I want the PCs to find each other and become an adventuring party. My co-writer of the game wants everyone to start off as a party of mercenaries.
Here's my question and the reason for this thread...
What are some good starting points for a campaign?
What are the merits/problems concerned with...
A. Starting the group off as an existing team
B. Having the group form a party over a session or two
-Have them all be on a ship traveling for some far off land when it crashes.
-Have them enslaved and in need of each other's help to escape.
-Have them summoned by a high ranking guild or political official and say they've been chosen for an assignment.
etc.
For the campaign I'm starting soon, I've had the players all transported magically to another plane. They're starting together in the middle of a giant desert with only one landmark in sight.
You don't even have to make them each come up with a new idea, necessarily. If two players decide that their characters served in the same unit in a war, and two more players want to also have that background, your players have just linked most/all of the party together without you forcing it on them!
Then, once the characters have at least a little trust in each other since nobody is completely surrounded by strangers, I drop them into a dangerous situation. In one campaign, I had all the PCs hired or ordered to explore the same tomb for different purposes (some were researchers from the library devoted to Ioun, one was a treasure hunter, and the defenders were each there to keep an eye on one of the others). In another, I had the PCs all arrive at the same inn, then promptly had the inn collapse and fall into some newly-dug kruthik tunnels, trapping them underground and forcing them to work together to get out.
It helps believability in those situations if PCs recognize other PCs and have some reason to trust them. I leave it largely up to the players, though, how they know each other and why they work together.
You can always start in a tavern....
Who doesn't remember the opening to FFVII? You start off as a mercenary group infiltrating and blowing up some government facility. Then you work your way backwards to character development. A game like that demands your attention!
No one knew each other and in our character backgrounds the DM asked us to be in a certain city at the beginning of the adventure. Late in the night while we were sleeping/ resting someone broke into our rooms and stole something, as our characters chased the thieves we meet up in the streets and realized we were all hunting the same group. It was a cool start; we all had the same goal, but did not truly trust each other. As we played we found our Items were items of legend.
Each character came to the same city to purchase equipment and embark upon an adventuring career of some kind (players can fill in details of their motivations and back story). Due to infiltration of bandits into so-called mercenary groups, hiring of mercenaries has been outlawed by private individuals. However a villager desperate for help against goblins gave each of the characters a discreet flyer asking them to meet in a tavern in a nearby village. I did this as a device to get them all to answer the same call without having been a unit first, and with rationale for why other established mercenaries didn't take the job.
First session begins with the characters all at the tavern, waiting to hear about their first job, and the villager is late in arriving. So while they wait, instruct them to interact, introducing themselves and telling their stories to one another. This gives them a chance to RP their characters right off the bat for one another and also gives the "how did we all meet" question an easy answer. When they're done, the villager shows up and gives them their first quest (I used the goblin adventure from the starter game, but it could just as easily be something from dungeon delve, Kobold Hall from the DMG, a bandit camp or any campaign against some monster ravaging the countryside). I made the village fairly poor, sort of a Seven Samurai scenario.
It should be more or less a given that they're all going to accept this first quest; you could have a couple of NPC's also there (possibly as comic relief) who either decide not to accept the offer or who are rejected by the villager. So the thing that binds the party initially is just that they all got hired. Chances are by the time they've completed the first quest they'll have bonded as an adventuring unit - my players spontaneously decided they needed to formalize their adventuring band with a name before they returned to claim their bounty.
I think the next campaign I start will have the PCs thrust directly into battle. Then, after each encounter, one of the players has to tell her character's background, including how it's connected to the background of at least one other character. This will give each player a small bit of authority over the background of the other PCs (in the form of their connection to that PC), which I think is risky, but I'm curious to see what happens.
This will also require the DM to improve a bit. But I find that to be a good thing. "Winging it" isn't easy but when it works you get the best sessions.
I like the start of a one-shot adventure called A Dark and Stormy Night. A storm is ravaging the area with large hail, lightning, rain, etc. and the only shelter is a large outcropping near a cave entrance.
That is a good starter, well worth snatching ideas from.
Also, I did a fun one once, they all met at a funeral, where an old man, known as Grandpa to some, or just known as Mr Stook to others, who were there in company with someone who attended the funeral, like grandpa or grandma.
When the old priest started to talk about Mr Stook and what they had lived through as youngsters, the adventures they had survived, the dead comrades they had left behind, the old priest lit a fire inside the hearts and minds of those youngsters. They all realized that their grandma or grandpa had been an adventurer when they were young. And after, at the wake, sitting around a table (one PC, selected by me), suggested that they should do like their grand parents had done, they should be adventurers.
What are some good starting points for a campaign?
I believe in having the players determine how their characters are connected, either during character creation or the first session. You'll get surprising results and plot hooks without having to do any work, and the players will feel more invested in the game. Everybody wins.
However, this might not be for every group, so in the spirit of your question here are a couple cool starting points:
* PCs are in the midst of a war, fighting on the same side (or maybe not?) when suddenly everything goes black. They wake up amidst the dead, apparently the only survivors. What happened? And why are they alive?
* PCs are being interrogated/tortured when something happens and one of the good-aligned ones manages to escape, and in the process risks his/her neck to free the other PCs. You can also set up an interesting inter-PC foil if a roguish PC escape moments before without aiding the others.
What are the merits/problems concerned with...
A. Starting the group off as an existing team
Saves time, but makes assumptions not backed up with actual play. Better for more experienced groups who are able to differentiate between player vs. character knowledge, and for friends who already know each other.
B. Having the group form a party over a session or two[/b]
Organic relationships form, but takes more time. Better for new/less experienced groups, especially if folks don't know each other well.