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View Full Version : How do you get a party together?



Paganboy28
2010-08-17, 03:15 PM
This always seems to be crucial but not always well thought out. What tips/ideas have you had to get a disparate group of adventurers working cohesively?

Vitruviansquid
2010-08-17, 03:18 PM
I tell the players, "hey, this is what the campaign's about. Make sure your character has some reason to be in it when you roll him/her."

Greenish
2010-08-17, 03:21 PM
They're the only survivors of a shipwreck, stranded on an unknown continent, with velociraptors closing in. Roll initiative.

Erom
2010-08-17, 03:22 PM
About the same - the DM announces the theme, the players collaborate over email the day before the campaign starts to decide how and why the party is together. Party starts together, so there's no awkward tavern scene.

pargbonecrusher
2010-08-17, 03:23 PM
Usually just get the group interested in something relating to their characters. For a few examples,

Have the town guard pick a fight with the fighter and have the cleric join in.
Get the wizard kicked out of the guild for letting the thief steal his component pouch.
Make the paladin have to capture the druid for some crime he was set up for.
Use the bard as bait for the bugbear that has been terrorizing the town to kill while the sorcerer conjures up some big spell to kill it.

Just think of some hook that if it were a book, the readers (players) would keep reading the story (join the adventure)

NeutralAwesome
2010-08-17, 03:25 PM
Could always go with the whole "You work for Mr. X, who appriciates your talents. So do these people, who are indebted to/freinds with/descendents of/ blakcmailed by Mr. X. He wants you to do something for him and none of you have a good reason not to help him."

tahu88810
2010-08-17, 03:36 PM
I've done it differently for each campaign. In the first, they were all mutually hired by a professor who was studying Xen'drik. In another, I had them all roll up characters without talking to each other, and then had each person roll initiative to decide in what order they arrived at a town (I counted on one of them to start a bar fight, and then the local law just mistook them all to be a group of adventuring companions...hehe). Then after that the campaign started later in their adventuring career, where the party had been pulled together to act a strike force in a war against a steampunk necromancer. That had the most potential, but due to RL stuff it had to end right after the first session D:

When school starts again, and thus D&D, I intend to have them all be part of the same mercenary band. It will start in media res, halfway through the final battle of a major war.

And those are just my D&D campaigns.

arrowhen
2010-08-17, 03:42 PM
I ask the players to make characters who can and will work together. If they want to come up with a shared backstory, that's cool. If not, they all meet in a tavern.

Greenish
2010-08-17, 03:51 PM
If not, they all meet in a tavern.The PCs are stranded in a dinghy inn. The wenches are closing in. Roll initiative.

Vortling
2010-08-17, 03:58 PM
Similar to what everyone else has said. I lay out an introduction to the campaign which usually places all the player characters together in a team or organization of some sort with the expectation that everyone will make a character that has a reason to be there. Occasionally the intro leads into the first encounter of the campaign giving the players something to work with in a more immediate sense.

Comet
2010-08-17, 04:03 PM
They're the only survivors of a shipwreck, stranded on an unknown continent, with velociraptors closing in. Roll initiative.


The PCs are stranded in a dinghy inn. The wenches are closing in. Roll initiative.

Velociraptors are cooler than wenches. Just felt like throwing that out there.

Creating the party is a pretty simple two-way road: either the characters are made to work together from the very beginning or they aren't. The first is used to create a group of people who can trust each other and drive the plot forwards without any inner drama. The latter is used to see how a diverse bunch of people operate under stress when forced to work together.

The latter option is probably the one to use if you want to employ velociraptors. Which you should.

Lysander
2010-08-17, 04:11 PM
Give the PCs a shared reason for being at the opening scene, and have them based their character around that. For example:

"You begin at a meeting of people representing various city councils, guilds, churches, merchant houses, and other organizations, convened to discuss a disturbing series of werewolf attacks plaguing the highways."

"You are all passengers or crew on board a ship chartered by a university to explore the ruined temples of isolated archipelago."

"A beloved singer was assassinated by an unknown killer. Outraged, you have lent your services to hunt down and find the guilty party. You begin at the house of the singer's widow, surrounded by other like minded individuals who have also offered their services.

"You are members of a mercenary band fighting against an evil conqueror for pay."

Etc.

Greenish
2010-08-17, 04:14 PM
The latter option is probably the one to use if you want to employ velociraptors. Which you should.Any option is improved with velociraptors. Well, the fictional giant velociraptors, not the actual turkey-sized wimps.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-17, 04:16 PM
Any option is improved with velociraptors. Well, the fictional giant velociraptors, not the actual turkey-sized wimps.

Yes, the ... Clever girls.

Telasi
2010-08-17, 04:21 PM
Depends on the game. My current game is about a drow mercenary company, so I just told them that they got a note with information on a job, let them introduce their characters, and got started. How they all met and such I left to them.

TooManyBadgers
2010-08-17, 04:23 PM
Easiest is to find a way to wrong all of them at once. Or to go for the Magificent Seven approach.

Kylarra
2010-08-17, 04:41 PM
Velociraptors are cooler than wenches. Just felt like throwing that out there.The wenches are were-velociraptors.

Project_Mayhem
2010-08-17, 04:42 PM
The wenches are were-velociraptors.

And I blew the Jurassic park reference too early.

dsmiles
2010-08-17, 04:51 PM
First, I get a bottle of Jose, a bottle of Jack, and a bottle of Jim. Then I...wait...are we not talking about the same kind of party? MAN! This always happens...where's those wenches you were talking about, I need some consoling now.

Comet
2010-08-17, 05:08 PM
First, I get a bottle of Jose, a bottle of Jack, and a bottle of Jim. Then I...wait...are we not talking about the same kind of party? MAN! This always happens...where's those wenches you were talking about, I need some consoling now.

Wouldn't you rather be consoled by velociraptors?

Umael
2010-08-17, 05:28 PM
Send out invitations.

Greenish
2010-08-17, 05:29 PM
Wouldn't you rather be consoled by velociraptors?Haven't we established that you needn't pick one or the other?

Comet
2010-08-17, 05:57 PM
Haven't we established that you needn't pick one or the other?

I'm the kind of guy that demands a certain amount of purity in my velociraptors. I know it's a problem, but that's just the way my folks raised me.

Wonton
2010-08-17, 06:05 PM
I usually discuss backstory with the other players. This way, when the party instantly trusts each, it makes sense, because they've actually known each other for years in-game.

Having two characters be brothers is a classic.

Urpriest
2010-08-17, 06:42 PM
I've actually gotten decent mileage out of the "you guys are already a company of mercenaries/adventurers, you met in the past and now are compatriots looking for work." I've also had the characters all be slaves whose master took them to his secret mansion in the jungle.

Eldariel
2010-08-17, 07:03 PM
I usually let the party figure it out for themselves what manner of an organization they are, but in almost all campaigns I provide them with a common goal (that each pursues for whatever reason their character might; wealth to "good of others" are all common, simple reasons that require little extrapolation but more interesting and well thought-out characters of course generate much more complex motivations) that gives them a reason to stay together.


Some of the more interesting groups I've had have revolved around a player-generated theme tho. For example, we had a group where the central character was an evil mage slayer of sorts whose goal in life was to acquire Rakshasa transformation. Another member was a neutral (leaning towards evil) Druid the Mage Slayer was banding with since the transformation magic needed is squarely in the domain of Druidic abilities. And the Druid, on the other hand, was a fervent opponent of arcane magic due to their unnatural nature, and was all too happy to help especially since the Mage Slayer was willing to provide him with the planar travel opportunities needed to study on the ritual of transformation. Third one was a distinctly less involved good-aligned naive planar guide (Ranger with knowledge of the portals and transitional planes) who was paid to "protect and guide the pilgrims on their trip through the planes". The party was relatively low level, mind, so they didn't have access to Plane Shift-level magic. It created very interesting party dynamics.

Acero
2010-08-17, 07:45 PM
Either start it the same was as OOTS, or go Gears o War 3, where the main characters are introduced one-by-one in a way suitable to the character.

Ex.

You start with Mr. Paladin, waking up from a dream/mission his god sent him. He quickly goes to find his uncle , Mr. Cleric. As they walk through the street, discussing the dream, they bump into the young Ms. Rogue, running from city guards. They are about to intervene, but the suave Mr. Bard does first, rolling quite well on his Diplomacy Check. (being a member of an elite family in the town helps) Tired of town-life, he volunteers his services to Mr. Paladin. Ms. Rogue decides it would be best to stay with the group aswell. Out of nowhere, Mr. Bard's magical nanny Madam Wizard pops onto the scene, quick to lecture him. Fortunetly for him, Mr Cleric immediatley recgonizes Madam Wizard as an old classmate from his time at the academy. Madam Wizard, remebering Mr Cleric as an astonishingly good healer, allows Mr. Bard to partake in the mission, as long as she tags along herself. As they pass the city gates, the young city guard Mr. Fighter asks them where they are going. After hearing only a sliver of the story, he begs to join them. Mr Paladin, being the man that he is, decides to take the young Mr. Fighter with him, but only if he listens to his orders. Mr fighter happily accepts the terms ands runs off with them.

There's your party, with built in character relationships to boot :smallamused: