How do you have your players meet in game? I've been using Taverns and Prisons for a while, need ideas to break my bias

How do you have your players meet in game? I've been using Taverns and Prisons for a while, need ideas to break my bias.

encourage your players to have backstories that tie their characters together. If not all of them then just two or three. Establish a common interest beforehand and it makes a starting setting more unique. The paladin and cleric might be friends because they're in the same monastery. The rogue might have hired the barbarian to be his bodyguard and their looking for their next big heist.

Y'know. That sort of stuff.

I'm generally always trying to give each of the characters some plot hook that will guide them on the same tracks + encourage players to make characters that already know some of the others.

Examle:
>Character A receives letter from his uncle, notifying some trouble and urgent need of help
>Character B's player decided to roll chis char as a close friend of character A so he follows them
>Character C is authorities' secret agent covertly investigate the matter, so he needs to infiltrate the party
>Character D is Character A's uncles' trusted servant who delivered the message

Interesting. I'll keep that sort of stuff in mind

Wake up together without any idea how they got there.

i like this

You are setting the premise. All premises need some mystery to make them interesting. Make sure it's something that can intrigue all of the players (and their characters).

A certain guild's invitation needs help deal with a delicate matter. They've sent request for emissaries from various important factions of which the players are part. (Perhaps the rogues and shit sneaked in, because they heard of it). At the meeting, it turns out a dangerous and rare artifact has shown up, that can only be destroyed at one specific location, the hill of mild inconveniencing. Sadly, the guild is rather busy, so it's up to the party to destroy the artifact, or succumb to its evil.

Here's some from my group:

One of the characters hires the others as guides/ bodyguards/ whatever (done in Fading Suns)

They're all hired separately and told to work together (again Fading Suns and also our last Shadowrun campaign)

They all live in the same building when THINGS HAPPEN (done in Kult)

They all spend the night in the same hotel (also in Kult)

They party in the same ski resort for rich folks (Kult)

They get to a dog pound, each doing their separate errand (for a change - Kult)

They were born in the same vilage and have known each other since childhood and/or are related (three consecutive Viking homebrew campaigns - also in the second and third (current) they're descendants of the PCs from previous campaigns)


Since our group started playing together (4 years ago) we've not had a 'meet in a tavern'

Fleeing a botched job.

Spring it on them, then let them fill in the details. Bonus points to the first one who blames everything on someone else.

Getting robbed by the corrupt cops or guards.

>Ok players XYZ is the first little bit of the adventure.
>Take 10 min to figure out WHY the fuck you all care to stick around each other, and continue sticking around each other when things go bad.

Long ago I figured out it's not the DM's job to make sure everyone gets along. It's the Players.

City-wide scavenger hunt festival, where they need each others' skills to win.

I usually start with some big disaster or event that occurs while they all happen to be in the same place.

For instance. they're all doing something in a particular section of the city, when suddenly a massive sinkhole opens beneath, sucking homes, businesses, hundreds of citizens, and the party down with them into otherwise unknown subterranean tunnels. This strategy has a few benefits:

>They're probably the only "competent" people there to handle any threats, help civilians, or search for treasure in perhaps some old ruins or dungeons
>Due to the previous point, this gives you an opportunity to gauge the player's intentions. Are they dicks? Do they just want treasure? Do they want to be heroes? etc.
>Going through danger together is often a way to make fast friends out of people you wouldn't normally socialize with. A Wizard wouldn't normally like a Barbarian, until the Barb rips apart the underground monster that otherwise could've KO'd him.
>They have quick access to an early act of heroism, or accomplishment. Allowing you to give them recognition and perhaps send another job their way that involves them as a group.

It's pretty cliche, but it just works too damn well.

for my latest campaign, it was "you're all in a carriage you hired together to save cost, on your way to investigate a bounty on a mysterious vampire murderer in a small town,"
But I have also used the "you have to escape from prison," prompt too.

Now I have to think of a new one because I killed all my pcs last session assaulting an orc encampment

They were all attending the same wedding ceremony when the bride and/or groom gets stabbed

To expand on that idea. Perhaps start them out in a dungeon and or cave. They don't know who each other are, or how they got there. They will have to hash out who is who, and if they're friend or foe. When that is established make it known that they're not alone in that dungeon. Making it imparative for them to work together to get out of the dark, dank, monster infested dungeon/cave.

I've always liked using fairs and festivals. Gives a good story reason for characters of such wildly different backgrounds to all be in the same place together.

It depends on the campaign I'm running but I do try to shake it up. Past examples have included.

>>You all agreed to take the same job and meet up at the employer's estate.

>> You're all in the same city during a big parade when it comes under attack.

>> You are the survivors of a devastating battle.

>> You are part of a military wagon train that is being ambushed by the enemy.

>>You are gladiator-slaves in an arena and today is the big break.

I usually ask my players to write it into their backstories. I find it's more immersive than just "You guys just met and decided to adventure together." By having them work together on their backstories, it familiarizes the players with each other and gives an idea of how their group dynamics will be in the game.

With a twist!

>They meet in a prison...but for reasons unrelated with being criminals, and they're all outside the cells.
>They meet in a tavern - because they're all working for the tavern owner, who is an ex-adventurer and someone they all know.

>How do you have your players meet in game?
They wake up with no idea how they got here or who the guys near them are, and have to work together to retrace the events that occured yesterday.

in the current game, they met on the road.

GM help thread?

I use a back story or let the player decide a simple entrance. A lot of the time people join as the campaign moves along prompting entirely new ways to help.

How much treasure would a Duke have? Besides "it depends on the story." The party is raiding a corrupt dukes castle on behalf of another noble and will have the option to take what ever they can carry in their arms and a large chest.

Some background
>duke owns large copper mine, all coins will be copper chunks melted together
>has been sending out small raiding parties against merchants
>killed off all clergy that operated outside his walls for failure to pay taxes
>is corrupted by dark magic and sealed to his thorne
>surrounded by hills and forests

> You are all falling from the sky and on fire.
> There is an angry water elemental destroying the city below.
> Roll for damage.

Well, how much treasure you need the party to have? Don't dole out easily spendable cash money and gold though, but use objects of art and such instead. That way they need to find a right buyer, which is an adventure on itself.

>Setting is a very prosperous and wealthy nation
>Adventurers flock to the nation for its great rewards
>King requires all new adventurers to get a permit for adventuring in his kingdom
>Permit requires you to sign up for a "lottery"
>Every week numbers are drawn and the adventurers with the matching numbers are required to perform duties as "hands of the king"
>Party meets in the lottery wagon that is sent to pick up the winners

I let them be part of military unit. Emperor doesnt care who get to be in group with whom. They're all just numbers for him.

Normally it's in a "in media res" "doing a mission" thing. Sometimes it's a "forced together by circumstance" thing, like "Oh shit this boat we're on just caught on fire".

I think I most prefer having characters start out with some kind of prior relationship.

Enough to set up a house or so at a trade out post. One sets aside savings. The other spends everything on upgrades then lives in a shitty inn between missions. Cleric donates to the church besides what she is allowed to keep on her, and the monk is new.

>They all won a contest and happened to be on the same train.
>They all literally bump into each other while distracted, tripping over each other and starting an argument
>They were on a cruise that ended up being shipwrecked. They all washed up on the same island.

One really nice backstory we had was that all the PCs were kids all at the same Orphanage. In the first session the Orphanage got attacked and burned down and most of the kids were kidnapped sans the PCs who escaped. Since they all were kids they didn't exactly want to go off on their own, so they stuck together to survive.

Had the best of both worlds, PCs knew each other without being that close and being able to have their own backstories. And they were forced to stick together by circumstance.

It worked really nicely when we had to add a new player and roll up a PC. We just did a flashback session to the Orphanage and established that we knew those 2 kids, but they both couldn't find us in the chaos and had to escape on their own. We found one dying from hypothermia in a storm and another was a beggar in a city we went to. So we instantly recognized them and they instantly had a reason to join us. The GM could also just stick them anywhere he wanted.

Pick a building or location in a town/city/country

They meet there