How do you kick off a Campaign?

[Snoweel]

What Crothian, Darthor et al said.

There comes a time in every campaign when a player will think to himself "Y'know, my character really wouldn't stay with the rest of the party at this stage..."

And be left with "They are the other PC's" as the only reason for adventuring with them.

This is especially dissatisfying (unsatisfying?) if it happens in the first session:

Jozan: Ok, the mission sounds good. I'm in.

Tordek: Me too. Let's do it!

Ember: I'm keen. How about you, Soveliss?

Soveliss: Nah. I hate humans and dwarves. I'm gonna go get Mialee and we'll find the treasure ourselves...

So the best method for an overarching-plot-loving DM like myself is to put it back on the players at character creation. As seen in nemmerle's Aquerra Story Hour and barsoomcore's new pirate campaign, the player will be required to create a character who has a good reason to want something intrinsic to the plot, whether that be dodging conscription (Aquerra) or just having a reason for being on a particular boat at a particular time.

 

[Dragonblade]

I require all the players to write into their background how they all know each other.

I have found it too much of a pain when I try to introduce PCs through some sort of intro scene or through the course of an adventure.

Invariably some sort of conflict arises, or someone decides their PC is going to zag when everyone else zigs and since his PC doesn't really know their PCs its just not "realistic" that he would go with them. Or some player decides another PC offended his PC so its a fight to the death. Or the Rogue decides he is going to start picking everyone's pocket because "Hey! I don't know these guys!"

I'm a smooth enough DM that I can get them all together again eventually, but it takes a lot of extra work and sometimes multiple game sessions run concurrently with different groups because they all separated, or fought each other, and sometimes even killed each other before the campaign even got going. Its just not worth the effort.

I tell them they all know each other before the game even starts. They can determine how amongst themselves and it has to be a part of their character's background. That way when the campaign starts it can start off running.

 

[Abraxas]

This is the method I will use with my next campaign start.

All the players will make characters that have a reason to be in a particular place. When the first session starts I will collect them and hand them all New character sheets - an assortment of mid-high level characters/monters - with a brief character personality sketch and a list of their most common tactics.

They will be instructed to attack the place the PCs are all in to obtain an item/person (haven't decided exactly what as of yet) by a mysterious being and given enough information about their objective so they can form a plan. These will all be amoral/ruthless out & out evil characters they will be running.

I then let them go crazy - the levels will be high enough that they can cause a maximum amount of mayhem and I will egg them on to be graphic about the chaos they cause. Once they capture their objective and leave I will collect these character sheets and return theirs to them. The PCs are the survivors of the rampage that just occurred and the NPCs I was just playing while they were rampaging.

 

[SteelDraco]

For my current campaign, I had each of them come up with a reason that they would be on a specific ship, leaving for one of the few free lands in a Midnight-esque setting. One of them was the ship's cook, one was trying to find some stolen Naga eggs, one was delivering a spy report to someone on the Mantis Isles, and the other two were just trying to find a place where they weren't likely to get lynched on any random day.

Worked out fine, as they've pretty much had to work together for the first couple sessions.

 

[Agback]

I am starting a new campaign soon and I would like to know how do you get your campaign started? Do you have them all meet at a tavern? Make sure that some of the characters know each other before the game starts? Make a complex web of interaction as each character converges to a meeting point?

What works for you?

I specify (sometimes after discussion with the players) what the group will be. For example, sometimes I say 'Generate private eyes who all work for the same small firm in Cincinnati in October 1929', and sometimes I say 'Generate young men of good family from the remote mountain city of Charn, which is on the border between Bethan and Elmis. Your characters make up a half-file of hoplites in the Charn militia.' Or 'generate members of the personal bodyguard of Darulan the Silent, episkopos of Kaplan'.

Then I design a campaign hook that will catch on to the thing the PCs have in common: a femme fatale hires their firm to find her sister who ran away with a bad man; the new krites of Charn comes into town incognito while the PCs' half-file is guarding the North-West Gate; Darulan is attacked by Melankreuthes assassins….

I think it is very helpful indeed if the PCs are conceived from the outset and designed to be a team. I utterly reject the process in which the players independently design characters according to their unco-ordinated whims, and thrust on the GM the responsibility of sticking these incompatibles together.

Regards,


Agback

[edited: typing, punctuation]

 

[WitheringSolid]

My one and only time DMing a game did in fact start out in a tavern where the PC had to find someone who had been kidnapped under their noses...the campains was dubbed by one of the players, and is forever knows as Mordor She Wrote

 

[nopantsyet]

For my most recent campaign, I stuck with the old "the pcs are shipwrecked on a strange shore, and awaken to find themselves in a foreign city with no memories of their past lives or former selves."

It was rat-bastardly delicious when they discovered that the city has an oversized and convoluted bureaucracy and, registering for visitors papers, were handed a form told, "Just fill in your name and sign at the bottom."

They are gradually concluding that their condition is related to something that's going on in this city, and occasionally are having shocking experiences that restore to them some lost memory.

Pretty soon they'll learn the awful truth about the thing that destroyed their civilization, broke their minds and will soon return to consume more of the world.

 

[Wee Jas]

TPK

 

[Henry]

TPK

You know, there was a famous series of adventures at Gencon in the 1980's which started with all the characters dead! I've often thought about doing this for a game. Kind of like the movie "Heart and Souls", where a group of complete strangers are stuck in the same predicament and journey together because it's better than being stuck on your own.

 

[kigmatzomat]

First level characters are the easiest.

"You've all completed your initial training and have also begun to get on your teachers' nerves. After a night of drinking, they decide it's a good idea for you to see the world. You are then given what you know is adventurer busy work.

The next three game sessions should involve nothing but animals and natural hazards. Mudslides, rivers to ford, wolves, and maybe a bear. They'll likey level and suddenly become aware of their own mortality. When you throw the first supernatural critter at them they'll react appropriately. "AAAHHHH!!!"