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<blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 1604373" data-attributes="member: 413">Ask the players to provide the &quot;hook&quot;.&nbsp; Give them a 1000-2000 word description of the local area including important NPCs, organizations, and important rumors and news of the day.&nbsp; Keep it short because most players won't read more than a page or so.&nbsp; Ask them each to provide a background for their characters of ~500 words, including ideas for other NPCs and organizations and what the PCs are doing in the area.&nbsp; Do they live there?&nbsp; Are they passing through?&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; What do they do for a living?&nbsp; etc.&nbsp;&nbsp; It's a little hard to start off a campaign without knowing how the players see their PCs and what they think they might be doing.&nbsp;&nbsp; I often give the requirement that each PC must know at least one other PC and they must tell me how they know each other.&nbsp; Are they friends, relatives, associates, enemies?&nbsp;&nbsp; Give them a little freedom to be creative and offer a small reward for their trouble (some extra XP, a valuable item, some bonus points for point buy character generation, reroll of an ability score, whatever).&nbsp; Players will stand on their heads and bark like a dog if they think there is a reward in it for them.&nbsp; I've had some players come up with some really cool backgrounds for their characters and provide lots of adventure ideas by doing this.Also...another point of advice:&nbsp; I've found that jumping right into the campaign's main story line in the first or second adventure is a bad idea.&nbsp;&nbsp; 1) Players feel like their being railroaded. (&quot;But what if we don't WANT to do that?&quot;).&nbsp; 2) If you are starting at 1st level, the first few adventures should be used to establish that the PCs are heroes of sorts destined for great things...let them establish that seperate from pursuing great things.&nbsp;&nbsp; I tend to make the first few adventures small things like Save the Village from the Ogre (sounds like that's what you're doing), Save the temple from the ghouls, Take a message to VIP X in Town Y.&nbsp; These are unrelated or loosely related to the main plot.&nbsp; This allows you to establish the feel for the world, let the players flesh out their PCs&nbsp; and meet some NPCs and get to know their environment (maybe start to feel some love for the world your going to ask them to save).&nbsp; It also allows you to refine your campaign plot lines to fit the PCs and their motivations.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Uller, post: 1604373, member: 413"] Ask the players to provide the "hook". Give them a 1000-2000 word description of the local area including important NPCs, organizations, and important rumors and news of the day. Keep it short because most players won't read more than a page or so. Ask them each to provide a background for their characters of ~500 words, including ideas for other NPCs and organizations and what the PCs are doing in the area. Do they live there? Are they passing through? Why? What do they do for a living? etc. It's a little hard to start off a campaign without knowing how the players see their PCs and what they think they might be doing. I often give the requirement that each PC must know at least one other PC and they must tell me how they know each other. Are they friends, relatives, associates, enemies? Give them a little freedom to be creative and offer a small reward for their trouble (some extra XP, a valuable item, some bonus points for point buy character generation, reroll of an ability score, whatever). Players will stand on their heads and bark like a dog if they think there is a reward in it for them. I've had some players come up with some really cool backgrounds for their characters and provide lots of adventure ideas by doing this. Also...another point of advice: I've found that jumping right into the campaign's main story line in the first or second adventure is a bad idea. 1) Players feel like their being railroaded. ("But what if we don't WANT to do that?"). 2) If you are starting at 1st level, the first few adventures should be used to establish that the PCs are heroes of sorts destined for great things...let them establish that seperate from pursuing great things. I tend to make the first few adventures small things like Save the Village from the Ogre (sounds like that's what you're doing), Save the temple from the ghouls, Take a message to VIP X in Town Y. These are unrelated or loosely related to the main plot. This allows you to establish the feel for the world, let the players flesh out their PCs and meet some NPCs and get to know their environment (maybe start to feel some love for the world your going to ask them to save). It also allows you to refine your campaign plot lines to fit the PCs and their motivations. [/QUOTE]

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