Why don't all the PCs just know each other in advance?

[Mastikator]

In pretty much every game I've ever played the player characters usually don't know each other at the first session's start, but why?

I once did a character that- as a part of his back story knew one of the PCs, so he had a very easy in into the already formed group.

Uh, why don't we just do that all the time?
Why should the PCs be strangers to each other at the start, you could do that character A knows B and C, C knows D, B knows E and F, D also knows F.
You wouldn't even need a special reason to pull them together, sure, A doesn't know D, E or F but that's not weird because he knows their friends. If anything it would be weird for them not to group.

Or are people already doing this and I'm just late and out of touch with reality?

[Seto]

I strongly encourage my players to do this. They usually don't. I think the reason is that they have a strong, developed idea of what they wanna play, so they think up the character (backstory included) and then show up to the game without expecting to make adjustments. Of course, in a lot of games (one-shots, players that don't know each other before playing, etc.) this phenomenon is emphasized. It's easier to pull off the shared backstory when you know and trust the player. I very much intend to do it next time I sit on the other side of the screen, in any case.

[mikeejimbo]

In one of the games I played our characters were all from the same family. Another player and I even played twin brothers. (Not the first time I'd been playing the twin of another PC, even.) Another game had my character being a squad leader for a second-string group of PCs, and it was established that they'd been together for a while. It definitely happens, though you're right it seems rare.

[mephnick]

I always mean to have them know each other, then we get busy and can't do a proper session zero and I end up with completely unrelated conflicting characters I have to metagame into a party in the first session.

But I'll do it next time, I promise!

[Thrudd]

I ask that my players create characters already a party, and can decide how they know eachother and what their group organization is like.

After playing many years and wasting many first sessions where characters are suspicious of eachother and need to basically be forced to go on an adventure together, I've decided that being a working party a priori should be a condition of character creation.

[Enran]

I don't like pre-existing relationships because they weren't developed in a normal way. With NPCs it can work out fine, but with fellow PCs there's a large chance you'll be three sessions in and turn to the other player and say "hey, our characters are at each others' necks over everything, how the heck does our backstory of them becoming friends of the non-fire-forged sort work at all?" Plus, there's always a bit of an imperative to keep pre-existing relationships going until reasons not to present themselves. Backstory NPCs who were companions on former quests are still lifelong friends until something happens to dramatically change the relationship; wives and children who were loving family in backstory continue to be such until something happens to change it; and so on and so forth. This works fine for NPCs you see every so often and can just act as if there's a positive relationship with them, but party members interact with one another constantly and at some point or another you expect to play your character as they are around the rest of the party, so having two characters who were introduced as best friends just sort of naturally drift apart in a non-dramatized way while adventuring together conflicts with our internal sense of consistency, especially if their shared backstory already involved them adventuring together.

Basically, intra-party dynamics are hard to force and usually feel wrong if made to be so, so it's generally better to kick them together out of necessity or somesuch and let the relationships bloom. Having them come with pre-existing relationships that they don't end up enjoying later forces them to play their characters to have been inconsistent for some long period (whether that's within the game itself, because they pretend the best friend type dynamic is still working when it isn't, or during the backstory when the characters have now accepted that they aren't really best friends and there's no reason they would have been in the past).

I would normally prefer to start characters as acquaintances, but no closer than that. "Yeah, that guy probably won't ditch me during a life-threatening situation" is much less strenuous to start on than "oh yeah, the cold bloodthirsty killer was totally hiding his natural tendencies for his entire life so that his best friendship with the squeamish healer can be justified, yet also has a reason to suddenly drop the facade now."

[NomGarret]

I've had pretty good luck when running the mysterious stranger gathers a group to quest intro to just say that happened in the title sequence and jump into the action. If someone really wants, we can always do a flashback,

[Keltest]

My players are perfectly welcome to have met prior to the start of the campaign, however that requires a level of coordination generally unavailable to them outside of the actual game meetings. Given that I encourage them to come into the campaign with an idea of who they want to be, that combines to limit characters that are familiar with each other. It can happen, its just more work.

[Pex]

I don't mind if PCs don't know each other in character background, but I do mind the Jerk players who refuse to acknowledge the mystical letters PC on characters' foreheads so we can get on with the game. Others PCs are merely NPCs to them, expendable if not completely ignorable. That's really where the problem lies, not the concept of not knowing each other at first.

[BootStrapTommy]

I always start my campaigns off "So you guys already know each other... Decide how..."

[Dimers]

I do require each character to have a workable connection to at least a couple of the other characters. Pretty frequently I set up the scenario such that the characters are all part of some loose paramilitary or investigatory group, so they can at least know and trust each other right from the get-go. I ask every player, "What makes you stick with these dummies in a life-or-death situation?"

[The Grue]

Dungeon World explicitly encourages this with its starting Bonds. I've adapted the Bonds system to several other games with success, so there's that.

[Guancyto]

Legends of the Wulin does this too. You don't have to start out as a party, but everyone needs some connection (however tangential) to someone else, be it "rescued you from Horselord raiders when you were a kid, but I'm old now" or "I accidentally dropped a house on your kung fu mom, er, sorry about that? (She got better)"

[kyoryu]

Fate Core (and most of the Fate variations) do this, and it works pretty well.

[Amphetryon]

Because not every group wants every game to start without the introductions being part of the story.

[Coidzor]

Sometimes we do that, sometimes we don't. Usually it's not that important because our characters have bigger concerns than falling into fractious infighting and by the time we would there's enough common cause/bonds formed from having saved one another's lives that it's not really an issue.

Some people like RPing meeting one another for the first time and learning how their characters fit together, too.

[LibraryOgre]

One frequent thing in a character creation session is deciding how everyone knows each other. Sit down, point to another player, and establish a connection. You have to creation connections to two other character, and each of them has to create a connection to one other character (plus you, for their two).

[Solaris]

I always start my campaigns off "So you guys already know each other... Decide how..."

My newest group was shocked and disgusted when I did that, coupled with having them come up with reasons for their being where they were.
Apparently, they did not like the idea of not being on railroad tracks. That could get... disconcerting for me.

[Shackel]

My newest group was shocked and disgusted when I did that, coupled with having them come up with reasons for their being where they were.
Apparently, they did not like the idea of not being on railroad tracks. That could get... disconcerting for me.

As someone said above, some people are actually fond of going through how their characters meet up and interact. Some even like interparty conflict.

[Solaris]

As someone said above, some people are actually fond of going through how their characters meet up and interact. Some even like interparty conflict.

Sure, but that's the first time since I started playing this game that I've ever run into a group that did... and when given the opportunity, didn't.

Having known someone for a while doesn't prevent interparty conflict. In fact, it facilitates it - people tend to be on their best behavior with someone they've just met.

[Thrudd]

I prefer players don't spend too much time on their backgrounds individually or inter party. "We all met last week when character A was looking to form an adventuring expedition and the rest of us responded to his offer." is about all I want, and individually: "I want to be an adventurer because X, Y, Z." They don't need to have intricate and extensive prior relationships.

There's a non-zero chance that one or more characters won't survive early adventures, so don't get too deep into it, and the format of the party should be such that it makes sense for new characters to come in as replacements.

If players want their characters to be siblings or old friends or whatever, that's great and fine. Since they've never been tested in the crucible of adventuring yet, it makes sense that their friendship might change or end due to the stress, and siblings have rivalries all the time. How you react in life-or-death situations may reveal things about your personality you didn't know before. Never mind the influence of extraordinary wealth and the promise of such, which also changes people greatly. The stakes are very high for these people.

Roleplaying how everyone meets is fine, as long as the players are all willing to "play along" with the ultimate conclusion that they will agree to form an adventuring party. The game is about a party of adventurers. Since it's a forgone conclusion, I find there isn't much point and it usually feels really contrived. Just skip to the inevitable and develop it in flashback statements.

[goto124]

I don't like pre-existing relationships because they weren't developed in a normal way. [snip] This works fine for NPCs you see every so often and can just act as if there's a positive relationship with them, but party members interact with one another constantly [snip]

Basically, intra-party dynamics are hard to force and usually feel wrong if made to be so, so it's generally better to kick them together out of necessity or somesuch and let the relationships bloom.

I would normally prefer to start characters as acquaintances, but no closer than that. "Yeah, that guy probably won't ditch me during a life-threatening situation" is much less strenuous to start on than "oh yeah, the cold bloodthirsty killer was totally hiding his natural tendencies for his entire life so that his best friendship with the squeamish healer can be justified, yet also has a reason to suddenly drop the facade now."

The game is about a party of adventurers. Since it's a forgone conclusion, I find there isn't much point and it usually feels really contrived. Just skip to the inevitable and develop it in flashback statements.

When the players don't know one another, it can be weird for their characters to know each other beyond 'I suppose she was the shopkeeper's assistant of that store I go to once a year'. During roleplaying in the course of the game, inconsistencies such as 'she really should've known her best friend well enough to predict that/know how to deal with her behavior/etc' crop up. If they're brushed aside... why start them off as 'best friends' anyway? It becomes little more than an excuse for them to start adventuring together, and there're many reasons strangers and acquaintances would adventure together ('I need money, she wants fame, and raiding that dungeon benefits both of us. Why not?').

[Darth Ultron]

I just about always have the PC's start off as knowing each other. Mostly so we can just start the game. In the past I have let players not know each other, and utterly waste time doing what they call 'role playing' as they actively attempt to ruin the game even before it starts. It never works out well.....

It would be nice if the players could role play for like five minutes and do a simple ''oh your name is Bob, lets hang out together''. But, oddly, most players want to waste several hours doing nothing and not playing the game. Each PC will act mean/unfriendly/dumb/crazy/weird or whatever and only want to be alone. So they will have no reason to form a group, no matter what.

And not knowing each other is just a silly excuse for most players to be ''evil'' to each other. So the PC's can sort of hang out together, but as soon as there is combat/loot they turn on each other.

Very often I'd simply have to leave the game as DM after say a half hour of utterly pointless non-group of strangers doing a solo game each lame role playing.

[Pex]

My favorite I've played where the PCs all knew each other at the start: we were all playing the children of our previous characters. We were play pals who grew up together.

[Thrudd]

When the players don't know one another, it can be weird for their characters to know each other beyond 'I suppose she was the shopkeeper's assistant of that store I go to once a year'. During roleplaying in the course of the game, inconsistencies such as 'she really should've known her best friend well enough to predict that/know how to deal with her behavior/etc' crop up. If they're brushed aside... why start them off as 'best friends' anyway? It becomes little more than an excuse for them to start adventuring together, and there're many reasons strangers and acquaintances would adventure together ('I need money, she wants fame, and raiding that dungeon benefits both of us. Why not?').

Yes, that is true. And that level of acquaintance is all that is required. As long as the party is formed and everyone wants to go on adventures. The characters could have met each other five minutes before the game begins, as long as they've agreed to be a party.

What I want to avoid is what Darth Ultron is describing, and I have experienced to some degree as well: which are players each roleplaying their own loner badass that won't trust anyone, and apparently waiting for the DM to railroad them together in some clever way. When it's a sandbox game, this just is not going to work.

[BWR]

In my groups it varies. Sometimes the PCs know each other from the beginning, sometimes they don't. When they do know each other, the degree people know each other at the beginning of the game (e.g. have they grown up together or did they just meet yesterday for this job?) varies greatly depending on the game and the setting and what sort of backgrounds are allowed.

[dramatic flare]

I find it generally best, as a player, to pick a character and develop a common back-story with them. One of my favorite campaigns involved being twins with another character, and occassionally the DM would throw bonus Experience our way when our perpetual state of bicker was amusing. On one particular occasion, another player tried to step in and our response, not planned in anyway, was mutually delivered, "Piss off."

I don't think the effect should be forced, but players should definitely be open to the idea.

[DigoDragon]

I leave the decision of the players knowing each other in advance up to them. Rarely do they take up on that offer. This is mostly because my players like to have introductions and to keep a couple secrets they'd like to save up for reveals later.

[Brion]

As a player (only DM'd once, though I want to some more), it's always been in the hands of the DM. What makes the story work better? In the current campaign we're playing, our characters all knew each other as we grew up in the same small town. The paladin and oracle (me) were close, the ranger and sorcerer were close, and we've sort of played that out in combats and social situations.

But I've also played some where we were hired as mercenaries or press ganged into being pirates... so those are a lot more hit or miss as to whether you know the other PCs or not.

[goto124]

It seems to be somewhat reliant on how well the players know each other...?