Hiring the PCs?

[Rechan]

The thing is I'm most used to the characters not having a shared history, if this is the player's first game of the campaign.

I prefer doing shared histories for PCs. See this thread for talk of that.

If that's just not your style, then try "The Usual Suspects" approach:

Instead of a summons for the Lord to hire the PCs, the Lord has leverage over each PC. Either the PC owes the Lord a favor, or the Lord has blackmail material on the PC. This is why the Lord gets these guys, as opposed to professionals: he doesn't have to pay them. Make the player come up with what the noble has over them.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

When I've done this the patron puts up notices that s/he's hiring adventurers. The PCs aren't the only ones who show up, but they're the ones who get hired. If they come as a group, so much the better. (This is how PCs get Hirelings in AD&D, more or less.)

 

[Gilladian]

I don't know that I've EVER run a FIRST adventure as "you get hired to..." just because of some of the issues people have mentioned.

Instead, I have done other things such as:

1) you have arrived in x village/town and are now at the Inn. You are here following rumors that there is a dungeon nearby... what do you do?

2) you are in the market when you hear a horrible crash, and a roar, and then screams. You realize a large pit has opened up in the center of the market square, and a mass of black clad humanoids are leaping up out of it, grabbing and attacking people... what do you do?

3) you are all friends who grew up in x village and now goblins have begun raiding farms. The sheriff has a standing reward out for them. You're broke. You can hire on as caravan guards, hunt goblins, or go get a regular job... what do you do?

Note the requirement that the PLAYERS decide how they form a group, and why. That's THEIR job as PCs, not mine as a DM. If they decide that half of them become guards and the other half hunt goblins, well, then they'll meet a day outside town, as one group tracks goblins and the other is attacked by them... and the one who gets a regular job gets to roll up a new ADVENTURER PC!

 

[haakon1]

I have two long running campaigns. In both, the PC's did a fair number of adventures for the government, but didn't start out that way.

The first group began at the Keep on the Borderlands. Different PC's went there for different reasons, like hearing about the action in the Caves of Chaos or being sent by the church to investigate missing persons.

I had an assault onf Keep where the PC's were the heroes and saved the place. This got the attention of the government and the merchant guild, so the PC's started to be hired whenever there's trouble.

The second group began in the City. Two were already friends, and they met the third one in a tavern. All were invited to a big party in the wilderness near town, where they were recruited to deal with a bandit problem by a mysterious, secretive group of guys in party masks (rival bandits, this was the Three Days to Kill adventure).

After the PC's killed the bandits they were hired to take out, they stole their horses. Which of course bore the brands of the merchants the bandits had robbed.

The PC's were arrested whille celebrating in a tavern -- a scene right out of "Conan the Barbarian" and brought to the ruler's advisor, who have them the "choice" of doing a mission for him or being hanged as horse thieves. They never liked him much, but they ended up doing a few missions for him.

 

[Ringlerun]

How do people get this to work in their games? I mean when the plot begins with official summons by a lord or king, to begin a quest.

I tried asking this here, but it suits a discussion much better.

I have used plot hooks like this before. Usually in my games i have guilds. Fighter guilds, rogue guilds, adventure guilds. This makes it easy as a plot hook to have the guild master inform the player that the king has asked for able bodies for a quest and he has volunteered you.

If the group is together and is a band of adventurers its usually an open invite stuck to the tavern wall or a herald reads a proclamation in the town square. Then just have the reward high enough to interest the players.

If you got some religious characters ie; clerics or paladins give them a nice vision during the night thats sets them on the path to the kingdom.

The tournament is also good. Were the players compete in various games and competitions against npc's and when they win they are taken to the king who rewards them and then asks for their help. This can be used to bring the party together.

Hope this helps

 

[S'mon]

I find "The King needs heroes" works well, as does "You are an adventuring party", as does "You all meet in a tavern".

What does not work well is any kind of force like "Lord Farquad says do This or Die!" - the players will ignore the mission and focus on taking out Lord Farquad. If you want a force-start, make it something like "you are all washed ashore after a shipwreck - what now?" or "You are all travelling on the stagecoach, when..."

At the point where play begins, the players need (a) freedom of action and (b) a feeling that they are in charge of their own destiny, not someone else's playthings. If they think they're someone else's playthings they will focus on taking down that 'someone else', NOT on whatever adventure 'someone else' wants them to do.

 

[Tonguez]

PCs are mercenaries working for the highest bidder, of course when they start out they don't get the big jobs.

I also think your first session should be developing the shared history of the group. In the past I've had PCs who were all members of a travelling circus troupe, orphans raised by the church (they were asked by the temple archivist to locate a sacred book), guards hired by merchant caravan, students in the same alchemy class, competitors at a local festival and survivors of a raid on their village.

 

[Janx]

we have a basic meta-game rule that solves the "i want to play a beet farmer" problem.

players must create PCs that would be accepted by the other PCs if they performed the same scrutiny they perform on NPCs.

This means you don't make a PC to infiltrate and betray the party (especially a new party where there's no reason) and you don't make a PC the party would hate or that would never join the party.

Whether the campaign starts with the PCs as a party/knowing each other or not, this removes the first roadblock of "my PC doesn't want to work with you" because that violates the premise of the game and the meta-game rule.

For first sessions, I try to start off with a common problem that everybody needs to solve (your in the same village and monsters attacK). This gets the action rolling, lets them try their abilities and sets up a common goal.

When I use the supprise attack method, I don't make it overwhelming or a central theme of the campaign, just something to get them working together for one encounter that usually drives them to stick together.

I recommend having more opportunities than problems (you can have 4 opportunities to choose from and not lose from only picking one, but once a single problem comes up, pretty much all else falls to the wayside).

another method I've used is that the party actually all starts off working for the same agency (ex. the royal navy). I always tell players of this during character creation so they can design accordingly.

always be wary of bait-n-switch campaigns, where you tell them it's about X and then in the first session it's a betrayal and the entire campaign will have them be fugitives. Players generally hate that $#!^. If they wanted to be fugitives, they will break the law on their own. Or you use that as a change of pace in the campaign. But never ever bait-n-switch.