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Under the tavern is a backroom casino and you just lost all your gold. Top of the tavern you wait with a group of thieves to break into said tavern. You guys meet in front of the tavern as folks run out from tavern screaming. Group goes in to investigate.
You see, I was pretty much forced to have my players start in a Tavern, because one of them was a merchant trying to sell potions in areas of high traffic, one was a bard trying to find a place to gain more reputation, one was a weary traveler getting in from a long trip on the road... and one of them owned the local tavern.
How about we take a page out of Dark Souls III's book: the PCs all rise from their graves in the same cemetery. They were previously dead, and now they aren't. Part of the introductory adventure is dealing with the emotional turmoil of coming to immediate terms with their deaths, and part of it involves figuring out why they've come back. This could open up the adventure to some real fish-out-of-water fun. Some of the characters may have originally perished "mere" years ago, so they must adapt to a certain amount of time passing ("My sons are all old men by now, if they even yet live." Or "My spouse/lover moved on to a new relationship, and I no longer have a place here."). But other of the characters may have been dead for centuries, even millennia. To them, even their old lands are unrecognizable. They may even have trouble communicating with each other, because language is never static, and even Common isn't what it used to be. Kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen. Technology has advanced, as has magic. A Cleric or Paladin might find the deity they served has fallen out of favor, and their own faith is now a minority religion. Or, contrarily, they may have been followers of a fringe deity or path, only to find the fledgling faith of their time has grown huge...as well as _decadent and corrupt_ . Not to mention what the characters may be going through, from being ripped from their afterlives. One way to do it may be to just say the characters remember nothing from their time dead; at best, they have hazy recollections, which may color their perceptions and attitudes. A different way, however, would be to have the characters remember, and have that really affect them. Those who went to good afterlives may feel sorrow at being denied paradise. Those who went to lower places, however, may be scarred by their torment, and may even dread the idea of going back.
I tried to do that once... you know i may try to do that concept again. The issue was the players never questioned it. And the campaign fell apart a few weeks later because of the chaos they just wanted to preform instead of the story to follow.
In the game I am currently running, I started off session zero with "we're going to start on a pirate ship. Who are you?" My players are all chaotic IRL, so I thought that this would end up with one being the captain and the rest crew of varying degrees, maybe a stowaway or something. They decided on their own that they were slaves, but the captain was fair so they could work their way up. Now, two sessions later, they are about to meet a rival pirate queen and be given the choice to betray the captain for their freedom. I guess what I'm getting at is that if you start off vague enough, the players might fill in the blanks in a way you never could have.
So when one of my players died at the end of a session I did an interlude for her new pirate captain character where I said "You wake up hungover, and the town around you is being burnt to the ground you don't know why but you know that it's all your fault."
Other ideas? 1. All meeting as stow-aways for different reasons in the hull of a ship, or a smugglers hold. 2. County fair all Robin hood like with different competitions. 3. The party all being students in Sigil Preparatory Academy 4. A random accident involving over-ripened turnip soup without adequate potatoes , which as everyone knows, acts as an aphrodisiac for umberhulks, which just ruined the experiments of a certain gnomish illusionist, which curiously converged with a random adventurer chasing a squirrel who nabbed a family ring, which a certain rogue thought might be valuable, just as another scoundrel left through the window of an illicit tryst, the husband mistakenly sending his warrior to chase the - this time - innocent rogue , and rammed into a very awkward looking illithid, just having had his illusion dispelled, and . . .
I just started my last campaign on the sea. It was a great beginning. Nothing beats the look on your players face when a dragon turtle head comes through the bottom deck while they are eating. Only to run top deck and find they had actually got rammed by a kobald pirate ship with a dragon turtle head mounted on their boat.
One of my favorite starting locations came from one of my friend's ad-hoc, seat of the pants brilliant ideas (that might be a good idea for a video too now that I think of it. Some of your best on-the-fly decisions as a DM) anyways, the concept is that all of the PCs are the children of retired adventurers who have established a retirement community out in a (once) haunted forest, because let's face it, no one wants a retired adventurer around. Their massive wealth will disrupt the economy and social structure of almost any settlement, not to mention the wickedly powerful enemies they've collected over the years coming back for revenge. The solution? Go back to what got you here in the first place. Band together. Carve out a space for yourself. And then they had kids. You. You've read the monster manual, it's part of your basic education. You were weaned on the personal exploits of the indomitable, you might even be tired of hearing about them by now. The fantastic and amazing are mundane to you. How does that affect your perceptions of life in the "real world" once you finally get away from your parents and fly the coop? Part of character creation is dictating who exactly your parents were and why they were famous. It's a great way to throw in cameos from former characters or iconic characters from the sourcebooks, or even older editions of the sourcebooks. (One character had a grandpa who was an old paladin with dementia who would occasionally start going on about contending with a beast called THAC0 and no one really knew what he was talking about.) It can be a really fresh way to start a party for the group who's seen it all and now they're playing the antsy teenager who THINKS they know everything there is to know. Then prove how wrong they really are. I've found that simply getting to know who the character's parents were helps a lot in really getting players invested in their characters.
Started my most recent campaign by having the players going about their normal lives throughout the world before blacking out and waking up in a dark room with basic puzzles in it, clad only in purple robes with gold eyes on them. After getting out of the room they found out that a beholder was dreaming of some new minions, causing the players to teleport to his lair.
I like the "You start in a Tavern," setting, but always with a major twist, like, "The first quest takes place completely in the tavern and is about a dragon's lair," or "You are actually in the City of Doors."
What I like to do is "Your in a tavern. But its on fire. And the door is doesn't budge." Quick way to get the group to trust eachother without saying: you already know/have worked with eachother before. Ive also for a oneshot just had the party start on a boat. They already had a quest and in a party in character, but I gave them time to chat on the boat as to introduce themselves out of character
The starts for my last two long-term campaigns: 1) Characters are hired as a delivery team for a large shipment of iron nails to a frontier town. When they get there, it turns out that no one ordered them. The "quest-givers" are actually troublemakers who understand what murderhoboes are, and they want to stir up problems along a perilous frontier (the nails are desired by goblins who are barred from having iron weapons). 2) All the PCs get an invitation from the villag1e's most eligible bachelorette for a festival when young people cook for prospective spouses. Why does she invite more than one suitor? What does a strange smith who has recently taken up residence at her house want with the PCs? Here are other ideas I put into a random table: 3) All the PCs hail from the same village. Perhaps they are part of the same extended family, and are being summoned by the clan patriarch or matriarch to deal with a family problem. The relations need not be biological - who is to say a clan has to be of the same race? 4) The PCs are all servants (maybe dependents or slaves) of the same local aristocrat. He wants them to go collect taxes from a nearby village which has stopped paying for some reason. 5) The PCs are hired by a lord's contractor to settle a frontier village. The lord is giving a good deal - settle tax-free for 5 years as you establish a homestead. But who else lives nearby? (variant: PCs are hired to go man an outpost in the wilderness which has been longed abandoned - this could be the start to a hexcrawl). 6) The PCs are members of a troupe of entertainers, traveling from place to place (variant: PCs are part of a merchant caravan or a group of pilgrims en route to a famous shrine). 7) The PCs are agents for a potential invader, or a group of bandits. They are to scout out a place prior to a full-scale invasion. 8) PCs are refugees from a disaster (famine, war), or captives of raiders, who want to sell them at a slave market far away. 9) PCs have just awakened from a long enchanted sleep. How long have they slept, and do they remember anything? (this is a variant of the amnesia trope, or the "rising from graves" trope mentioned below.
You guys never cease to read my mind. I'm starting a new campaign tomorrow and I've been struggling for where to start. Just searched your channel for this last night.
One fun idea I had is where each party member is an individual explorer/adventurer, and they all bump into each other while exploring a ruin or dungeon. The hosility or surprise upon meeting their competition could lead into a common problem-- a monster that none of them encountered or remembered to look out for.
Cool idea I've found for starting a campaign. Although it's a bit dark, start at a funeral of a dead npc - could have been poisoned, murdered, turned into a zombie etc. No one knows who did it and it starts as a kind of murder mystery (perhaps there may be other recent cases of the same thing). You may be there because of some sort of connection the npc or may just be there to work out who did it and claim a bounty for the murderer. Maybe the players are trying to sort out the case or trying to cover up their involvement. Thoughts?
Murder mysteries are a valid start for players who like more Role Playing in their adventures. It isn't a good place to start for murder hobo players though. Those types just tend to kill every NPC who shows up in their line of sight. The murder mystery gets lost in all the killing, raping, and pillaging the players are engaging in.
I am playing with my daughters, where they started on a field trip for school. They went to a museum and got teleported by an artifact, to medieval somewhere or other...along with changing into their player character
One of my favorite openers, i had the players check in to the tavern. Then early morning they were rudely awoken and literally dragged out of their beds and brought to trial. There was a murder and since the charters were new to town they were immediately suspect. The trial was ran by a very racist human and it pushed everything worse and worse till he got fed up and threw the party into a hole that had a horrific monster lurking about... and unbeknownst to the town, led into goblin caves... Eventually they dug a hole out of there from the goblin caves and sicked the goblins on the pricks that threw them down here. It was beautiful.
Ive also had the players start off being hired by a caravan of halflings to help guard it, however i didn't run any encounters with that. I used this to describe the land, to tell a few legends and tales that the halflings sang, and the somber news as they approached a destroyed city. Destroyed recently by dragons. And the few survivors trying desperately to scavenge their lives out of the rubble and prepare for the monsters that already have threatened the town.
I have an Idea: start the party as hired by two different powerful competing benefactors, have them compete for the same treasure, but make it clear they need to work together to survive the situation. Then make both benefactors double-cross the PC's, when they succeed in finding the treasure/artifact, then put them on the run from two powerful rival leaders...
Something to add to the first hook you talked about. All the players are up for auction as slaves (players choice of why) a mysterious man (GM's choice of description) buys them and gives them a task to complete for their freedom. Easy fill in the blank for anyone reading the comments!
Perfect timing for this video guys. Just finished tomb of annihilation as a player feeling energized and ready to DM my first Homebrew starts this Saturday and I'm pretty much trying to figure out how we are getting the band together.
In the middle ages in Europe, a wide variety of people went on pilgrimage for all sorts of reasons: piety, tourism, or just had to leave town for a while.
The feudal samurai campaign i just joined had us all meet at the end of a battle. My goblin was in a prison wagon transport that got stopped by the battle. All the other players were basically in the same boat
For the more RP focused campaigns, I have grown fond of what AngelArts does in his campaigns which is the “origin story” approach. It’s where each player role-plays individually before meeting the party in order to establish their characters.
Cameron Begley ua-cam.com/users/angelarts He is primarily a video game LPer, but he has run four campaigns on his channel, although none of them are in a DnD setting. He has also been in two campaigns as a player on Dawnforgedcast’s channel, The Sinlyn Trials and The Ballad of Loch Rannoch.
I know this as "prelude": After "Session Zero" the GM do play one session with each character. 2:03 "As the GM you wish you players to give you a reason to play!". Prelude is the way for the GM to get that from the players! 2:00 "As a player you wish a reason to play!". Again: Prelude is the way for the players to get that from the GM! I sense many problems arise from GMs forgetting to take the PCs into account, the typical sign is that the group is not a group! As I have seen then there are two common approaches to assemble the group: (1) At Session Zero give specific instructions to character creation that give the PCs what is needed for them to be together. (Membership of an organization, employed by someone/something, what ever...) (2) At Session One an event causes that the characters find them self in a situation where they have to work together to save the day. The first of the two is the more reliable. The second often give the best results, but is risky as they may fail. Still, in the failure situation, I will say that it is good to stop something that do not work well early to restart with focus at why previous attempt failed!
My last two starts were - you receive a package, incl with a note to travel to location. Other was - you were randomly walking down this road and reach this ambush point at the same time (~3).
Hmm, not the best idea to start with a blatant railroad. I can see players being not enthusiastic with starting as the target of an ambush with no say about how they walked into it. Also little cause to not suspect the other characters of being part of the ambush as well. Of course if this is a Paranoia game it makes perfect sense. The computer is your friend, and you must obey the computer.
I started my campaign with several huge towers rising from the earth, only to have excavation teams unearth the entrances but have none of them escape once they enter. The party meets up at one particular tower based on this information along with motives of curiosity, knowledge, treasure to band together and figure out the mystery behind these towers.
How about a magical and martial mixed combat guild, and the PC's join said guild, and are in a yearly fighting tournament, meeting there as fighters vs one another. Then fighting a golem as a group.
I had my party start in the stables. Long story, but the dwarf had just arrived in the village and was putting his horse away when the human (who was a member of the city guard) arrived to muck out the stalls. The dwarf played a trick on the human and made him think the horse was talking to him! By the time the elf arrived, he'd been in a 40 minute in game argument with the horse before realizing the dwarf was tricking him. The elf walked in to a "poop-flinging" war and nearly took a snoot full of horse pie! That was a GREAT way to get the characters together!
The most unique opening I recall from a published D&D adventure was from an old solo wilderness-adventure module, "Eye of the Serpent". The PC gets dumped in a giant nest by a roc and has to find a path down the mountain and get back to the coast. Easily adaptable concept for a whole adventuring party, if they're all traveling in the same small boat or wagon.
you could just drop them into a battle. they're all in a squad together or a platoon together and now have to fight together to survive, it's up to them to explain why and how they got involved in this battle in the first place but I've found this is an easy way to make the beginning of the game exciting.
clericofchaos1 that is a great way to start. Think about were most action films start, in the center of the action. I am all for passing the buck to the players and saying "how did you get here."
Also, most interesting place to start the party off I've been able to think of, is a colosseum-style arena fight, where they all end up fighting in an elimination-style duel until one of them gets to the top. A good way to dole out a little EXP at the beginning, get the party acquainted with each other's abilities, and give them a decent chance to walk away with prize money.
One of my favorite starts to a campaign was "You are in a tavern. Roll for initiative." Yes, it was a start in a tavern, but it was one that I will always remember. I don't remember a lot of campaign starts from that time, but that one sticks with me.
I mostly have my groups make their characters together, and write up their own "first story of how they met" and then we start their adventure from there. Usually in the woods, after they've already agreed yes to their next adventure. It gets the ball rolling faster than most other things. Especially since most of me and mine don't have much time for "setup" as we only have 2-3 hours a week to play.
I'm kind of daft, so first thing I though of was an "adventure exchange" basically an office in the local capitol that functions as a job center for unemployed adventerers. Think there's some good oppertunity for comedy there as the party is basically thrown together on the spot as they get told there's a job come in but it requires at least X people, where X just happens to be the number of players! :D
I have started campaigns where the party was already working as a special ops for a temple order at a border castle. They rolled with it and we had a great campaign where they had a mentor that steered them to objectives. I always wanted to start a campaign where they are already in a battle defending a village along side of the town guards. Still working on that one. Another idea was that they wake up as recovering patients in a hospital temple in a plague racked area. They are recovering and meet in the hospital room.
I recently DM'd a campaign that started in a ruined city that had sealed it's walls off and the party snuck in through a sewer line. Their goal was to end a civil war, end a curse that kinda caused it, and slay the leader of one of three factions. I kinda enjoy limiting their resources and locations, such as making gear from salvage and scraps. Their gold was useless be cause the city valued silver to keep undead from one of the factions at bay, etc.
First game of the campaign I started last week saw the first 4 of a 6 man party (the other two coming in later) being woken up by a town watch corporal banging on the cell bars with a baton "get up you worthless dogs!" as the party members and a couple of NPC's were arrested the night before for brawling in the local tavern. They're all horribly hung over and are offered a chance to get out of jail early for inspecting a ship that had run aground onto some rocks during a storm last night for a specific chest amongst the cargo the local lord is most anxious to have, no questions asked. Aboard the ship the seemingly unfortunate accident in foul weather turns into a murder mystery as they discover highly suspect cargo items, dead sailors stabbed and the ship sabotaged to run aground with the captain and 6 crew unaccounted for between the bodies recovered and the survivors on the beach. The story continues later this week! My players texting theories and hype messages every day since game 1 looking forward to see what happens next!
I think that you should figure out why the characters have gathered in the same town, village, or whatever place you start the campaign at, after discussing what the character's motivations for adventuring are. Then just use their goals as a meeting point for the group. In my campaign I decided we would start off with the paladin stealing a letter that has important information that the church is hiding. Then hiring a ranger to get him through the forest as quickly as possible, so he can get to the capital. Tagging along with the ranger was a bard, who wanted to gather information and experience about the lives of rangers and write a book. They got to an inn where they stumbled upon the eldritch knight, who was new to the order (which served the Tsar) and was going to the capital to receive further training, and asked him for help. He was being tailed by a rogue spy, who, on the following day, presented himself as a merchant down on his luck, who didn't want to travel the road alone.
Love you guys's work and help, the current running campaign I have going started out in a caravan hub with a single building (of course a tavern) but as they arrived it was bustling with activity due to a slave auction that was taking place, one of the players (a goliath barbarian with INT 3) was being sold as a slave, the others just showed up at the right time. I had the barbarian do STR checks to escape the chains and after 3 rounds of bets he did causing a crazy scene. It was pretty awesome. Not in a tavern but the tavern was still there hahaha
One good one I've heard of recently, though this is, of course, very setting dependent: passengers on an ocean-going ferry. You get the same kind of "people from varying backgrounds would gather here" thing from a tavern, but you also have something different to give it a unique flavour. The setting I heard this used in is kinda early Age of Sail technology, so the inciting event was piracy, but you could have other issues as well. Kinda a less extreme version of the shipwreck setup.
One of my favorites is your hometown is being invaded by an enemy army, and it your goal to escape because if you stay you die. Plus it sets up a campaign goal of reclaiming your home.
A favorite "have the party get to know each other" start is at a community festival/fair. The celebration is complete with contests and prizes (uptick adventure gear) that map up well with each of the character's abilities. After the players get a chance to see each other in action with relatively low stakes activities, have your adventure plot hook happen as the festival/fair is winding down post award ceremony and the celebrants and contestants are moving on to eating and drinking. Suitable plot hooks can include: murder of a prominent citizen discovered, invasion of celebration by "dangerous" creatures, a stolen item the owner desperately wants recovered, etc. The party is roped into helping based on their presumably winning performance in the contests showing them to be above and beyond the "average" people of the community. The best part is this start is really setting independent, and works from fantasy to sci-fi. It might be a bit harder in post apocalyptic settings as celebrations are less likely.
I had a couple of set ups for one shots. One of them was that they were chained underground by some skelletons and they had to leave. They were practically naked but the skellies had weapons to steal so it good. Another set up was that they all traveled to the same destination, they slept on the same tavern and saw eachother, and even shared carriage, but they get stopped by bandits and got to chose to lose everything and keep their lives or fight and keep their stuff.
I ran a sci fi campaign where I allowed my 5 players to go off by themselves, but if they weren't with the main group, I would start a timer when their turn came around and let them accomplish as much as they wanted within one minute. The first 30 minutes of the first session was their characters exploring the capital city of the planet they started on. Every character was essentially wrapping up their previous jobs and receiving pay at the Star Port (this gave me a chance to give them their starting funds and possibly even equipment in character, and it established the jobs their characters had). Two of players were smugglers who were partners (pretty much Han Solo/Chewbacca style), another was a bounty hunter, one of them was a shapeshifter assassin, and the last one was a native primitive of the planet. Taking into account their characters lives and jobs, I improv'd a new job for them that required their individual skill sets by having the contractor scout them out for a heist job that involved planting weapons that were stolen from an underworld gang in the area in their rival gang's warehouse in order to tip them off and incite a gang war. They all met in the job contractors safe house, and they had to discuss a strategy and get to know each other's strengths and weaknesses before preparing for the heist set up. All of them loved it lmao. They felt like they had a lot of freedom to move and choose (especially since most of my campaigns are 10% written, 90% extremely quick improv, sometimes no preparation whatsoever because I never know what my players will do, so I just roll with their choices and let them essentially make the story as they go without them ever realizing it lol)
I never actually started in a tavern. Now, thanks to Frank Mentzer's Castle Mistamir as an example starting at the entrance of a dungeon the party wanted to loot is something that happened -- not that in medias res hasn't been done well in some campaigns.
I once started a campaign with the "heist" using aliases. I worked with a parody of Reservoir Dogs, giving each player a name from that movie (Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, etc.). It went over really well, and one of the players not only caught on, he ran with it by reenacting the waitress tipping debate (he was Mr. Pink). Quite fun.
the start for my last campaign was based on the background of one of the pcs: he was a runaway slave, and the other pcs came upon him on the road while his old masters were trying to get him back in shackles, and saved him. backgrounds give always good ideas about why a character should be in a certain place!
I'm thinking of starting a campaign where the characters start at 2nd level, in media res, returning to the town after their first triumph as an adventuring party.
My favorite is just focusing on one character, then they find themselves in a situation which has the other players. I then describe the individuals they see around them and hope the players pick up when I introduce their character. Then the characters end up getting themselves together and absorbed into the world
You could wake up with a hangover in a tavern. You don't remember anything from the night before, but you are now contracted to go on this quest. You find out, through the course of the campaign that when you were drunk, a sleezy guy took advantage of your lack of mental presence and tricked you into joining a quest that your character wouldn't normally join.
I had to leave a game with a few others but then returned with a new character as part of a rescue team for the other half of the party. That was a great way to keep the campaign going and account for people having to leave.
I started a campaign once by having the party members be applicants for an adventurers guild, having them meet up at Guild Hall and be sent out together on a trial venture.
I have started a game at a towns spring festival. had several games and other things for them to check out. Then had a raid on the town start, bringing PC's together to fight it off.
In the first roleplaying game I attended we met in a town whilst a traveling circus was visiting. It was great for setting up player interactions as we visited the animals in the zoo and participated in various feats of wit and strength. We even did a little bout of shoulder wars with sticks against some local farmers. All in all, a good introduction to the town, it's people and each other in a fun setting before the intrigue began.
I had them all start by looking for a tower for various reasons. I'm running it as a game where they are all in Limbo but don't know it, so if they manage to get back to the Material plane it will have been over a hundred years, so only the elves of the group might have their family alive. Not to mention that when they go back they might be attacked by a paladin who thinks they are undead.
I'm a fan of country renowned festivals that people travel from miles around to attend, significant events like royal coronations, and conclaves between dozens of powerful factions which players attend as members. They're easy for players to connect diverse characters to and for dms to launch plots from.
I also wrote a story where the characters adventure STARTS in the tavern, but it's not where they met. They were all citizens of the small hamlet and knew each other for years. How they started the campaign was unique. They were chosen out of the entire crowd by a deck of cards!
I'm starting out at a festival, where each of the characters has a teacher who's meeting up with the other teachers. I plan to give them a day to get to know each other, and meet some future characters before before sh*t goes sideways.
In a two PC campaign, my rogue met the other player, a sorcerer, competing in a magical gladiator game. I decided he was a sure thing, bet on him, and won. I then hired myself as his personal herald/chronicler.
I'm going to start DMing my first D&D game soon. I've decided to have the party be ambushed, along with a caravan that they were traveling with, by a pack of Grimlocks. They later awake in ramshackle wooden cells inside a cave, along with the only other survivor, a human ranger who was guarding the caravan
These are so helpful!! Thank you, I heard some of your ideas and got inspired!! Now I have three campaigns running and I'm still boiling with ideas!!!🌟
Session zero my first question the players need to answer is how do they know each other or come together. I like the parties to be cohesive from the get go.
Having that sort of reaction from players when you're just starting a campaign is usually a sign that you haven't described the premise of how the campaign will start well enough, and the player then created a character that is inadvertently not well suited to being a part of the story naturally. Sometimes it's also a sign of a player that isn't willing to 'buy in' to the story being told, which often means they're going to be problematic if they stay in the campaign unless they are willing to adjust their character concept.
The issue is some players just don't want to cooperate with the other players or GM. It's a form of attention seeking by being difficult. I have a discussion with those players aside from the game, and tell them we'll need to kill off that character, and they'll have to figure out how to play a character that can cooperate with the party if they want to continue playing the game.
Im hopefully going to dm my first game soon, and it’s going to be with new players, so I wanted to go kind of vanilla. They each received a mysterious unsigned letter summoning to a small town. They have prepaid rooms in the local tavern/inn, so that’s where it starts.
I've started the party as captives by slave raiders once, they needed to work together to escape before they taken to the Ship. Another time, I just started them near ruins, but a massive storm was coming, and they were forced to take shelter in their first dungeon.
In a Cthulhu Now - setting (players played as some Europol Special Branch for supernatural encounters agents) - we had this running gag. The HQ was located in Hamburg, Germany. And there was this one nice pizzaria, just accross the street. So the agents took their lunch there. And everytime, just before the pizza arrived nice and hot, the pagers started to beep - drop everything immediatly, the chief wants you in the office. NOW!
I made a game where all the player were part of the army' and those squad leader who never went with them' but who gave them quests and give info if asked I did this for two sessions, and on the 3rd I told them it was a quest board where you can go to do stuff, and the rest of the game it's kind of up to the players
I started GMing Starfinder with my group. They were on a prisoner transport, some as prisoners, some as soldiers, some as mechanics, one as a reporter, and the transport blew up near a desert planet. They survived, are looking for other survivers, as well as dodging local authorities as they are behind enemy lines. They quickly became friends, begrudgingly however. It was fun and no tavern.
I'm building a campaign where I'm actually having to build pretty much a whole galaxy. I'm starting this campaign by telling the players that they're in a ship flying to a galaxy they had never before heard of, and when they land, they get off together. If they try to move in flight, they might just fail a strain, or break a limb depending on their strength roll.
Quick questions for you guys, i am a completely new to dnd and i have a group of seven other guys who are also completely new. I got elected DM We are starting Lost Mines of Phandelver later this week. my question is how do i scale encounters for seven people. Party consists of a sorcerer, rogue, barbarian, fighter, ranger, druid, and paladin, will healing be an issue?
Shouldn't be an issue, as long as they can rest when they really need to, if thats not enough, just drop a few healing potions into the game that they can find. Just started playing my first game, party is sorc, rogue, barbarian, druid, monk and cleric that hasn't healed anyone, and have a bunch of healing potions, haven't really needed healing at all.
i'd recommend making the groups of enemies larger, bigger party, equals stronger and more enemies, lost mines of phandelver is basically scaled for 4-5 PC's so when you do enemies add 1.5 times the recommended enemies since you have about 1.5 the recommended players, then once you have a better feel for your group,scale up or down accordingly. As for healing no it shouldnt be to much of an issue, just remember to allow your players to retreat and use their hit die as needed over a short rest and hand out more than a few healing potions, you might need to scale rewards so players can afford to buy healing potions and weapons& armor/ gear but thats all up to you and how generous you want to be.
My DM started us in a blizzard where the group each coming from different directions converged on a mother and child freezing and being attacked by a worg and a couple wolves.
In a campaign I am starting all my PCs no each other from living on or around the streets of rundown, backwater, smuggler port. Two are urchins gone rogue. One is a local street preacher to a sea god. One is the former apprentice of the local and now deceased weather wizard. And the last of them is a down on his luck sailor bumming around port while he is betwern ships. They all know each other through their day-to-day lives. The urchins run errands flr the cleric and receive support from her. The cleric is known on the docks as somebody you can toss a few coins to for a blessing. The wizard has come into town on errands and spent time conversing with the cleric. The sailor is known as a local hangabout by all.
I've eather have used or played with some of these when starting with campaign (but I'd recommend you stay away from the prophecy thing). My favorite two that campaign beginnings that I have played in was 1. Our group of was a "suicide squad" essentially for one of the worlds governments and our rewards was a clean slate. 2. Being sold as a slave to dwarfish mining company to help them mine but in route a big monster crashed the ship we were stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I am partial to starting the game with most of the PCs waiting at the gate to enter the town, with the other characters being the son or friends of the son of the guy who's hiring them for their first quest. I love making the party Wizard/Cleric or similar magic user the kid. "Oh, and you'll be taking my son with you when you go. Maybe facing some adversity will finally make a man out of him..." Although if a player is late, they might just wind up being the character with the disappointed parent... :) Those in the caravan waiting to enter the town can have a mini-adventure where they get to know each other, maybe deal with some kind of problem or a pickpocket, or even a murder (which can also be the reason that the guards won't let the caravan into the town, they won't let a murderer into to town, so you've got to figure it out before they'll open the gates!) Anything that can happen in a tavern, can also happen in a caravan...
The starts I use the most are: amnesia, prison and summoned by a powerful being. One idea I was going to use, sparked by the video game Starbound, is that the PCs are all present to receive some form of award, and then something happens, maybe a terrorist attack, a rebellion, or simply they are approached by an important npc. If the game was modern or futuristic, the PCs could be together for mandatory health and safety training. Irony. Or maybe even The Breakfast Club start, which is a variation on prison. I did one game long ago where the PCs were all from different times and the person bringing them together was Doctor Who. Tom Baker, of course, because all the others are cheap imitations.
I started my favorite and current game in the aftermath of a large battle , the players faction lost and they woke up near near some cover and they all go to that cover and then help each other escape
Ive been doing something with my gaming world for 20+ years that really helps with campaign beginnings. I have always used the same world. Each campaign becomes history and fleshes out Gods, Kingdoms, politics, etc. Beloved high level characters become very well developed NPCs. By relying on my own preexisting campaign world (all credit given to players over the years who have helped develop it), I can provide players with a consistent world with minimal campaign prep on my part. Lazy? Perhaps a bit of a short cut, yes, but the flip side is the joy you see when players recognize something they helped create in previous campaigns. I strongly encourage players to create elaborate back stories for their new characters. In the case of players who are familiar with the world, they get to have a lot of fun with this part. If a new player is not familiar with the world and comes up with an amazing backstory that can't be comfortably fit into an existing area/kingdom/political situation, I will often grab a section of map that has not been developed (still plenty of those) and that new player has helped establish even more of the world. But... I always stress that those back stories need to create a situation where there is a reason the party has come together. I am not a DM that forces a story line. I describe the world and give them options, what the party does builds the world. As for campaign beginnings... I like to give the entire group of players options within the world on where THEY want to start and let them decide. Here is my typical list of available options. 1. The most campaigned in kingdom has an orphanage that has grown from being a place children with no parents are dumped into a well financed highly developed elite special forces training program. To the point that even wealthy nobles will pay substantial amounts of gold for the privilege of having their children trained there. The benefit to the players are powerful patrons, a secure home base, and a streamlined "quest board" if they choose to start at this school. This one is where the campaign world started (as a normal orphanage), and if the players have no preference what I usually go with by default. 2. A neighboring Kingdom has the greatest library and magic school in the known world, but the (somewhat) secret leader of that school is a dark elf. As the kingdom itself has a strong Paladin presence, political struggles run rampant. Parties can begin as paladins and their agents, magic students, or even a group hired to journey to the library seeking a specific book. 3. The City Of Endless Night to the extreme north sits on the shore of a volcanic lake. The lake creates an area of moderate climate surrounded by harsh winter conditions. This city is a spell jammer port, and has become a melting pot of incredibly diverse races. There is a clan of very powerful orcs (basically orogs from generations of cross breeding for strength) that have a somewhat uneasy truce with the city and winter within the moderate climate nearby every year. Peace is kept by a near immortal Paladin who avoids politics (in fact, it pisses her of when she gets dragged into it) and simply attempts to ensure the city remains a refuge for all. Options for party members include almost any race (half orcs are not uncommon). Campaigns can go soooooooo many directions from this starting point, and the flavor of this area is very harsh and brutal. 4. There is an emperor who sacrificed almost his entire population in a ritual that transformed himself and many of his upper nobility into Liches. The ritual ripped open a rift into Ravenloft, and this corner of the map exists within both realms. The existing hierarchy of Revenloft is not happy with this powerful new interloper and political struggles abound. Campaigns do not usually start here (several have ended here =P), but I always give this as an option. 5. Last but not least, There are several other lightly or not developed at all Kingdoms and continents. If the players desire, I am more than happy to let them point at a spot on the world map and say "lets start here!". This has started happening more of late with players that are familiar with the world and want to help build up new areas. In this case I will go right to the tried and true, if a bit trope tavern/washed up shipwreck/prisoners/etc. starting points. TLDR; Previous campaigns make GREAT starting points for new campaigns. Let the players decide where they start.
That works pretty well as a oneshot concept. I'd switch from tavern to Inn/tavern complex/compound to allow for a variety of sub locations to do things within the venue (tavern, stables, public hall, public sleeping rooms, private sleeping rooms, "working girls" area of the private building, cellars, hidden illegal fight arena, thieves guild safehouse rooms, etc.. Its amazing what you can pack into a four acre compound in a large enough community.
I like to start my kampaigns with "Everibody roll initiative" it's an easy whay to gett the players heated up without giving them anything in advance. My most troll'ish kind of start was a three minute description of a bar ending with "as a gigant bal of fire turns the entire place to cinder". At that moment they knew shitt was going down, and one of them just literaly roasted the intro. It was an awsome way to start an awsome evil runn. ^^
The best way that I started my campaign was the King's court. They did all meet in a city but the guards were ordered to grab anyone with a weapon on them and bring them to him. So with about five PCs and about twenty other NPCs they were given a quest.
Sweat and blood stain your face and the ground is slick with the gore of the battle that just ended. Ravens feast on the field of corpses laying about you as the survivors looking blankly around at the devastation wrought by your own hands. You lost many friends in the last hours but a few familiar faces stare across the field at you. You all stumble back to where your camp was and collapse around the same fire...
My go to is the pc's answering a calling for adventurers, via a faction. And being platooned together. Always can find an individual reason in each pc's background on why they are there. Offers a home base. Instantly puts them on a team with a set npc high archey. A way to deliver main mission quest/campaigns. Npc's they wont be inclined to instantly murder hobo. Ect.
Your party is at a guild auction where the sell the gear from dead adventurers. Or they are there to purchase a slave (AKA the PC playing the tank role)
I played a campaign that started in caravans. There were 10+ PC's so it was a bit chaotic. The DM split the party into 2 caravans. It was good because it became easier to role play as your character and interact with other PC's. However it was boring at times.
I personaly never ever started or played a campaigns beginning in a tavern. The first time as a player was on horse back, the second time on a Shipwreck, the next two times on a ship and another time at a cities questboard. To start at a tavern is probebly some 2nd or 3rd Edition thing.
My first game started out in a Corn Field, our PCs woke up in a corn field and our wizard's halfling friend was kidnapped, so we teamed up to save him and escape the corn field
I had one campaimg i started after everybody rolled their char i had em roll a d6 for where they exist in town. One started road weary wondering in town without supplies and would be in danger of vagrancy, another was in jail for a minimal charge and had to escape and had the chance to grab the starting gear of another player. The other 4 things i had i dont recal, but withing 45minuotes of game time everyone would group up no matter what they did. Made chatachter meeting seem alot more natural
I started my players by being in the same place at the same time, all with different goals. They all were at the same orc camp doing different things. The bard had been caught stealing, and was avoiding the dwarvish mafia. and was locked up. The rogue, the bard’s companion was attempting to stealthily break him out. The human fighter was running from his organization he betrayed. The Elf fighter was hunting a sorcerer that held the answers to the whereabouts of his son. The wizard was looking for the same sorcerer to investigate the death of his mentor. And the cleric was searching for the sorcerer to find out where he could find the blue dragon. They all ended up there together, and killed the orcs. After searching them they found out where they could find the sorcerer, and the rogue, bard, and human fighter followed them to escape the people chasing them.
I find There is actually a certain symbolism behind taverns that fits with Dungeons and Dragons. Taverns are inclusive places where adventures from far and wide of diffrent skill sets, oraces, personalitys, ideals, bonds and goals gather around relax, have fun and to share stories of their great adventures and party members with other adventurors. Much like how in D&D dall sorts of diffrent players gather around the gaming table or talk on social media to play games they love to relax and talk about their awesome campaigns, favrioute characters and more with the occasional horror story of a murder hobo or rules lawyer. In many ways Taverns are not cliches of D&D but a symbol of D&D.
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"Your characters all meet infront of the tavern"
"Your characters all meet under the tavern"
"Your characters all meet on top of the tavern"
MeIoTheYellow These are the best
I actually like these twists.
Under the tavern is a backroom casino and you just lost all your gold.
Top of the tavern you wait with a group of thieves to break into said tavern.
You guys meet in front of the tavern as folks run out from tavern screaming. Group goes in to investigate.
@@fbauzo024fb Hell yeah man. I can start these adventures right now.
@@fbauzo024fb I pick #3 what next?
You see, I was pretty much forced to have my players start in a Tavern, because one of them was a merchant trying to sell potions in areas of high traffic, one was a bard trying to find a place to gain more reputation, one was a weary traveler getting in from a long trip on the road...
and one of them owned the local tavern.
Yeah. Something nearly identical happened in our group.
Seems like they wanted to start in a tavern. Nothing wrong with that.
If the shoe fits
How about we take a page out of Dark Souls III's book: the PCs all rise from their graves in the same cemetery. They were previously dead, and now they aren't. Part of the introductory adventure is dealing with the emotional turmoil of coming to immediate terms with their deaths, and part of it involves figuring out why they've come back.
This could open up the adventure to some real fish-out-of-water fun. Some of the characters may have originally perished "mere" years ago, so they must adapt to a certain amount of time passing ("My sons are all old men by now, if they even yet live." Or "My spouse/lover moved on to a new relationship, and I no longer have a place here.").
But other of the characters may have been dead for centuries, even millennia. To them, even their old lands are unrecognizable. They may even have trouble communicating with each other, because language is never static, and even Common isn't what it used to be. Kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen. Technology has advanced, as has magic. A Cleric or Paladin might find the deity they served has fallen out of favor, and their own faith is now a minority religion. Or, contrarily, they may have been followers of a fringe deity or path, only to find the fledgling faith of their time has grown huge...as well as _decadent and corrupt_ .
Not to mention what the characters may be going through, from being ripped from their afterlives. One way to do it may be to just say the characters remember nothing from their time dead; at best, they have hazy recollections, which may color their perceptions and attitudes. A different way, however, would be to have the characters remember, and have that really affect them. Those who went to good afterlives may feel sorrow at being denied paradise. Those who went to lower places, however, may be scarred by their torment, and may even dread the idea of going back.
Bluecho4 that's actually a great idea
Bluecho4 I really like the idea of that
I tried to do that once... you know i may try to do that concept again. The issue was the players never questioned it. And the campaign fell apart a few weeks later because of the chaos they just wanted to preform instead of the story to follow.
This is awesome. I’m a huge fan of Dark Souls, so I think I’m for sure going to try this.
I am actually doing something similar at the moment, but based on Dark Souls 1.
In the game I am currently running, I started off session zero with "we're going to start on a pirate ship. Who are you?" My players are all chaotic IRL, so I thought that this would end up with one being the captain and the rest crew of varying degrees, maybe a stowaway or something. They decided on their own that they were slaves, but the captain was fair so they could work their way up. Now, two sessions later, they are about to meet a rival pirate queen and be given the choice to betray the captain for their freedom.
I guess what I'm getting at is that if you start off vague enough, the players might fill in the blanks in a way you never could have.
Now I absolutely need to start a D&D game off with "You meet in a laundromat."
Don't dry your chainmail on high heat...
I told you not to do that. Look, now it's shrunk so much it isn't even fit for a hobbit.
So when one of my players died at the end of a session I did an interlude for her new pirate captain character where I said "You wake up hungover, and the town around you is being burnt to the ground you don't know why but you know that it's all your fault."
Other ideas?
1. All meeting as stow-aways for different reasons in the hull of a ship, or a smugglers hold.
2. County fair all Robin hood like with different competitions.
3. The party all being students in Sigil Preparatory Academy
4. A random accident involving over-ripened turnip soup without adequate potatoes , which as everyone knows, acts as an aphrodisiac for umberhulks, which just ruined the experiments of a certain gnomish illusionist, which curiously converged with a random adventurer chasing a squirrel who nabbed a family ring, which a certain rogue thought might be valuable, just as another scoundrel left through the window of an illicit tryst, the husband mistakenly sending his warrior to chase the - this time - innocent rogue , and rammed into a very awkward looking illithid, just having had his illusion dispelled, and . . .
I just started my last campaign on the sea. It was a great beginning. Nothing beats the look on your players face when a dragon turtle head comes through the bottom deck while they are eating. Only to run top deck and find they had actually got rammed by a kobald pirate ship with a dragon turtle head mounted on their boat.
im stealing this :D
Kilivan Jg please do!
One of my favorite starting locations came from one of my friend's ad-hoc, seat of the pants brilliant ideas (that might be a good idea for a video too now that I think of it. Some of your best on-the-fly decisions as a DM) anyways, the concept is that all of the PCs are the children of retired adventurers who have established a retirement community out in a (once) haunted forest, because let's face it, no one wants a retired adventurer around. Their massive wealth will disrupt the economy and social structure of almost any settlement, not to mention the wickedly powerful enemies they've collected over the years coming back for revenge. The solution? Go back to what got you here in the first place. Band together. Carve out a space for yourself. And then they had kids. You. You've read the monster manual, it's part of your basic education. You were weaned on the personal exploits of the indomitable, you might even be tired of hearing about them by now. The fantastic and amazing are mundane to you. How does that affect your perceptions of life in the "real world" once you finally get away from your parents and fly the coop? Part of character creation is dictating who exactly your parents were and why they were famous. It's a great way to throw in cameos from former characters or iconic characters from the sourcebooks, or even older editions of the sourcebooks. (One character had a grandpa who was an old paladin with dementia who would occasionally start going on about contending with a beast called THAC0 and no one really knew what he was talking about.) It can be a really fresh way to start a party for the group who's seen it all and now they're playing the antsy teenager who THINKS they know everything there is to know. Then prove how wrong they really are. I've found that simply getting to know who the character's parents were helps a lot in really getting players invested in their characters.
Started my most recent campaign by having the players going about their normal lives throughout the world before blacking out and waking up in a dark room with basic puzzles in it, clad only in purple robes with gold eyes on them. After getting out of the room they found out that a beholder was dreaming of some new minions, causing the players to teleport to his lair.
[Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker] This sounds great! May I steal it?
I like the "You start in a Tavern," setting, but always with a major twist, like, "The first quest takes place completely in the tavern and is about a dragon's lair," or "You are actually in the City of Doors."
What I like to do is "Your in a tavern. But its on fire. And the door is doesn't budge." Quick way to get the group to trust eachother without saying: you already know/have worked with eachother before.
Ive also for a oneshot just had the party start on a boat. They already had a quest and in a party in character, but I gave them time to chat on the boat as to introduce themselves out of character
The starts for my last two long-term campaigns:
1) Characters are hired as a delivery team for a large shipment of iron nails to a frontier town. When they get there, it turns out that no one ordered them. The "quest-givers" are actually troublemakers who understand what murderhoboes are, and they want to stir up problems along a perilous frontier (the nails are desired by goblins who are barred from having iron weapons).
2) All the PCs get an invitation from the villag1e's most eligible bachelorette for a festival when young people cook for prospective spouses. Why does she invite more than one suitor? What does a strange smith who has recently taken up residence at her house want with the PCs?
Here are other ideas I put into a random table:
3) All the PCs hail from the same village. Perhaps they are part of the same extended family, and are being summoned by the clan patriarch or matriarch to deal with a family problem. The relations need not be biological - who is to say a clan has to be of the same race?
4) The PCs are all servants (maybe dependents or slaves) of the same local aristocrat. He wants them to go collect taxes from a nearby village which has stopped paying for some reason.
5) The PCs are hired by a lord's contractor to settle a frontier village. The lord is giving a good deal - settle tax-free for 5 years as you establish a homestead. But who else lives nearby? (variant: PCs are hired to go man an outpost in the wilderness which has been longed abandoned - this could be the start to a hexcrawl).
6) The PCs are members of a troupe of entertainers, traveling from place to place (variant: PCs are part of a merchant caravan or a group of pilgrims en route to a famous shrine).
7) The PCs are agents for a potential invader, or a group of bandits. They are to scout out a place prior to a full-scale invasion.
8) PCs are refugees from a disaster (famine, war), or captives of raiders, who want to sell them at a slave market far away.
9) PCs have just awakened from a long enchanted sleep. How long have they slept, and do they remember anything? (this is a variant of the amnesia trope, or the "rising from graves" trope mentioned below.
You guys never cease to read my mind. I'm starting a new campaign tomorrow and I've been struggling for where to start. Just searched your channel for this last night.
One fun idea I had is where each party member is an individual explorer/adventurer, and they all bump into each other while exploring a ruin or dungeon. The hosility or surprise upon meeting their competition could lead into a common problem-- a monster that none of them encountered or remembered to look out for.
Cool idea I've found for starting a campaign. Although it's a bit dark, start at a funeral of a dead npc - could have been poisoned, murdered, turned into a zombie etc. No one knows who did it and it starts as a kind of murder mystery (perhaps there may be other recent cases of the same thing). You may be there because of some sort of connection the npc or may just be there to work out who did it and claim a bounty for the murderer. Maybe the players are trying to sort out the case or trying to cover up their involvement. Thoughts?
Murder mysteries are a valid start for players who like more Role Playing in their adventures. It isn't a good place to start for murder hobo players though. Those types just tend to kill every NPC who shows up in their line of sight. The murder mystery gets lost in all the killing, raping, and pillaging the players are engaging in.
I am playing with my daughters, where they started on a field trip for school. They went to a museum and got teleported by an artifact, to medieval somewhere or other...along with changing into their player character
Kind like the D&D cartoon.
One of my favorite openers, i had the players check in to the tavern. Then early morning they were rudely awoken and literally dragged out of their beds and brought to trial. There was a murder and since the charters were new to town they were immediately suspect. The trial was ran by a very racist human and it pushed everything worse and worse till he got fed up and threw the party into a hole that had a horrific monster lurking about... and unbeknownst to the town, led into goblin caves...
Eventually they dug a hole out of there from the goblin caves and sicked the goblins on the pricks that threw them down here. It was beautiful.
Ive also had the players start off being hired by a caravan of halflings to help guard it, however i didn't run any encounters with that. I used this to describe the land, to tell a few legends and tales that the halflings sang, and the somber news as they approached a destroyed city. Destroyed recently by dragons. And the few survivors trying desperately to scavenge their lives out of the rubble and prepare for the monsters that already have threatened the town.
Good choice to provide some setting background and reason for being in the start area of the campaign complete with turmoil in need of adventurers.
I have an Idea: start the party as hired by two different powerful competing benefactors, have them compete for the same treasure, but make it clear they need to work together to survive the situation. Then make both benefactors double-cross the PC's, when they succeed in finding the treasure/artifact, then put them on the run from two powerful rival leaders...
Something to add to the first hook you talked about. All the players are up for auction as slaves (players choice of why) a mysterious man (GM's choice of description) buys them and gives them a task to complete for their freedom. Easy fill in the blank for anyone reading the comments!
Charming Cthulhu wants them to have an orgy with him and his wife
roll for initiative
Perfect timing for this video guys. Just finished tomb of annihilation as a player feeling energized and ready to DM my first Homebrew starts this Saturday and I'm pretty much trying to figure out how we are getting the band together.
In the middle ages in Europe, a wide variety of people went on pilgrimage for all sorts of reasons: piety, tourism, or just had to leave town for a while.
The feudal samurai campaign i just joined had us all meet at the end of a battle. My goblin was in a prison wagon transport that got stopped by the battle. All the other players were basically in the same boat
For the more RP focused campaigns, I have grown fond of what AngelArts does in his campaigns which is the “origin story” approach. It’s where each player role-plays individually before meeting the party in order to establish their characters.
who/what is angelarts? I'm interested in that idea...
Cameron Begley ua-cam.com/users/angelarts He is primarily a video game LPer, but he has run four campaigns on his channel, although none of them are in a DnD setting. He has also been in two campaigns as a player on Dawnforgedcast’s channel, The Sinlyn Trials and The Ballad of Loch Rannoch.
I know this as "prelude": After "Session Zero" the GM do play one session with each character.
2:03 "As the GM you wish you players to give you a reason to play!". Prelude is the way for the GM to get that from the players!
2:00 "As a player you wish a reason to play!". Again: Prelude is the way for the players to get that from the GM!
I sense many problems arise from GMs forgetting to take the PCs into account, the typical sign is that the group is not a group!
As I have seen then there are two common approaches to assemble the group:
(1) At Session Zero give specific instructions to character creation that give the PCs what is needed for them to be together. (Membership of an organization, employed by someone/something, what ever...)
(2) At Session One an event causes that the characters find them self in a situation where they have to work together to save the day.
The first of the two is the more reliable.
The second often give the best results, but is risky as they may fail.
Still, in the failure situation, I will say that it is good to stop something that do not work well early to restart with focus at why previous attempt failed!
My last two starts were - you receive a package, incl with a note to travel to location. Other was - you were randomly walking down this road and reach this ambush point at the same time (~3).
Hmm, not the best idea to start with a blatant railroad. I can see players being not enthusiastic with starting as the target of an ambush with no say about how they walked into it. Also little cause to not suspect the other characters of being part of the ambush as well. Of course if this is a Paranoia game it makes perfect sense. The computer is your friend, and you must obey the computer.
I started my campaign with several huge towers rising from the earth, only to have excavation teams unearth the entrances but have none of them escape once they enter. The party meets up at one particular tower based on this information along with motives of curiosity, knowledge, treasure to band together and figure out the mystery behind these towers.
How about a magical and martial mixed combat guild, and the PC's join said guild, and are in a yearly fighting tournament, meeting there as fighters vs one another. Then fighting a golem as a group.
I had my party start in the stables. Long story, but the dwarf had just arrived in the village and was putting his horse away when the human (who was a member of the city guard) arrived to muck out the stalls. The dwarf played a trick on the human and made him think the horse was talking to him! By the time the elf arrived, he'd been in a 40 minute in game argument with the horse before realizing the dwarf was tricking him. The elf walked in to a "poop-flinging" war and nearly took a snoot full of horse pie! That was a GREAT way to get the characters together!
I'm having my PC's start in a Festival setting. The city is celebrating a Ramen cook-off xD
The most unique opening I recall from a published D&D adventure was from an old solo wilderness-adventure module, "Eye of the Serpent". The PC gets dumped in a giant nest by a roc and has to find a path down the mountain and get back to the coast. Easily adaptable concept for a whole adventuring party, if they're all traveling in the same small boat or wagon.
you could just drop them into a battle. they're all in a squad together or a platoon together and now have to fight together to survive, it's up to them to explain why and how they got involved in this battle in the first place but I've found this is an easy way to make the beginning of the game exciting.
clericofchaos1 that is a great way to start. Think about were most action films start, in the center of the action. I am all for passing the buck to the players and saying "how did you get here."
Also, most interesting place to start the party off I've been able to think of, is a colosseum-style arena fight, where they all end up fighting in an elimination-style duel until one of them gets to the top. A good way to dole out a little EXP at the beginning, get the party acquainted with each other's abilities, and give them a decent chance to walk away with prize money.
One of my favorite starts to a campaign was "You are in a tavern. Roll for initiative." Yes, it was a start in a tavern, but it was one that I will always remember. I don't remember a lot of campaign starts from that time, but that one sticks with me.
I mostly have my groups make their characters together, and write up their own "first story of how they met" and then we start their adventure from there. Usually in the woods, after they've already agreed yes to their next adventure.
It gets the ball rolling faster than most other things. Especially since most of me and mine don't have much time for "setup" as we only have 2-3 hours a week to play.
I'm kind of daft, so first thing I though of was an "adventure exchange" basically an office in the local capitol that functions as a job center for unemployed adventerers. Think there's some good oppertunity for comedy there as the party is basically thrown together on the spot as they get told there's a job come in but it requires at least X people, where X just happens to be the number of players! :D
I have started campaigns where the party was already working as a special ops for a temple order at a border castle. They rolled with it and we had a great campaign where they had a mentor that steered them to objectives. I always wanted to start a campaign where they are already in a battle defending a village along side of the town guards. Still working on that one. Another idea was that they wake up as recovering patients in a hospital temple in a plague racked area. They are recovering and meet in the hospital room.
I recently DM'd a campaign that started in a ruined city that had sealed it's walls off and the party snuck in through a sewer line. Their goal was to end a civil war, end a curse that kinda caused it, and slay the leader of one of three factions. I kinda enjoy limiting their resources and locations, such as making gear from salvage and scraps. Their gold was useless be cause the city valued silver to keep undead from one of the factions at bay, etc.
First game of the campaign I started last week saw the first 4 of a 6 man party (the other two coming in later) being woken up by a town watch corporal banging on the cell bars with a baton "get up you worthless dogs!" as the party members and a couple of NPC's were arrested the night before for brawling in the local tavern. They're all horribly hung over and are offered a chance to get out of jail early for inspecting a ship that had run aground onto some rocks during a storm last night for a specific chest amongst the cargo the local lord is most anxious to have, no questions asked.
Aboard the ship the seemingly unfortunate accident in foul weather turns into a murder mystery as they discover highly suspect cargo items, dead sailors stabbed and the ship sabotaged to run aground with the captain and 6 crew unaccounted for between the bodies recovered and the survivors on the beach.
The story continues later this week! My players texting theories and hype messages every day since game 1 looking forward to see what happens next!
I think that you should figure out why the characters have gathered in the same town, village, or whatever place you start the campaign at, after discussing what the character's motivations for adventuring are. Then just use their goals as a meeting point for the group.
In my campaign I decided we would start off with the paladin stealing a letter that has important information that the church is hiding. Then hiring a ranger to get him through the forest as quickly as possible, so he can get to the capital. Tagging along with the ranger was a bard, who wanted to gather information and experience about the lives of rangers and write a book. They got to an inn where they stumbled upon the eldritch knight, who was new to the order (which served the Tsar) and was going to the capital to receive further training, and asked him for help. He was being tailed by a rogue spy, who, on the following day, presented himself as a merchant down on his luck, who didn't want to travel the road alone.
Friend of mine that DM's always starts the party off naked, with no equipment in pitch blackness. What happens from there is what he changes.
Love you guys's work and help, the current running campaign I have going started out in a caravan hub with a single building (of course a tavern) but as they arrived it was bustling with activity due to a slave auction that was taking place, one of the players (a goliath barbarian with INT 3) was being sold as a slave, the others just showed up at the right time. I had the barbarian do STR checks to escape the chains and after 3 rounds of bets he did causing a crazy scene. It was pretty awesome. Not in a tavern but the tavern was still there hahaha
One good one I've heard of recently, though this is, of course, very setting dependent: passengers on an ocean-going ferry. You get the same kind of "people from varying backgrounds would gather here" thing from a tavern, but you also have something different to give it a unique flavour. The setting I heard this used in is kinda early Age of Sail technology, so the inciting event was piracy, but you could have other issues as well. Kinda a less extreme version of the shipwreck setup.
One of my favorites is your hometown is being invaded by an enemy army, and it your goal to escape because if you stay you die. Plus it sets up a campaign goal of reclaiming your home.
A favorite "have the party get to know each other" start is at a community festival/fair. The celebration is complete with contests and prizes (uptick adventure gear) that map up well with each of the character's abilities. After the players get a chance to see each other in action with relatively low stakes activities, have your adventure plot hook happen as the festival/fair is winding down post award ceremony and the celebrants and contestants are moving on to eating and drinking. Suitable plot hooks can include: murder of a prominent citizen discovered, invasion of celebration by "dangerous" creatures, a stolen item the owner desperately wants recovered, etc. The party is roped into helping based on their presumably winning performance in the contests showing them to be above and beyond the "average" people of the community. The best part is this start is really setting independent, and works from fantasy to sci-fi. It might be a bit harder in post apocalyptic settings as celebrations are less likely.
I did one where the party were all aboard a ship bound for the new world. They came under attack by saughagan.
I had a couple of set ups for one shots. One of them was that they were chained underground by some skelletons and they had to leave. They were practically naked but the skellies had weapons to steal so it good. Another set up was that they all traveled to the same destination, they slept on the same tavern and saw eachother, and even shared carriage, but they get stopped by bandits and got to chose to lose everything and keep their lives or fight and keep their stuff.
I ran a sci fi campaign where I allowed my 5 players to go off by themselves, but if they weren't with the main group, I would start a timer when their turn came around and let them accomplish as much as they wanted within one minute. The first 30 minutes of the first session was their characters exploring the capital city of the planet they started on. Every character was essentially wrapping up their previous jobs and receiving pay at the Star Port (this gave me a chance to give them their starting funds and possibly even equipment in character, and it established the jobs their characters had). Two of players were smugglers who were partners (pretty much Han Solo/Chewbacca style), another was a bounty hunter, one of them was a shapeshifter assassin, and the last one was a native primitive of the planet. Taking into account their characters lives and jobs, I improv'd a new job for them that required their individual skill sets by having the contractor scout them out for a heist job that involved planting weapons that were stolen from an underworld gang in the area in their rival gang's warehouse in order to tip them off and incite a gang war. They all met in the job contractors safe house, and they had to discuss a strategy and get to know each other's strengths and weaknesses before preparing for the heist set up.
All of them loved it lmao. They felt like they had a lot of freedom to move and choose (especially since most of my campaigns are 10% written, 90% extremely quick improv, sometimes no preparation whatsoever because I never know what my players will do, so I just roll with their choices and let them essentially make the story as they go without them ever realizing it lol)
I never actually started in a tavern. Now, thanks to Frank Mentzer's Castle Mistamir as an example starting at the entrance of a dungeon the party wanted to loot is something that happened -- not that in medias res hasn't been done well in some campaigns.
Everyone should start in tavern at least once.
Nerdarchist Dave
I once started a campaign with the "heist" using aliases. I worked with a parody of Reservoir Dogs, giving each player a name from that movie (Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, etc.). It went over really well, and one of the players not only caught on, he ran with it by reenacting the waitress tipping debate (he was Mr. Pink). Quite fun.
the start for my last campaign was based on the background of one of the pcs: he was a runaway slave, and the other pcs came upon him on the road while his old masters were trying to get him back in shackles, and saved him. backgrounds give always good ideas about why a character should be in a certain place!
I'm thinking of starting a campaign where the characters start at 2nd level, in media res, returning to the town after their first triumph as an adventuring party.
My favorite is just focusing on one character, then they find themselves in a situation which has the other players. I then describe the individuals they see around them and hope the players pick up when I introduce their character. Then the characters end up getting themselves together and absorbed into the world
You could wake up with a hangover in a tavern. You don't remember anything from the night before, but you are now contracted to go on this quest. You find out, through the course of the campaign that when you were drunk, a sleezy guy took advantage of your lack of mental presence and tricked you into joining a quest that your character wouldn't normally join.
I had to leave a game with a few others but then returned with a new character as part of a rescue team for the other half of the party. That was a great way to keep the campaign going and account for people having to leave.
I started a campaign once by having the party members be applicants for an adventurers guild, having them meet up at Guild Hall and be sent out together on a trial venture.
this video was really helpful. it's my first time being dm, and i'm glad that i get to tart in a way that isn't basic or overused. thanks a lot! :)
I have started a game at a towns spring festival. had several games and other things for them to check out. Then had a raid on the town start, bringing PC's together to fight it off.
In the first roleplaying game I attended we met in a town whilst a traveling circus was visiting. It was great for setting up player interactions as we visited the animals in the zoo and participated in various feats of wit and strength. We even did a little bout of shoulder wars with sticks against some local farmers. All in all, a good introduction to the town, it's people and each other in a fun setting before the intrigue began.
I have only ever started in a tavern once, and that was an adventure from the beginners guide.
I had them all start by looking for a tower for various reasons. I'm running it as a game where they are all in Limbo but don't know it, so if they manage to get back to the Material plane it will have been over a hundred years, so only the elves of the group might have their family alive.
Not to mention that when they go back they might be attacked by a paladin who thinks they are undead.
I'm a fan of country renowned festivals that people travel from miles around to attend, significant events like royal coronations, and conclaves between dozens of powerful factions which players attend as members. They're easy for players to connect diverse characters to and for dms to launch plots from.
I also wrote a story where the characters adventure STARTS in the tavern, but it's not where they met. They were all citizens of the small hamlet and knew each other for years. How they started the campaign was unique. They were chosen out of the entire crowd by a deck of cards!
I'm starting out at a festival, where each of the characters has a teacher who's meeting up with the other teachers. I plan to give them a day to get to know each other, and meet some future characters before before sh*t goes sideways.
i started my players in a roman colosseum style arena as slaves fighting for their freedom (it's a 5th level oneshot to get me used to the GM seat)
John Powell Jr same thing, level 3, we were board
In a two PC campaign, my rogue met the other player, a sorcerer, competing in a magical gladiator game. I decided he was a sure thing, bet on him, and won. I then hired myself as his personal herald/chronicler.
I'm going to start DMing my first D&D game soon. I've decided to have the party be ambushed, along with a caravan that they were traveling with, by a pack of Grimlocks. They later awake in ramshackle wooden cells inside a cave, along with the only other survivor, a human ranger who was guarding the caravan
These are so helpful!! Thank you, I heard some of your ideas and got inspired!! Now I have three campaigns running and I'm still boiling with ideas!!!🌟
Session zero my first question the players need to answer is how do they know each other or come together. I like the parties to be cohesive from the get go.
That's the opposite of what I want :D
Atheismo I've had to many of the my character wouldn't do that players.
I see how that can be a problem. Guess I was lucky with my players.
Having that sort of reaction from players when you're just starting a campaign is usually a sign that you haven't described the premise of how the campaign will start well enough, and the player then created a character that is inadvertently not well suited to being a part of the story naturally. Sometimes it's also a sign of a player that isn't willing to 'buy in' to the story being told, which often means they're going to be problematic if they stay in the campaign unless they are willing to adjust their character concept.
The issue is some players just don't want to cooperate with the other players or GM. It's a form of attention seeking by being difficult. I have a discussion with those players aside from the game, and tell them we'll need to kill off that character, and they'll have to figure out how to play a character that can cooperate with the party if they want to continue playing the game.
Im hopefully going to dm my first game soon, and it’s going to be with new players, so I wanted to go kind of vanilla. They each received a mysterious unsigned letter summoning to a small town. They have prepaid rooms in the local tavern/inn, so that’s where it starts.
I've started the party as captives by slave raiders once, they needed to work together to escape before they taken to the Ship. Another time, I just started them near ruins, but a massive storm was coming, and they were forced to take shelter in their first dungeon.
In a Cthulhu Now - setting (players played as some Europol Special Branch for supernatural encounters agents) - we had this running gag.
The HQ was located in Hamburg, Germany. And there was this one nice pizzaria, just accross the street.
So the agents took their lunch there. And everytime, just before the pizza arrived nice and hot, the pagers started to beep - drop everything immediatly, the chief wants you in the office. NOW!
I made a game where all the player were part of the army' and those squad leader who never went with them' but who gave them quests and give info if asked I did this for two sessions, and on the 3rd I told them it was a quest board where you can go to do stuff, and the rest of the game it's kind of up to the players
I started GMing Starfinder with my group. They were on a prisoner transport, some as prisoners, some as soldiers, some as mechanics, one as a reporter, and the transport blew up near a desert planet. They survived, are looking for other survivers, as well as dodging local authorities as they are behind enemy lines. They quickly became friends, begrudgingly however. It was fun and no tavern.
I'm building a campaign where I'm actually having to build pretty much a whole galaxy.
I'm starting this campaign by telling the players that they're in a ship flying to a galaxy they had never before heard of, and when they land, they get off together.
If they try to move in flight, they might just fail a strain, or break a limb depending on their strength roll.
Quick questions for you guys, i am a completely new to dnd and i have a group of seven other guys who are also completely new. I got elected DM We are starting Lost Mines of Phandelver later this week. my question is how do i scale encounters for seven people.
Party consists of a sorcerer, rogue, barbarian, fighter, ranger, druid, and paladin, will healing be an issue?
Shouldn't be an issue, as long as they can rest when they really need to, if thats not enough, just drop a few healing potions into the game that they can find.
Just started playing my first game, party is sorc, rogue, barbarian, druid, monk and cleric that hasn't healed anyone, and have a bunch of healing potions, haven't really needed healing at all.
i'd recommend making the groups of enemies larger, bigger party, equals stronger and more enemies, lost mines of phandelver is basically scaled for 4-5 PC's so when you do enemies add 1.5 times the recommended enemies since you have about 1.5 the recommended players, then once you have a better feel for your group,scale up or down accordingly. As for healing no it shouldnt be to much of an issue, just remember to allow your players to retreat and use their hit die as needed over a short rest and hand out more than a few healing potions, you might need to scale rewards so players can afford to buy healing potions and weapons& armor/ gear but thats all up to you and how generous you want to be.
My DM started us in a blizzard where the group each coming from different directions converged on a mother and child freezing and being attacked by a worg and a couple wolves.
In a campaign I am starting all my PCs no each other from living on or around the streets of rundown, backwater, smuggler port. Two are urchins gone rogue. One is a local street preacher to a sea god. One is the former apprentice of the local and now deceased weather wizard. And the last of them is a down on his luck sailor bumming around port while he is betwern ships.
They all know each other through their day-to-day lives. The urchins run errands flr the cleric and receive support from her. The cleric is known on the docks as somebody you can toss a few coins to for a blessing. The wizard has come into town on errands and spent time conversing with the cleric. The sailor is known as a local hangabout by all.
I've eather have used or played with some of these when starting with campaign (but I'd recommend you stay away from the prophecy thing). My favorite two that campaign beginnings that I have played in was 1. Our group of was a "suicide squad" essentially for one of the worlds governments and our rewards was a clean slate. 2. Being sold as a slave to dwarfish mining company to help them mine but in route a big monster crashed the ship we were stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I am partial to starting the game with most of the PCs waiting at the gate to enter the town, with the other characters being the son or friends of the son of the guy who's hiring them for their first quest. I love making the party Wizard/Cleric or similar magic user the kid. "Oh, and you'll be taking my son with you when you go. Maybe facing some adversity will finally make a man out of him..." Although if a player is late, they might just wind up being the character with the disappointed parent... :)
Those in the caravan waiting to enter the town can have a mini-adventure where they get to know each other, maybe deal with some kind of problem or a pickpocket, or even a murder (which can also be the reason that the guards won't let the caravan into the town, they won't let a murderer into to town, so you've got to figure it out before they'll open the gates!) Anything that can happen in a tavern, can also happen in a caravan...
The starts I use the most are: amnesia, prison and summoned by a powerful being. One idea I was going to use, sparked by the video game Starbound, is that the PCs are all present to receive some form of award, and then something happens, maybe a terrorist attack, a rebellion, or simply they are approached by an important npc. If the game was modern or futuristic, the PCs could be together for mandatory health and safety training. Irony. Or maybe even The Breakfast Club start, which is a variation on prison.
I did one game long ago where the PCs were all from different times and the person bringing them together was Doctor Who. Tom Baker, of course, because all the others are cheap imitations.
I started my favorite and current game in the aftermath of a large battle , the players faction lost and they woke up near near some cover and they all go to that cover and then help each other escape
Love #8, the visions/dreams/prophecy.
Ive been doing something with my gaming world for 20+ years that really helps with campaign beginnings. I have always used the same world. Each campaign becomes history and fleshes out Gods, Kingdoms, politics, etc. Beloved high level characters become very well developed NPCs. By relying on my own preexisting campaign world (all credit given to players over the years who have helped develop it), I can provide players with a consistent world with minimal campaign prep on my part. Lazy? Perhaps a bit of a short cut, yes, but the flip side is the joy you see when players recognize something they helped create in previous campaigns. I strongly encourage players to create elaborate back stories for their new characters. In the case of players who are familiar with the world, they get to have a lot of fun with this part. If a new player is not familiar with the world and comes up with an amazing backstory that can't be comfortably fit into an existing area/kingdom/political situation, I will often grab a section of map that has not been developed (still plenty of those) and that new player has helped establish even more of the world. But... I always stress that those back stories need to create a situation where there is a reason the party has come together. I am not a DM that forces a story line. I describe the world and give them options, what the party does builds the world.
As for campaign beginnings... I like to give the entire group of players options within the world on where THEY want to start and let them decide. Here is my typical list of available options.
1. The most campaigned in kingdom has an orphanage that has grown from being a place children with no parents are dumped into a well financed highly developed elite special forces training program. To the point that even wealthy nobles will pay substantial amounts of gold for the privilege of having their children trained there. The benefit to the players are powerful patrons, a secure home base, and a streamlined "quest board" if they choose to start at this school. This one is where the campaign world started (as a normal orphanage), and if the players have no preference what I usually go with by default.
2. A neighboring Kingdom has the greatest library and magic school in the known world, but the (somewhat) secret leader of that school is a dark elf. As the kingdom itself has a strong Paladin presence, political struggles run rampant. Parties can begin as paladins and their agents, magic students, or even a group hired to journey to the library seeking a specific book.
3. The City Of Endless Night to the extreme north sits on the shore of a volcanic lake. The lake creates an area of moderate climate surrounded by harsh winter conditions. This city is a spell jammer port, and has become a melting pot of incredibly diverse races. There is a clan of very powerful orcs (basically orogs from generations of cross breeding for strength) that have a somewhat uneasy truce with the city and winter within the moderate climate nearby every year. Peace is kept by a near immortal Paladin who avoids politics (in fact, it pisses her of when she gets dragged into it) and simply attempts to ensure the city remains a refuge for all. Options for party members include almost any race (half orcs are not uncommon). Campaigns can go soooooooo many directions from this starting point, and the flavor of this area is very harsh and brutal.
4. There is an emperor who sacrificed almost his entire population in a ritual that transformed himself and many of his upper nobility into Liches. The ritual ripped open a rift into Ravenloft, and this corner of the map exists within both realms. The existing hierarchy of Revenloft is not happy with this powerful new interloper and political struggles abound. Campaigns do not usually start here (several have ended here =P), but I always give this as an option.
5. Last but not least, There are several other lightly or not developed at all Kingdoms and continents. If the players desire, I am more than happy to let them point at a spot on the world map and say "lets start here!". This has started happening more of late with players that are familiar with the world and want to help build up new areas. In this case I will go right to the tried and true, if a bit trope tavern/washed up shipwreck/prisoners/etc. starting points.
TLDR; Previous campaigns make GREAT starting points for new campaigns. Let the players decide where they start.
The laundromat! I never even thought about how a magitek washing machine might be!
Another idea is do the inverse, do an entire oneshot or short campaign in a tavern.
That works pretty well as a oneshot concept. I'd switch from tavern to Inn/tavern complex/compound to allow for a variety of sub locations to do things within the venue (tavern, stables, public hall, public sleeping rooms, private sleeping rooms, "working girls" area of the private building, cellars, hidden illegal fight arena, thieves guild safehouse rooms, etc.. Its amazing what you can pack into a four acre compound in a large enough community.
I like to start my kampaigns with "Everibody roll initiative" it's an easy whay to gett the players heated up without giving them anything in advance.
My most troll'ish kind of start was a three minute description of a bar ending with "as a gigant bal of fire turns the entire place to cinder". At that moment they knew shitt was going down, and one of them just literaly roasted the intro. It was an awsome way to start an awsome evil runn. ^^
The best way that I started my campaign was the King's court. They did all meet in a city but the guards were ordered to grab anyone with a weapon on them and bring them to him. So with about five PCs and about twenty other NPCs they were given a quest.
Sweat and blood stain your face and the ground is slick with the gore of the battle that just ended. Ravens feast on the field of corpses laying about you as the survivors looking blankly around at the devastation wrought by your own hands. You lost many friends in the last hours but a few familiar faces stare across the field at you. You all stumble back to where your camp was and collapse around the same fire...
Bam! That's how you do it.
Nerdarchist Dave
5:46 Ironically enough, me and my friends just got out of a prison in our D&D game. lol
My go to is the pc's answering a calling for adventurers, via a faction. And being platooned together.
Always can find an individual reason in each pc's background on why they are there. Offers a home base. Instantly puts them on a team with a set npc high archey. A way to deliver main mission quest/campaigns. Npc's they wont be inclined to instantly murder hobo. Ect.
Your party is at a guild auction where the sell the gear from dead adventurers. Or they are there to purchase a slave (AKA the PC playing the tank role)
I played a campaign that started in caravans. There were 10+ PC's so it was a bit chaotic. The DM split the party into 2 caravans. It was good because it became easier to role play as your character and interact with other PC's. However it was boring at times.
I personaly never ever started or played a campaigns beginning in a tavern. The first time as a player was on horse back, the second time on a Shipwreck, the next two times on a ship and another time at a cities questboard. To start at a tavern is probebly some 2nd or 3rd Edition thing.
A colosseum or a tournament is also a good option. My DnD group and I started with this.
Great idea!!! I've always toyed with the idea to start in an actual battlefield,
My first game started out in a Corn Field, our PCs woke up in a corn field and our wizard's halfling friend was kidnapped, so we teamed up to save him and escape the corn field
I had one campaimg i started after everybody rolled their char i had em roll a d6 for where they exist in town.
One started road weary wondering in town without supplies and would be in danger of vagrancy, another was in jail for a minimal charge and had to escape and had the chance to grab the starting gear of another player. The other 4 things i had i dont recal, but withing 45minuotes of game time everyone would group up no matter what they did. Made chatachter meeting seem alot more natural
I started my players by being in the same place at the same time, all with different goals. They all were at the same orc camp doing different things. The bard had been caught stealing, and was avoiding the dwarvish mafia. and was locked up. The rogue, the bard’s companion was attempting to stealthily break him out. The human fighter was running from his organization he betrayed. The Elf fighter was hunting a sorcerer that held the answers to the whereabouts of his son. The wizard was looking for the same sorcerer to investigate the death of his mentor. And the cleric was searching for the sorcerer to find out where he could find the blue dragon. They all ended up there together, and killed the orcs. After searching them they found out where they could find the sorcerer, and the rogue, bard, and human fighter followed them to escape the people chasing them.
I find There is actually a certain symbolism behind taverns that fits with Dungeons and Dragons. Taverns are inclusive places where adventures from far and wide of diffrent skill sets, oraces, personalitys, ideals, bonds and goals gather around relax, have fun and to share stories of their great adventures and party members with other adventurors. Much like how in D&D dall sorts of diffrent players gather around the gaming table or talk on social media to play games they love to relax and talk about their awesome campaigns, favrioute characters and more with the occasional horror story of a murder hobo or rules lawyer. In many ways Taverns are not cliches of D&D but a symbol of D&D.
Apologies if mentioned, but a variant of the prisoner option would be like the Usual Suspects.