Best experiences of introducing a new setting?

[Ry]

With my campaign on its way (New campaign design thread), I'm starting to think of how to run a first session that will introduce the difference of hte world and try to draw the players into the setting.

So what have you done in a first session to bring players into a setting?

 

[Turanil]

Give each player a background info on his character, tell him the NPCs he knows and who could appear during the game, stuff like that. I like to give players a text that describes the campaign world beforehand.

The last campaign I ran, the PCs all came from the same valley and belonged to the same clan (something like a Highlander Scottish clan). Then I told them the last clan's leader was dying and representatives of various families of the clan were sent to deliberate, choose a new leader, etc. The PCs were all representatives of family sent to the council meeting. Of course, there was a player playing a gnome, a race that I don't like and was unrelated (should not have allowed gonmes in the first place) to the clan, so I had to invent a stupid excuse for his presence. Anyway, this introduction was fine and replaced the traditional tavern's first meeting fairly well.

 

[IronWolf]

So what have you done in a first session to bring players into a setting?

One way to tackle it is to start them off in a small portion of the world. For this small portion give them details on the local towns, known NPC's and geographical features they would be aware of.

The downfall to this plan is that it would need everyone to come from the same area. If they are more spread out then you can take the same tactics and just apply it to each character.

 

[scourger]

I've given the players handouts: maps, blurbs, rumors, or whatever is handy. I prefer to base it on knowledge skills, but it is hard to get them to "waste" ranks in these skills. Sometimes, they don't even realize they have gotten different information until they are well into the game.