How's a party form? [Archive] - Wizards Community

How's a party form? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Terjon of the Blue Rose
08-30-07, 12:15 AM I know that I always have the most difficulty with starting off a campaign in explaining how this group of would be heros came to know each other. I want to make this thread a list of suggestions on how and why a group of adventurers forms.

1) Always known each other: You are a group whose backgrounds all start in one common location. You were probably childhood friends.

2) Hired on: You don't know each other but some group or individual hired each of you seperately for your talents. Now you work together because it's part of your contract.

3) Forced together: Attacks, shipwrecks, blizzards, etc. have forced you together and now you are just working together because it gives everyone a better chance for survival.

Hoping for things that might help more as party hooks though. More intensively plot device style reasons for groups of strangers to be pulled together. Most importantly I want to avoid the answer "We met in an inn".
CrimsonDeath
08-30-07, 04:15 AM 4) All going after the same MacGuffin, for different reasons.
AshenRoseOfTheWaningSun
09-02-07, 12:30 AM What are the ways that people meet?

1) Accidental or chance meeting. You're standing in line at the supermarket and some random item prompts a statement by one person. Both persons find they have something in common and begin a conversation. Depending on just how much in common can lead to longer term. Also included in this is auto accidents, one person being in distress of some kind (lost dog, flat tire, beer glass empty)

2) Introduced. A mutual acquaintance knows both (or all persons) and thinks that they would get along or work well together.

3) Forced. Some factor somehow places two or more people in each others' immediate vicinity and prevents them from not interacting. Prison, plane/shipwrecks, having a 5000 foot beanpole chopped out from under you and being stuck on a cloud.

Whether the persons involved are Cooperative or Adversarial is what makes the group good or not. A good cohesive group is easy to achieve when you can present everyone with one common problem or enemy. The local town needs a band of marauding somethings stopped (the stirges are particularly bad this year). The city guard arrest all the PCs for various crimes (framed or not) and throw them in prison together (Usual Suspects). Everyone is a member of some group that suddenly needs a large amount of money (the Silver Suns have all disappeared and the city wants 3000g in 2 days or they repossess the guild house). Characters happen to be standing in the same street when subterranean (mole ninjas?) attackers burst through the road, and afterward they are all in the same hospital together. The PCs are conscripted into the local militia for a new or ongoing war (Prince Englebert sloshed red wine on Queen Brunhelga's new dress and now the two nations are at war). Unsuspecting comrades in arms (the drunk orcs in the corner decides they can take everyone in the room at once). A large overriding organization needs something recovered (we um....... lost.... yeah lost our Necronomicon. Could you go get it for us please?)

My question is, once this initial obstacle is overcome, why does the group stay together? (We rescued our 500 captured clansmen from the evil slave traders.... now what?)
Sol_Aedh_Avoth
09-02-07, 07:43 AM 3) Forced together: Attacks, shipwrecks, blizzards, etc. have forced you together and now you are just working together because it gives everyone a better chance for survival.

This is the one I like most... the other two have always looked too sterile to me...

Anyways, in my group, every time we begin NOT knowing each other, some people get caught in a spiral of stupid acting with no escape and causes me and the few other ones who aren't involved in it a large amount of laughter... in the end, the group can not get united and we have to begin again... but it's worth it, considering how much we laugh... :D
The last time it was like watching a mix of The Simpsons and Benny Hill Show...
tim120hawkins
09-03-07, 05:07 PM PC's can be sent by their superiors, mages sent by masters to gain info, Demi-humans sent by their tribe/clan/kinfolk for info
Moonslayer
09-03-07, 08:06 PM A few times whoever is DMing in my group will just leave it to the players to decide if and how they are connected. Sometimes they just go for stock answers, but others have been rather colorful. I've considered a variation of the "You're in a bar" opening by having them start off in mid-bar fight (adjusting hit points and such down a bit to compensate for previous action). I suppose an Arena type setting would work for that also.
Fithero
09-03-07, 11:03 PM I think that it can be boiled down to two points of origin, though there are numerous variations of each.

They knew each other before the game and work together because they want to (friends, family, loved ones)

They knew each other before the game and work together because they have to (employed by the same person, they all are survivors of the same attack/plague/disaster, they are chosen by destiny)

But come on... meeting in the bar is the greatest part of being an adventurer!
Daniel _the_Zodiac
09-04-07, 12:34 AM I like it when (and this works when you have players whose characters try to be the bad-a**-"I work alone"-Wolverine type) the group are all arrested for either a phony crime or are wrongly convicted and are forced by shadowy figures to accomplish a task to gain freedom. Makes people want to stick together when they are hunted or hurt as a team.
ArgulFraster
09-04-07, 03:37 PM Or you can go for the classic-meet in a tavern.

Argul built his party by wandering around town and introducing himself as a pyromaniac Felinian sorcerer on the lookout for gold, dungeons, and things to blow up. The people that didn't run away are now his party, though they added a cleric and switched Rogues.
Terjon of the Blue Rose
09-06-07, 12:00 AM Or you can go for the classic-meet in a tavern.

Argul built his party by wandering around town and introducing himself as a pyromaniac Felinian sorcerer on the lookout for gold, dungeons, and things to blow up. The people that didn't run away are now his party, though they added a cleric and switched Rogues.

:evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh Love it!

A few times whoever is DMing in my group will just leave it to the players to decide if and how they are connected. Sometimes they just go for stock answers, but others have been rather colorful. I've considered a variation of the "You're in a bar" opening by having them start off in mid-bar fight (adjusting hit points and such down a bit to compensate for previous action). I suppose an Arena type setting would work for that also.

This is precisely the sort of answer I was looking for. Had a game of my own start in a similar fashion. DM was planning on having a npc start a barfight but opened the door and let me do it instead. Of course I didn't know that was how he planned to start things but hey.
CrimsonDeath
09-06-07, 04:12 AM Once, when I joined a campaign already in progress, the party actually went to a sort of Adventurers' guild looking for an arcanist. I happened to be a Sorceror... /Monk/Enlightened Fist. They were surprised when their new spellchucker ran up and kicked an Allosaurus square in the face. (An Allosaurus, I might add, who was chewing on the Paladin's mount at the time.)
Karish
09-06-07, 10:18 PM Usually I enter a game as being the dude one person has known since childhood, and follows them because they have always been close friends and they adventured together. That or when I am introduced to an in-progress game, I'm a mercenary who they hire for a full share after seeing him in a tavern or other place and hearing about him beforehand.
Cuaglar
09-07-07, 01:08 PM The best way I think I brought a party together went as follows.

The game started off with each of the PC's in completely different cities. While they were wandering around on their business, they were assaulted by an unknown entity (since this was Eberron, I used the Emerald Claw). Each party was given a means to overcome the encounter some way; either direct, physical confrontation that they could win, or a means of escape that could be obtained with their skills (either jumping down or up to safety, or some weakness that could be taken advantage of via magic). After the defeat/escape of each encounter, the PC's either fled or found clues to lead them to one city, where, by fate or chance, they happen to meet, and form a plan to either permanently avoid the opposition or defeat it.
Orchomenos
09-10-07, 02:31 PM Searching enlightenment: For an old game, the DM wanted us to all be "chosen heroes". We all had strange dreams, and we all traveled up to the oracle temple to seek what all this was about... only to learn we had a common mission. Unfortunately, this game turned out to be 100% RP, with no battle... (The best part was when I RP a dwarven cleric NPC and thought a young woman to read...)

Job Posting: Say you want your campaign to be a remote town having troubles with orc raiders. Tell your players there is a job posting in the capital city's taverns, temples, thieves guilds... Everyone can answer the posting, for various reasons... And if it's clear in the job posting they're gonna fight orcs, then the ranger-lover can actually build a ranger with favored enemy: orc, and hope to see some!
meto30
09-13-07, 08:28 AM A local militia organized by the government to stall an attack by goblins, or some other disaster that needs military attention. Most of the members are people driven by the need of self-defence, but there are some patriots, adventurer-wanna-bes, and outright mercenaries who agreed to help train the helpless farmers for some gold. PCs can choose from any of these groups, and flesh out a party from there. The problem would be that the story would need to be battle-oriented and have too much grime and too little fantasy. But I think this would make for epic plots, starting points for long campaigns.
zatoseyes
09-20-07, 02:27 AM I like to mix and match based on what characters I have to put up with.

In one of my campaigns the wizard (a gnome who thought he was a legendary archmage) met the psion when the psion was returning to Sharn to attend his fathers funeral. On the road to the city an airship was sailing off and a hat fell from it. It landed at his feet. He reached down to pick it up and the gnome fell out of it.

As it turned out the gnome was a librarian in Zilargo (I forget the name of the city exactly) and he was a true bookworm. The archmage in question (dubbed Lokil Moshori by me) left his hat sitting on the table he was using to study the books. The gnome (then known as Nebin Pagemage) was trying on the hat when it sucked him in. The archmage returned to find it right where he left it. Nebin subsisted on a bottomless water skin and an endless cornocopia (or something similar this had been awhile) but the solitude drove him more or less insane. But he did get to study the archmages spellbook and practice magic while he was in there and when the psion accidentally let him out he promptly snatched the hat away from him and introduced himself as Loki Motion.

He went on thinking he was the archmage. We're on hiatus from that campaign and I can't wait to get back to it to see how he reacts to learning his true identity.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Terjon of the Blue Rose 08-30-07, 12:15 AM	I know that I always have the most difficulty with starting off a campaign in explaining how this group of would be heros came to know each other. I want to make this thread a list of suggestions on how and why a group of adventurers forms. 1) Always known each other: You are a group whose backgrounds all start in one common location. You were probably childhood friends. 2) Hired on: You don't know each other but some group or individual hired each of you seperately for your talents. Now you work together because it's part of your contract. 3) Forced together: Attacks, shipwrecks, blizzards, etc. have forced you together and now you are just working together because it gives everyone a better chance for survival. Hoping for things that might help more as party hooks though. More intensively plot device style reasons for groups of strangers to be pulled together. Most importantly I want to avoid the answer "We met in an inn".
CrimsonDeath 08-30-07, 04:15 AM	4) All going after the same MacGuffin, for different reasons.
AshenRoseOfTheWaningSun 09-02-07, 12:30 AM	What are the ways that people meet? 1) Accidental or chance meeting. You're standing in line at the supermarket and some random item prompts a statement by one person. Both persons find they have something in common and begin a conversation. Depending on just how much in common can lead to longer term. Also included in this is auto accidents, one person being in distress of some kind (lost dog, flat tire, beer glass empty) 2) Introduced. A mutual acquaintance knows both (or all persons) and thinks that they would get along or work well together. 3) Forced. Some factor somehow places two or more people in each others' immediate vicinity and prevents them from not interacting. Prison, plane/shipwrecks, having a 5000 foot beanpole chopped out from under you and being stuck on a cloud. Whether the persons involved are Cooperative or Adversarial is what makes the group good or not. A good cohesive group is easy to achieve when you can present everyone with one common problem or enemy. The local town needs a band of marauding somethings stopped (the stirges are particularly bad this year). The city guard arrest all the PCs for various crimes (framed or not) and throw them in prison together (Usual Suspects). Everyone is a member of some group that suddenly needs a large amount of money (the Silver Suns have all disappeared and the city wants 3000g in 2 days or they repossess the guild house). Characters happen to be standing in the same street when subterranean (mole ninjas?) attackers burst through the road, and afterward they are all in the same hospital together. The PCs are conscripted into the local militia for a new or ongoing war (Prince Englebert sloshed red wine on Queen Brunhelga's new dress and now the two nations are at war). Unsuspecting comrades in arms (the drunk orcs in the corner decides they can take everyone in the room at once). A large overriding organization needs something recovered (we um....... lost.... yeah lost our Necronomicon. Could you go get it for us please?) My question is, once this initial obstacle is overcome, why does the group stay together? (We rescued our 500 captured clansmen from the evil slave traders.... now what?)
Sol_Aedh_Avoth 09-02-07, 07:43 AM	3) Forced together: Attacks, shipwrecks, blizzards, etc. have forced you together and now you are just working together because it gives everyone a better chance for survival. This is the one I like most... the other two have always looked too sterile to me... Anyways, in my group, every time we begin NOT knowing each other, some people get caught in a spiral of stupid acting with no escape and causes me and the few other ones who aren't involved in it a large amount of laughter... in the end, the group can not get united and we have to begin again... but it's worth it, considering how much we laugh... :D The last time it was like watching a mix of The Simpsons and Benny Hill Show...
tim120hawkins 09-03-07, 05:07 PM	PC's can be sent by their superiors, mages sent by masters to gain info, Demi-humans sent by their tribe/clan/kinfolk for info
Moonslayer 09-03-07, 08:06 PM	A few times whoever is DMing in my group will just leave it to the players to decide if and how they are connected. Sometimes they just go for stock answers, but others have been rather colorful. I've considered a variation of the "You're in a bar" opening by having them start off in mid-bar fight (adjusting hit points and such down a bit to compensate for previous action). I suppose an Arena type setting would work for that also.
Fithero 09-03-07, 11:03 PM	I think that it can be boiled down to two points of origin, though there are numerous variations of each. They knew each other before the game and work together because they want to (friends, family, loved ones) They knew each other before the game and work together because they have to (employed by the same person, they all are survivors of the same attack/plague/disaster, they are chosen by destiny) But come on... meeting in the bar is the greatest part of being an adventurer!
Daniel _the_Zodiac 09-04-07, 12:34 AM	I like it when (and this works when you have players whose characters try to be the bad-a**-"I work alone"-Wolverine type) the group are all arrested for either a phony crime or are wrongly convicted and are forced by shadowy figures to accomplish a task to gain freedom. Makes people want to stick together when they are hunted or hurt as a team.
ArgulFraster 09-04-07, 03:37 PM	Or you can go for the classic-meet in a tavern. Argul built his party by wandering around town and introducing himself as a pyromaniac Felinian sorcerer on the lookout for gold, dungeons, and things to blow up. The people that didn't run away are now his party, though they added a cleric and switched Rogues.
Terjon of the Blue Rose 09-06-07, 12:00 AM	Or you can go for the classic-meet in a tavern. Argul built his party by wandering around town and introducing himself as a pyromaniac Felinian sorcerer on the lookout for gold, dungeons, and things to blow up. The people that didn't run away are now his party, though they added a cleric and switched Rogues. :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh :evillaugh Love it! A few times whoever is DMing in my group will just leave it to the players to decide if and how they are connected. Sometimes they just go for stock answers, but others have been rather colorful. I've considered a variation of the "You're in a bar" opening by having them start off in mid-bar fight (adjusting hit points and such down a bit to compensate for previous action). I suppose an Arena type setting would work for that also. This is precisely the sort of answer I was looking for. Had a game of my own start in a similar fashion. DM was planning on having a npc start a barfight but opened the door and let me do it instead. Of course I didn't know that was how he planned to start things but hey.
CrimsonDeath 09-06-07, 04:12 AM	Once, when I joined a campaign already in progress, the party actually went to a sort of Adventurers' guild looking for an arcanist. I happened to be a Sorceror... /Monk/Enlightened Fist. They were surprised when their new spellchucker ran up and kicked an Allosaurus square in the face. (An Allosaurus, I might add, who was chewing on the Paladin's mount at the time.)
Karish 09-06-07, 10:18 PM	Usually I enter a game as being the dude one person has known since childhood, and follows them because they have always been close friends and they adventured together. That or when I am introduced to an in-progress game, I'm a mercenary who they hire for a full share after seeing him in a tavern or other place and hearing about him beforehand.
Cuaglar 09-07-07, 01:08 PM	The best way I think I brought a party together went as follows. The game started off with each of the PC's in completely different cities. While they were wandering around on their business, they were assaulted by an unknown entity (since this was Eberron, I used the Emerald Claw). Each party was given a means to overcome the encounter some way; either direct, physical confrontation that they could win, or a means of escape that could be obtained with their skills (either jumping down or up to safety, or some weakness that could be taken advantage of via magic). After the defeat/escape of each encounter, the PC's either fled or found clues to lead them to one city, where, by fate or chance, they happen to meet, and form a plan to either permanently avoid the opposition or defeat it.
Orchomenos 09-10-07, 02:31 PM	Searching enlightenment: For an old game, the DM wanted us to all be "chosen heroes". We all had strange dreams, and we all traveled up to the oracle temple to seek what all this was about... only to learn we had a common mission. Unfortunately, this game turned out to be 100% RP, with no battle... (The best part was when I RP a dwarven cleric NPC and thought a young woman to read...) Job Posting: Say you want your campaign to be a remote town having troubles with orc raiders. Tell your players there is a job posting in the capital city's taverns, temples, thieves guilds... Everyone can answer the posting, for various reasons... And if it's clear in the job posting they're gonna fight orcs, then the ranger-lover can actually build a ranger with favored enemy: orc, and hope to see some!
meto30 09-13-07, 08:28 AM	A local militia organized by the government to stall an attack by goblins, or some other disaster that needs military attention. Most of the members are people driven by the need of self-defence, but there are some patriots, adventurer-wanna-bes, and outright mercenaries who agreed to help train the helpless farmers for some gold. PCs can choose from any of these groups, and flesh out a party from there. The problem would be that the story would need to be battle-oriented and have too much grime and too little fantasy. But I think this would make for epic plots, starting points for long campaigns.
zatoseyes 09-20-07, 02:27 AM	I like to mix and match based on what characters I have to put up with. In one of my campaigns the wizard (a gnome who thought he was a legendary archmage) met the psion when the psion was returning to Sharn to attend his fathers funeral. On the road to the city an airship was sailing off and a hat fell from it. It landed at his feet. He reached down to pick it up and the gnome fell out of it. As it turned out the gnome was a librarian in Zilargo (I forget the name of the city exactly) and he was a true bookworm. The archmage in question (dubbed Lokil Moshori by me) left his hat sitting on the table he was using to study the books. The gnome (then known as Nebin Pagemage) was trying on the hat when it sucked him in. The archmage returned to find it right where he left it. Nebin subsisted on a bottomless water skin and an endless cornocopia (or something similar this had been awhile) but the solitude drove him more or less insane. But he did get to study the archmages spellbook and practice magic while he was in there and when the psion accidentally let him out he promptly snatched the hat away from him and introduced himself as Loki Motion. He went on thinking he was the archmage. We're on hiatus from that campaign and I can't wait to get back to it to see how he reacts to learning his true identity.