So, you all meet in a bar and decide to start adventuring together...

[Agback]

i usually find it convenient - but still very rewarding for the players - for the PCs to be members of the same organization: deputies of the local constable, members of a temple/monastery/guild, something along those lines. this is provides an easy motivation if i need it (your boss says "go"), but it also provides for a set of community resources and a whole hierarchy for players to explore as the campaign develops.

And it allows nicely for the organisation to appoint new party members, eg. to replace casualties.

But you have to be careful about the challenge level and communications with headquarters, because if you try to set the PCs up for an heroic victory agains overwhelming odds they may simply be dissed off that the organisation will not send reinforcements or send a higher-ranked effective better equipped to handle the problem. For this reason it can be a good idea to choose an organistation that is not directly involved with the matters that the adventures will be about, or else make the party an outposted team in a location where they can only get reinforcements/backup/orders after a considerable delay.

 

[Einan]

It's because they each own part of the McGuffin!

They don't know what the McGuffin is, but they keep their part because it's a family heirloom, good luck charm, souveneir, ancient legacy, gift from a friend, etc.

Or they don't own part of the McGuffin: THEY are the McGuffin. Their ancestors did something naughty to the BBEG's ancestor, causing a curse to be unleashed that only their blood can stop.

Okay, it's not particularly novel, but hey, what is?

Einan

 

[Agback]

How about the opposit. How about the BBEG has pissed off each of the players seperately, and they are each hunting him for their own reasons.

Hey! Good suggestion! That readily allows new characters to join the party at need, and it also gets the GM out of the railroading trap that can result when the antagonist is active and the protagonists passive.

Further to my comments above about handing over to the players all responsibility for party cohesion: this is another area where giving the character-players part of the traditional responsibility of the GM can work very well, but you have to be quite sure that you communicate clearly to the players that that is what you are doing. If you just stop directing the action, stop putting out adventure hooks, but if the players are still expecting to be led about by adventure hooks, you can get a big problem known as 'nothing is happening'.

 

[Lot]

More than once, I've used the plot of the movie Spies Like Us for a campaign. Basically, a weird collection of people are sent on some kind of secret mission. Now, why would a king or whatever use 1st-3rd lvl characters for such a task? Basically, they are a flashy distraction/bait so that the real operatives can act with immunity while the enemy concentrates on the PCs. Of course, the operatives end up getting taken out and the mission falls on the PCs anyway. It's good for cinematic campaigns where I want the PCs involved in the big plot from the beginning but want to explain their low level. It's worked well the the few times I've used it. Fun, too, because the PCs think they're important, then find out they're jokes, then get to be important again.

 

[Graf]

In principal a DM can create a situation where the party can get together.
Practically? Nope. Don’t work.

Players have to get involved in the process of linking their characters together… The OK… We’ll have the same god, we’ll have freed this other (int 6 cha 6) player character from slavery and now he’s following us around and…. uhh… the elvin ninja? OK… the elvin Ninja helped us free him too. Yeah, because he wants to get in with my noble family once we get back to my home town (and steal their stuff).

DMs can’t do it unless you can grind down on people to change their characters and then the get bored because their character isn’t the character they actually wanted to play and so they quit mid-way through. And you have to deal with another random character suddenly popping up.

An environment, like a deathtrap, or even an an indivisible but valuable object, is important to group cohesion, but the players need to take responcibility for knowing each other and wanting to crawl down a dark slimy tunnel filled with horrible flesh eating monsters together.
Otherwise it don’t work.

 

[Gnome]

Thanks everyone; this thread has made fun reading! The suggestions I'm taking is to have the players create their characters together as a group, and to have them come-up with their reasons by stating why they volunteer for the call for explorers to explore the ruins of the unknown race.

Oh, and the most clever method I've ever heard of is having all the players come-up with a reason that their character was in jail (where the campaign starts out).

 

[sniffles]

I once ran a campaign where all the PCs were the children of an older, retired adventuring party. So, they had built-in relationships, as they'd known each other since childhood (about half were brothers).

This could fit your campaign, as the Bad Guy is looking to exact revenge on the parents, who had somehow thwarted him before they retired, by wiping out their progeny.

I'm currently involved in a campaign with a somewhat similar starting concept (Shadows of Greatness in my Story Hour links). But only one of the PCs is the child of an older adventuring party; the rest are apprentices/protoges/students, or in my PC's case a spouse. The NPCs were on a mission to save the world and disappeared. So the PCs took up their mission - although we're still trying to figure out exactly what that mission was, since the NPCs didn't give us a lot of info before they vanished.

 

[Balgus]

My last adv started out pretty uniquely- and it was the best start we ever had. Most of the work was done before hand by the players:

Party- FTR (Gladiator), Clr/Barb, Roq, and Sorc

The Clr and Sorc were betting on a gladiatorial match, rog playing bookee. The guy lost it and S,C lost a lot of money to the Rog and were not able to repay. They got mad and took it out on the Glad. They found out that the rog and Glad were in cahoots and got into a brawl. They were then arrested for causing a scene and they got to knpw each other in prison


Rog then tells them of opportunity in adveturing and making money

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

Your subject line actually got me thinking about a twist on the traditional "you all meet in a bar." Over the years I've spent some time in bars, particularly during college, and I've met numerous people in these bars. During my many hours I have heard the words "Hey, we should go do . . ." often said to people just met that evening. Of course, theses same people are generally quite drunk, but that's the point. Why not have an adventure begin after the party members are good and drunk and ready to "take on the world." They don't have to really know each other, or trust each other for that matter, party unity can be dealt with later, once they've sobered up. This would be particularly entertaining if the site of said adventure was located relatively close (i.e. entrance to Undermountain) and the group was well into battling bad guys before they sobered up.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh, it is obvious - the BBEG runs a school for assassins - the PCs have not really been 'singled out' they have simply been chosen as the graduation exercise...

The Auld Grump