Good affiliations for PCs when starting a new campaign

[haiiro]

How did your party -- or the party in your campaign -- come together?

As a DM, which methods of bringing the PCs together have you found particularly effective (especially for mixed races and classes)?

I'm considering different options for my next game, and this is always something I wrestle with. At the moment, I'm leaning towards an option I've never tried before (at least as a DM): giving the PCs an NPC in common during character creation, and having everyone figure out how they know everyone else (and that NPC) during a CC session. Has anyone tried this -- and if so, how did it work out?

 

[Lalato]

The current campaign I'm playing in is set in mythical India. All of the characters are employed by a wizard brahmin.

It's not Shakespeare, but it works.

--sam

 

[Tonguez]

All the PCs were associated with the local Church - Clerics, Temple Guards, Inquistors etc

All the PCs are members of a travelling circus troupe

The PCs are from the same village which is suddenly attacked by bad guys

 

[William Ronald]

In 23 years of gaming, I have seen some of the following:

Caravan guards.

Explorers hired to visit a distant land.

Nobles and noble-hearted characters coming together to fight common threats to their homelands and promote better relations among their nations.

A mixed band that wanted to take over a trading city.

A group hired to go on a long ocean voyage, and learned they were privateers.

A mercenary company looking for ways to gain treasure and power.

People who fled from troubles and decided to stand together, learning that the disasters in their lives may have a common source.

AND THE EVER POPULAR --- YOU ARE SITTING AT A TABLE IN AN INN.

 

[arwink]

AND THE EVER POPULAR --- YOU ARE SITTING AT A TABLE IN AN INN.

As a twist, you could make the Inn the retirement investment of a successful group of adventurers who have mysteriously gone missing, and the characters are the second generation (or younger cousins in the case of elves and dwarves) who have come together to find out what happened.

With no clues or a weeks exploration into clues, they gather around the table of their parents inn to start working out the tangled web of what happened.

 

[Nareau]

While having the group come together under unusual circumstances can be fun, I tend to prefer having the PC's know each other before the campaign starts. The group I play in tends to roleplay a LOT, and the characters often have some kind of intra-party conflict going on. It helps to justify their continued association if they've all been friends for a long time. It can be difficult to justify if their only reason for being together is that they were hired by the same guy for their first job.

I've been toying with the idea of running a "prelude" to my next campaign. I'd basically have the players create 1st level NPC-classed characters who are all children. I'd run some kind of Goonies/It adventure with very little combat, and lots of problem-solving. When we actually started the campaign, I'd have it take place 10-20 years later, when the PC's had grown up. Not only do I think this would help add depth to the characters and the campaign, but I also think it'd make the party feel really solid. After all, these guys have been friends since they were little.

Spider

 

[yennico]

The last time I started a campaign the mentor of the later party´s wizard gave his apprentice a job to deliver a sealed chest to another wizard in another village.
That were the facts the mentor revealed his apprentice, but there are some facts he did not revealed

The wizard had not to travel alone. Because of this job the wizard got money from his mentor to hire additional employees for the journey.
It was really funny how the wizard hired the other PCs and for which wage

This start of a campaign can only be chosen if the wizard is a charismatic or diplomatic character.

One Remark:
IMC no PC will have a garantee to be in the party. So if a PC is played in a way that he will not join the party (either by his own decision or by the decision of the majority of the other party members) the player must create a new PC.....

Just my 2 cents
yennico

 

[Monde]

The last time I started a campaign the mentor of the later party´s wizard gave his apprentice a job to deliver a sealed chest to another wizard in another village.

Our start was something like this. Our Wizard character wanted to be part of a guild and to do this he had to fetch an artifact. SInce he had no money he had to go and find people to help him. Without knowing what the other characters were or what they looked liek he managed to select all of us as the DM set it up. He went to the local jail and got 2 of the PC from there as they were arrested for fighting. The 3rd pc was a barbarian that was begging as he had no money and wouldn't sell his sword. The final character was busy getting evicted from the tavern the party was having breakfast. My character did not want to go with as he was on a mission of his own so the DM made sure the the mssion were both in the same city.

My 2 cents worth

 

[Enkhidu]

Here's some more:

The PCs are childhood friends who come together at the funeral of one of their number - adventures ensue (or, the Big Chill beginning).

One PC somehow gets a treasure map and hires the rest of the party to help her get it.

The PCs are individually invited to the reading of a will of someone they do not know, and find out that they all have some connection to the deceased, and each other.

 

[haiiro]

Thanks for the responses.

Has anyone tried the "NPC in common" method before? Or perhaps a related approach: the PCs are all part of the same family, with non-matching races being adoptees or affiliates?