What innovative ways have you come up with for PCs to get together

[Furn_Darkside]

As a player, has anyone here felt like the DM was stepping on their toes by saying "your character knows his character because..."? It's not always possible for players to work out these kind of intra-party background details beforehand.
Thanks.

I am not a player, but as I like to see to my players "welcome to the wonders of e-mail". But, I have the advantage that all my players are online.

It also might be interesting to start a campeign and tell everyone they will be related, but they are responsible for designing the family- history, relatives, and such. You could get some good plot hooks from that, and you have a strong connection between the group.

FD

 

[F5]

I am not a player, but as I like to see to my players "welcome to the wonders of e-mail". But, I have the advantage that all my players are online.

It also might be interesting to start a campeign and tell everyone they will be related, but they are responsible for designing the family- history, relatives, and such. You could get some good plot hooks from that, and you have a strong connection between the group.

FD

<edit> oops...hit the submit button too soon.

What I was going to say was...if only e-mail was so simple. All my players are online, but many of them only check their e-mail at work, and don't have the time to do any character-building until we're sitting around the game table.

 

[anowack]

I've always been fond of the "You all wake up in a jail cell." opening. The escape makes for a good first adventure with lots of teamwork required and little chance for the players to try and go their seperate ways. I also had an NPC in the cell, who helped out in the escape, and prompted the second advneture: to try and recover the cargo he'd been carrying (a powerful evil magical item) before the trail gets too cold.

Everything else went pretty naturally from there.

I also really like the method used in NeMoren's Vault (everybody has a special item, and is tracked down by someone looking for the people who have them), which I plan on using in my next campaign.

 

[gunter uxbridge]

Best start I ever had was from our last campaign. The PCs had met as a part of a caravan guard to Daggerdale. The caravan stopped one night in a small walled village just as a Zhent force put the city under seige. Cut to three months later, the seige is still going on, the city is about out of food and the PCs have in the interim been incorporated into the city defence force. The remaining population is on 1/4 rations, the Zhents are just hours from taking the city, and they are faced with a tough decision. Stay and die for a city that they never asked to be a part of or flee for the hills. The fun part of this was their actual escape and some "coming together" moments before they left. It kind of blew me away when they insisted on trying to return with reinforcements and food for the city.

 

[Beckett]

For my first 3e campaign, I decided to go with a completely original idea for getting the party together. It all started with some dwarves seeking to reclaim their treasure from a dragon. All they needed was a burgler...

Well, all the needed was a monk, a half-orc fighter, and a couple of elves. The dwarves had some doubts about hiring any of this bunch on, but were convinced by their wizard companion.

The first session opened with the group crossing some mountains, all tied together. A lucky shot from a goblin down below cut the line between the party and the dwarves. The party tumbled down the cliff side, right into a goblin hunting party. After the melee, they found they were at the backdoor of the goblins' cave, with the dwarves nowhere in sight.

They still had a dragon to slay, but first they would have to get through the cave. Then a nearby town needed saving. And then...

 

[Leopold]

I make the players decide how they know each other. It puts the burden of "getting along" on them.

yup i do that one as well..make a good story and weave them all togther

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Most campaigns I've played were the "you meet in a bar" variety unfortunately. But that worked out because they were mostly beer and pretzels games anyway.

When I ran my campaign, I gave the players the option of them explaining how they know each other and came to work together or me forcing them to do so. They chose deus ex machina so they started out as prisoners of an orcish raiding party. As you can see from the following list, there was a fair amount of turnover in the game (people moving or my brother playing for a couple weeks during his Christmas break from college, and characters dying).

The two original characters (the prisoners) escaped when orcs from a second tribe attacked their captors and made it to town where they realized they needed to find work.

The town magistrate asked them to check on a missing dignitary and recommended that they get a guide (a new PC).

Later, another PC joined the party as an apprentice to the party wizard. That was the condition of the return of his spellbooks (the orc tribe that defeated their captors kept his spellbooks since he didn't ask for them back).

When the party returned to the magistrate, he sent a friend of his along with them (in order to ensure someone he could trust implicitly was with the group).

The next PC joined the group with an NPC. The group had just fought a demon under the city and this attracted a demon hunter (NPC) who wanted to verify the rumors and find out where the demon came from. This demon hunter brought a friend and travelling companion with him (the new PC).

The next PC to join was a bard--he was looking to leave a life of banditry and make an honest living and there were heroes he could write songs about. A natural match.

Thereafter, another PC to join was an old friend of one of the PCs.

I had a short term PC join the party after convincing the party cleric to enchant his armor before a big tournament.

Another PC joined the party after her brother (a PC) was killed. She wanted to avenge his death.

Another PC was a young scoundrel who had been convinced to turn his life around by the party's paladin and left with her on a quest in order to avoid the thieves' guild he was quitting.

The last PC to join the group was an undead hunter who had heard about the exploits of a recently deceased PC and had wanted to meet him and learn from a knight. Upon hearing of the PC's death, the undead hunter joined the group to take up the fallen hero's work.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Actually, I was just thinking and I remember a con game where this was pulled off fairly well. I didn't know anybody there but there was a group of three or four people who came together and another group of two people who came together.

My character was a paladin of Heironeous and the one of the guys in the group of two was a cleric of Heironeous so we decided we knew each other from the Temple and his friend's character knew his character. The other players all knew each others' characters as well. The party actually gelled very well and very quickly, all things considered. . . .

 

[Crowe9107]

Some of the better ones I have used:

Basically all answered a want ad to be constables for a Local Lord in an undeveloped area (all the Lord's previous constables were killed in goblin raids). The PCs liked their copper badges until they noticed the bloodstains on them.

All apprentices to the same mage (this was an all wizard game).

Had all the characters start as youthful 0th level NPC classes growing up in the same village. Ran a nice extensive prelude to get the characters a good sense of who they were. A hobgoblin raid torched the village and set the characters on the run together.

(Star Wars game) Had all the characters imprisoned on an Imperial Inquisition ship as known Force users. Ship was attacked and crippled in transit and the characters had to escape from the burning wreck.

 

[BluWolf]

I usually like players to tell everyone else in the group wha they will be playing. Well atleast the obvious things anway. then I will work with them individually to develop backgrounds. Sometimes in person. More commonly over email.

After that I like to spend at least an hour or so working through the details.

Other times I will give everyone a mandate:

Start with 3000 XP, you can take any race or class but everyone must have 1 lvl of rogue and no lawful aligns.

or

You are all members of the same barbarian tribe. Only races are human, classes are Barbarian, ranger, shaman or sorcerer.

I have found either approach can work. I usually don't worry about making a mandate too narrow as party attrition will usually accomodate someone wanting to play that Drow Monk eventually.

I have never tried the prison thing.

Actually my favorite (i've used twice same village) is "you are all from the same village and your going to the local dungeon".

When they get back after a typical 1st level dungeon crawl I've had the whole village sacked and burned with the survivors carted off as meat treasure.

Honestly those both worked the best.