trace itself back to the first place that more than one path existed for it. It is that first opportunity to take multiple paths that the drop's fate takes form. Each opportunity from that point takes it further along the path, further from its other possible futures. In the grand scheme of things, nothing has more significance than that first chance. That first chance could mean the difference between becoming just another drop in the Dramidj Ocean, or the material component to the spell that fells a king. It is important to remember the beginning. Any warrior who has slain a dragon, any mage that has altered the multiverse, any rogue that has assassinated a king, came from beginnings that were less great, less epic. At some point, they were nothing more than a drop of water falling towards its fate.

It is the spring of the year 593 by the common calandar. The Flanaess is in a renaissance. The forces of darkness are being pushed back into the shadows. Goodly people are taking back the light. Bands of heroes have restored peace and order. Countries have been reclaimed, cultures have been given a second chance. You are not yet a part of this. To you, the feel of a weapon, spell, or power is something new and amazing. A small band of kobolds is something that will make your heart race. Someday you wish to be the master of your weird, but that someday is a long ways off. For now you are simply a student in every sense of the word.

Your home is a small town known as Bakersfield, in the lush Sheldomar Duchy of Ulek. With the exception of the retaking of the Principality, and of Geoff and Sterich, the events of the last decade are mere stories told by Jannick at the Untamed Lute Tavern. The town gets its name from the fields of grain and the windmills that dot the countryside. To the North and East loom the Lortmil mountains, home of many famous adventures, and likely many adventures that have not yet come to pass. The town is a safe place. Its population is roughly a thousand. Mostly humans, elves, and half-elves. There are also plenty of dwarves, and halflings. There is even the occasional gnome and half-orc. The people of Bakersfield are a peaceful folk. Many have chosen the Duchy as their home to escape the worries of the rest of the Flanaess. That may, or may not, be the case for you. More importantly there is one reason, the real reason, you call this your home, and that is Dhoken's School.

Dhoken Eveningstar is an elf with history. He runs a school and home for people who hope to someday try their hand at adventuring. Hopefuls come from all over the Flanaess to be students of his. A journeyman of many different crafts, there is something to be learned by everyone, regardless of the path they choose. Why have you come to the school? The possibilities are endless: Did your brother come from here? Did you have a relative who was in the Company of the Silver Horn? Are you an orphan who bounced around until you ended up here? Is this your life dream and you left home specifically to come here? Were you ordered here by your rich father in order to get you out of his hair? You see, all kinds come to the school, for a variety of reasons. Consider your experience and reasons for attending the school the first fork in the road for your characters to find their destiny.

The campaign opens after the lot of you are preparing to leave the school. Dhoken has declared that you are ready, but is preparing to send you off on a bit of a test first. You have been a student, either willingly, or unwillingly, for the last four years. You have known each other for at least that time. Depending on your reasons for attending the school you can mix and play with back stories. Inside the New Blood website you will find additional information on the people and things that are to be found in Bakersfield. Before play begins, I will need to check characters. I also would like to have a detailed physical description, picture, indicative quote, and back story. There will be a fifty experience point award for characters with particularly robust character stories.

I recommend delving into the website and becoming knowledgable on the people and places that your character would know well. The people of Bakersfield have been your neighbors for at least the last four years. I'd also like to get everyone's characters one week before the first session. This way, there will be time to get to know everyone else's character before actual play. After all, you've known them for four or more years too!

 

[Telas]

I have an introductory adventure that begins with the PCs on the same wagon, for whatever reasons they give. Bandits hold up the wagon, just as they're starting introductions. They lose the combat, if they're stupid enough to blindly fight anything put in front of them.

Then they wake up, weaponless, and have to walk to town, where they're hired to retrieve an expensive rug that the local Mayor ordered as a gift for someone important (it was on the wagon, too). The Mayor then agrees to sponsor them as a group of adventurers (Charters are recommended IMC).

This does a number of things: Avoids the "Sign of the Cliche'd Chicken" tavern. Gives a number of disparate characters a bonding adventure, and a reason to work together. Teaches the players that sometimes, you shouldn't fight whatever the DM throws out there. Sets up the rest of the campaign arc.

Telas

 

[saethone]

In my current campaign, only two characters started out knowing each other. The two were
from the local area, the rest were passing through a small village. They all met at the local tavern.

My last campaign the party started out as stone statues, found in the ruins of an old tower. When they were returned to flesh and blood they had no memory of thier former lives, just a vague knowledge of thier abilities and a feeling that they somehow knew one another.

oooh, i like the statue idea

 

[tigycho]

I usually have an enigmatic older gentleman, often an arcanist, hire the disparate PC's to complete an arbitrary task.

I'm planning to have my next campaign start with a pair of wizardly brothers send the PCs back and forth on missions, delivering 'packages'. ALong the way, they'll run into all sorts of interesting encounters, and, since they distance between the brothers is great and under no serious time limit, they'll be able to do some side quests....

Eventually, they'll deliver a package, and the recipient will open it in front of them... only to reveal that the party has been carefully transporting a chess set back and forth. The borther will unwrap it, look at it, move a piece, repack it, and ask them to take it back, please.

Hopefully, by then, I'll have set up several other world based plot threads to hook them in.

 

[Emperor Valerian]

My first campaign, the players met stereotypically in a bar (I know, 0 creativity. Oh well).

In the second, they met after the sorcerer paid for the food the hungry thief attempted to steal. The thief was intrigued, followed the sorcerer around, and through mutual hardship, a friendship was born.

 

[tigycho]

I am possibly considering at our 1st session for the campaign I am working on (using C&C ) that without any introduction I have the party roll initiative and start a combat that will just about be unwinable. After the combat ends each of the player's characters wakes up in a pool of sweat and rumpled blankets, trying to catch their breath from what was the most realistic dream they have ever had and with a vivid reccollection of the location where the dream took place and of the others that they were fighting along side.

I've always wanted to do something similar to this for a campaign starter. Tell everyone that you want them to roll up appropriate 15th level or higher characters. Start the first session with the party entering the BBEG's Lair... they know they have to stop him, or the world will die (or whatever). Then, they lose, and wake up.

Hand out the first level versions of their characters. Subsequent in game events suggest that the events from the dream are coming to pass, and they need to figure out how to do it right this time.