Great ways to start a campaign

The party starts in a self-help group that helps getting over loot-addiction.

You're all prisoners and you start in a carriage that takes you to the village where you'll be executed.

You were all taken from the Capital city prison, first by carriage and then by boat, to the east, to . Fear not, for is watchful. You have been chosen.

That you have probably never played.

Players get lured into a trap and killed by a fanatical demon hunters cult, which accused them of making a deal with a powerful demon. They throats are slit, but instead of dying they wake up somewhere on the other side of the country. After some time it turns out that Demon Hunters' made a mistake in time. In the moment of the execution the PCs were innocent, but it was the said demon who saved their lives. He's an abusive asshole, but he hates the Demon Hunters and will gladly consider PC's debt paid if they'll get rid of them. Especially that they've already found out about PCs survival and because of Demon's dickery are coming after them.

Do this, but the pcs are going to be sacrifices to some unknown god. When they unite and manage to escape, they find out that the sacrifice was meant to prevent an evil god from entering the world.

>You're all prisoners and you start in a carriage that takes you to the village where you'll be executed
What's your story, horse thief?

>caravan

No, caravans suck. They're worse than taverns.

Wanted to start off my new campaign different as well, the current idea is to have them all in a city either for religious pilgrimage or having grown up there. Then it would be attacked by the kings men and completely wiped off the map, the party, and anyone they manage to save as the only survivors.

I'm still having trouble finding a reason for two of the party members to be in such a small town

>The troll swings its massive club and misses.
>What do you do?

"Where am I, what's happening, what?"

Most anons on Veeky Forums have never played at all.

>he thinks there's something worse than taverns

I don't know, what do you see except for the troll and the two orcs prodding him and pushing him with spears?

What if it's an armoured train?

Fuck you. There's only two outcomes that ever happen on a caravan. Either it gets ambushed or the guy in charge tells you to do some dumb bullshit and it gets ambushed while you're away.

A blast of magical energy makes some people, but not others.
The characters are marked.

I know this is off subject and that meme is based on crazy Tom Cruise, but doesn't Leon from Resident Evil 4 look like Tom? I'm talking about in the game, not the actually meme.

What if it doesn't? It reaches the town safely. Or the caravan guards decide to rob it. Or one of the merchants was travelling with a dangerous artefact that slowly drives everyone insane. Or it never reaches the destination, the whole campaign happens on the caravan.

>Your poker game (which we'll play out to determine your starting dollars) has been cancelled by the zombie apocalypse
>You are on a ship that had no choice but to ram another ship, board that ship, and steal their escape pods
>You are dropped from the sky and there's a giant mutant wasp coming for you
>You have smuggled yourself into a space station, only now you have to smuggle yourself out because there are others smugglers trying to out smuggle you
>The resort town where you retired and are now teaching children how to train monsters has been attacked by the Brotherhood of Nod
Recent campaign starts off the top of my head, though there's also been tavern starts and shipwreck starts but the tavern was full of people who hated me and the shipwreck was on an island of giants so those were okay, too.

Other people are made by putting penis in vagina?

I thought for a moment this was one story and I was very confused.

I wish.
It's mostly the same group of friends though.

>you each wake suddenly to find yourselves confined in a cramped, pitch black space barely longer than your supine body
>give them some time to get out
>you finally claw your way out of your graves to see eachother, all clad in arms and armor from various disparate points in history
>a solemn knight sits by a memorial, looks up at you and says
>"we should begin running. The Order of the Raven are nearby and they HATE when people don't stay dead. Even when you're the last hope this world's got."

>Asking players "what do you see"
That'll end well

It does. It did.

There's a virus that turns people into zombies. The pc's decide to hide from it in a house belonging to one of them. They build a rather effective defense system and, having nothing else to do, gather in the front yard and play ttrpg's. On the first day you DM one short game and then choose a player to be the DM on the next day, they should think of a theme and ask the players to make characters overnight. Thus the DM's will rotate every day. In the meantime the party entertain themselves with songs, dancing and peaceful walks in the yard.

None of those scenarios ever fucking happen though. Yeah, it'd be cool if they did, but they don't, so they're irrelevant.

Im impressed. My players would just break into a shitstorm, one half yelling at me that it's my job to describe the situation to them, not the other way around

The other would start shouting shit like "I see a mini gun" or "I see two orcs and a troll having a heart attack"

Then I guess you just go with what they described. The orcs and the troll suddenly collapse and there's a mini gun there.

Gotta start smaller, let them decide the season, what kinda warning is written above the dungeon's entrance, that kind of stuff. And either veto dumb shit yourself or let other players do it for you.
And you still have to describe shit and add upon what they said. If one goes "it's a tavern" in the troll example, you'll still have the panicked patrons, the broken furniture littering the floor, the noises of fighting outside, etc.

kek
Might be worth doing it once to get it out of their system, though.

>the whole campaign happens on the caravan
Oregon Trail: the campaign.

I started the group in the service of a kingdom that functionally had a branch of the military serving as adventurers and problem solvers, rather than relying on wandering assholes to save the land.

They all started at a military graduation, meeting the rest of their squad and being put on a reconnaissance mission.

>That guy who's always kinda weird but acceptable asks if his character can have dysentry.

Actually, how would you make a campaign that starts with some heavy shitstorm without any explanation and after a moment goes "*record scratch sound* you're probably wondering how you ended up in this situation" followed up by retrospection which is the actual campaign. How would you assure that the players indeed will end up in the starting situation without railroading too heavily? I was thinking about starting a Rogue Trader campaign this way about a year ago, but decided against it before I got too much into thinking about it.

Decide that in session 0 where everyone makes characters and you work on that together.
Though another problem with that is it takes away mortal danger, since they're guaranteed to show up at the heavy shitstorm point.
Or just... don't. Maybe it'd work for a session or two, but not a whole campaign? I don't know.

You keep the shitstorm something that, while a chaotic shitstorm, is something that could very easily occur, and maybe leave out more fine details.
>your clash with the enemy's forces is quickly spiraling out of control
>do up a round of combat with some big bad showing up dramatically
>record scratch
Only big problem I foresee is a PC death along the way.

That sounds fucking fantastic.

How many campaigns have you played in that started in a tavern? I haven't played any. I think it's the sort of thing where everyone thinks it's a cliche so it never actually happens.

While you were distracted by your unimportant thoughts, the troll raised his mace for another strike, you better stay focused this time.

This is the millionth time we've had a thread about it, and we've become increasingly efficient at it.

Three out of five fantasy campaigns I played in. And a 19th century campaign I played in had us start in an inn, if that counts.

That works too.

Who cares? It works, that's what matters.

Most of my D&D games have started in a tabern. Absolutely zero games of any other game have started in taberns tho.

You all meet by the most ordinary pool ever.

You start on a savage disco party full of teenage sluts and synthetic drugs.

>You all gather together inside the empty tavern
>Your tavern
>It's the grand opening tonight
>You have six hours to prepare
>And there's still those rats in the basement

Well, it would either have to be rather vague, although that wouldn't make it so puzzling and interesting, or it would require players who are actually willing to more or less go with the scenario instead of flipping shit like "why should really care?" or "Fuck that, let's open a tavern".

Assuming it would work, a nice thing to add in the prologue would be some things that suggest how close are they to reaching it. Like, someone that would make players think "We can't be nearing the shitstorm yet, since X haven't happened yet or because we don't have Y" That would make figuring out when and how the shitstorm will happen more interesting and keep them hooked, while also providing some milestones in the story.

Your travel guide tried to shake you down for extra fees and rob you and ditched you all when you rebuked him. Now you're stuck in the wilderness with just eachother. Also, do you smell something burning in the distance?

So I know this thread is about beginnings to a campaign, but does anyone have any ideas of simple things to ask the players for in their backstories?

I have a player who is absolutely awful at coming up with backstories, so I thought I'd give this campaign a few prompts so i can understand the characters better and choose how to start the campaign based on that.

A few ideas I have so far:
> Who is your PC closest to
> When your PC thinks "home" what do they imagine?
> How does/did you PC make money, if at all
> What is your PCs biggest secret

Any suggestions?

10/10 would play

So godamn cute

Don't know about backstories, but for better figuring out character's personalities I like to give players quick simple scenarios during character creation and ask them how they character would act.

>you're all in a tavern
>or rather in its basement
>you are small, you have a long tail, short gray fur and whiskers
>you look around and see other rats looking just as confused as you are
>you hear heavy footsteps on the stairs and the sound of a crossbow being loaded

I loved the one from my current campaign, though that's more due to the people playing I guess.

It was our Half-Orc barbarian named Bronan (yes, super original I know, but the character was redeemed by launching himself into the mouth of a black dragon in order to let the party escape)

>Start out in a town half submerged in a sea years ago due to some calamity.
>All our PC's get motivation to enter the town. Bronan's was simple "Your boots are worn, you need new ones"
>Walks up to the first guard he sees.
>"I need your clothes, and your boots"

The tone was set for the entire campaign from that point onward. By far the most enjoyable one I've ever played.

Yeah, me too. My dm's teased the idea of running this type of game for years, but then we always end up out in the woods traveling the world...

You recieve a sweetroll from the baker down the street, but a gang of three larger boys demand the sweetroll from you. What do you do.

Spit on it and prepare for the fight of course

But yeah, I mean something like these TES questions.

Throw the sweet roll into the air and, when they're distracted, strike at the largest of them.

Pretty much every D&D campaign I've ever been in hss been inn or tavern to start.

One, with a weird DM we met online, had us start in a gulag type forced labour camp, our characters physically broken and frail, so that escape was almost impossible

Earthquake.
Then go from there

>The tavern is on fire
>And it isn't your fault

>You all meet in a burning building
>You all meet in prison

>You all meet in a burning prison

Some famous NPC died, all the players have their own reasons for going to the wake... some sort of last will is read that has them all band together and adventure. Or at least get smashed at the bar.

Starting a campaign next week, and have a great frame to work from regarding ongoing stuff, depending on what players end up doing, but have no idea where to start. Group is oddly non-combat based and mostly female, and the only thing they have In common skill wise is some type or performance (Bard, sorceress gypsy dancer, actress rogue) I like the idea of the opening night of a play they're all in.

Well, what your idea for the campaign is?

The best bakery in Sigil is closing.
Your characters are banding together to fight hordes of hungry customers in order to get the last Arborean Walnut crullers.

A missing young woman, wannabe adventure mixed up in ugly shit, can tailor where/what she got into to the players decisions. Her wealthy aristo father sort of being a sendoff point and basis for info. Mixed in with some fun with antics from the Bregan D'aerthe, stolen artifact to be abused or destroyed, so on..

Two words gentlemen. Train heist.

>The minor antagonists from a previous campaign are on the cusp of completing a terrible ritual set to cause the end of the world
>Heavy bass begins to quietly build
>Your airship crashes through the temple wall
>I crank up that shitty/awesome rap song from the convicts boss fight in Dead Rising

Though I don't think this would work as a standalone. But it certainly did for our foray into epic level play.

Memorable one: PCs tied up naked on stakes before a roaring fire, deep in the jungle, a sharpened toothed, body painted with blood pict warrior has my cock and balls in her hand, about to carve them off for the cookpot.

Find a way to distract her long enough for someone to escape, or rp our way out of the situation.

>you wake up in the drunk tank
always a decent start, forces characters to work together regardless of divergent interests.

My plot hook is that the characters rescue a guy who's getting beat up in town, because people claim he's a cultists, but he's really an archeologist who leads them to the first dungeon (psych, he's really a cultist and betrays them for the relic in the dungeon)
I was going to have them start in the inn/tavern/about town. How can I do this better?

Street festival.
Have the town strung up with colorful banners and a traveling carnival is in town. Go into detail about the sweets, exotic animals they've never seen before, and the amazing performances.
Have a few random carnival-type events happen--a game tossing rings onto milk bottles to win a small but potentially useful trinket, a puppet or mummer's show, a street bard who shares wild gossip (this is a great way to hook your players into the plot--it's also a wonderful reoccurring character to have pop up.)
This sort of set-up has a few advantages. First, by the time they get to the plot stuff, they've already warmed up a bit and gotten used to their new characters. Second, it lets you get a little sneaky worldbuilding in by just having normal conversations in character with the players. Third, it lets people roll some dice and get a little prepared for events to come. Finally, it helps set a tone of roleplaying through events that (if you're doing it right and are a bit lucky) will continue through the whole campaign.

Irenicus.jpg

DO YOU SEE?

You all awaken in a tavern..
You're chained to the table.
The bartender is insane.

Hm, I quite like this. It may have a few snags with the setting though, they are in a kind of lost continent, and as a result there's only one big coastal city which acts as a port and trade hub. The rest of the continent has only scattered company towns. As a result all the people are mostly mercantile or Explorer types, you don't really have a festival type atmosphere most of the time.

I swallow the sweetroll whole and give them the finger.

>tfw my life

You all start on the back of a dragon that's on fire and about to crash into a mountain which shatters revealing a portal to mega-hell.

If only we hadn't gotten amnesia...