Non-Cliche Ways to Begin a Campaign

[Valdyr]

Hey-

I'm going to be starting a campaign in a few weeks and would like some input. I've got the story fleshed out pretty well and my (self-created) world pretty defined.

My problem is the first session. My players are playing the usual disparate classes and races from different areas, each with their own (occasionally pretentious) backstory. They don't know each other.

What are some of your ideas for a non-cliche start to a campaign. IE, no inns, no ships that sink with the PCs as the only survivors, no "you have no memories and wake up in a room with these other people." Any particularly memorable first sessions you've played in or DMed?

[Vuzzmop]

the pcs meet in a jail cell, each casught fo seperate crimes against the town/city/multiverse, they are charged with two options, execution, or to work on a quest for the city/town/multiverse. Hilarity ensues.

[Rahdjan]

I was totaly going to say have them all be on the same ship, then sink it and have them be the only survivers.

How about recruit them all into the local army then set them up on the same patrol?

[Valdyr]

Vuzzmop -
It's sad. If I let my players play in their own little solo sessions they probably would all end up in jail without any prompting from me. It's a good idea.

[Ceres]

I think that a good intro should draw the players into the game, introduce each player character properly, freshen up the rules (or introduce them with new parties) and possibly hint to the first quest.

I had a great campaign-intro once with the town the players were residing in being attacked. It started with just one of the players (the paladin) hearing the commotion and rushing out. Then, as the fight continued, I gave each of the player characters a dramatic entry into the fight that reflected their persona. The wizard was introduced with stunning one of the raiders who was about to attack the paladin, the barbarian when killing a huge amount of foes before getting helped by the others etc.

I believe in the James Bond-style intros. Get the players exited, get the "feel" of the campaign, and introduce the main characters. Hasn't failed me once.

[Shoyliguad]

Hmm I started my campaign with a battle, it was quick and add in a time limit of three days before a tarrasque is summoned, it really grips them as they traverse a huge area covered in traps and such. Really fun way.

[Suvarov454]

Meet with each player and play a mini-session getting each player into a common location using mechanisms specific to each character's nature. For example, a Paladin, Monk, or Cleric could be a temple or monastary and directed to go to <wherever> to defeat an evil that their divinations have uncovered; give them a cryptic hint that will identify thier benefactor or fellow player characters when they get there.

[Fat Daddy]

Valdyr-

I'm a big fan of making the Players do some of the work for me. I recommend telling them all that they are in town X and they need to incorporate a reason for it into their background story. Then they are all there individually, still without knowing each other and THE EVENT occurs. Being PCs they naturally respond. I really like this because the last time I used it, some of the player's actually ended up fighting each other a bit thinking each other to be involved in/ part of THE EVENT. Once everything was sorted out hilarity ensued. Also, this gives the players some really good dynamics for intra party role playing.

My 2 cents.

[....]

The whole 'getting everyone together' thing I never saw as much of a problem for a DM, just set up a campaign hook and use at least one PC on it, then let the PCs roleplay out how they want to meet each other.

[Tengu]

Hmm, a non-cliche way...
All the players happen to be huge fans of a certain bard who just happens to be around, and do concerts. A ticket for such a concety is too expensive for any of them, but luckily a friendly, yet mysterious individual has some of those, willing to give them away for a simple task...

[Diggorian]

Just started a new campaign of my own last week. PC's are level 2, instead of giving the default wealth-by-level I asked what they did for a living and gave a portion of the amount based on their answer.

The monk was a typical wanderer exploring the greater world, small gold. The dwarven fighter was a pit fighter that was inspired by the monk along the way and took to traveling with him, a little more gold. The priest was a battlefield medic becoming traumatized by the gore he'd seen. The rogue was a thief that keep a library as a cover.

Monk and fighter were just passing through town. The priest was transfered by his order to the same town for some peace to soul search. The authorities were onto the rogue and the crime family she operated under wanted her to get lost; they arranged a job for her working for the lord mayor of the town.

Monk was touring the place when he happened upon a dead body. Taken to the local temple the priest identified the wounds using combat experience. The Lord mayor offered the monk rewards to find the killer, charged the priest with going as assistance for his expertise. The dwarf is going to back up his only friend, the monk. The rogue is under the direct employ of the Mayor's plotting sister, whom will recommend the thief go too (to spy/help out).

I've got two more players yet to make characters, but I'll make up some circumstance to link them. For more detail, click the "Shields of Altear" link in my sig and go to "Our Tale".

Camapign before this one was D20 Future based loosely on the series Farscape. The PC's were abductees that awoke naked aboard an alien ship under attack. The crew was killed and every sample unit was opened. The players, though distrusting of each other, had to work together to survive the attack while dodging the hazards of an intergalactic zoo set loose.

[Murongo]

If it's a high-level campaign it's pretty easy to justify getting a group together. In the biggest campaign I'm doing right now the idea is "you're all important people in this world, and the issue at hand is important, so you're all bound to be involved in it somehow".

I hate it when people say "it's stupid that it just happens the PCs are the only ones to survive the shipwreck". You're right, I'm sorry, you can play the people who drowned. Doy, you're PCs because you survived, not the other way around.

[goat]

One of them has his foot glued to anothers face.

Nobody is entirely sure why.

[Toliudar]

It's not that hard for each of the PC's to work a similar plot hook or minor element into their existing backstories. A mysterious stranger who helped them out when they really needed it. a creepy child who came up to them on the street last week and told them something about themselves that no one else could know. A longstanding love/hate for art/knishes/halflings/the colour mauve. Any of these can then become the beginning of a plot hook that ties them all together, without forcing them to be the same in any substantive way.

[de-trick]

my campaign i got the cleric to have a vision about fighting a dragon and he saw the rest of the party helping fighting it

[crimson77]

A few ideas:

You could hook one pc into the campaign and then have him recruit other players and henchmen into his group.

You could have an NPC hiring adventures and by the luck of the draw they are together. This can easily be accomplished as the players develop their background. You could say, "As part of your background please indicate how you started to work for Lord Cromwell."

You could have the PCs all in a certain area and then a fight breaks out around them. They then start to fight back and then defeat the attackers. A good plot hook at the right moment As the dust settles the bar owner looks to you and smiles, "You saved my life, my bar, and my customers, I have little to reward you with but i do know a man who is looking for help with.... Maybe you could help him out, you all seem to work well together."

[Fishy]

Mountain town: an avalanche has struck the night before, and some poor bastard NPC has to round up as many warm bodies as possible to go search for survivors/bodies. Said avalanche may or may not have opened up a previously sealed mineshaft/lost temple/otherwise dungeon.

Variation on the sunken ship cliche: Have the big monster battle- and kill 'em all. PCs drop next to each other on the same level of Gehenna.

[Damionte]

I was totaly going to say have them all be on the same ship, then sink it and have them be the only survivers.

How about recruit them all into the local army then set them up on the same patrol?

Hahahah I'm sure that's just what your players want. To be trapped in an espisode of "LOST"

Actually that coudl be an ok game for a little while. Going to have to think about that.

[Proven_Paradox]

One of my favorite ways to get the PCs together. They're all travelling to <large city> for the <annual festival>, and there's all sorts of things to do there, including <insert list of reasons the different characters might go there>. However, as you're going through this town on a <insert bottlenecking landmark, such as a mountain pass>, a disease breaks out and the town is put under heavy quarantine. The elders don't think this is a natural disease, gathers the PCs up, and offers to pay them if they go to <insert first dungeon> to investigate.

It helps motivate the players to know that if they stick around and get the disease, they may explode in a few days.

[Driderman]

I usually tend to leave the reasons for their partying up to my players, unless my campaign calls for me 'hooking' them. Take a few sessions where you all discuss possibilities of the hows and whys of their partying.
The "James Bond" intros are good as well, if you can pull it off properly.
Something I try to avoid is giving too many unique and interesting reasons for being there. If every PC has a seperate employer/motive, realistically speaking the group might not stick together after their initial adventure due to conflicting attitudes.
In the end, it all depends pretty much on which way your campaign is going. One campaign I ran, which was cut short unfortunately, I told my players to create whatever classes they liked, but they all had to be humans.
Afterwards I told them that their characters was selected by the Khaliff as a diplomatic envoy to the rival island kingdom and they had to incorporate this in their background story.
We ended up with a two fighters, being the protection, a bard, being the main envoy, a cleric and a monk, who were the religious advisors and a rogue, a convicted felon who had been pardoned in exchange for his services. I then told the bard, the monk and the rogue that the Khaliff was actually sending them on a covert assignment where they had to retrive the signet ring of another spy who had been caught, before the rival kingdoms agents found it....

And then i threw the campaign in a completely opposite direction: I wrecked their ship and stranded them on a jungle island where they had to survive in the wilds, fighting lizardmen and scavenging to survive, while slowly exploring this huge island and the ruins there.

At first, my players were rather shocked that put them in a situation almost opposite of what they had built their characters for, but the all the work they had put into character creation really improved inter-character relations and roleplay. Also, their travails on the island built a camaraderie despite their differences.

[goat]

Player 1 is attacked in a bar by a group of men, players 2-X can help or not, it doesn't really matter because in round 3 the city watch turn up and beat the %&^* out of anything not cowering in fear for "picking on their mates" (original attacking party). Everyone wakes up in a cell with a brand on their arm. They've been conscripted by the local duke (who's a right old git) and been cursed with a geas. This is mission number one.

Mission number 2-X can include such joys as "get your own back on the guys who beat us up in the pub", and "dethrone the duke (who has a caster buddy capable of casting multiple geas spells)".

[RamrodTheWizard]

Well, in my campiagn it did involve an inn, but there was a nice twist. Im running an ebberon campaign in which the PC's are agents for the royal eyes of aundair, and only one PC began in the organization. The first session consisted of them roaming around Thonehold, which i made into something like Casablanca during WW2, a hotbed for international intrigue. Well the changling was ordered to find the other 2 PC's and bring them to the spymaster. I enjoyed the concept as a DM and how it worked out. Most intresting beginnings like that will require a good group of roleplayers.

[Ravyn]

One of my friends just gave me a fun one:

The stage: A nice, relatively high-class bar--behind which are crouched the PCs, trying to figure out how they're going to get themselves out of this one. No explanation on what exactly was going on. Just a group of PCs behind a bar.

(A note for the players--never, EVER decide it was a bar brawl that's somehow your fault. More trouble than it's worth.)

[NullAshton]

The way I started my first campaign was the players meet each other in a forest, with all of them traveling to investigate a strange light in the sky.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

My first campaign I set them up on the road after having most of their mundane stuff (like food and bedrolls) burned in a recent forest fire. The next one I plan on starting them right in the middle of combat.

[A Gray Phantom]

Zombies. I once started a campaign with zombies...

Couple of my PC's were chillaxin' in some other plane of existence, a'right. My totally dope NPC dwarven cleric of travel is all like, "Yo, beeyotches, yoos wanna go up in this totally sweet island on the material plane with radical sands and surf? Best vacation spot evarz!!!one1eleven!?"

And the PC's respond quite readily, "Why, I do indeed, Reginald. I'd certainly enjoy a holiday after having been through many ordeals of adventuring!"

So we teleport into the middle of a town chock full (chock I say!) of zombies.

OMG! They run into the nearest church, where the town's survivors are hiding (it is shielded from zombies by divine consecration). There they meet the rest of the players' characters, and a few villagers that beg the adventurers to go looking for family members that got left behind in town.

If you don't want all your players to meet in the same church, you could have them run into each other in the streets. The rogue might feel like looting a few stores that are now unoccupied. If he has no ranks in knowledge religion, then you can justify why he doesn't realize why his sneak attacks aren't working...

[Maxymiuk]

For my urban campaign, I had the group start as new members of a gang. Being the fresh meat, they got the unglamorous job of proving themselves by collecting dues from businesses hesitant to pay protection.

In fact, "you all work for the same person who sends you on a quest of dubious importance" is the most sensible reason for which a group of diverse individuals would come together and go off on a quest/mission/assignment/barn dance/picnic when in all probability neither of them has ever laid eyes on one another before.

[goat]

It all began with a stag party. None of you were directly involved, but it was hard to ignore the festive mood of the groom and his friends. As the night wore on, the whole [village/town/neighbourhood] was caught up in the revelry and there was joy, dancing and even the local guard were relaxing a little.

Then the [common, low-level enemy in the area] attacked. It was swift, brutal and more like slaughter than combat. A drunk is no challenge to a [enemy], a guard with his guard down is just another slit throat or crushed skull. Not everyone was killed, but the community is decimated, the majority of the dead being men and women in their prime, leaving only the young and the old relatively untouched.

They came for something, but what? They trashed houses, they searched bodies, but they withdrew quickly at a word, and without encountering heavy resistance.

You have a mystery to solve, a Bride-to-be with a dead groom, and a community ransacked. Will you find out what's been stolen, avenge the dead, or try to rebuild the community while defending it from the looters that plague disaster zones?

[Korias]

I think that a good intro should draw the players into the game, introduce each player character properly, freshen up the rules (or introduce them with new parties) and possibly hint to the first quest.

I had a great campaign-intro once with the town the players were residing in being attacked. It started with just one of the players (the paladin) hearing the commotion and rushing out. Then, as the fight continued, I gave each of the player characters a dramatic entry into the fight that reflected their persona. The wizard was introduced with stunning one of the raiders who was about to attack the paladin, the barbarian when killing a huge amount of foes before getting helped by the others etc.

I believe in the James Bond-style intros. Get the players exited, get the "feel" of the campaign, and introduce the main characters. Hasn't failed me once.

Quoted for Truth.

Personaly, Heres some that I GMed.

Situation 1: The Party consisted of a Monk, a Paladin, a Psion, and a Druid. Knowing this, I had teh group inadvertently enter a Bar fight that spilled out onto the street, which was then Fireballed by a nearby wizard. They were playing in Sigil.

Situation 2:

The Party Consisted of A Barbarian, a Psion (Same Guy), A Duskblade, and a Monk (Same Guy). The Barbarian was maiming local livestock, and when brought in by the police, he kills them and drags the other 3 PCs into the mix, which formed the main quest of the campaign.

Situation 3: This was a funny one. The Party was a Duskblade, a Psion, a Cleric, and a Warlock. The Cleric was female, and was riding along the road when she went into labor. The party of the Duskblade, Psion, and Warlock is nearby, and helps the hampered cleric reach a local clinic for the birth. The Warlock's been trying to sacrifice the kid ever since, while the monk is trying to train it into another monk. Both were given mace-shaped indents in their skulls.

[Wooter]

Zombies. I once started a campaign with zombies...

Couple of my PC's were chillaxin' in some other plane of existence, a'right. My totally dope NPC dwarven cleric of travel is all like, "Yo, beeyotches, yoos wanna go up in this totally sweet island on the material plane with radical sands and surf? Best vacation spot evarz!!!one1eleven!?"

And the PC's respond quite readily, "Why, I do indeed, Reginald. I'd certainly enjoy a holiday after having been through many ordeals of adventuring!"

So we teleport into the middle of a town chock full (chock I say!) of zombies.

OMG! They run into the nearest church, where the town's survivors are hiding (it is shielded from zombies by divine consecration). There they meet the rest of the players' characters, and a few villagers that beg the adventurers to go looking for family members that got left behind in town.

If you don't want all your players to meet in the same church, you could have them run into each other in the streets. The rogue might feel like looting a few stores that are now unoccupied. If he has no ranks in knowledge religion, then you can justify why he doesn't realize why his sneak attacks aren't working...

You. I like you.

Okay another way to start. "Okay, so you're all bleeding to death. Roll to see if you stop. *roll* Okay, the Wizard rolled so badly that he's bleeding twice as fast now. Okay now he's dead. The rest of you stabilize, but can't move. Now you're being raped by Orcs. You heard me."

Okay, I can't think of anything non-evil. So sue me.