DMs have a Drinking problem much? =P

[Dean Fellithor]

I was playing a Campaign last night and realised that 75(ish)% of campaigns I've played in have started in Pubs, I'd like to try and supply statistic to this so I can persuade my DM not to start it in a pub as often. please help!

[Dausuul]

I was playing a Campaign last night and realised that 75(ish)% of campaigns I've played in have started in Pubs, I'd like to try and supply statistic to this so I can persuade my DM not to start it in a pub as often. please help!

I'm afraid I can't help you. In all my 20 years of gaming, I don't think I've ever played in a drinking establishment...

...oh, you mean the characters start in a pub.

Well, it is kind of traditional. There's a sig floating around these forums claiming "78% of DMs started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, add this to your sig."

There's another that says "78% of DMs started their first campaign in a tavern. If you're one of the 22% that didn't, stop lying."

[Talya]

My campaign started on a battlefield. A big battlefield. The player party was part of one of the armies...

[ndragonsbane]

About 90% of the campaigns I've played in have started in a tavern or inn of some sort.

0% of my campaigns have; although I did once have a pair of dwarf PC's that carried around no fewer than 2 full kegs at a time. If I put my PC's in a tavern to start out where they had to meet each other for the first time they'd screw around and waste about 3 hours of the first session (and probably would end up arguing and splitting into smaller groups).

Granted, I've never once had a campaign where the PC's didn't start at least one adventure in a tavern at some later point (and with the dwarves just about every adventure began and ended in one).

[Tallis]

Ive never had a campaign start in a tavern. I've also never had one that didn't have a tavern somewhere in the plot. I'm usually more inclined to use officials to start the first quest.

[TheAlmightyOne]

We didnt start our campaign in a tavern. we started at hero school. I was aloud to pick our backstory cos everyone else couldnt be bothered. also my upcoming campaign where i Dm starts on a ship. my alchoholism has nothing to do with it

[SurlySeraph]

It's just that tavern are really convenient for lazy people. You don't have to come up with a complicated explanation for why your character would end up in a tavern. It's hard to explain a head-banging barbarian meeting future party members in any kind of governmental or civic institution, and it's hard to explain a studious wizard spending more time than necessary on a battlefield. But everybody likes to drink from time to time.

[Shoyliguad]

I prefer to start my adventures with a bang or if I dare start in a tavern I let everyone a bit of time, barely introduce themselves before something HUGE happens, like an earthquake or a werewolf charging in. Its a good hook I find.

[Mr the Geoff]

My DM used to run his games in his dad's pub, no that's the proper way to do it, if the players are in the tavern, who cares where the characters start?

[JellyPooga]

You've got to start stereotypical campaigns in taverns because it's the law (or something).

Oh sure, there's plenty of better ways to introduce the characters, but think of all the fantasy literature you've read...I'll be willing to bet that at least one main character in 70% of those books was introduced in a tavern, pub or inn.

Oh yeah, it's also the law that every tavern/inn/pubs main drinking room have at least 5 shady corners (despite being square) with single tables in for the Rogue/Moody/Mysterious characters to sit in and drink quietly (still wearing their hooded cloaks despite being inside) whilst watching the other characters/patrons....

...There must also be some rowdy Barbarians/Fighters/Dwarves drinking loudly whilst headbutting each other and other such non-sense...I think the landlords hire them specially for campaign beginnings (they have a sixth sense about when a new plot-line is going to start in their pub)...

...and new plot-lines aren't real plot-lines unless their given to the 'heroes' by an old man of some description, whther he be a king or noble of some description or a blind old beggar or a pilgrim or whatever; just as long as he's old and possibly crazy/distraught...it's the rules.

[Quietus]

Oh yeah, it's also the law that every tavern/inn/pubs main drinking room have at least 5 shady corners (despite being square) with single tables in for the Rogue/Moody/Mysterious characters to sit in and drink quietly (still wearing their hooded cloaks despite being inside) whilst watching the other characters/patrons....

Have you done a lot of freeform roleplay, by chance?

*Remembers the old Yahoo glory days fondly*

[psychoticbarber]

Taverns and the Starts of Campaigns often have one major thing in common:

They're both places/times when people congregate.

I think that's usually it.

[SpiderBrigade]

Yeah, as others have explored in detail, the tavern is a mechanically appealing location. If you have a disparate group, it gives the party a chance to meet up without having to create a "group backstory," and without straining verisimilitude too much. It's plausible that all these characters would be in the local inn/tavern/alehall what have you.

Also, and this is a bit out on a limb, it establishes all the characters as in some fashion sociable people. Either they like to hang out and drink, and make friends with new and exciting people (which is good for party-forming!) or they at least prefer to do their lonely enigmatic brooding in public where other people can see. What that says about the players, I won't venture to guess

[Talya]

There are other ways, but they are few and far between.

In my "Not-so-nice" swashbuckling campaign*, the characters mostly started off as mercenaries in an army invading a mostly good nation. It made for an easy beginning, their army was defeated, they escaped with their lives, they take to the sea.



* The characters are not quite evil enough. They're semi-evil. They're quasi-evil. They're the margarine of evil. They're the Diet Coke of evil, just one calorie, not evil enough.

[SadisticFishing]

Adventurers meet in inns. Period.

[Recursive]

It was a metagamer drove me to drink...and I never had the courtesy to thank him for it.

[TheOOB]

It's classic, and its efficient. D&D games usually work best if you get right to the action, and one of the quickest ways to do that is the simple "You all meet in the bar, and go on the mission" Sure there could be more elaborate methods of introducing characters, but your players are likely to get distracted before you get too far.

[Miles Invictus]

I DM'ed my first campaign about a year ago. It began with the PCs defending a caravan against a gaggle of mercenaries. In the midst of the battle, the mercenaries managed to beat down and abduct a VIP who was traveling with the caravan. The PCs managed to track them to a nearby cave, whereupon they knocked out a few guards, snuck into a defaced crypt, and defeated a crusader about to sacrifice the kidnapped VIP to a long-forgotten god of physical corruption.

I didn't do it out of any real desire to be unique or different; I'd only started my first campaign, as a player, a few weeks earlier, so the tavern experience was still new and exciting. Mainly, I did it because I'm a bit too self-conscious for RP-heavy gaming. Also, it was their first game of D&D, too, so I figured I'd keep them a bit more interested with some kick-in-the-door action to start things off. Plus, I had about twenty minutes to work with.

When I started as a player (yes, also about a year ago), we began the campaign in a tavern, formed a mercenary band, and quickly found a job. This last May, my DM ran a one-shot of Warhammer, in his own personal campaign setting. That one began with...oddly enough...an attack on the caravan we were a part of.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the tavern is popular because it provides a plausible way for people of vastly disparate races, personalities, and cultures to meet and spontaneously decide to "team up". Especially as your stereotypical taverns are part of the rumor mill on which your average adventurer thrives.

[Raltar]

I've DMed once and it started in an icy pass. Players were part of a caravan. First game I actually played, I started in the middle of a forest, solo. I was the protecter of that particular forest and I stumbled across a strangly dressed man and accused him of being a poacher. I was about to lay the smack down, but the dm slowly shook his head as if to tell me it would have been a bad idea. I can think of 2 different games where we started off in a tavern, but both games got to the action very quickly.

[Gaelbert]

I've had adventures that started in the ashes of a tavern the PCs have destroyed. Does that count?

[Dhavaer]

I started my first ever campaign in a graveyard. It didn't go too well; starting to play D&D in a vacuum isn't a good idea.

From memory, I've started a campaign outdoors (twice), in a car (at least twice), in a hospital, in a cafe (done twice, closest to a tavern I've gotten) and exiting a theatre.

[Jack Mann]

Of course, D20 Modern has a slightly different aesthetic than D&D.

[Zel]

Well, to date I've started all my campaigns at a distinctively non-tavern location.

On the other hand, I usually do so with a beer or mixed drink of some type in my hand. Wheeeeee roleplaying juice!

[Dhavaer]

Of course, D20 Modern has a slightly different aesthetic than D&D.

The outdoors and graveyard ones were actually D&D, amazing as that may seem. Urban Arcana does have the 'Prancing Pony' medival themed takeaway restaurants, though. They look exactly like taverns, and the description even says that a lot of adventures start in them.

[Binary Stars]

I always figured the best beginings were the James Bond-esq "Roll initiative!"-type beginings. You may want to try and start your next campaign with your players attention focused on characters other then the ones they created without them knowing, only to have their characters explode on to the scene and kill then kill off the ones they thought they were playing immediately after. That'll liven up the action factor. When everything's dead, have them get aquainted in a totally new and random place, preparing for their next mission.
As for a setting, possible every day places good to meet are, inexplicably, any place you would find somebody selling fish. Don't ask. You could also try a twist on the standard amnesia (If you don't find it too cliche, I do.) and have them make a will save V. some kind of memory altering spell of your choice, first thing, followed by them waking up in an alleyway or dungeon with several other people (the other party members) who stumbled onto the same spooooky stuff the BBEG is up to as you did.

[Xuincherguixe]

I'm going to be gearing up for my first game shortly. I'm going to do some stuff with each of the characters before they all meet up together. (It's going to be over IM, or some kind of turbo charged client I end up programming) Not sure where that will be. But to avoid cliche it'll almost certainly be anything but a bar, tavern, or inn.


I'm planning a Farce campaign some time in the future as well. (How is it a farce? Well, people notice all the strange things about their world, like "there's all these people who want to destroy the Universe for some Vague reason" and "these adventurers keep breaking in and smashing all my pots! Why do they smash all my pots?!". It may well start with, "You are all in a tavern, largely because you all decided that as adventurers, this is where you should start. You assume that is what most of the people in here are doing because only one quarter of them are drinking, and they are heavily armed. This is all being tolerated because of the one dwarf in full platemail drinking enough to cover everyone at least twice.")

[Corolinth]

Starting in a pub isn't unoriginal. Or rather, starting someplace other than a pub isn't any more original (those sigs - not impressing anybody but yourself).

The reason most campaigns start in pubs is because of what the pub represents. The pub is the number one major social hub of society all the way up until the early 1900s. Church is historically a distant second. The pub is where you go to get the talk of the town because the whole town is in there. The pub is the first place a traveler stops when they hit town, so it's the best place to go to hire adventurers. The pub just works. It's natural. It's where people go for everything in any setting.

[Callix]

I've only run the one campaign, and it's a bit rocky, but I just said: "You all live in Sharn (Eberron) and you get a letter asking your aid from the city watch". They were then asked to break up a goblin crime ring (with lvl1 goblin mooks). They were paid 50gp per live goblin. Thought it might mix it up a bit... but 3 of my 4 players were new to D&D... should've thought of that earlier...

[TomTheRat]

I drink because of the dumb things my players do.

[Alleine]

Seeing as I'm new to DnD, I haven't had the chance to start in a pub yet. However, the few games I have been in, we at least go to a tavern and drink. This new campaign we started was in an alley and pretty much was "roll initiative" and our fighter nearly died.

It is my belief that if you at no point during a campaign set foot in a tavern/pub/place to get alchoholic drinks, you aren't playing DnD right. Which odd since I've never even smelled beer.