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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stormrunner" data-source="post: 1235659" data-attributes="member: 13471">Since your setup is obviously strongly character-driven, my suggestion is:BackgroundbackgroundBackground.Have each player answer a set of questions about their character.  Where did they grow up? Who were their parents? Who do they love most/hate most in their life?  What memorable thing happened to them when they were six?If you want this to be "an adventure in acting" then the players are going to need to go into this kind of detail about their characters anyway.Then start looking for ways to tie them together.  Were two characters both raised by druids?  Maybe they've been companions since childhood.  Is Alice the granddaughter of a famous knight, while Bruce was trained in the fighting arts by "an old, retired knight"?  Bingo, Bruce was trained by Alice's grandfather.  And so on; you may have to make a few minor changes to some of the PC's stories but if your players are sufficiently detailed you should be able to find something for everyone.  It's not necessary to tie everyone to everyone, just make sure each PC is tied to at least one other PC.Then have the first adventure tug on those links to bring them all together.  It doesn't have to be all at once.The most recent time I pulled this off and it worked was a cyberpunk campaign.  Casey (PC #1) is a skilled burglar and car-thief with a passion for seafood.  While doing a little fishing in the wilderness outside the city she notices a fancy limo, pulled over to the side of a deserted road, lights off, one driver sitting in the car obviously waiting for something.  It's pretty clear that these people are up to something shady.  Being an impulsive type, she carjacks the limo while the driver is taking a piss, and roars off, back to the big city.  Knowing the car is hot, she brings it to Locksley (PC #2), a smuggler/fence/blackmarketeer type who can arange to have it "chopped" for parts.  While disassembling the car they find a body in the trunk, plus a jacket and an expensive corporate-style palmtop computer.  Locksley calls his streetdoc friend Zackariah (PC #3) to dispose of the body; meanwhile Casey calls HER best friend Jojo (PC#4), an ace mechanic, plumber, and sometime seductress - "You'll never guess what just happened!".  No-one, not even Jojo, can crack the (expensive, executive-level) security on the palmtop, so they go in search of a hacker.  Fortunately, one of Jojo's current boyfriends is Rocko (PC #5), a quintessential Tough Guy (think Wolverine from the first X-men movie, without the claws), and HIS best friend is Xue Wen, a young Chinese martial artist and Zen hacker (PC #6).  Another of Jojo's lovers is an NPC bartender (both Jojo and Locksley loaded up on the social skills and Contacts, correctly surmising that info-gathering was going to be a BIG priority in a cyberpunk world).  So yes, they all meet at a bar - but after a lot of lead-in, and not by mere random chance.  Note that, e.g.,  Zackariah and Xue Wen knew absolutely nothing about each other and had never met - but Zack knew Locksley who knew Casey who knew Jojo who knew Rocko who knew Xue Wen.Character creation wasn't entirely random either.  At the start I told the group, "We need at least one of each of the following: a combat specialist, a stealth specialist, a computer specialist, a smart person, a charismatic person, someone with government connections, someone with Mob connections, someone with media/entertainment connections.  Plus it would be nice to have a healer, a mechanic, and/or a skilled driver/pilot.  Pick one or two of the above and build a character around it."If you can pull off something similar with your group, it gives them all a reason to hang out together after the first adventure concludes, other than just "We have fought side-by-side, now we are buddies".</blockquote>

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