Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
This is a great opener if you hope to have one character sacrifice another player's character in order to escape. Not so much for long-term play or group cohesion.
Trying to get the players all starting in the same place believably
- Thread starter Shoe
- Start date
Steel_Wind
Legend
Last two campaigns I've run, I've started in media res, with the party all being attacked.
There were reasons the people in the party were all together at that time and those reason were expounded upon later -- but all of that stuff fades when the monster is swinging a scimitar at your head.
Me: Armor Class?
Player 1: What?
Me (firmly): Your armor class?
Player 1: What... and then he stopped as he sees the minis are neing arranged on the battlemat.
Me: No, no. Just your ordinary normal armor class.
Payer 1: 16
Me: The Hobgoblin swings with a savage strike towards your head, glancing off your helm. You take 5 points. Jason, your AC?
The reason the party is together or why they are there fades very quickly at that point. I explain it all later that they have been recruited by a local Ranger to track down a band of goblinoids. They are all from the same town - all trying to make their way in the world with their first job.
It worked very well.
You or the players can fill in the story as you need. The point is - starting in media res gets the game moving with a bang and all the tedious shopping and endless questions of "can I have this" and "can I get..." are ended with a die roll.
"Why are we together?" - "Do I trust him" - "Is he from..?" - "Would my character even know?..."
Blah blah blah.
The D20 drops on the table, it's initiative time and the game is on.
Backstories are great and I really do recommend them. But at a certain point - you can overthink this stuff.
My advice? Open the campaign with a drop of the dice and start swinging.
There were reasons the people in the party were all together at that time and those reason were expounded upon later -- but all of that stuff fades when the monster is swinging a scimitar at your head.
Me: Armor Class?
Player 1: What?
Me (firmly): Your armor class?
Player 1: What... and then he stopped as he sees the minis are neing arranged on the battlemat.
Me: No, no. Just your ordinary normal armor class.
Payer 1: 16
Me: The Hobgoblin swings with a savage strike towards your head, glancing off your helm. You take 5 points. Jason, your AC?
The reason the party is together or why they are there fades very quickly at that point. I explain it all later that they have been recruited by a local Ranger to track down a band of goblinoids. They are all from the same town - all trying to make their way in the world with their first job.
It worked very well.
You or the players can fill in the story as you need. The point is - starting in media res gets the game moving with a bang and all the tedious shopping and endless questions of "can I have this" and "can I get..." are ended with a die roll.
"Why are we together?" - "Do I trust him" - "Is he from..?" - "Would my character even know?..."
Blah blah blah.
The D20 drops on the table, it's initiative time and the game is on.
Backstories are great and I really do recommend them. But at a certain point - you can overthink this stuff.
My advice? Open the campaign with a drop of the dice and start swinging.
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David Howery
Hero
most of the campaigns I ran were 'you're in a village on the edge of the civilized world' settings (because I was fond of wilderness adventures)... I usually had the PCs all part of a local militia group; so, if they didn't want to, they didn't have to be from that particular village, but could have been recruited damn near anywhere and just happened to be assigned to this village.
Granted, that's not applicable to a lot of campaigns...
Granted, that's not applicable to a lot of campaigns...
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
This works well to create potential ideas for the actual campaign, too.
Another similar idea I've used is to have every player write about "the character on their left." They must keep it positive. If the player on their left doesn't like the mini-story, the person who wrote inherits it for their character instead. They are usually very motivated to write a cool mini-story.
Alternately, one time I said "Everyone will vote at the end on whichever mini-story is the best. That writer gets +1 to one Ability."
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
The three campaigns I've started from scratch went:
1. "Your characters are each alone in town looking for other adventurers to go get rich with. I don't care how or why you got to this town; you're here now, deal with it." Naturally, I made sure they then *happened* to meet each other; they decided to form a party and head out into the wilds...after that, it was easy.
In other words, a somewhat gonzo start from a DM (i.e. me) who at the time didn't entirely know what he was doing.
2. "A famous, but long-unheard from, adventuring Company is holding a major recruiting meeting. You've each come to this meeting in hopes of catching on with these guys. The campaign begins at the start of the meeting." The Company then takes all the recruits, rejects a bunch, and sorts the rest into parties (with all the PCs in the same party, of course) and sends them off on test missions. The trick is that the whole thing is a set-up: the Company is a fake and the "test missions" are basically suicide runs; except the intrepid PCs manage to survive...
This one worked perfectly: they had a built-in reason to form a party - because it was formed for them - and an immediate job to do. And I got about 3 years worth of gaming out of that fake-Company plotline.
3. A hapless Cavalier and his very loud press agent (an almost-as-hapless Bard) roam their way up-country gathering characters as they go, in hopes of Doing Great Deeds In the Mountains. All the Bard had to do was tell 'em how great the Cavalier was and how rich they'd all get if they followed him, and the party just fell into place. (and then Keep on the Borderlands ate them alive, but that's another story...)
For flavour reasons, I forced all starting PCs in this game to be Human, with other races allowed in once they got into the wild lands.
In general, I let people play what they want alignment-wise; but I'm also one of those DMs (and players, when on the other side of the screen) to whom in-party arguments and brawls are all just part of the game.
Lan-"five minutes for fighting"-efan
1. "Your characters are each alone in town looking for other adventurers to go get rich with. I don't care how or why you got to this town; you're here now, deal with it." Naturally, I made sure they then *happened* to meet each other; they decided to form a party and head out into the wilds...after that, it was easy.
In other words, a somewhat gonzo start from a DM (i.e. me) who at the time didn't entirely know what he was doing.
2. "A famous, but long-unheard from, adventuring Company is holding a major recruiting meeting. You've each come to this meeting in hopes of catching on with these guys. The campaign begins at the start of the meeting." The Company then takes all the recruits, rejects a bunch, and sorts the rest into parties (with all the PCs in the same party, of course) and sends them off on test missions. The trick is that the whole thing is a set-up: the Company is a fake and the "test missions" are basically suicide runs; except the intrepid PCs manage to survive...
This one worked perfectly: they had a built-in reason to form a party - because it was formed for them - and an immediate job to do. And I got about 3 years worth of gaming out of that fake-Company plotline.
3. A hapless Cavalier and his very loud press agent (an almost-as-hapless Bard) roam their way up-country gathering characters as they go, in hopes of Doing Great Deeds In the Mountains. All the Bard had to do was tell 'em how great the Cavalier was and how rich they'd all get if they followed him, and the party just fell into place.
(and then Keep on the Borderlands ate them alive, but that's another story...)For flavour reasons, I forced all starting PCs in this game to be Human, with other races allowed in once they got into the wild lands.
In general, I let people play what they want alignment-wise; but I'm also one of those DMs (and players, when on the other side of the screen) to whom in-party arguments and brawls are all just part of the game.
Lan-"five minutes for fighting"-efan
Wik
First Post
My preferred method is to put the players around the table, introduce their basic characters, and then hash out a background in a few sentences (and never more than a few sentences!). After that, I tell each player to come up with two connections to other PCs at the table. So, every PC starts off knowing two of the others before play begins.
That's my default method. But I love games like Shadowrun (you're all runners, and you all share the same fixer. Now go kill stuff), Delta Green (This is a delta green run, and you've all been tagged) and Twilight 2000 (Bad stuff has happened, and you're all that's left). Those games have group beginnings already figured out at game start.
That's my default method. But I love games like Shadowrun (you're all runners, and you all share the same fixer. Now go kill stuff), Delta Green (This is a delta green run, and you've all been tagged) and Twilight 2000 (Bad stuff has happened, and you're all that's left). Those games have group beginnings already figured out at game start.
Preplanning (i.e. before sitting down at the first adventure) does make a cleaner option, and is usually my prefered way -- maybe you give them a starting nugget in the campaign premise (i.e. they are all somehow connected to a guild or a patron, etc) or you can leave it up to them to come up with connections to one or two of each other in some minor or major way. But, of course, it doesn't always work...
If all preplanning fails, then at the first session, when you have a plot for the first adventure (or possibly the first adventure 'arc') then find a way to tie them each to it.
*Maybe the bad guy in question is seeking them out for a particular reason (they all have some connection to some other person, maybe a divination told the bad guy that each of the PCs was 'trouble' for his plan so he wants them stopped not realizing that by gathering them against him he is making it a selffullfilling prophecy, maybe they are all distantly related to the noble of their respective races/societies/etc)
*Maybe someone who wants to stop the bad guy has hired each of them (out of chance or specific reason)
*Maybe they were all just in the wrong place at the right time
but my point is, if nothing else, look to your initial adventure plot, or preferably adventure arc's plot, and see if there is some thread there that you could tie the PCs to personally.
If all preplanning fails, then at the first session, when you have a plot for the first adventure (or possibly the first adventure 'arc') then find a way to tie them each to it.
*Maybe the bad guy in question is seeking them out for a particular reason (they all have some connection to some other person, maybe a divination told the bad guy that each of the PCs was 'trouble' for his plan so he wants them stopped not realizing that by gathering them against him he is making it a selffullfilling prophecy, maybe they are all distantly related to the noble of their respective races/societies/etc)
*Maybe someone who wants to stop the bad guy has hired each of them (out of chance or specific reason)
*Maybe they were all just in the wrong place at the right time
but my point is, if nothing else, look to your initial adventure plot, or preferably adventure arc's plot, and see if there is some thread there that you could tie the PCs to personally.
Jan van Leyden
Adventurer
For a sandbox-like campaign, I have used the following approach:
In a small town or village not too far away from some major cities, 50 years ago a group of retired adventurers appeared. They had a charta from the local lord allowing them to build a keep or castle, which they did only to move in and keep mostly separate from the village folks.
A short time after that the villagers found a baby child under the lime tree. Besides the child there was some foodstuff and a small bag of gold. The villagers went to the castle to ask the ex-adventurers for advice, but they just told them: "Someone take this child and raise it; you have the money to do so."
This happened again and again with babies of all different species, until the villagers were quite used to it. Prospective parents took the child and the money and acted as foster parents. In village speak these children became
known as Children of the Lime.
Ten years ago the whole thing stopped, no new children were found. Some time later the mayor went to the castle again, but found it suddenly deserted.
All adventurers are Children of the Lime who share the secret of their origin. Why did those adventurers collect babies? Were were the babies from? What distinguishes the Children of the Lime from other people? Why did the adventurers disappear and were did they go? What secrets may wait in the castle?
This concept worked out pretty well, but it is, of course, limited to be used once.
In a small town or village not too far away from some major cities, 50 years ago a group of retired adventurers appeared. They had a charta from the local lord allowing them to build a keep or castle, which they did only to move in and keep mostly separate from the village folks.
A short time after that the villagers found a baby child under the lime tree. Besides the child there was some foodstuff and a small bag of gold. The villagers went to the castle to ask the ex-adventurers for advice, but they just told them: "Someone take this child and raise it; you have the money to do so."
This happened again and again with babies of all different species, until the villagers were quite used to it. Prospective parents took the child and the money and acted as foster parents. In village speak these children became
known as Children of the Lime.
Ten years ago the whole thing stopped, no new children were found. Some time later the mayor went to the castle again, but found it suddenly deserted.
All adventurers are Children of the Lime who share the secret of their origin. Why did those adventurers collect babies? Were were the babies from? What distinguishes the Children of the Lime from other people? Why did the adventurers disappear and were did they go? What secrets may wait in the castle?
This concept worked out pretty well, but it is, of course, limited to be used once.
FireLance
Legend
In the Eberron campaign I'm running, I basically told the players:
"A village in the Eldeen Reaches has been experiencing an unusually hot and dry summer. A Raincaller from House Lyrandar has been hired to perform a ritual to bring rain to the village. Your character is present at the ritual. Why is your character there, and what is his interest in the situation?"
The PCs were a goliath barbarian who was the Raincaller's bodyguard, a kalashtar bard who had a dream vision of this event, a human invoker of Balinor who was investigating the cause of the strange weather, a warforged fighter who was looking for adventure and thought the situation looked promising, and a halfling wild magic sorcerer who had also experienced some bouts of unusual weather in the past and was curious about the phenomenon in general.
And then, similar to the approach mentioned by Steel_Wind, I had attacking monsters disrupt the ritual.
"A village in the Eldeen Reaches has been experiencing an unusually hot and dry summer. A Raincaller from House Lyrandar has been hired to perform a ritual to bring rain to the village. Your character is present at the ritual. Why is your character there, and what is his interest in the situation?"
The PCs were a goliath barbarian who was the Raincaller's bodyguard, a kalashtar bard who had a dream vision of this event, a human invoker of Balinor who was investigating the cause of the strange weather, a warforged fighter who was looking for adventure and thought the situation looked promising, and a halfling wild magic sorcerer who had also experienced some bouts of unusual weather in the past and was curious about the phenomenon in general.
And then, similar to the approach mentioned by Steel_Wind, I had attacking monsters disrupt the ritual.
Two things:
- First, A weakness of mine as well. I try to do a pre-planning session with players to make sure Classes are varied and do a little campaign background, then character background. In addition to characters tied to each other, I also try to add elements from the campaign plot (short or long-term) to tie the party together.
Sometimes this works
I usually have one player either trying to be anti-party or wonders around "why is my character even here". I usually tell them their character is here so their player can have fun - Second: Is this "a" Shoe, or "THE" Shoe?
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