So You All Meet In A Bar...

[Bibamus]

Does anyone have any nonstandard stories about characters meeting in the standard locations?

The most interesting one that I heard of did happen in a bar, but it was the prelude to World's Largest Dungeon.

The cast:
A Dwarven fighter
A Dwarven rogue
An Elven wizard
A Human cleric

They met in a bar, but not as party members. The cleric challenged the wizard to a drinking contest, which he lost after roughly twelve drinks. The dwarves meanwhile had been having a debate about whether or not elves are useful at all in combat. The fighter finally said, "Alright, I'll PROVE to you that elves are useful in combat!" He promptly walked over to the wizard, picked him up by the ankles, and used him to beat the rogue about the head. Both rogue and wizard lost conciousness. The fighter, having proven his point, downed his ale and failed his Fort save, falling unconcious. All four woke up some time later in the World's Largest Dungeon.

Anyone got any other entertaining stories?

 

[Herobizkit]

Our current "evil" humanoid campaign started pretty interesting.

The Drow female Laele Telenna [Sorcerer/Favored Soul of Eilistraee] turned her back on her house during a war against a band of defending Duergar. The drow were victorious, taking all sorts of lovely prisoners to be murdered in Lolth's name. In an act of rebellion, she let the slaves loose, including one gnoll named Dargo [Ranger/Rogue] and fled to the surface. Meanwhile, one Duergar from the losing side named Vog [Monk/Psion (kinteticist)] swore off his family name, disgusted at the humiliating loss. He noticed the Drow and Gnoll flee the scene, and so he followed. Upon reaching the surface, they came upon a small band of goblins. One goblin, mounted atop a wolf, was surrounded by his kin. The three went to the lone goblin's aide, slaying the others and their leader. The Goblin identified himself as Zamduuk [Fighter/Druid]; he explained the goblins had decided to abandon Zamduuk's natural teachings in favour of an Orcish god who they felt was a stronger choice. The others saved the goblin from a lynching, and in gratitude, the goblin joined up with the others. An uneasy alliance was formed... and a whole new and unaccepting world was waiting for them.

 

[Tatsukun]

My current PCs are all a unit of the town guard. We started "You all meet in the bar, after your shift".

Of course, that town has since been razed, so I guess they are adventurers now.

-Tatsu

 

[Henry]

My favorite was the story told on these forums a while back; unfortunately, I lost the name of the contributor.

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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.
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[Jonny Nexus]

My favorite was the story told on these forums a while back; unfortunately, I lost the name of the contributor.

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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.
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That's brilliant!

 

[diaglo]

about halfway down on this page of the story hour in my sig: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=22106&page=7&pp=40


it happened after an almost TPK. the last surviving member of the former party went looking for new companions.

 

[StupidSmurf]

My favorite "You all meet in a bar" campaign start was one I pulled on my group when we were doing a new set of Forgotten Realms characters. With the exception of two people who wanted to play a married couple, no one else knew anyone, and everyone mutually agreed that that would be a good idea. Everyone was simply at the inn, en route from each of their respective Points A to Points B. The medieval fantasy equivalent of a bunch of people at a rest stop on an interstate highway.

In walks this rich-looking man wearing a bit of armor and a sword in his belt. He's flanked by two rougher types, much better armored, and also heavier armed. The rich man signals for silence, and asks "Excuse me, but has anyone seen a friend of ours? He's a fellow human, sandy brown hair, short beard, gray eyes...walks with a limp. Actually his leg is quite injured, and he may actually still be bleeding. We're here to find him and help him. Has anyone seen him? Anyone? Anyone?"

The inn goes quiet, people shake their heads "no", or simply shrug and go back to their drinks and/or dinners. One of the rich guy's henchmen, in an effort to try and be helpful and possibly sucking up to his boss, steps forward and gives it his own spin. "Now, we're...uh...not lookin' to harm him or nothin'. It's not like he has any valuable information or that he's tryin' to avoid us, y'see. Nothin' like that, nossir. We just wanna talk to him and help him with his wounded leg, which we certainly didn't cause, ok?"

The rich guy holds up a hand to shut his henchman up. He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "Just lovely," he says. "Now everyone here knows too much." He sighs and shrugs. "Ah well. Kill them. Kill every last one of them." The two henchmen smile and pull out nasty weapons. One very quick-thinking bar patron, who's actually closest to the exit, darts out the front door. The party hears whizz-thunk, whizz-thunk, whizz-thunk, and the patron staggers back in, screaming, an arrow lodged in his face, chest, and stomach. And the arrows are burning. Without another glance, the rich man strides out the exit and shuts the door behind him. The two obviously high-level fighters advance on the crowd, including our beloved 1st level PCs.

 

[Gnome]

It didn't happen to me, but a friend of mine had a DM that asked his players to provide him with their characters' background, including "why you are in jail". Each player had to come-up with a reason why his or her character was in jail (some were guilty, some were not), and the players worked together to find a way to escape as part of their first adventure.

I thought it was rather clever.

 

[GandhitheBFG]

I did a similar thing once, in Eberron. All the players had to give reasons for being in a Kundarak money-house (i treated it more like a swiss vault; deposit boxes, etc). Amusingly enough, the bank was robbed by the EC who were looking for a schema held in one of the vaults, and the PCs were found unconscious at the scene by the watch, with bodies around them, and bloody weapons drawn.

Silly, silly PCs. One of them was even a wanted thief...the main reason FR backgrounds don't work in Eberron

 

[Gold Roger]

One I haven't jet used, but want to is the following:
A city is under siege for one month now. The PC's are all stuck in the city and one noon all in the same tavern, when and old man enters the tavern (standart wizard/questgiver kind of guy). He steps in all misteriously and stuff and after one second he and the whole front part of the tavern are blasted away. After sight becomes clear and everyone is concious again the PC's realize that there are invading troops all around bend on pillage and murder and the millitary troops are still far away. After the dust settles and the PC's are the only ones alive at the scene, city troops arrive and a ambitous young city official recruits them as "strike team" for all the stuff the official troops can't resolve because of the siege.