Introducing/inserting characters

[Quasqueton]

What are the best ways you've seen for getting a group of PCs together? ["Best" can be interpreted anyway you want.]

What has been the best way you've seen a new character introduced/inserted into an existing PC group?

Quasqueton

 

[Doug McCrae]

What are the best ways you've seen for getting a group of PCs together?

"You all meet in an inn" is best for the following reasons:

1) It's plausible.
2) It requires no extra work on the part of the GM or players.
3) All the PCs are together right at the start. So there's no watching other players do cool stuff while your PC is in another country.

 

[diaglo]

prisoner.. rescued by the PCs

hired by the PCs to do some task they couldn't like.. identifying a magic item or healing the party. and then invited to join.

at an inn.

at a campsite

on a boat that sinks in the night. all the PCs survive. everyone else dies or flees. the PCs being paying passengers and not crew men.

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

I usually make the players tell me how they know each other, and we go on from there.

When it's time to introduce new characters to the group, I rarely make an effort. "Joe, your colleague, who had to take care of some things before he could depart for the Caves of Eternal Suffering has finally caught up with you" or "Bob has fallen into the Pit of Rusty Nails, his body never to be recovered. You hear a pleading voice in the next room. When you go investigate, you find a man chained to the wall, his equipment neatly folded in a corner of the room. He asks for your help and seems very trustworthy" (of course, the last scenario wouldn't hold in a non-good game...)

AR

 

[drascade]

in an eberron campaign
3 of the characters grew up together under a foster parent.
warforged character is introduced after putting all but one of the other PC to negative hit points

 

[kenobi65]

For bringing a group of PCs together at the start of a campaign, I've tried to stay away from "you all meet in an inn." What I've used in the last three campaigns I've run has been:

1) All the PCs are the children of a now-retired group of adventurers. Thus, they've all grown up together, and know each other well. (Note: this doesn't work so well with elves in the party. )

2) All of the PCs are members of a commando team, drafted to fight in a war (the campaign was centered on said war). The first session started with their first briefing.

3) Each of the PCs, separately, is kidnapped by a group of orcish mercenaries. They all wake up together, locked up in a dungeon. First order of business was escaping from the cells, second order of business was recovering their stuff.

As far as incorporating a new PC into an existing party, if possible, I like working them into the campaign backstory somehow -- either the new PC had been an NPC that the party had dealt with before (in other words, the new player takes the reigns of what was formerly an NPC), or the new PC knows one (or more) of the existing PCs via their personal backstories.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

In my new group I wanted to avoid the "You meet in an Inn" cliche. As a result as we began planning for the new campaign, I asked the three players to work together on their histories and find some kind of common link or friendship with at least one of the other characters so there could be some reason why you might trust each other as you begin adventuring. I gave them some examples such as the Dragonlance "you all grew up together" theme, or you fathers are business partners or something - anything. Over the course of the next couple of weeks a few e-mails were exchanged where two of the players talked about working aboard ships.

Game day comes, and when I start to ask about the characters I find that two did indeed make characters that worked on ships - not the same ship, or the same company, heck one of them should not have even been in the same region of the world by his history. The other character is the son of a merchant, that's it. So what do I do, I declare that they all knew each other from past chance encounters and they meet up again and...go to an inn for a drink...

It always comes down to the inn...

 

[chrisnd]

Like Thornir, when I started up my new campaign, I asked everyone to write a simple history of their character, where they grew up, and why they are "adventuring." As it turns out, 2 of the players actually grew up in the same monastery dedicated to St. Cuthbert (they did not discuss this amonst themselves before they submitted their history/summary). The first character was out searching for a group of adventurers to help him solve a problem in a nearby town. The first PC he met was the second of the two characters mentioned above, so, it was easy to get the two of them together. The third character was found along the side of the road (as the first two party members were trekking back to the village), appearing to be dead, and with nearly his entire memory erased (but enough in tact to be able to cast a few 1st level spells). When the party finally made it into town, the mayor (who hired PC #1 to find PC #2) asked that the group also bring along a barbarian who was hanging out in the village square scaring the children. So, the 3 PC's took him along, too.

There was no inn (other than where PC#1 found PC#2), there was no general "call out" to save the damsel in distress, and there was a bit of history behind each character. Ask your players to put together a history and synopsis of their character and its background, then use that information to enhance the story.

To read the detailed story of how the party actually came together, please visit my website at www.geocities.com/chrisnd93/stories/story1/story1a.html

 

[eris404]

In a new game (all new characters), I feel that the players should step up and decide how they know each other. If the DM has a cool idea, that's fine, but the players should work out the details. The DM has enough on his/her plate and details like this should be fun for players to create.

As a player, I often pick another player to be my "buddy." I don't do this to form a clique (I change my buddy player every new game), but so that my character starts off knowing at least one other character very well. They might be old school chums, cousins, whatever. After I ask the player's permission to do this, I try to make the relationship flattering to the other player, such as his character saved my character's life or tutored them through school. That way, the other player is less likely to feel like the background/relationship is forced on them and it makes their character look good (and hey, isn't that what everyone wants?). DMs love it because it takes some pressure off of them and gives them background to work with.

Introducing new characters into an existing group can be tricky, but my only advice is that it should be done as quickly as possible. Nothing is worse than waiting through most of the session to have one's character introduced. The toughest part is trying to introduce a new character during the middle of ab adventure, especially when it's a dungeon crawl. I haven't tried these, but here are some ideas that might be helpful:

- The new character is being attacked by an overwhelming force. The character was with another party and all the other members have been killed. The new character may have a different goal than the party or the same goal. He or she may have an ability, a map, another clue or an item that will be helpful to the party to achieve their goal and thus make them more likely to accept the new character into the party.

- The new character saw the party several days ago and has been following them. Maybe the new character has heard of the party's exploits and wants to take part in their adventures. Maybe the new character is a messenger bearing a warning for the party. Maybe the character was sent by a priest or seer friendly to the party; the seer had a vision or was scrying on the party and sent the new character to help out.

- The new character has been living in the dungeon. Perhaps he is the last survivor of a village that used to exist in the dungeon or took a vow to live alone until he saw a sign from his god or is on some kind of quest that he has been unable to complete until the party showed up. Maybe the character was polymorphed into an animal form (such as a rat) and must try to communicate with the party.

- The new character is a turncoat. The character used to follow or was under the spell of the Boss Monster, but discovered his evil plot or the spell was broken in some way. If he can convice the party to trust him, he may have valuable information about part of the dungeon.

 

[fusangite]

Getting PCs together initially I'm fine at. Inserting new PCs as the campaign goes has been a bit of a problem for me though so I shall be watching this thread with keen interest.

Starting scenarios I've used:
- all part of the same shipwreck (twice)
- all attacked by demons in the same bar
- all found in the same place by the authorities suffering from amnesia
- chosen based on a shaman's dream to complete a quest on behalf of their tribe (twice)
- the only successful members of a failed prison escape

As for adding party members:
- hired as a guide (twice)
- rescued by the party
- turning out to be one of the objects the party is questing for
- sent by the government to oversee the party's actions
- sent by a sympathetic group to aid the party in a shared goal
- hired by the same employer
- taken on as wergild for a party member
- prostitute one of the characters hired