PDA

View Full Version : 1001 Best ways to start a new campaign



Pink_Paladin
2008-03-30, 10:51 AM
Post your ideas of how to start a new campaign

1. Inn fight (classic)
2. Enrolled in army and are now on the top of the wall defending the city during a siege
3. A big religious festival (introduced them to the flavor of your universe)
4. Wake up in a very old dungeon. They are in coffin, naked. Their equipement are in locked Chest. The key are around their neck
5. They are in Jail. A man paid their dept and ask them to work for him until they pay him back.
6. Players are slave on a caravan. The caravan is attacked and they are the only survivors. Guards got swords, shields, armors, money, spellbook and of course : horses.

Flickerdart
2008-03-30, 11:01 AM
7. An old friend dies and leaves them a treasure map as part of his will
8. They are noblemen whose house fell out of favour with the crown due to foul play and they must right the wrong
9. A gypsy from a passing caravan has done them a reading and told them they are destined to become legendary heroes (works great if the party has low WIS)
10. A local merchant hires them as part of protection for his wagon that is soon ransacked by bandits or lizardmen or something either before they begin guarding it or when they fail at it. If they do not, have them be outnumbered or knocked out in an ambush.

MorkaisChosen
2008-03-30, 11:06 AM
11. Have the PCs in prison, and offer them one chance to get a pardon...
12. The PCs lose their favourite constructs, and go to find them. On the way, they are attacked by Orc barbarians, but saved by the weird old dude that lives in the desert. He gives them the constructs, which he found, and tells the PCs that their parents were Psychic Warriors dedicated to Goodness and gives them all Brilliant Energy Longswords.

...What?

Copacetic
2008-03-30, 11:14 AM
13. Have them wake up in the middly of nowhere in an abondend ghost-town.

Jade_Tarem
2008-03-30, 11:16 AM
14. PC's go on a simple treasure hunt and end up triggering cataclysmic events.

Venerable
2008-03-30, 11:30 AM
15. A PC must complete his dying father's unfulfilled Blood Oath of Vengeance.

FlyMolo
2008-03-30, 11:31 AM
16. Players are randomly extracted from various planes by an evil stomach that wants to eat them. Players are saved by the judicious application of a shared time stop, cast by an omnipotent-god wizard/sorceror, well into the epic levels/divine ranks. This wizard epitomizes CG, and is in an epic war with the agents of Asmodeus. In order to preserve the universe in its own not-destroyed way, the war is constrained by rules. The CG guys can break the rules sometimes, but the LE asmodeus cannot under any circumstances. LE, doncherknow. So the PCs are removed from the game. They stop being accounted for. They also become a crack strike force for the forces of CG.

It's not bad, as a hook. You've got the how-did-they-meet problem sewed up right there, the where-do-I-go-from-here, and even the who-is-the-Big-Bad? problem all taken care of.

Adumbration
2008-03-30, 11:34 AM
17. You see a hill in the distance. It has three entrances. What do you do?

FlyMolo
2008-03-30, 11:41 AM
17. You see a hill in the distance. It has three entrances. What do you do?

Run away(IC) kill your DM(OOC).

18. You're in jail. Orchestrate a breakout.

JMobius
2008-03-30, 11:44 AM
My recently concluded SW campaign began this way:

19. Have the PCs be the sole survivors of a transport crash... after being shot down by unknown attackers... over Hoth.

senrath
2008-03-30, 11:45 AM
11. Have the PCs in prison, and offer them one chance to get a pardon...
12. The PCs lose their favourite constructs, and go to find them. On the way, they are attacked by Orc barbarians, but saved by the weird old dude that lives in the desert. He gives them the constructs, which he found, and tells the PCs that their parents were Psychic Warriors dedicated to Goodness and gives them all Brilliant Energy Longswords.

...What?

Nice Star Wars reference.

20. The PCs are in a jar. Yes, a jar. Bonus points if you know what this is a reference to.

Zenos
2008-03-30, 12:08 PM
21. The PC's arrive on a ship to find the mainland at war.

Unscrewed
2008-03-30, 12:08 PM
Nice Star Wars reference.

20. The PCs are in a jar. Yes, a jar. Bonus points if you know what this is a reference to.

Ceres funny thing that happened in DND

Jayngfet
2008-03-30, 12:32 PM
22.have them wake up after being thrown into a necromancers cell"keeps em fresh, he says", and can see about ten people being stabbed and thrown into a pit of preservatives that seems fairly full to begin with(what? he hates corps rot), the zombies were too stupid or preoccupied to disarm them

Tsotha-lanti
2008-03-30, 12:42 PM
Howard's Conan stories have the most classic set-ups.

23. Arrested, thrown in jail, and are broken out by someone who wants to employ them. (Thieves in the House)
24. Part of a defeated army or unit, the PCs are hiding from enemies when they end up in an adventure. (Irons Shadows On the Moon)
25. Picked at random from the street by the local ruler based on divine guidance to complete a quest or save the kingdom. (Black Colossus)
26. Defeated in battle and imprisoned in a dungeon by a mighty sorcerer / wizard of the enemy nation, the PCs must fight their way out and defeat the villain. (Scarlet Citadel) :smallamused:

Edit:

27. The PCs were passed out drunk when their city was overwhelmed (or the ruler was replaced by a doppelganger who starts a reign of tyranny); now they have gone from heroes to enemies overnight. (A Witch Shall Be Born)

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-30, 12:59 PM
28. As you and your friends begin to play a game of Dwellings & Drakes each of you are sucked into the world of Greyowl as your characters.

Shovah
2008-03-30, 01:07 PM
29. "Roll for initiative"

Don't hate me.

Shovah
2008-03-30, 01:07 PM
Double Post

Kriel
2008-03-30, 01:12 PM
30. All but one of the characters are recruits in an army. They have to go and pick up another recruit (the other character) from an organization or whatnot to complete their squad. They find the other character's location under attack by a few squads of enemy troops who have a vested interest in that location.

Xefas
2008-03-30, 01:13 PM
31: "You wake up. Or, rather, you would if you were still alive."

That's how I started my current campaign, at least.

hylian chozo
2008-03-30, 01:19 PM
29. "Roll for initiative"

Don't hate me.

I don't hate that half as much as I hate:
32. "Roll a _____ save"
or
33. "Give me a spot check"

I have, in fact, been in a campaign that started this way.

Lairship
2008-03-30, 01:29 PM
34. Orcs are massing on the border. Kill their king!
35. The party begin in a simple tavern, they have never met before. The tavern is calm, everyone is having a laugh and talking politely.
Outside, everyone has died. Zombies rise.
36. The party are in the merchant district of a large city. Suddenly screams are heard as a parade of cultist march towards them.
37. The annual Games are being held and the party are taking part, fighters duel, wizards outdo each other with feats of magic. Word spreads that a tomb has been found that is said to hold riches. The party members join togethor to steal its treasure. But so have others...

Charlie Kemek
2008-03-30, 01:39 PM
0. you are in a tavern. a cloaked man is in the corner, drinking beer, and looking sad/a cloaked man has asked to talk to you. He tells you about the monster that has been haunting the land, and that he will reward them if they kill it.

EagleWiz
2008-03-30, 01:45 PM
#39: You wake up in a cell and have to go through some sort of teleportation circle based testing ran by a intelegant construct.

Yahzi
2008-03-30, 01:47 PM
38. The PCs are 16-year-old peasants, doomed to a life of back-breaking labor and peasantry, when a shady character recruits them as soldiers for a lord carving a new kingdom out of the wild.

39. The PCs roll up members of a local baron's family: brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. The baron is an NPC who gives them quests and then dies, forcing them to become responsible for the barony.

40. (Not D&D) The characters are standing on a subway platform, waiting for a train. The doors open; a man in a white suit gasses them. They wake up a few minutes later, and immediately realize they (and only they) can see that some of the people around them are actually giant squids in business suits. (Swiped from They Live! hehe)

memnarch
2008-03-30, 01:48 PM
42
In front of a dungeon that you have, for some reason, decided to go through.


(been in a few campaigns that started that way; never DMed in life so far.)

Quincunx
2008-03-30, 01:54 PM
Nice Star Wars reference.

20. The PCs are in a jar. Yes, a jar. Bonus points if you know what this is a reference to.

Start? No, they should end up there after getting zapped, and have to break out using that item they picked up a dog's age ago. . .

lesserarchangel
2008-03-30, 02:22 PM
I was once in a campaign which started with my trying to kill the mayor everyone else was trying to protect. That didn't go so well, until I figured out how to break out of jail within two rounds (do not gag the guy who breathes fire).

But since that is already taken:

43. The PCs have various suitable low-level occupations: the wizard is a lab assistant, the melee character is a security guard, the sneaky type is trying to steal whatever the guard is guarding. Then someone sets off the Exploding Spell nuke and blows everything within a suitably large radius to bits. The PCs are the only survivors from above ground, and have to find their way out of the ruined city - which is now populated by the creatures of the sewer and escapees from deep dungeons. Mind you, it probably takes a trick involving extradimensional space or time hop to avoid the explosion, but that's why there aren't more survivors.

BRC
2008-03-30, 02:24 PM
44. The PC's are living thier lives when a local authority figure informs them that they have just volunteerred for somthing.

GammaPaladin
2008-03-30, 02:27 PM
The only thing you need to know is that every campaign should start with the same two words: "Roll initiative".

senrath
2008-03-30, 02:38 PM
Start? No, they should end up there after getting zapped, and have to break out using that item they picked up a dog's age ago. . .

That was pulled from Ceres' funny things that happened during DnD, as someone else correctly guessed. The whole quote is this:

"You are in a jar... I mean bar!"
-- Ceres (DM)
Comments:
I'm going to start a game at some point where they really are in a jar.

Pink_Paladin
2008-03-30, 06:36 PM
45. Your king is in front of you, talking to a emmissay and then yell : THIS IS SPARTA!

Chronicled
2008-03-30, 06:52 PM
The PCs are the biggest, baddest guys around. They are their kingdom/world/plane/etc's "go-getters," and are known for being so. They get a report from some NPC that saw something threatening, and everyone wants them to go investigate.

That gives the PCs something to do that can lead into a deeper plot, but doesn't force them into it (I'm a big believer in PC freedom). It also easily leads into a "Heterodyne Boys" (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com) style adventure, if you so choose :smalltongue:.

DrowVampyre
2008-03-30, 08:50 PM
46. You all appear in an infinite plain of pure white. Before you stands a wizened old kobold. "Welcome, heroes," he says in a voice resonating with deific might. "I have brought you here to offer you the secret of unlimited power...if you prove yourselves worthy. You may call me...Pun-Pun."

SamTheCleric
2008-03-30, 08:59 PM
47. "The seemingly endless monotony that has plagued you for the past few months is abruptly halted as you are tossed from the slave ship. You take a gasping breath before the icy waters surrounded you in a rushing splash. Through the distortion of the water you can hear someone yelling 'Maybe Next Time you'll pay up!'." Everyone make me swim checks please.

... I'm not allowed to DM for my friends any more. :smallconfused:

Rama_Lei
2008-03-30, 09:01 PM
48. "Honey, I'm pregnant!"

Hunter Noventa
2008-03-30, 09:14 PM
49. Play the corny Star Trek Fight Music, and force the PCs to fight to the death. Then when only one remains, have them all wake up because it was jsut a dream...OR WAS IT?

Ward.
2008-03-30, 09:16 PM
My recently concluded SW campaign began this way:

19. Have the PCs be the sole survivors of a transport crash... after being shot down by unknown attackers... over Hoth.

Arcunum, nice.


50: You awaken groggily, not entirely sure who you are or how you can understand the voices in the room around you. You seem to be in a room filled with fellow creature's all strapped to tables that surround a large piles of ice covered orbs that sits atop a huge cynlindrical block of what appears to be pearl.

clockwork warrior
2008-03-30, 09:28 PM
51: you fall from the sky

thats not how the game started, but thats how my character was introduced. i would have been mad, but i did the same to the current dm and his brother in a previous silly game ( at least this time it made sense)

Grug
2008-03-30, 09:53 PM
52. The ceiling breaks, and the commander urges your forward. Today is the day we take back the surface world!

53. You are lead on to the stage, completely naked and unarmed. You stand before the Jester King and his court, a look of mad pleasure on his face. "Entertain me." he says, and he throws daggers at you. Once he has had enough, you are dumped down a corpse chute. Fortunately, no one has cleaned the place yet and the spiked pit is rather full. Now you must find your way out of the Jester King's Kingdom, a mileswide pleasure city built in his image.

:smalleek: I'm extremely twisted tonight.

54. You and forty nine others are all that remains in a small fort. An army marches through the surrounding wilderness. Supplies are running low. Morale is bad. How can you survive?

55. A dragon wants you to go kill other dragons and recover their hoards to increase its influence.

56. You wash up on a deserted isle.

57. A Devil emerges in front of you and hands you a scroll. "If anyone reads this scroll, everyone in the world will die." He vanishes as a mob of crazed cultists dash toward you.

58. Your blade plunges into the heart of the dark overlord, but there is much to be done to repair his evil influence.

59. You recieve love letters from six different women! How do you react?

KillianHawkeye
2008-03-30, 10:42 PM
60. Some wizard tells you that the shiny old ring your uncle left you is actually an evil artifact of UNSTOPPABLE DOOM!!!

61. You wake up in a bed with amnesia. Some dude tells you he just rescued you from the Evil Empire, and you have to go with him or they'll capture you again. You hear shouts from outside and someone pounding on the door.

62. The King has been acting strangely of late. After questioning his orders, you are all demoted and sent with a package to deliver to a village of druids. The package is actually a bomb, and you were followed by an assassin who was sent to make sure both you and everyone in the village are killed.

63. A beam of light strikes the top of the mysterious tower north of your village. When you go to investigate, you find a strange girl who claims to be an angel, however when you return home you find that she is being hunted by agents of the church.

huttj509
2008-03-31, 01:14 AM
60. Some wizard tells you that the shiny old ring your uncle left you is actually an evil artifact of UNSTOPPABLE DOOM!!!

61. You wake up in a bed with amnesia. Some dude tells you he just rescued you from the Evil Empire, and you have to go with him or they'll capture you again. You hear shouts from outside and someone pounding on the door.

62. The King has been acting strangely of late. After questioning his orders, you are all demoted and sent with a package to deliver to a village of druids. The package is actually a bomb, and you were followed by an assassin who was sent to make sure both you and everyone in the village are killed.

63. A beam of light strikes the top of the mysterious tower north of your village. When you go to investigate, you find a strange girl who claims to be an angel, however when you return home you find that she is being hunted by agents of the church.


LOTR

FF VI

FF IV (2 in US)

Don't know the fourth...I'm sad...

Tola
2008-03-31, 04:55 AM
Lunar 2 is the fourth.

Idea: You start with...some pretty super-powered characters, going through a dungeon(or whatever you choose). Unfortunately, by the end of this little 'adventure', the entire group gets smited by(Whatever). One of the group gets a message off.

Switch to your real group-Who recieve a last message from the super-group. What to do? You're not cut out for THIS...

Mad Maudlin
2008-03-31, 10:18 AM
65. Each party member is approached separately by an NPC who tells them that they have unique attributes that s/he needs for a dungeon s/he built when s/he was young - Aside from the monsters, traps, puzzles and labrynthine corridors, the dungeon has several doors that can only be opened by a (cleric of a Sun god) or a (man older than thirty who has never used magic).

Player_Zero
2008-03-31, 11:18 AM
66. Rocks fall everybody dies.

Hey, it's original isn't it? I mean, who has every STARTED a campaign with that? Start as you mean to go on, I always say.

Along the same vein, I thought about starting a Red Dwarf campaign by having the players in a VR machine, playing dnd characters and initially thinking they were gonna' play dnd... Mostly just to screw with them.

nerulean
2008-03-31, 11:23 AM
67. Defenestration. Someone leaves or enters through a window. I wonder why?

chevalier
2008-03-31, 02:05 PM
68 (ish). You find yourself surrounded by a magic aura. Reality shifts in front of your eyes; your familiar surroundings drop away and you find yourselves facing a room full of orcs. Behind you is a magic user who is finishing chanting. (He looks surprised, as his summon monster spell somehow went awry.) You feel compelled to heed his word...

Xuincherguixe
2008-03-31, 02:09 PM
69. You look around, and everything is on fire. You have no idea how you got here. Also there are some other people around, who appear also to be quite confused. Suddenly one of them explodes into a bloody mess.

A burning wooden beam looks like it's about ready to fall off the top of the building.

Human Paragon 3
2008-03-31, 02:32 PM
70: You wake up hanging upside down over a pit of hungry, rabid wolves. For bonus points: You don't remember the last year of your life.

Istari
2008-03-31, 02:32 PM
70. After leaving town with a players uncle because of mysterious assasians. the uncle is killed by a man in full body armor.

Shademan
2008-03-31, 03:25 PM
71. the temple of ISG(insert some god) is a rich temple, and powerfull. it have many enemies. The enemies do not concern you, because you are a theif(the Dm says to the rogue) you have broken in and is about to steal the crystal of sparkleness that sits upon that pillar over there when suddenly... A door is bashed open and two well armoured men burst in! they look very confused at you, clearly expecting someone else (this is the fighter and the cleric) when a part of the floor caves in and two feral looking men climb up, one shouting something about "ending your wretched destruction of nature" (the druid and the barbarian).

you are all very confused. then the clerics of ISG enters the room....

Lord Tataraus
2008-03-31, 08:16 PM
72. After a night of drinking at the tavern you and your buddies decide to raid the nearby greenskin lair for kicks.

Edan
2008-03-31, 08:22 PM
73. You wake up from a stasis in an isolated white room having almost no memory of why you are there, or what you were doing. There is only a mysterious distorted female voice, albeit with some "magical" power to guide and direct you...

Deepblue706
2008-03-31, 08:47 PM
74. While everyone is attending a popular performance at the theatre, a giant talking octopus plans to shove a 10-ton weight from the rafters and onto the lead's head. Somehow, only the players hear him milling-about above, and note that he explicitly says it'll take a whole three minutes to get it to budge.

DarknessLord
2008-03-31, 09:35 PM
75. You were just created by a talking book, claiming to be both a badass, and a freaken’ Overlord. He sends you out to concur his newly re-created kingdom. Although you can’t help but wonder if he’s so badass then why was his kingdom destroyed and why he is a book.

76. Character A has no memories past three years ago, the action kicks off when character B shows up to kill Character A’s mentor, and they both teleport to some random place else in the world due to the weird interaction of their powers of music.

77. You all arrive in a nice quiet village, it seems like it might be a good place to settle down after being laid off, if not a little boring. At least, until the party rogue tries to steal an artifact and pisses off the gods of the village, who make everyone act very emotionally off, until the rogue goes to apologize (read: navigates their dungeon-like temples and beats them in a fight.) to each one of them.

78. A band of pirates shows up in your town, and then a giant bird kidnaps one party member’s sister after she gives him a telescope for his birthday, (Where’d she get 1000 GP?).

Heh, bonus points to anyone who can name all of these video game references.

Thane of Fife
2008-03-31, 09:50 PM
79. Before the game, the DM takes each of the players aside and, secretly, explains to him/her that his character is actually from a futuristic society. He has been hired by a major media corporation to go through a dimensional portal to a a different universe, where he will interact with a group of natives and, basically, try to get them to be an intriguing television program for the people back home. None of them know that, in fact, their entire party is comprised of other actors.

In short, it's the ultimate reality show.

ashmanonar
2008-03-31, 10:27 PM
80. Your PC's are all friends in an old coastal town, and have shared many wonderful adventures together. Through NPC's, you find out that all of their homes are being bought out by a local Lord to be used as relaxation parks.

Then, while looking in the attic of one of the PC's house, the PCs find a treasure map and a trinket, along with stories of a local adventurer who went missing looking for this famous treasure hoard.

turkishproverb
2008-03-31, 10:35 PM
81. Summon monster.

Collin152
2008-03-31, 10:39 PM
Rolling to stabilise.
Oh, what fun that was.

Jimbob
2008-04-01, 05:35 AM
Rolling a reflex save or fall off a cliff to your death, as you stand infront of a BBEG.

senrath
2008-04-01, 05:46 AM
74. While everyone is attending a popular performance at the theatre, a giant talking octopus plans to shove a 10-ton weight from the rafters and onto the lead's head. Somehow, only the players hear him milling-about above, and note that he explicitly says it'll take a whole three minutes to get it to budge.

Wow. I realized what that was as soon as I read it...then I looked at your avatar and signature. No wonder you put that :P

MorkaisChosen
2008-04-01, 06:06 AM
84. You are a normal mechanic-type person. You find a strange green pipe and, travelling down it, are asked by someone to save the Princess.

85. You are cursed by an imp wearing a strange mask, and the mask salesman tells you he can remove the curse if you'll get the mask back.

86. The old wizard needs one more person to fill up his group that are going to reclaim the ancient home of the Dwarfs from the Dragon.

Zenos
2008-04-01, 06:10 AM
84. You are a normal mechanic-type person. You find a strange green pipe and, travelling down it, are asked by someone to save the Princess.

Mario

85. You are cursed by an imp wearing a strange mask, and the mask salesman tells you he can remove the curse if you'll get the mask back.

LoZ: MM

86. The old wizard needs one more person to fill up his group that are going to reclaim the ancient home of the Dwarfs from the Dragon.

The Hobbit

78. A band of pirates shows up in your town, and then a giant bird kidnaps one party member’s sister after she gives him a telescope for his birthday, (Where’d she get 1000 GP?).

LoZ: WW

Bolded comments.

toysailor
2008-04-01, 06:13 AM
Hmmmm I'm a weird DM who makes all-Bards, all-Warriors or all-anything campaigns. Once, I had characters meet in a bardic college in a world where mundane songs sung with sincerity have true magical powers. The characters went on questing to form some sort of travelling gypsy caravan to "keep the darkness of the undead menance at bay - to keep hope and joy burning through the cold winter's night".

In another kick-in-the-door campaign, I made the characters start out by duking it out as slaves in a gladiator arena =)

Quincunx
2008-04-01, 06:14 AM
87. Someone got spacesick on the inbound flight and you've been ordered to go mop it up.

(Also related to the "you wake up in a jar" incident, if memory serves)

MorkaisChosen
2008-04-01, 06:26 AM
88. Your old friend turns out to be an Outsider and saves you from Atropus. You travel the planes, with only a towel, a dressing gown and No Tea.

89. The Great MacGuffin has been stolen, and you have been hired/coerced to get it back (intending to run this one, with added plot twists; one player is thinking Paladin of Slaughter//Cleric of Erythnul- if he goes for that, he'll be in prison and Geased and/or Mark of Justiced into it, as long as the player isn't too bothered).

Zenos
2008-04-01, 06:30 AM
88. Your old friend turns out to be an Outsider and saves you from Atropus. You travel the planes, with only a towel, a dressing gown and No Tea.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

MorkaisChosen
2008-04-01, 07:18 AM
Yep, although Atropus was inserted as a convenient alternative to Vogons.

Zenos
2008-04-01, 07:31 AM
90. One of the characters is a peasant boy living with his father on a farm outside the village behind a forest. A spellcaster and her bodyguard appears in the village. The next night it is under attack, the father is gravely wounded. The peasant boy character drags his father to the village to see the spellcaster and bodyguard kick butt, then the spellcaster character tells him he must come with her to the tower of the mighty female wizards, he gets with him three friends from the village and later meets up with another female from the village.

Guess which book.

Glawackus
2008-04-01, 08:29 AM
90. One of the characters is a peasant boy living with his father on a farm outside the village behind a forest. A spellcaster and her bodyguard appears in the village. The next night it is under attack, the father is gravely wounded. The peasant boy character drags his father to the village to see the spellcaster and bodyguard kick butt, then the spellcaster character tells him he must come with her to the tower of the mighty female wizards, he gets with him three friends from the village and later meets up with another female from the village.

Guess which book.

Eye of the World, Robert Jordan.

My last campaign started in this fashion:

91. The party has just recovered a powerful artifact...only to have it stolen out of their hands again.

My next one will be this:

92. After a recent war, the local theatre has reopened under the auspices of the dwarves...but the benevolent spirit that (supposedly) used to haunt the place has suddenly turned deadly.

(This is another guess-the-book, but those who have been paying attention to this forum will probably remember it from my past topic.)

Point Blank
2008-04-01, 08:32 AM
93. You are in dark. You see nothing, taste nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing.
>

senrath
2008-04-01, 08:41 AM
93. You are in dark. You see nothing, taste nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing.
>

Ooo, ooo, am I likely to be eaten by a grue?

bbugg
2008-04-01, 08:55 AM
94.
I intend to make my party a bunch of peasants in a small isolated town. There's been a bit of a famine and the band of goblins/orcs are getting more and more bold as they run out of food. Eventually, the town is under siege by desperate baddies. Do you stay and mount a defence? Convince the town to send the women and kids to the caves? If they leave, do you protect them or stay and protect the town? Does everyone move to the caves and abandon the town? Do you go to get help from the next town over?

Either way, I imagine the number of baddies will be too great to save the whole town. Likely much of it will be destroyed and adventurers are born. (unless they stay to rebuild, in which case it would be a nice, short, campaign.)

Tobrian
2008-04-01, 10:00 AM
44. The PC's are living thier lives when a local authority figure [Your Friend the Computer] informs them [via intercom] that they [red security-clearance troubleshooters] have just volunteerred [the alternative is "volunteering" for summary execution] for somthing. [a totally non-lethal troubleshooting mission to free sector KGB of mutant [deleted for security reasons]... Remember: Happiness is Mandatory!]
Fix'd. :smallwink:
Isn't that how a classic game of Paranoia starts? :smallbiggrin:

Grug
2008-04-01, 02:07 PM
95. The sky opens up in front of you and a great maw appears. It swallows all of you at once. When you awake, you are inside a fantastically large creature and must escape.

TheThan
2008-04-01, 02:38 PM
51: you fall from the sky

thats not how the game started, but thats how my character was introduced. i would have been mad, but i did the same to the current dm and his brother in a previous silly game ( at least this time it made sense)

that's my standard intro for new characters.


Ooo, ooo, am I likely to be eaten by a grue?

dang, beat me to it.

Megafly
2008-04-01, 08:52 PM
96. You are all passengers in a caravan as it stops to supply an archaeological dig. They run up and ask if anybody in the wagons knows how to fight because something is loose in the ruins. (it turns out that the dig is an evil organization looting a holy reliquary) and the "monsters" are good aligned creatures.

Collin152
2008-04-01, 08:56 PM
95. The sky opens up in front of you and a great maw appears. It swallows all of you at once. When you awake, you are inside a fantastically large creature and must escape.

So the sky is in front of me now?

an kobold
2008-04-01, 09:03 PM
97. Suddenly chaos space marines. Thousands of them.

Grug
2008-04-01, 09:34 PM
So the sky is in front of me now?

...
Yes. You are lying face up on a dinner plate.

Collin152
2008-04-01, 09:41 PM
...
Yes. You are lying face up on a dinner plate.

Well that's not nearly as interesting as what I was thinking of before.

Konig
2008-04-01, 09:45 PM
98. You are the unfortunate victim of a medusa or spellcaster, and are turned to stone. Much, much later, you are revived with a spell. You find yourself in a cavern with four others who suffered similar fates and the priestess who revived you, either so far from home that nobody knows of you, or so many years in the future that your kingdom has faded from history.

99. You stand on a hill, your weapon drawn, four others around you, each armed or midway through a spell. As far as the eye can see is a battlefield, each of the soldiers looking around as though dazed. None can remember who they are or why they're fighting. All that is clear is that the five of you are officers of your respective armies, and you do not know who was friend or foe.

100. You are gathered by means of a spell; raised from the dead, gated or cloned as a group, then your soul is bound to the others beside you. You must, as a group, buy the independence of your souls with 1,000,000 gold.

Mad Maudlin
2008-04-02, 05:31 AM
98. You are the unfortunate victim of a medusa or spellcaster, and are turned to stone. Much, much later, you are revived with a spell. You find yourself in a cavern with four others who suffered similar fates and the priestess who revived you, either so far from home that nobody knows of you, or so many years in the future that your kingdom has faded from history.

Oh, hey that's good... mind if I shamelessly steal borrow the idea?

MorkaisChosen
2008-04-02, 05:45 AM
97. Suddenly chaos space marines. Thousands of them.

Nice work there...

Fishy
2008-04-02, 06:09 AM
101: The last caravan that went to the Hanging Gardens hasn't come back yet. This happens sometimes, and the city has... some... food stored away, but it also means that the Prince is going to be forced to sell another Compass.


102: The stained glass window shatters and the High Priest plummets from the top of the cathedral tower. He lands in the courtyard with a sickening crunch, *gets up*, and begins smashing in the skulls of random churchgoers with a candlestick. Roll Initiative.

random11
2008-04-02, 07:36 AM
103: When the king died and was replaced with his general, the king's baby was kidnapped by rebels fearing that he will not survive.
15 years later, the rebel group starts to plot the replacement of the general to the former bloodline.

For bonus points, make one of the players think he is that child, only to crush his dream after a long campaign.

Konig
2008-04-02, 08:02 AM
Oh, hey that's good... mind if I shamelessly steal borrow the idea?

Feel free. Lemme know how it goes.

104: Dreams. Your character has a dream involving an event yet to come, where s/he fights alongside others in a brutal confrontation. For one character, the dream ends with them looking down at a weapon that is thrust through their back. His/her last word is "Betrayer." When they meet in the street, they're so struck by the recognition that they stop where they stand, looking at one another. Or perhaps they recognize a location and meet there not long after.

105: Your players all have performance talents, and are united when their respective performing groups are struck by a case of food poisoning. Pressured by their obligations to play at a major festival, they have little choice than to join together and play for the night. Should you need further motivation to keep them together after that, they discover their old group members are murdered (that, or it's a horrible new kind of food poisoning that involves decapitation).

106: A dictator rises to power and in the interest of keeping his most dangerous subjects from turning into enemies, he employs them, sending them on a mission with solid pay and status.

Wraithy
2008-04-02, 08:17 AM
107. The players accidentally acquire a cursed object that influences normal people to attack them (either upfront or subtly at the DM's discretion), the object cannot be thrown away and can only be destroyed by taking it to a specific place.

Gamerlord
2008-04-02, 07:20 PM
108 the players are locked up in a city infested with undead