What's the most amazing start to a new campaign you've ever done?

[Kid Charlemagne]

I had my players start as students or guests at a Hogwart's-ish magical universtiy, and the first session involved the party's 1st level necromancer getting challenged to a wizard's duel in the cemetary at midnight. Hijinks ensued as the rivals tried to make it look like the PC's were damaging school property, and the PC's were trying to make their rivals look like they were breaking into mausoleums.

The whole thing was very tense, and action-packed, but no one threw a lethal spell or weapon blow in the entire session. Which is good, 'cause they were first level.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

We were able to keep whatever we arrived at, including our planes, and sidearms. We discovered that we had been transported to this new world by a high-level "Monster Summoning" spell that had backfired.

I started a campaign in a similar way but the party played themselves. The PCs could have anything that they had brought with them to the game. An apprentice wizard had attempted to cast a hastily copied spell from his master's spell book. A couple of the players had Gerber Multi-pliers and Leatherman tools. One had ridden his bicycle to the game and had the really big Mag-Light like the one that cops use. They used the money made through the sale of these items and others (unique and never before seen) to a gnomish merchant to equip themselves and pay for training in the classes they wanted to play.

Good times!

 

[adwyn]

Players were all sitting around trying to min max twenty different options each, so when one of the players finally handed me his character sheet and said "I'm done, I think" I didn't even look at it, just plopped his fig on the game mat and launched in with "Even as the goblin slides off your sword you can here a dozen or more out in the fog calling in response to his yell."

As he ran through the fog he encountered numerous goblins in little clumps while he ran for camp. That he didn't find until the second player (all had stopped and were watching and or shouting suggestions) handed me his finished sheet.

The rest of the PCs only appeared as they finished with their characters. That impromptu encounter set a tone of urgency and hurried decisions that lasted for the whole campaign.

 

[kenmarable]

Done the starting as slaves thing (I love how it contrasts with their epic world-saving powers later in the campaign).

I've also been tempted to start with a shipwreck, in a Lost sort of thing.

Another fun beginning I started writing for a Babylon 5 adventure (that alas never came to be) was that everyone was on a starliner leaving a vacation world. There were some NPCs with to chat with and gather info while lounging around waiting for the previous ship to enter hyperspace when BOOM! The other ship explodes, taking out the gate, and showering the starliner that characters are on with wreckage.

So, the relaxing (and kinda hum drum) info gathering and socializing suddenly shifts to a life threatening situation as their ship is now burning, no longer has gravity, and is spiraling uncontrollably down towards the planet. Also, seemed like a handy way of gathering together most any sort of character people wanted to play.

But I am definitely using some of these ideas for my next campaign!

 

[barsoomcore]

I started a Feng Shui game with all the PCs in free fall. . . without parachutes.

The opening that just can't be beat.

When I'm trying to explain how awesome "awesome" can actually be, I use that example. People always reply with, "Awesome."

 

[boerngrim]

Hi
I once began a 2e campaign with the pcs fighting together on a team of slave gladiators in Hillsfar in FR. The players were skeptical at first, but then they had a blast staging a revolt and escaping from the arena and then the city. They then proceeded to spend the rest of the campaign looking for excuses to cause trouble for Hillsfar. They felt like they were determining their own destiny, and it was easy for me to come up with plot ideas.
Thanks

 

[Croesus]

Here's an opening that I stole from someone else on these boards:

The party is sitting at an inn, celebrating their latest adventure success. The door opens and they turn to see who it is...and everything goes black.

Next thing they know, it is cold and something wet is on their skin.

What has happened is this: The person entering the inn was a medusa and they were turned to stone. 12 years have passed and it is now winter (which is why it turned cold all of a sudden). They have been transformed back to flesh by the mayor of the town they once aided (the town where the inn was located). He has spent the last several years trying to amass enough money to have them permanently transformed back to flesh, but he has failed.

All he could manage was to acquire enough money to buy a salve that turns them to flesh for one week (which is why their skin is wet). But if they can drink an elixir made from the blood of the "Stone Lord" (the medusa), the change to flesh will be permanent. So, they must find the medusa, kill him and drink his blood.

The problem is that in the dozen years that have passed, the "Stone Lord" has managed to overthrow the entire region and set himself up as dictator. He lives a couple of days away in a fortress.

To further complicate matters, the "statues" of the party were left at the inn as a display of what happens to those who would oppose the will of the Stone Lord. When they go missing, word will get back to the Stone Lord fairly quickly and he will be prepared for them.


This turned out to be great fun as an adventure because the party was on a tight timetable and had to keep moving forward (which is what I want when I'm running a one shot). They were immediately faced with the dilemma of heading for the fortress with all due haste or trying to kill the garrison of bugbears that the Stone Lord had stationed at the town to keep them from sending word about their "escape".

My own variant was for 2nd-level characters, so I eliminated the Stone Lord and added an eccentric troll shaman who could brew a permanent cure, if she only had the right ingredients. Meanwhile the characters were slowly turning back to stone while they rushed about trying to collect the ingredients needed. The session ended with one character still (barely) mobile sacrificing a stone finger from his own hand - the last ingredient.

 

[carborundum]

My favorite one had lots of promise, but the game didn't continue long due to scheduling problems. All the players made 1st lvl PCs and let me have a copy. When they arrived for the first session, I handed them characters, but they were all modified - each PC was 12th lvl, armed with appropriate magic items and the like.

<SNIP> The mage with them is dead, their items have all been destroyed (a la disjunction, even the intelligent sword), and you guessed it, the PCs are now all 1st level.

Wow - I did almost exactly the same thing, about 15 years ago! I bumped them to 15th level (Rolemaster) and one guy had lost a hand, one had an eyepatch, one could swap bodies with a golem-like clone of himself and they were fighting a demon and some sort of nasty evil cleric. Halfway through the fight, which was full of smack talk that meant nothing at the time ("I can't believe you got your father's sword out of that crypt - it won't help you anyway" and suchlike) I stopped the fight, told them they woke up, and handed out the 1st level characters.

 

[AnonymousOne]

As far as starts go I kinda liked the start to our most recent campaign.

All of the PCs are in this small town looking out for their own interest. The Goliath Warblade is after the skilled blacksmith, the Scout/Ranger is out on a bounty hunting mission, the cleric is an understudy at the church, the Technomancer is stopping by on his way to the capital and my Swashbuckler/Rogue on my way back from the capital after moving a smuggling shipment.

The town is all festively decked out and we learn that the mayor is to give a speech commemorating something or another. As he is making his speech a dagger is shoved through his chest and his head is cut off, fountaining blood into the crowd. Immediately chaos ensues. I run to the church and meet the cleric, we both move out. The Warblade moves to the stage door to take out any invisible attacker trying to slip away and the scout takes a shot at a blood spatter that seems to be in the middle of the air.

We move out and see the blood spatter moving off the stage. the Cleric summons up a Bear and has it use the Scent to find the assassin. Then the hobgoblins show up. Things get interesting as the 'party' is trying to both deal with an assassin and at the same time fight off the marauding hobgoblins. I kill the assassin while it's being grappled by the bear and the warblade, Technomancer, and scout deal with the hobgoblins. At the end of it we are all put up in the town in and the 16th level Cleric NPC says we will talk about it in the morning.

It was quick paced and interesting to get things moving. Each character kinda got to show off for the others in the opening and started getting a feel for each other.

 

[Gundark]

The PCs wake up in a room with a dead body, they have no memories at all. I had made characters for everybody, but they didn't know what they were playing. Suddenly they hear sirens of police cars coming.

The short lived game was about them regaining their memories and abilities (which then they would get their character sheet) and figuring out what was going on, who was the dead person and why people (cops/assasins where after them)