What's your favorite way to get the party together?I like "everyone is on the same boat," because everyone is basically stuck with each other no matter what, there's no plot magic keeping them in the same tavern together."You're all in jail together" is a good one too.
>>93931681I like "you are coworkers who know eachother but aren't necessarily close, sent to do a job together." I'm using that one in the campaign I'll start this saturday.
>>93931763I started my campaign that way and it’s been going for 3 years now. Of the original 4 PCs only 1 is left. It’s a fun way to start a campaign>PCs 1 and 2 land at the starport after smuggling PC 3. 1 and 2 are here for a job and 3 needs cash while on the run. They bump into PC 4 and notice they’re all walking the same direction. Then they enter the same place, are invited to the back by the same patron and all receive the same job.My favorite way to do it personally
>>93931681>you all wake up >something is horribly wrong In the upcoming game they'll be waking up after apparently killing the fuck out of a bunch of undead. Just standing on the battlefield. I'm interested to see how they react to it.
>>93931827That sounds rad as hell
>>93931950It's a fun way to start things. My last game started with half the 'team' dead (the party had selected from a pre-made list) and burned to a black crisp on their cryo pods. The other game had them wheeled in front of their necromancer overlords only half-coherent after almost getting their souls burned out. As their masters were stitching them together they got their mission objectives and a little bit of Madness removal. That entrance was hit and miss, although it turned out one player just generally didn't like the system. Also every character in the first game had an extra skill on their sheet just labeled 'DENY CAPTURE' in red text. You can probably guess what it would have done if they'd used it.
>>93931681Starting in the entrance of the first dungeon generally works for me; I can get straight to the game right after character generation.
I'm working on my next campaign starting with them all waking up from cryo tubes on a fucked space station.
>>93932717I feel like sci fi campaigns have a lot more room for possible starting scenarios
>>93931681Cardinal Richelieu was Joseph Stalin's in a previous life.
>>93931681had one game start with all the PC's standing around a hole in the ground with a treasure chest at the bottom and their weapons drawn on each other in a mexican standoff.Then the mongolian horde arrives.
>>93931681>You all stand at one entrance to the ruins. The sun is setting and what skulks when night falls is far worse than anything you'll encounter below.>You're standing in a police line up after a riot. One by one, witnesses identify you. Did you commit a crime?>Congratulations, you just jettisoned the captain. Tell me why, and show me on this map where you're going.
>>93934538>>Congratulations, you just jettisoned the captain. Tell me why, and show me on this map where you're going.This one is a winner. Anything that forces the players themselves to drive things forward is great in my book
>>93931681>You are attending the funeral of an adventurer dead in mysterious circumstances.>As the crowd begins to separate, you are approached by a previously unknown acquaintance of the deceased. He has something to tell you.
In my current campaign, the PCs have been picked (as apostles?) by a powerful fearie being obsessed with becoming a god. The party, to ultimately summon and defeat or bow to The Herald, as the being calls themselves, has to collect candles scattered around the continent, with the true name of the god-to-be.
>>93931681>You're all standing on the podium, awaiting your execution.
>>93931681Started them off as commoners living in the same village. Sessions 1-3 had them going about daily tasks that played into their skills and attributes. Getting cozy with their neighbors. Session 4...They lose it all. Wake up in a mass grave, having survived by some miracle. Surrounded by the burning or rotting dead of those they'd built up a little bond with.
>>93934434Hm, I agree with you in a way, and I don't. It seems to me like there are maybe 4 good ways to start a campaign, and a bunch of window dressing varieties.
>>939348413 sessions seem like an awful long time spent on a basically prolonged introduction where, from what I understood, nothing really happen.
>Pregame>"How do you all know each other?">Session 1>"You're all in [location], you've all been working together for some time, when [thing] happens."I expect your characters to immediately become best friends willing to fight and die for each other, or you come up with a better idea. As a player I follow the same principles and create undying bonds of loyalty on a whim. I came here to play, not to roleplay out a first date.
>>93935110But we're playing Vampire. We're not friends, we're colleagues with the potential to be adversaries given a sufficient advantage.
>>93931681I'll be using a lottery board inspired by the U.S.s' Vietnam war draft and the U.S. Air Forces' "Drop Night.>have my party invited to a fancy dinner>mingle with other classmates>meet and greet their potential senior officers >bring out the tumbler>everyone in line and drops their name into tumbler>look up at the big board with the task groups>wait and watch as names get pulled and assignedBish, bash, bosh. Dun
>>93934748My ancestors are smiling at me, Anonymous. Can you say the same?
>>93934940It was mainly them pulling pranks, establishing relationships, doing favors for family and neighbors, and prepping for a kind of harvest festival in which they got to practice skills they'd expanding on once taking a class. A slow burn but the payoff was worth it. The last night they'd gotten hammered and were leading the local watchmen on a chase through the near by woods. It's how they ended up passed out and eventually in the corpse pit. Was also little hints throughout of an approaching army like things being found down stream but mostly had a jovial vibe until it turned into the horrors of war. Having to sneak around a place they were so used to and comfortable with, in fear of being found out. Knowing they weren't strong enough yet to avenge their loved ones and so on. Made for great motivation.
>>93934937It’s like the old thing about how there are only 2 plots: a stranger comes to town, and a man goes on a journey.
>>93931681I tell my players to figure out how they're all connected so I don't have to deal with lone wolf standoffish refusing-to-help-the-other-PCs-because-that's-what-my-charater-would-do bullshit.
>>93935651and yet the formula of "how do you know each other?" followed by "you're all together in [place] when [thing] happens" still holds, the answers are just a bit more possibly adversarial.
>>93931681I started one with a murder mystery on a train. Worked well because they're all stuck there going to the same destination, and all have motivation to figure out the murder or they could be next.Followed it with the train getting attacked and attempted derailing, which again they all have invested motivation to stop.By the time they arrived in town they know how to work together and have some plot threads to follow up on.
>>93937038That's actually one plot but told from different perspective.
>>93931681there's a post that goes something along the lines of "A and B are balls-deep in a halfling prostitute(C). D walks in. roll initiative"
generally speaking "you all already met and shared information and are now outside the dungeon" but I might layer this on top next time for some extra fun if I have players that might like it
>>93931681>You meet in a TavernAnd then I ask the newest player "why's it on fire?"
>>93934453Considering how considerate he was of Marie's many many fuckups, not really. Ultimately, he served Louis which is certainly not Stalinesque behaviour. Though you really shouldn't pissed him if you were out of royal blood. See Montmorency-Bouteville or Chalais.
>>93934589I was the one who proposed the funeral last thread. My own variation is that every PC knew the deceased who was probably some sort of important person that was maintaining the statu quo. Now, everything is about to go to hell, and the main NPCs and threats are most certainly at the funeral too.
>>93931681They have been hired for a job, it makes it make sense a vastly different group of people are together, gives a nice goal to acomplish and they have to be together to at least plan some of it.
>>93939860Care to share what were the most interesting answers? I'm curious.
