Don't you hate it when...

[Puxido]

You put to much of the campaign lore on one character, and he ends up quitting and now you have to write a whole new campaign for everyone?

 

[Crothian]

That would stink. What I like to do is write up information for each character but not have it all be the same information or to even agree. One campaign it took the players two months before they realized that the info I handed each of them was different and that each of them had important pieces of information the others were missing. It was a great session as they just role played sitting around a camp fire talking about the different legends and history each character knew.

 

[Puxido]

Well, I made the mistake of giving the big reason to one character. I made a campaign where one of them were going to have this map that lead them (and Rasputin) into this ancient pirate cave after the crystal skull, and they were going to have to fight these undead pirates (It's their first campaign, so I'm going in with ease on it) and the boss was going to be the captain who's real skull was tied to his waist and had the crystal skull for a head. But the entire thing fell apart when one of the guys got mad at me before the campaign, and I had him with a back story in which his father was a thief (Well, he made the backstory, I built the rest of the campaign around it, when he told me his backstory it just came to me) and was executed for stealing from a noble, and he got a map that he couldn't read as inheritance (as well as a moldy sock and some bread). All the characters were going to be called together because the map was important apparently (not of dire importance, but enough importance for them to hire some adventurers to check it out) and Rasputin, a reject of the monastery and Wizards/sorcerers Guild was going to decipher the map, and lead them on their way. But since he's mad at me and lost his patience (I was a little upset that he hasn't contacted me in a week, and I was doing a tally of participants, I want their first campaign to go well and it bothered me that it was getting hard to contact him) and well, the entire thing went downhill from their. Now I have to think of another reason to pull all these adventurers together.

 

[Stormonu]

Have his character send the map to the other players with invitations to meet him at some secluded place ("Tell no one, I think others are following me, so be on guard")... Then he doesn't show up - and other bad guys who want the map do...

 

[Puxido]

That actually works. He sent the map to Rasputin with the note, he asks which one of them is the Tengu, none of them are him. They have time to buy stuff at the blacksmith/pawn shop/stable/anythingelsetheyneedfortheadventure. They are on the rode, heading toward the canyon which has the witch they need to fight in order to get to the cave to cut off five days from their trip, pass a moving mages guild caravan with the Eye of the Druid stationed in it, and continue on. Before they head into the canyon, some bandits jump after them from behind the rocks. They have a bit of a fight, two escape (important NPC's for later) and they head down to fight the witch. Good, that's real helpful, thanks!