How do your PC's meet (in campaign)?

[Malakor]

Just out of curiosity, how'd you manage to pull that off? You make it sound like it wasn't any big deal, but most of the worst group-cohesion failures I've seen (thankfully, nearly all of them are far, far behind me) were because the GM assumed that it wouldn't be difficult for the PCs to find reasons to stay together, while the players of said PCs clearly felt very differently. And even when it does work, it seems there's at least one person grumbling that they're only doing it because the game will fall apart if they don't, because otherwise "my character would never do this."...

Actually, it helps to have a group of mature players (the mean age of my group is 32, and I'm 43. Our youngest player is the 10 year old son of one of the group, and he's quite refreshing to have around, because he comes up with some really interesting ideas at times).

But to answer your question, in the campaign in question, I had a copy of all the character sheets, and their backgrounds and made a point to throw hooks in that would interest one or another of them in particular from time to time, while still creating a need for thier new-found "friends."

I tend to run fairly loose campaigns, in that I will detail the first adventure for the sake of getting everyone together, and then have an overall outline for what is going on in the world and the players get rumors and clues about many different things and they decide as a group which direction to head in.

I have had instances where someone decides the character they created isn't suitable for the way the campaign is being run. We usually find a plausible reason for them to stop off along the way and work a new, replacement character into the group.

 

[Gothmog]

In my longest-running campaign (12 years), the PCs met at a fall harvest festival, and were brought together due to the murder of a specific person in town. One of the PCs was staying in the next room over from where it happened, another was a paladin of the god of justice assigned to the case, another was supposed to meet the murdered man for a secret reason, and the last knew the deceased man previously. It served to bring them all together, gave them a common motive, and is more believable than "you meet in a tavern" or "you're on guard/militia duty when..."

 

[CaptainCalico]

For my current (and first ever) campaign I told everyone that they could be from anywhere on the continent except the major city, and they all had to go to said major city. They all came up with different reasons to go. Then I asked for character backgrounds before the first session and blatantly sweetened the pot by promising "parting gifts" from family/mentors. The twist was that, in addition to extra money and some minor magic items each PC also got a deed to a house in the city - the same house. They all show up there at the same time and find the con-artist owner of the house dead in bed. Hilarity, combat, and legal proceedings all ensued.

The house not only gave them a reason to get together, it gave them a reason to stay together (nobody walks away from equity), and a reason to adventure (upkeep!).

 

[CaptainCalico]

Just had a flash of inspiration - feel free to use:

Limit the PCs to human, half-elf or half-orc. They all get a summons to the reading of the will of a famous (male) adventurer, somone they have heard about but never met. Turns out they are all his children and he has jointly left them one thing (artifat, treasure map, whatever).