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

[BlueBlackRed]

Pretty much what the title says.

Several of us have started with the cliche "You start in a tavern...", but I want to know the best start to a campaign you've been part of.

How much work and thought did you, or your DM, put into the first session to kick off a new campaign?

It doesn't matter if it didn't pan out in the end, that's a story for another thread.

To me an amazing first session is almost important as the story itself.

 

[Clueless]

"You all suddenly become aware that you are standing in a room. You're wet. Sore. The sound of water dripping on metal echos overhead. The room is dimly lit, and you've never seen it before in your life. Looking down, you are dressed in a uniform you've never seen before either. You see a handful of other figures standing in the room with you dressed the same, and there are about thirty unmoving bodies laying on the floor in the same uniform."

"... about now is when you realize you have a gun in your hand. And so does everyone else."

Two seconds later the players were posed in the classic John Woo Mexican Standoff around the gaming table.

 

[rounser]

Narration of a drunken night out in Skullport ending in being chased by the Skulls and tumbling through a gate into some part of Undermountain, to be surrounded in some strange chamber by a whole bunch of carrion crawlers. Roll for initiative...

...that went down well, in media res and all.

 

[Shemeska]

You wake up in the gatetown to the Gray Waste, not knowing who you are or why you're there, with only the clothes on your back, a sword, and a glowing gemstone physically embedded into your ankle. Insert smiling fiends and bad memories slowly filtering back to you and it was my favorite way to introduce a character to a campaign.

 

[Pielorinho]

We played a game once in which we played ourselves, in our current lives, soon to be transformed into supernatural creatures. The GM began the game with us playing through arriving at the gaming spot, chatting, waiting for the GM to show up, waving to him as he walked up the stairs toward us--and watching as a couple of suited thugs stabbed him to death on the stairway.

That was the most intense campaign I've ever played in.

Daniel

 

[Dog Moon]

Okay, true story to the best of my recollection. We started off not knowing each other in a town and had goals of our own, mainly, atm, to find other adventurers and go on adventures.

So after about a half hour of talking about what we're doing, two of us finally meet, me and another character. We discuss things and he just for some reason decides to follow me. So he doesn't really say anything and I continue going about my business with him tagging along.

We encounter another person in the group, and he's just playing his character annoyingly [I don't remember if he had a good reason for it or not]. He tries to join, but I'm like 'uh-uh, I ain't traveling with anybody that annoying.' So we leave him alone and do other stuff.

A little bit later, the annoying guy encounters the fourth person in the group. They almost start fighting, but I think they managed to avoid it and the fourth person leaves the annoying guy behind.

So this is like 2-3 hours into our game and the DM's like "What the Hell?" and his campaign is like totally messed up. After another half hour or so of putsing around trying to do something, but really unable to because we can't singlehandedly take on an adventure planned for 4 people, the DM gives up and the campaign ends.

We decided pretty much from then on to either have the group be friends of a sort, or at the minimum known to each other.

It wasn't the best as in greatest, of course, but it was the best in the fact that our start was so horrible, we found it quite hilarious. None of us ever knew how much the DM prepped for that cause we didn't do anything as planned. Oh man, funny times.

 

[WarlockLord]

Our campaign started in the "Brokeback Mountains". Really. Im not kidding.

 

[Nyaricus]

Our campaign started in the "Brokeback Mountains". Really. Im not kidding.

They are watched over by a level 20 Half-elven Ranger named "Leaf Hedger". Really. I'm not kidding.

 

[gunter uxbridge]

I started a campaign once where the group had been shut up in a castle for weeks as an army lay seige outside. They had been guarding a caravan when the bad guys showed up and were the last through the gates before they were shut. The last time anyone tried to cast a spell the caster went up in a column of flame a mile high. Food was gone and the last horse went into the stew pot three days ago. Each morning started with a Fort save to keep from catching cholera or filth fever or something.

Oh yeah...they were out of coffee. (...insert Airplane type panic here...)

Talk about a grim opening to bring a group together.

 

[painandgreed]

When we started our Savage Species campaign, it was at 6th level for all the LA classes. We woke without a really clear idea of why we were inside a mindflayer prison, a human wizard, a pixie, a gith, a half-feind elf, and a drow.