Starting a campaign....

[tennyson]

Torillan,

I played around with the idea of bringing the characters together as a job opportunity (the characters themselves can decide the reason - money, fame, necessity).

For example, have them be commisioned by a small artifacts guild (run by a knowledge-hungry mage in my mind). The guild itself will have "hand-chosen" them, either by scouts or cohorts, to be possible candidates for the job. They will get paid, have access to most of the places in the city, and have the chance to see great places.

Adventure however, turns sour when the charcaters happen upon some catalyst (the leader running the guild is corrupt, one of the artifacts is too tempting to deliver to the guild, the operation is only a cover up for something devious, etc.)

Don't throw in the catalyst too early though. Let the characters go on a few expeditions together, get to know each other, and once the catalyst hits, it will make them feel as though they are the only ones they can trust, travel with, or beat the odds with.

 

[Patrick-S&S]

Why not let their parents, relatives or somesuch have known each other from the beginning. They are getting old, have died, retired and so on and now their legacy will be upheld by their children. Hell they may even have an old enemy who has returned for revenge and it is up to the children, the PCs (who can still be older), to defeat it. Or somesuch stuff...

 

[peralay]

...make them feel as though they are the only ones they can trust, travel with, or beat the odds with.

Yeah, that works great until the DM decides to turn the group on themselves by tempting each of the PCs with what they most desire. Then one of the PCs completely turns on the others, destroying that carefully-built trust. A recipe for nastiness to be sure.

However, creating the feeling of "us against the world" is what's desired and it can be built fairly easily with some chase scenes, frame-ups for crimes the group didn't commit, etc. The feeling that people are caught up in events really brings a group together sometimes out of necessity.

 

[tennyson]

LOL. I will definitely say that was one of the most uncomfortable sessions I've ever been a part of. It was even worse beign the DM!

 

[Master of Monkeys]

PC A has been hired to kill PC B who has been hired to kill PC C who is trying to kill PC D who was sent to kill PC A. I tried it. It worked great. Until they all killed each other.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

Or... I had a player that wanted to play someone who was really paranoid so all the characters were hired to kill him instead. That worked really well. He got really paranoid.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It is starting a Campaign, not a short adventure

What I did for my current campaign:
At the time they were at a certain planet, the goverment changed to a racist/faschist one, and they imprisoned anyone who did not come from there.
They were transported with a freighter to a mining colony where they should work, but they were attacked by Orc Pirates, the ship (partially) failed its hyperdrive jump and finally crashed on a planet...

An alternative might be: Let them all be in the same town, maybe knowing each other, maybe not. And than, the town is attacked and they are among the few survivors...

But I think the idea to give the players reasons why they are together is a good idea.

Mustrum Ridcully