1- I need a unique and interesting way for the adventurers to meet. Not just, in a tavern, unless its an interesting story of course.
2- Something big they are all going to want to fight together for. I will incorporate all the little adventures along the way. This is a huge game that will go from beginning to end. Until all the characters die off. Any unique ideas would come in handy.
Think of it like a story. How would they meet and what are they adventuring for. The characters o far is a Half Elf Ranger with a background of working in a mercenary group for 2 years and being a militia Ranger Leader for 6 years. He has a farmers hat that he wears under his Ranger hood sometimes, it's a mystery why? Another is a Paladin Halfling, lol, my friend just wanted to wing it I guess, and a fighter/Rogue (acts like Jarlaxle) who has a sky ship.
It is a adventure full of ideas in the making. I really need this to get my feet off the ground. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
I'm fond of starting my campaigns with flashback delves. "As you make camp this evening the bitter chill of an early winter reminds you all of when you first met at the Inn of Three Oaks last year..." Cue encounters with desperate bandits attacking the snowbound inn, followed by the unexpected crashlanding of a young dragon. PCs who can provide me with a good hook or two to use later on (eg why they were at the inn, or if they knew any of the bandits, etc) get some bonus XP for playing along. Gives everyone a chance to try out their characters and see how they work as a team, and if they find something that really needs changing that's fine - they retrained between the flashback and "now" in the storyline.
Not tremendously original, but given the importance of good party synergies letting the players test drive their PCs is always a good idea.
7. So, you all met in a Tavern...: The PCs all meet in a tavern, all seeking adventure and glory. Clinking their goblets together, they agree to work together to reap in fortune's rewards. Oh, the cliché!
8. Captured by Pirates! It's all in the name. The players may not have known each other before but now they must escape from the nasty pirates or be forever locked away below deck. (Why pirates would do this is beyond me but the players don't seem to notice.
9.) The City requires help from certain members in it's many different Guilds to [Insert Hook Here]...
If the Campaign starts in a big city that is racially diverse, the PCs can all start off as low-ranking members/officers in the city's many specialized Guild Academies for different Classes / Player Roles / or Power Sources.
This can be taken a step further by really allowing a PC to "go to town" on their background when classes can combine the fundamentals of different Power Sources. A Swordmage, for example, may've been in the Fighter's Guild for a short time but noticed a much stronger fascination towards magic. Thus transferring to the Mage's Guild/Academy to learn how to wield the magical arcane energies through the sword.
10. You all wake up the next morning in prison
Sure, let them tell you what they did the night before and then slap them in prison with a great walloping headache.
Nothing bonds parties like being set up, escaping a prison, evading and the authorities while locating the culprits.
11. Opposing interests converge. All the players are hired by different factions (in 1s and 2s) to steal the same item - and none of the aforementioned factions are the "good guys".
Jul 20, 2009 - 1:04PM #12
Graxith
12. Riot/Rebellion: The PCs are sent by different city officials to stop Rioting in a section of the city and then root out the leaders. PCs may or may not have seen each other beforehand but the Officials either
A. Feel that they would work well together. Or
B. Are from different parts of the city and don't know that the other officials are sending people to stop the rioting.
Jul 21, 2009 - 12:27PM #13
HyperionRising
13. Involuntary gladiator match: The PCs have been captured by criminals running an underground fight ring, and must escape before they get eaten by whatever monsters the criminals pit them against.
Jul 21, 2009 - 3:39PM #14
NullOperative
14. Blackmail. The PCs are each being blackmailed by the same person, group, or other entity. Whether a given PC knows the blackmailer's identity is up to you and the player. The blackmailer instructs each PC to meet at a certain place and time, where they will have an opportunity to pay off the blackmailer by performing a task with other blackmailed persons.
Jul 21, 2009 - 4:29PM #15
Chapien
15. Best Friends: the PCs are all childhood friends and have always worked together. This option is for all you lazy DMs out there!
Jul 21, 2009 - 4:37PM #16
Alltat
16. Shipwreck! The PCs are, each for their own reason, traveling on the same ship when something happens. It can be a shipwreck that leaves them stranded together somewhere, or an attack that has the same result. Any unwanted NPCs are killed. Replace the ship with a river boat or caravan as appropriate - anything that leaves the PCs stranded in the wilderness together can serve this purpose. The attack can be used as an adventure hook, or just as something that brings a group of people to a specific location, by destiny or chance.
Jul 21, 2009 - 10:00PM #17
Chimericphase17. Horrid Plague:
Jul 22, 2009 - 7:12AM #18
digibri
19. Met in the war. The players met sometime during the previous war.
To do this properly, you create a small scene, perhaps 2-3 short encounters, that enable the characters to meet and work towards a common goal. It's even possible for some characters to be on opposing sides at the beginning, as long as they can come together by the end.
Next, you "fast forward" to a few years after the war is over. Each player can summarize what their character has done during the intervening time. Now all you need is a plot element pulled/continued from the intro scene to use as an excuse to reunite the "war buddies".
Stolen from Eberron Campaign Guide
1 month ago :: Jul 27, 2009 - 9:11PM #19
NullOperative
20. Boot Camp. There is word that an enemy army may be approaching the area, and every able-bodied adult in town is ordered to report for militia duty. The PCs are grouped together in a unit, with either a lack of organization or planned diversity in units accounting for the range of powers and roles of the PCs. The PCs' first adventure together is a training mission after (or during) which the enemy arrives...
1 month ago :: Jul 27, 2009 - 10:48PM #20
CrossBlade
21 Love! Yes, it can work with more than 2 characters. Be it a love triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon, polygon, hendecagon or even a dodecagon! (Wow, 12 players! :eek Each one wants to be with the next, but not the former. It's like high school but the Halloween dance has a real witch (and I'm not talking about your math teacher).
- 12:53PM #21
KingOtyugh
All the members of the group are present at a Will reading and the group inherits a map. They are the offspring of the deceased's old adventuring party. It's also a way for them to start with some equipment and minor magic items. And it's also a way to start out with a enemy, as somebody there thinks they should have inherited these things.
Aug 11, 2009 - 3:15PM #22
Lordmanshoon
23. Prophecy - An ancient prophecy tells of a group of people (incidentally, everyone present who learns of the prophecy) who will band together to perform some great feat or bring about some major event. Thus, the PCs join together, cause apparently you can't fight fate.
Aug 13, 2009 - 3:58AM #23
NullOperative
24. Lifted Curse. The PCs have all been petrified, turned into animals and kept as pets, or otherwise cursed/afflicted and kept in one location away from the outside world. They come from a variety of backgrounds and could have wound up in this situation in any number of ways. Now the curse is lifted (possibly as the result of some other group of adventurers defeating their captor) and this group of people must find their way back to civilization.
Aug 13, 2009 - 7:14AM #24
Moldavian
25. Allegiance The PCs have an allegiance bound with the same person/organization. It's time for her to ask the PCs some kind of help.
26. Magic bound The PCs are bound by a magical meaning and if they want to get freedom back, they have to pursue the same goal.
2 weeks ago :: Aug 13, 2009 - 1:46PM #25 :
blaster219
=digibri;19066017]10. You all wake up the next morning in prison
Sure, let them tell you what they did the night before and then slap them in prison with a great walloping headache.
Nothing bonds parties like being set up, escaping a prison, evading and the authorities while locating the culprits.
A variation on this I'm using is:
"The prison guard lies at your feet, blood soaking into the dirt. You only have a few minutes before one of the other guards finds you standing over the body of his comrade, the murder weapon in you hands. Why are you here in a prison camp? What made you kill the guard? What do you do next?"
A plague struck the village the characters were staying in - killing everyone except the players and perhaps a few NPCs. They've never met before and each character probably has their own motivation for why they were there, but now there is no one else to turn to for assistance except each other.
18. It's Your Birthday/Wedding/Bar Mitzvah/Etc Party! Similar to the funeral idea but less depressing. A character or an NPC is having a celebration and all the characters have either been invited or are guests of an invitee. Then something happens! Who springs to action?
I really think more games should encourage this sort of group-building. If done right, it gives characters an immediate background, and a whole mess of folks they have connections to.
In your case, it sounds as though they could work for a merchant group as security or something. Let them play a few small adventures transporting valuable cargo via skyship, then let things start getting weird on them. You can sever their employment (maybe they find out about some shady dealings of this group), but they stick together out of cameraderie.
26. Magic bound The PCs are bound by a magical meaning and if they want to get freedom back, they have to pursue the same goal.
The PCs are informed that each of them have an ancestor who bargained with a power from the Feywild - or the Elemental Chaos, the Astral Sea, etc. Now the bill has come due and it turns out that your PCs are the ones that have to pay it. You must serve this power in exchange for your ancestors' gain.
I'm about to start a campaign but I can't find two things.
1- I need a unique and interesting way for the adventurers to meet. Not just, in a tavern, unless its an interesting story of course.
2- Something big they are all going to want to fight together for. I will incorporate all the little adventures along the way. This is a huge game that will go from beginning to end. Until all the characters die off. Any unique ideas would come in handy.
I always liked the event in the Belgariad by Eddings. Where Garion is in a Tavern with friends across the border in an enemy stare when the Church of Torak recruiters burst in and capture everyone in the Tavern recruiting them into the Unholy Armies of Torak.
Dont be afraid to start out with the Tavern surrounded by badies on all sides. Then a couple of the seedier types slip out through an escape tunnel in the cellar - but dont tell the PCs.
ON PAIN OF DEATH
There seemed to be some distant commotion out in the street that was growing steadily louder. Carius struggled to his feet.
"Does anyone hear that noise?" He staggered toward the only exit.
"What is it Carius?" Andar looked at his companion standing in the only real source of illumination in the whole Tavern.
Carius the Mage dropped his Tankard and retreated from the door of the Tavern as deep into the shadows of the seedy little nest of ill repute as possible.
"Church of Durha!" The words sent a ripple through the gathered patrons who knew what those fundamentalist nutbags thought of Alcohol and those who drank it.
A Patron ran to the door and looked out.
"They are erecting an impaling Pole in the Market place!" He watched as some 'heretic' was hoisted into the air on a pole. The Victim didnt even Scream. Church Soldiers marched into the Alley and headed toward the Tavern.
"Oh Dog Spit! They are sending Soldiers this way!" All hell broke loose in the Tavern.
DM BRIEFING: A Church of Fundamentalists devoted to the extermination of Taverns and Alcohol drinkers siezes control of a community with an Army of Church Soldiers and begins slaughtering local drinkers. THe PCs are in the Local Tavern at the Time.
basically all the characters hated the same person, and the aim of the first quest was to put that person in a shallow grave.
The piazo curse of the crimson throne started with a good pretext.
basically all the characters hated the same person, and the aim of the first quest was to put that person in a shallow grave.
Are we talking KILL BILL? or KILL BARGLE?
When Dark Sun hits, I'm planning on having the players build the organization they belong to first (for a really detailed look at this approach, check out A Song Of Ice and Fire RPG). The'll decide if they're in service of a noble family, a merchant house, a desert tribe, or whatever. They might have rough character ideas, but they don't get to make them until they have created their loyalties first. Then they build characters around that group.
I really think more games should encourage this sort of group-building. If done right, it gives characters an immediate background, and a whole mess of folks they have connections to.
In your case, it sounds as though they could work for a merchant group as security or something. Let them play a few small adventures transporting valuable cargo via skyship, then let things start getting weird on them. You can sever their employment (maybe they find out about some shady dealings of this group), but they stick together out of cameraderie.
Love this idea.