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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voi_D_ragon" data-source="post: 8702819" data-attributes="member: 6855956">I was planning the beninning of the next campaign I'm going to run the other day and started asking myself how I was going to believably bring the characters together at the start and how to make a hook that was easily tied to a fixed feature of their backgrounds (for this Eberron campaign, I'm requiring that all PCs were present at the Cyre border on the Day of Mourning - which still gives huge leeway as to why or how they got there, as well as what happened after). Anyway, I began looking for inspiration, first in the DMG and then in published adventures. I was pretty disappointed by what I found:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DMG: two paragraphs with the barest indications and a couple of vague questions to tie the beginning of the campaign, but no indication on tying the wider story to their backstory to create believable motivation.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">ToA (hands down the worst offender imo): a powerful archmage, who has received info through the Harpers (who received it by a lich!) of a soul-devouring artifact that threatens her life and possibly all life, is the only entity to organize any sort of response (apart from the Red Wizards): send a bunch of random 1st level adventurers alone through one of the world's deadliest jungles to stop this danger, and offers the reward of 1 rare or uncommon magic item if they succeed. The table based on PC backgrounds is cute, but only really makes sense if you insert the party into a much larger expedition, which is mentioned multiple times. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">WBtWL (absolutely loved the first of these): <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Each PC saw the Witchlight Carnival as a child, but lost an integral part of their personality during the visit. Upon its return, they enter, planning to retake what was lost. Awesome. Doesn't flesh out why the PCs should work together or properly meet at all though.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A random warlock asks some randos to find out what happened to his patron, who has stopped being responsive. This assumes the party is made of established adventurers and is already ready to work together.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Icewind Dale: gives a table of reasons for PCs to be in Ten Towns, but no real reason to accept the quests in the first chapter or work together with the other PCs. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">CoS: party is hired offscreen and/or is directly kidnapped by the mists. After that, no real indication on how to make the party care for Barovians or really hate Strahd, which would be the main two reasons to finally confront him. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Wildemount has 4 mini adventures, which are pretty good with hooks tbh:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Characters are all in the same location for some r&r, don't know each other. The place gets attacked and everyone needs to work together to get out of there. Afterwards, they're picked up by a third party and offered a chance at retribution. Pretty good, assuming PCs aren't the types to forget a slight, want to run away from a fight, or leave a threat to innocents unchecked (which is usually pretty unlikely).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players are all in the same location, but pursuing separate goals, then they get attacked. Similar, but slightly harder to believe everyone was in the same place despite different goals. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players are in the same village, and being adventurers, are hired by the mayor despite not knowing each other. It's alright. Believable that the mayor would turn to freelancers to solve a small local problem. Still no reason the PCs should accept.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Basically same as above. </li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Call of the Netherdeep: assumes the players are already an established adventuring party, using one of Wildemount's adventures. The hook for the main campaign is nice though: the party meets their rivals during friendly competition that gradually gets more serious.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">DiA: less info on this as I'm a player, but the party meets in the context of their Dark Secret (which has some half-decent motivation as to they should have carried it out in the first place). Then all the PCs are separetely called to meet the same guard captain for a job, when most of the Dark Secrets above would have them avoid the law as much as possible, and with no indication of how it's known that they are established adventurers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">OotA: PCs are kidnapped and look for a way out of the Underdark. On the way out, they meet some demons, but there's no real feeling of spreading danger as far as I can tell by playing 6 levels in it. There's separate places with separate pwoblems, but there's no sense that each of these is corrupting the vicinity or that there will be danger once the party reaches the overworld, so why warn anybody?</li> </ul>In summary, I think WotC should put more effort into giving DMs resources to help their players determine why they are present at the start of an adventure and why their character would embark and stay engaged in it. Counting on the fact that the players want to play and will just go with a story is, indeed, functional, but it's pretty cheap and they should give a hand to people who want deeper and more believable characters.This could be a series of tables with varying degrees of depth in the DMG (after all, not all tables will want the same depth, and not all DMs/players will have the experience to actually work on certain levels of backstory engagement) with generic settings to start an adventure in and reasons why a PC would be there and be engaged by the hook thrown, as well as ways to forge bonds between PCs right from the onset. I'll give a quick example I hope will work when this campaign finally gets going:The PCs were all touched by the Mourning, finding themselves on the border of Cyre when it happened. Each PC should determine why they were there and work with the DM to understand how the scene played out. After this, all PCs moved to find themselves in Sharn (a huge hub with tons of possibilities, including just disappearing into a crowd). The adventure starts when the PCs all go to Morgrave University to be subjects in a study of Mourning Survivors. Why should they agree to the study?<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Ever since the Mourning, you've been feeling off, perhaps manifesing powers you didn't have before. You hope the study sheds some light on your condition.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You really need the money being offered to those who volunteer as case studies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You want to get close to a particular faculty member to ask them something on their area of expertise.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You are considering joining Morgrave and want to have a close up look at its inner workings.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You want to do what you can to help find a solution to the Mourning. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You want to take the opportunity to explore the wonderful camous of Morgrave and discover some of its secrets.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You're hoping to gain a favor from the university rather than payment: perhaps access to their laboratories for an experiment or to a restricted section of their library for research.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Ever since the Mourning, you've been shunned for fear of having a curse, perhaps by your community or loved ones. You're hoping to disprove that, scientifically.</li> </ol>After this, their future patron gives them a quick guide of the campus, and while in an enclosed laboratory space, with nowhere to run and noone to call, an experiment goes wrong, causing a fight to break out with some Mephits. This gives the patron a view of the party's skills and brings him to proposition them for a job. The PCs can gain more than just money from this, as they might have a vested interest in gaining the favor of the university for the reasons above: perhaps volunteering to be a guinea pig won't be enough, but helping the university on a dangerous quest probably will.Anyway, I think that's quite enough from me, any thoughts?</blockquote>

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