How do you get your 1st level PCs together?

[Steverooo]

Ask the players about their PCs. After they tell you about them, agree upon a reason why they're in the town where the adventure begins. Then tell them that, all over town, they see posters advertising for "Adventurers Wanted!"

When they meet at the time and place advertised, describe the typical seedy tavern and tough-looking crowd. Then their would-be patron arrives, and asks any applicants to accompany him to the back room...

There, the man asks the ten or so people present to tell him a little bit about himself. Allow the players to do so, then state that the others do the same, but you'll gloss over the details...

After that, the man says "Okay, for this mission, I'll hire you, and you..." He then points to everyone in the room EXCEPT the PCs. "To the rest of you, thank you for coming... My crew, let's go!" And then he walks out, leaving the PCs on their own...

"Well! THAT never happened before!" is the usual response. Then the PCs form their own adventuring company.

Later, of course, you can have the armor, etc., of distinctive members of the "chosen" company (if you bothered to describe it) show up in the dungeon where they died, or have news of the mission where they failed leak back to town...

 

[thalmin]

In my current campaign, the PCs are all slaves aboard a small ship at sea. Their first adventure revolves around their winning freedom, then finding land.
In a campaign a few years ago (was it really over 15 years ago?) the PCs were attending a funeral for a mutual friend/uncle/teacher/mentor/employer/enemy. Things started popping when the funeral was interrupted.

 

[Li Shenron]

Nowadays I prefer to let players choose if the PCs know each other and why, when they think about a character background. Having a personal story together already behind helps roleplaying and to get rid of the tavern stereotype (not that bad per se, but quite worn out).

 

[MonsterMash]

Sometimes I use the old you all meet in a tavern type, my last campaign that I'm GMing I had the players hired as guards on a caravan which was then ambushed to create some plot hooks. If the players have some good ideas then I'll happily run with them.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

In the most recent campaign I started, I had all the characters know each other. They were part of a military unit that comprised the retinue of a clever officer. Of course, at the end of the first session they were reassigned to quasi-espionage work.

 

[Hand of Evil]

If seach was fixed I would link you up with some good threads.

I put the work on the players, asking them how they came together but I have used the judge! Players are being held for a tavern fight and to be useful they are assigned to another character (paladin or cleric or wizard or combo) to perform a task (adventure). By using the paladin/cleric/wizard I can feed them the story background, it also gives me a patron (the order, the church, or the college) to feed adventures to the adventures.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In my current campaign, all the characters were called up for service in the militia, and ended up in the same squad. It gave them both a reason to be there, a reason to work together, and a reason to follow the initial plot hooks with a group with diverse backgrounds.

After the near-TPK, the surviving member of the party hired the others as they were passing through town.

 

[Drugged Dwarf]

Usually, I hate the whole 'you meet in a tavern and for no reason whatsoever you decide to party together' thing. so one of my favourite plans is to have the Pcs divided, then face off to each other in a short battle. usually its a Gladitorial battle, where the PCs have been forced to participate in, and then learn that only by working together would they escape.

Another was that the PCs had all attended an old school when they were younger together, and were summoned to find an old missing master.

But I love the slave ship, the council, and the 'ADVENTURERS WANTED... no not you!' idea! Hmm... maybe I should create a topic on the different ways you can have PCs meet up and travel together... it might be interesting.

 

[shilsen]

I like to have PCs start off knowing each other beforehand, so I work with them to come up with an appropriate background depending on the setting and specific situation. For example, in my Eberron game, the players and I decided that they should be ex-military who left the army after the recent war ended and decided to become adventurers/mercenaries. The players then created their characters, taking their shared past into account. Works very well for me.

And no, I've never done the tavern thing.

 

[cmanos]

depends on the characters and their motives. Some meet in bars, some are the only survivors of a shipwreck, some are hired by someone to do something.