1st level Adventures

[Jan van Leyden]

Think of the scale of the environments. In a remote village plagued by giant rats (which may be incited by some druid or humanoid shaman) the characters are the most capable folks around. On a ship on the high seas where a murder occurs, the characters again are the only ones capable of handling things. Just put them in a situation where a comparativley small threat surfaces and make them feel like heroes.

I have had some success with a scenario written for conventions. It involved all characters being from the same village and having left it for their apprenticeship. The local baron throws his birthday parties as a large generous affair. The PCs return home for such a party for the first time after graduating to level 1. Something ba happens... Who do the people look to for help?

 

[1of3]

Go on an archeological dig with your teachers. Fetch water from nearby river. Return to find them murdered. You are five days from the next small village. Have fun.

Travel with your mentor. When your mentor's allies turn in to take her on a save the world mission, you are tasked to deliver those documents to the destination. You should arrive there the day after tomorrow. Of course, the streets are save, as this is the kingdom of Good Queen Schießmichtot. What could possibly happen.

Also watch the first four episodes of Young Justice.

 

[Yora]

My next adventure has the PCs being asked to go and check out something puzzling, but currently not deemed particularly threatening. Whenn they find it and get a good look, it turns out to be quite important and demanding immediate attention. The threat is not a creature,so they are able to hande it, but there can be low-level critters around that complicate things and need to be dealt with to solve the main problem.
The characters get to hone their fighting skills and do something important, but don't have to deal with enemies that would require the help of experienced heroes.

 

[Celebrim]

Unless you play in a already established setting the players already know spend some time for the PCs to get a feel for it.
Do not let something cataclysmic happen which bloats out everything else. Instead focus on small stuff, maybe even without combat, to let the players experience the culture, setting and NPCs.

I used to do this. It was a mistake. I can't recommend it.

A few groups out there composed of highly proactive pure thespians might enjoy it, it generally isn't going to be as engaging as it should be. I ran a couple of campaigns like this. They sort of sputtered out despite high appreciation from the players for the NPCs, depth of setting, highly realized culture, and so forth. The best I can say for them is that they were learning experiences, and that they where highly influential in other people's games.

There is plenty of time for enjoying the small stuff, leisurely strolls through the setting, combat free sessions, and introduction to the setting and culture later on. You can spread you exposition out. You can have whole sessions that amount to exposition dump if you are crafty about it. But you should put one of your best hooks on the front page.

 

[Yora]

When you start a campaign, the first thing players want to know is what they are supposed to do. Roleplaying really comes down to imagining what a character would do in a given situation. However, a character does not have any basic needs like food, sleep, or warmth, which he would have to meet. Characters need a problem to start taking action. Wandering around town or going to a tavern is really wandering around hoping to find a problem.

 

[howandwhy99]

In my current AoW game the players are almost to 3rd level in Pathfinder, medium XP progression. They each have their particular favorites I've learned. Most love combat though some beetle swarms nearly wiped one of them out. Another sucked it up when she hiked out alone around the lake and died in combat. It was an ambushed by a mysterious monster she knew was there hiding in a hole she had passed several times before. Others can't get enough of pit fighting in the Feral Dog bar. Others like the political intrigue going on all over town. And the adventure paths start with a great dungeon

Spoiler

more than one actually

which has lead to to some interesting encounters leading to combat and/or discussion. Lots of interesting, hard to figure out treasures from the past. Plus finally for them now a magical weapon or item or two.

 

[Derren]

I used to do this. It was a mistake. I can't recommend it.

A few groups out there composed of highly proactive pure thespians might enjoy it, it generally isn't going to be as engaging as it should be. I ran a couple of campaigns like this. They sort of sputtered out despite high appreciation from the players for the NPCs, depth of setting, highly realized culture, and so forth. The best I can say for them is that they were learning experiences, and that they where highly influential in other people's games.

There is plenty of time for enjoying the small stuff, leisurely strolls through the setting, combat free sessions, and introduction to the setting and culture later on. You can spread you exposition out. You can have whole sessions that amount to exposition dump if you are crafty about it. But you should put one of your best hooks on the front page.

When you start a campaign, the first thing players want to know is what they are supposed to do. Roleplaying really comes down to imagining what a character would do in a given situation. However, a character does not have any basic needs like food, sleep, or warmth, which he would have to meet. Characters need a problem to start taking action. Wandering around town or going to a tavern is really wandering around hoping to find a problem.

Those two posts are in my eyes related.
In the end it depends on what kind of players you have.

When you have reactive players who wait for a problem to which they can solve then a slow start like I suggested would be a bad idea as [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] suggested. In that case you want immediately present them with a problem, maybe even the BBEG (just a glimps) so they know what they have to work toward to.

If you have proactive players who instead make their own goals, then a slow start works because it gives the players a chance to get their bearings and allows them to formulate goals for their characters.

 

[Celebrim]

If you have proactive players who instead make their own goals, then a slow start works because it gives the players a chance to get their bearings and allows them to formulate goals for their characters.

While I agree to some extent with the exception to the general rule, even then I'd recommend caution.

a) If you have proactive players, make sure you've discussed ahead of time with your players your intention to sit back and let them find something to do.

b) Make sure you don't have a rowboat world. If you are going to let the players play in a sandbox, don't expect them to build everything on their own. There should still be plenty of things that they can choose to become involved in immediately. It shouldn't require rowing across the ocean to find something interesting to do and you as the DM shouldn't expect interesting things to just happen. One common difficulty I encounter with improve type DMs expecting players to be proactive is they often punish attempts to be proactive in the name of 'realism' (where realism in this case is often a synonym for the DM's lack of preparation), leaving players hesitant to try anything. In practice, this ends up with the players just going with the flow to a far greater degree than they would have in an adventure path, all the while with the DM thinking he's letting players choose.

c) It's probably even smarter to still use some initial hooks, but to plan those hooks to have fairly short term or at least indefinite resolutions rather than be part of long term plots that demand some sort of action. It's still worth dangling some clues as to the sort of conflicts that the party can get involved in, you just back off of making these mandatory longer term goals. That natural disaster could just be a natural disaster. That invasion could just be a spring raiding party, and not a sign of greater things to come. And so forth. Life can still be interesting without necessarily steering the players toward anything in particular.