What are the best campaign starters?

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm starting up a new campaign, but I'm unsure of how to set up a good starting scenario for a campaign.

I plan on having it be in Faerun, and I also plan on making all three pillars (Combat, Socialization, Exploration) equally as important, starting for level 1 characters. I've had a few ideas, but I end up running into a roadblock somewhere:


Players are in the middle of a siege. They can bribe, sneak, or fight their way out, or just strike a deal with the sieging army for supplies or information. They can directly decide how the siege ends based on their actions, with siding with the offensive army being easier, but siding with the defensive army will result in better long-term gains (like being heroes of the city). The main concern is that I don't know what city/army would best suit for this, and I don't know how to tie all the players together during/after the siege.
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The players are all sent a dream to seek out a priestess being held captive. She threatens to ruin their lives if they don't, and constantly feel her "pulling" their will to her. Eventually the dreams stop but the pull continues. When they reach her (when the campaign starts) she's dead in an undead slavery camp. After having her soul freed, she chooses to haunt the players and sends them missions to prevent disastrous events that she continues to have portent visions from. The main concern is that I don't know if this comes off as too "railroad-y", as well as not knowing where in Faerun would be an accessible necromancer camp.
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The players are socializing in a pub where the town's supplies are being raided by a stealthy Drow unit. The Drow are raiding the surface world for supplies due to the fact that something sinister is rising up from under them that's polluting their livestock and supplies in an act of attrition. The concern here is that I don't know how to implement an initial scenario where the players are unaware of the threat, and I also feel like the premise may be something that's higher than what's normal for level 1 characters.



Do you guys have any recommendations for these scenarios, or any scenarios of your own that worked?

[Reynaert]

The siege option sounds best to me, but that's not the main point of my reply.

What I like to do is to have a session zero where all the players come together to brainstorm about their characters and how they know each other. Take a page from other RPG systems where character building includes questions like: 'Which two players have a bit of a rivalry going on, and what is that like' or 'Which player has once rescued another player from a life-threatening situation', etc.

Ideally, these questions are answered in broad terms before the characters are fleshed out, and lead to choices in character builds.

Basically, a good way to tie the players together is to ask them to tie themselves together.

[jaappleton]

1. Avoid cliches and tropes. Make it memorable. With that said, get rid of the tavern idea.

2. Throw them RIGHT into it. I mean, instantly. Grab their attention.

To that end, I suggest something like the following: "The party is in a holding cell after a night of a bit too much revelry. Whether you were actually involved with that happened with that donkey, the guards have all met you with deaf ears. The guard outside their cell gate suddenly gasps as blood pours from his neck, and a shadowy figure is barely seen moving past as the guards corpse falls near the cell entrance. Suddenly the ground quakes as what sounds like cannon fire is erupting outside. What do you do?"

[Unoriginal]

Though luck for this Priestess to get rescued that way. Bribery works better than threats, and I don't know many cases where players who wouldn't let her rot out of spite if she threatened to ruin those PCs' lives. Or maybe rescue her and then destroy her undead soul ASAP, given she's a blackmailer and wannabe-torturer who coerced them.

As to where to find undead and slaves in Faerun, well, wherever the Red Wizards have set up shop, provided they can get away with it, is a good guess.


1. Avoid cliches and tropes. Make it memorable. With that said, get rid of the tavern idea.

Clichés are often memorable, though. And avoiding tropes ain't happening, everything that can happen in a plot is a trope someway.

[Man_Over_Game]

1. Avoid cliches and tropes. Make it memorable. With that said, get rid of the tavern idea.

2. Throw them RIGHT into it. I mean, instantly. Grab their attention.

To that end, I suggest something like the following: "The party is in a holding cell after a night of a bit too much revelry. Whether you were actually involved with that happened with that donkey, the guards have all met you with deaf ears. The guard outside their cell gate suddenly gasps as blood pours from his neck, and a shadowy figure is barely seen moving past as the guards corpse falls near the cell entrance. Suddenly the ground quakes as what sounds like cannon fire is erupting outside. What do you do?"

Valid points. Generally, with the Tavern idea, I don't usually run it too long. Usually I have it in there as a false sense of security ("Oh, it's just another tavern scene") before the entire bar is assaulted by zombies. Once my players were playing pool against an NPC when a flaming robot from hell fell from the sky, through the roof, and mulched their game partner.

This does give me an idea for the Drow event. Halfway through the tavern scene, someone notices there's blood on the window ceil or under the door. People in the tavern continue to do what they do while the players slowly start to freak out. Could be fun.

[Unoriginal]

Or a drow fall through the ceiling because the roof is faulty.

[Crushgrip]

The siege option sounds best to me, but that's not the main point of my reply.

What I like to do is to have a session zero where all the players come together to brainstorm about their characters and how they know each other. Take a page from other RPG systems where character building includes questions like: 'Which two players have a bit of a rivalry going on, and what is that like' or 'Which player has once rescued another player from a life-threatening situation', etc.

Ideally, these questions are answered in broad terms before the characters are fleshed out, and lead to choices in character builds.

Basically, a good way to tie the players together is to ask them to tie themselves together.

This! YMMV, but I have run session zero's for my last two campaigns and they really help with my players getting a "kick start" into who/what their character is. In my opinion, and for my players, the session zero makes the game more about playing a character instead of playing a sheet with a bunch of numbers on it. Takes a bit more work on your part but some of the character creation zero sessions have resulted in some cool (random) items and scenarios that I never would have thought of without the 1 on 1 player session.

In my Hoard of the Dragon Queen campaign, I had four players with crazy different backgrounds that I had to all bring together. We created 4 backstory's and I used all four to have each character RP a small encounter(s) based on where their character would have been due to the respective backstory, culminating in them all coming together at the same place, fighting the same type of various creatures.

I do like the scenario's presented! Maybe have a small session zero RP with the individual characters on how they each got to your "starting point"?

[DMThac0]

Players are in the middle of a siege. They can bribe, sneak, or fight their way out, or just strike a deal with the sieging army for supplies or information. They can directly decide how the siege ends based on their actions, with siding with the offensive army being easier, but siding with the defensive army will result in better long-term gains (like being heroes of the city). The main concern is that I don't know what city/army would best suit for this, and I don't know how to tie all the players together during/after the siege.


The players are all introduced as being guests to a major event, like a coronation, the graduation of the next generation of Royal Knights, the Feast of Harvest, a Circus in town, or some such thing. They don't necessarily have to be related to each other, but having 2 or 3 of them as friends, siblings, or travelling companions will help. The idea is to give them all a good reason for being in the same place at the same time.

As they're enjoying this celebration, that's when you toss out a large boulder crashing down in the middle of the town square, the result of a trebuchet attack. Have some of the crowd drop disguises and start to attack guards and destroying buildings. This also gives you the ability to quickly organize the defenses and cause chaos for the players to get caught up in. Give them people to rescue, give them mooks to kill, and help create some semblance of organization in the chaos. Let the initial attack be stopped with some ease, then have the guards call in the players and a handful of NPCs who were key to the situation and have them commissioned into the defense of the town.

While they're out trying to accomplish the tasks, have them run into civilians and enemy npcs who give them reasons to leave the city to it's demise. A political struggle that the opposing army is trying to win dominance over. The civilians unhappy with the current regime. The fear of being killed leading to desiring an escape. You'll just have to give them ways to accomplish these tasks if they so choose to go that route.



The players are all sent a dream to seek out a priestess being held captive. She threatens to ruin their lives if they don't, and constantly feel her "pulling" their will to her. Eventually the dreams stop but the pull continues. When they reach her (when the campaign starts) she's dead in an undead slavery camp. After having her soul freed, she chooses to haunt the players and sends them missions to prevent disastrous events that she continues to have portent visions from. The main concern is that I don't know if this comes off as too "railroad-y", as well as not knowing where in Faerun would be an accessible necromancer camp.


I would avoid the blackmail approach, instead give them a moral implication. The pull is useful, but don't make it override the player's agency. Have her beseech them with some plight "I'm the last daughter of the Arch-Bishop on a pilgrimage to stop the undead forces in this city/village. Without your help I may die and the undead plague will spill out and wreak havock on the country side". While travelling to find her, have the players learn of the Arch-Bishop and have it lead into something like he's in league with the Red Wizards, or he's being coerced by a priestess of Vecna, and what the priestess is trying to accomplish will instead help the undead plight.

Now the players have a reason to find her, a reason to let her die or try to save her. They could simply go find the Arch-Bishop instead and deal with him. It gives a few options on how the players could try to resolve the situation.



The players are socializing in a pub where the town's supplies are being raided by a stealthy Drow unit. The Drow are raiding the surface world for supplies due to the fact that something sinister is rising up from under them that's polluting their livestock and supplies in an act of attrition. The concern here is that I don't know how to implement an initial scenario where the players are unaware of the threat, and I also feel like the premise may be something that's higher than what's normal for level 1 characters.


The classic tavern beginning, always a good go to if you want to create a starting hub. I am fond of using the tavern as a 5 minute intro for newbies, it gives them a round table to get to know each other. However, I would interrupt them when conversation gets stale, or they try to start a bar brawl, and have a commotion happen outside. Have the hear the sound of upset herd animals. Have them hear the sounds of combat with the local militia, or a clarion call to arms. Something to get them engaged in the hook.

From there have them miss the opportunity to really figure out who/what has happened. Give them a reason to talk to the towns folk, explore the area, and investigate things. You can use this to give them other side missions to gain the levels, equipment, and information necessary to travel to the Underdark.

[NRSASD]

Regarding your intros: I like the 1st one the best. Lots of chances for drama, a wide open realm of possibilities, combat and stealth being equally interwoven, etc. Very solid opening hook. Not to mention that the party is effectively trapped there, so there's a real and pressing urge to resolve the situation in a way that avoids the party getting pillaged by the attackers.

For choosing a city, I'd say pick the defender's approximate real-world culture and start from there. Don't stress over it too much, cause Forgotten Realms is so varied there's definitely something that'll come close. And worst case scenario, change it. Your campaign, your rules.

The 2nd one is good, but as a player I'd almost certainly do whatever it takes to end that priestess. If she threatens me apropos of nothing, and doesn't apologize/have a really good reason for it, I'm going to remove her from play as best I can. She's proven herself to be a respectable threat, or worse, a valuable asset for more dangerous threats (she can contact me through dreams/has incriminating info on me). No way am I going to help her.

The 3rd one just isn't my cup of tea. Probably because I don't want drow in my campaigns. Biased, I realize, so take my advice with a pool of salt.

3 starter sessions I have used:
*The party are a bunch of travelers traveling (together or separately, doesn't matter) along a major highway, far from civilization, when a calamitous thunderstorm begins to form. Everyone is forced to take cover, one group at a time, inside the antechamber of this giant barrow. After several tense introductions and a couple hobgoblin marauders also seeking shelter from the storm, everyone's hair stands on end as the previously locked door into the lower chambers creaks open. The storm of the century is heralding the return of a long-forgotten hobgoblin warlord, and his unlife has just begun.

*The party are meeting up for a county bardic festival in a small town when an elderly farmer runs bawling into the middle of the town square, wailing that the love of his life, Waldo (a cow), has gone missing. The mayor apologetically pulls the party aside and explains that this isn't the first time this has happened. However, the farmer's wailing is so obnoxious and mournful that it will likely ruin the festival, and the mayor is willing to hand out a fat sack of gold to the kind souls who help him. DM's note: this quest actually started a major religion in my campaign world

*The party has been hired to smuggle contraband to a distant city in the south. On the way there, they encounter an inn staffed by ghosts and illusions. The staff are actually cultists of Zuggtmoy, and the house itself is a living fungus construct. When they finally escape the inn, the road has disappeared into the surrounding Mists. Welcome to Ravenloft.