Interesting Beginnings

[Dumbledore lives]

So in the not too distant future I'm planning to start up a 3.5 campaign. Exact specifics don't matter too much but I was looking for a good way to get everyone involved immediately. Previously I've had a jail break where the guard was also roped in, as a mercenary group for higher level characters, and a request from the king. Players will start at first with this one though, so I don't want anything too overboard.

I'm looking for any unique ways people have begun games, either from the GM or character perspective, and not just D&D ones, but anything that comes to mind, especially if it was particularly awesome.

[Razanir]

In a Legend campaign I'm starting this fall, the group will be like Mystery Inc. and go around solving mysteries. I'll throw them right into the action and start them in a town that's supposedly been overrun by ghost pirates in a low-magic world. I'll also be giving them the [Legendary] subtype, so I can treat them as two levels higher and plan for EL 3 not EL 1, which should be more interesting

[DMMike]

Getting one PC involved is fairly easy. Getting a party involved is a bit trickier.

Of course, treasure always works.

Last thing I did was kill off the benevolent patron of the PCs. Their choices: forgive the guy and move on. Or go get revenge.

Besides that, you can always:
-put the whole party in danger
-present an irresistible mystery
-steal a national treasure
-give one PC a little more promotion than he can safely handle
-send a deity's avatar to give, well, "a mission from God."

[illyrus]

This one is a bit silly. The party is summoned (as in conjuration: summoning) to a demi-plane by a wizard trying out a new spell. They're given a task like "kill the invaders in my tower". The great thing is they can't really die as summoned creatures. You can throw whatever you want to at them as none of it is permanent as well as introduce some story elements. Once it wears off they realize that they all live in and around the same city and by chance see each other over the following day.

Maybe they have a reason to seek out that demi-plane or care about the invaders: they want revenge on the wizard, there was some magical item in the wizard's possession that would aid in a current problem with the country they're in, whatever.

[Geigan]

In a Legend campaign I'm starting this fall, the group will be like Mystery Inc. and go around solving mysteries. I'll throw them right into the action and start them in a town that's supposedly been overrun by ghost pirates in a low-magic world. I'll also be giving them the [Legendary] subtype, so I can treat them as two levels higher and plan for EL 3 not EL 1, which should be more interesting

Heh, this actually reminds me of a similar premise from one of my group's early playtests in which the group was a local mystery solving agency called Midnight Mysteries. They eventually stumbled upon a mysterious shadowy group among some really crazy plots involving the criminal underground of the region, which culminated in fighting space-Dr. Doom before he could doom the planet to the permanent crystallization of all sentient races by some alien tech he didn't fully understand. It escalated kind of hilariously from our humble beginnings. Just some bubs looking to make rent so the landlady didn't kill us all.

[SethoMarkus]

I once played in a campaign in which the players were low level guards in a mage's tower that acted as a library and school for young wizards (no, not like in Harry Potter, more like the Maja in the Night Angel Trilogy). The tower came under siege (rather, overrun) by a half-ogre clan seeking a relic stored in the tower.

Being low level and inexperienced, the three of us were stationed at the entrance to the spire as look-outs, with the instructions to signal the main forces if it were attacked (similar to the opening battle in Dragon Age: Origins). Since we were guards in the militia stationed at the tower, we were already acquainted with each other but allowed to define our exact relationships in-character, so long as we were all on the same side. In the end, the tower was completely lost and the three of us were sent by the head magus to retrieve the relic and deliver it to a safe location before the ogres could reach it, forcing us to bypass the logic puzzles and traps on each floor of the spire.

[ORione]

In one game I ran, I had the PCs all start out in jail. The players decided they were all there because of a bar fight they had gotten into the night before. Their punishment was a community service project that involved going into a dungeon to retrieve a Macguffin.

[DigoDragon]

I once started a Shadowrun game where each player recieved a letter from the Draco Foundation to come to a meeting on a specific scheduled date. They show up and it turns out that someone's Will bequeathed each player something valuable in a safe. However, the keys to the safe are hidden away in a warehouse someplace else.

The Will gave the address and stated the players should work together to get the needed keys. They smelled a set up, but oddly went together anyway. Turns out they did indeed get some odd trinkets out of the ordeal and having worked together, a few Johnsons took notice and hired the team on for a few jobs of their own.

Thus began the career of the team known as The Majestic 12*

*Technically there were only 6 of them, but they had allies and favors that added up.


Another idea: I've always wanted to do a space Sci-fi campaign where the players wake up in holding cells that resemble their native worlds. They're captured by an ancient alien named The Zoo Keeper, who collects species from worlds that are under the threat of an extinction-level event.

The alien ship is disabled in an attack by a race at war mistaking the Keeper's ship as some kind of super weapon. The Keeper is killed in the attack, but the PCs can escape their cells and fight off the aliens. The advanced ship is now in the hands of the PCs, but without the Keeper, they have no way on how to fix the broken navigation computer so that they can fly themselves home.

Thus begins a space campaign of traveling the stars in search of their homes, all while dealing with warring factions that think they're piloting some kind of super weapon (It isn't, but so advanced it's like magic). They also get to deal with the ship's onboard computer (damaged in the initial attack, acts a lot like the computer from Red Dwarf), and any other alien issues on the planets they pass by.

[Razanir]

Heh, this actually reminds me of a similar premise from one of my group's early playtests in which the group was a local mystery solving agency called Midnight Mysteries. They eventually stumbled upon a mysterious shadowy group among some really crazy plots involving the criminal underground of the region, which culminated in fighting space-Dr. Doom before he could doom the planet to the permanent crystallization of all sentient races by some alien tech he didn't fully understand. It escalated kind of hilariously from our humble beginnings. Just some bubs looking to make rent so the landlady didn't kill us all.

My premise:

There are five elemental temples in the world– Fire, Water, Air, Earth and Spirit. The BBEG's trying to take over the world be conquering each element and becoming the de facto ruler of everything. The PCs don't know this at first, but their world is actually the Spirit Temple and within the actual world, and all humans are spirit elementals. So the PCs start off as a mystery-solving crew, but wind up as an envoy elemental guardian spirits sent to save the world.

[Geigan]

Definitely sounds interesting. I hope your group has fun!

[Vultawk]

I'm using a train robbery to open my next campaign. PCs don't know each other (aside from two who are playing brothers), and they're all heading to a City of Adventure type setting when suddenly GOBLINS!

[Bulhakov]

One of my longest running campaigns as a GM started with all characters aboard a huge triple-decker flying slave galley (the ship's wood was infused with elemental air, making it lighter than air, and the oars were shaped like long wings).

Some characters (the physical fighters) were among the oarsmen (POWs used as slave labor), some were among a few dozen slaves transported in the cargo hold, and one female magic user was the personal pet-slave of the ship's wizard and first mate.
The characters instigated a revolt on the ship:
- all oarsmen were marked with a magic rune that caused severe pain and paralysis if a special command word was yelled nearby,
- the magic users figured out how to "hack it" with some stolen magic paint and turn the pain rune into a one-shot major str buff (enough for the tougher oarsmen to break chains)
- the pet-slave killed her wizard master in his sleep (also as revenge for killing her father), then distributed a few weapons and activated the buffs
- as the guards started yelling, all buffs activated and the prisoners made quick work of most of the guards
- the captain and a few elite archers managed to barricade themselves in the captain's quarters
- as a last ditch attempt to quell the revolt the captain turned the ship upside down (he could control it from his cabin)
- finally the PCs stormed the captain's quarters and won a heroic upside-down fight, but were immediately challenged by the most badass half-orc and half-troll oarsmen (who now intended to become sky-pirates) for the command of the ship
- seeing their losing position the PCs negotiated to be safely landed on the nearest shore and started the campaign in the middle of nowhere with just basic equipment looted from ship guards and a few magic items (like a magical GPS map from the captain's quarters)

[snipercam7]

I once had a DH group start a game in the middle of an ongoing firefight with 300 experience extra (to spend immediately), and flashed them back after a few sessions to the "start", after they'd already established some "We knew each other from.." links, at proper starting experience. It's the one start I was vaguely proud of.

[Kazemi]

A western campaign that I played in had us acting as escorts to a Mad Scientist during his travel to a competition. Things went horribly, horribly awry when it turns out the dozen mad scientists on the train had all modified the train to go faster the night before we left (sans one, who added air fresheners to the ductwork) in an effort to impress the judges, who were also on board.

We weren't employed by him for long and had a pretty good reason to work together after that bonding session.

[Kane0]

My father plans to start a campaign where we are all past adventurers that are considered failures and have resigned to a fate of common citizenship of the nearby city for the last decade, knowing each other from a local 'club' that is comprised of retired (read: failed) adventurers.