How do you kick off a Campaign?

[Nightfall]

Best way to kick off a campaign, have them fight a lot of Giants. Middle of combat, dead bodies everywhere, war makes for good and interesting allies. Short of that, divinely inspired works well too.

 

[nopantsyet]

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!!!"

Good point; I always try to throw some realistic challenges in with the fantastic. My current campaign is in a sort of fantastical Venice, and their first combat-time encounter was a water rescue where there had been a collapse.

One of the PCs, previously a sailor and shipwright, is now roleplaying overcoming a fear of water from nearly drowning three times in that encounter!

 

[shilsen]

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.

In my fairly short experience of DMing, my individual favorite start is "You wake up dead." I'll have to do that again someday.

 

[Christian Walker]

I like these campaign starters:

You are awakened by a shovel-full of dirt that hits your face. You cough, rub dirt out of eyes, then suddenly realize you are in a mass grave. Around you, a few other people begin to stir. The folks shoveling dirt on you sure look surprised...


Face down in the turf, twisted wreckage nearby. Broken glass stuck in your face, blood oozing freely. Now you remember why you hate Spelljamming.


No worries he said. It'll be fine he promised. The best way to plane hop he reminded. So you stepped through the portal expecting to arrive somewhere in Sesestri. However, all those shambling undead and urban ruins are nothing like anything you remember about the island paradise of Sesestri. That dumb wizard is going to pay...


With a satisfying splash, the canvas bag holding Duvall's body splashes into the bay. You and your comrades pat each other on the back, a job well done. Sadly for you, the city watch members standing behind you don't agree.


Roll for initiative.


Every band of explorers needs a wizard, right? Well, if one wizard is good, then a whole party of wizards and sorcerers would work real well, right? Right?


You stand at the entrance to the inn. The stable (and your horses) are a mere 30 yards away. The shambling undead are 30 yards beyond that. They crave flesh. You crave your horse. Who's going to get their first? You, or them? You better decide quick because they are lookin awful hungry and this town has turned out to be a real pile of crap.


It's not being sold into slavery that bothers you so much. I mean, at least as a slave you will expect food and lodging. What really gets you is that you were, in turn, sold to a pack of ghouls. Now you are wandering their warrens, lost, cold, and you can still hear Henri's dying screams and the ghouls tear him limb from limb. Now where the %^&* was that exit?!

 

[kamosa]

I ususally have the party know eachother before the adventure begins.

Typically I bring all the players together before they roll up characters and give them a quick overview of the game world. While they are rolling up characters I have them introduce themselves to eachother. I narate, with help from them, a short history of the characters.

I try to cover how they know eachother, why they got together and why they continue together.

Once we agree on this sort of story, it makes the party cohesion much better and cuts down on the dreaded "loner" character that is poison to the group dynamics.

In one campaign I made the party a group of rebels that had joined up to defend a small forest.

In one I had the party drafted as "special forces" at the beck and call of the king.

In my current campaign they don't have a heavy handed reason to stay together, but we narrated a fairly extensive history that gives them reasons to stay together.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Last two campaigns, everyone was from the same village. In one case, I went so far as to work out their families (it was a small small village) and used them as a spring board for low level adventures, which worked great. In the other, the local merchant hired the adventurers to protect his shipment to the next town, and things spiralled from there, as they tend to do.

In both cases, I found it preferable to "OK, you meet in a tavern," although in the former case, one of the families OWNS a tavern (the Shady Dragon Inn, in fact).

 

[Talon5]

I hate coming up with the starting adventure but this one is perfect and so stolen for my next campaign.

I did a variant of the tavern intro once. Each of the group members was in the tavern separately when another adventurer came in and began making a scene about how he needed some companions for a rich haul he was about to make.

My players all gathered around the table, along with some other NPCs, and made their sales pitches. The rogue was wily, the sorcerer mysterious, etc. After about five minutes of talk, the adventurer grabbed four other guys and left with them.

The PCs were all left sitting alone at the table stunned. The sorcerer looked around blankly and said: "I don't think this has ever happened to me before."

And from there the party was made.

I love that one!!! Its perfect!

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My last campaign started with 2nd lvl characters- "I don't care how you know each other, you had an adventure, now your going from here to there." Everyone had a loose back ground and nothing but two Gnomish "cousins" made a connection so I said to hell with it.

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My 1st D&D campaign in the last fifteen years started with everyone being early teens- youngest age level for thier class and race, they all were friends sense diapers, and all of them wanted to be adventurers. Their town was attacked and they went after the attackers.

 

[skinnydwarf]

In my fairly short experience of DMing, my individual favorite start is "You wake up dead." I'll have to do that again someday.

That reminds me of a time I was playing Daggerfall. I started a new character, awoke in the cave, and realized I had something like -300,000 HP. I ran into the other room, and told my friends about it, saying something to the effect of "I awoke, and I was dead."

In case you were wondering, I didn't start over. I rested for about a month until I healed up.

 

[Xeriar]

Had one campaign start in a Temple (we were all citizens of the city on the night it was attacked. A square mile or so area got compressed (as in, made to a hundred square feet or so then back again) leaving many collapsed areas and we were some of the temple's survivors.

Another was - we were visitors to a festival that got trapped in a dimensional shift triggered by a stupid halfling.

Having cooperative background-writing can make for some games with high ratings in Awesome.

 

[Beard in the Sky]

My groups have had a surprising amount of trouble with this. Upon much reflection, I think there are a couple of good suggestions I can come up with.

1. Crothian's method is gold if your players can handle it. Give them an idea of the general idea behind the campaign and let THEM do the work.

2. They have to have common goals. This is not the same as motivations. I have had campaigns fall apart because the group constantly struggled to explain why they continued to hang around each other.

We are trying a "personality archetype" approach. Some archetypes might be :"The Diplomat" "The Hothead" "The Mischief Maker" or "The Calm Leader"... you can make up your own, but the key is to make sure that someone isn't making a PC who is supposed to be good at Diplomacy rolls and that type of thing only to find out that there is another PC just as good. This forces them to compete for the role and could cause out of game problems and in a regular sized group, it probably means you have some -other- base uncovered.

Bottom line: The whole party needs a common goal or purpose but each PC has to have their own niche.