ITT alternatives for "You all meet in a tavern, a guy has a mission for you"

ITT alternatives for "You all meet in a tavern, a guy has a mission for you"

PD: the "You all wake up and don't remember how you got here, you must find out" is even a greater cliché than the former.
PD2: for the sake of originality I'm also taking the "The king has sent you to recover the magic mcguffin"

>the party is a band of three/four musicians
>each can choose an instrument
>they must perform their tour along the world, but the world is filled with wild monsters and wars

>plan b: the same but they're a baseball team who must play all the continent's league matches

"You were imprisoned for crimes you may or may not have committed. Luckily the Duke is about to pardon you, in exchange for a dangerous and possibly immoral service which he can plausibly deny knowledge of. The official story will be that you escaped custody. [Insert offer here, remove shackles, push them into the cold light of day] What do you do?"

>you're celebrating a successful show/game at a local bar, when a bearded fan comes up to you... no it's different I swear

With a new group I like to ask the players to come up with a reason for their character to have left their home, recently or mot, then have them start as members of the same caravan.

You're all in a tavern, when you hear screaming and the whole front of the tavern explodes in flames. Dex save's all of you.

Had this idea in my head for a long time.

> Game starts with a bunch of individual sessions
> Each player starts on level 1, and we basically play through their backstory.
> Like, if they are a noble, they start in their lands, scheming against their liege lord, dealing with peasants' grievances or maybe just trying to get along with their dysfunctional families.
> Or if they are a mage apprentice, they're getting the "Harry Potter: Abridged edition" plot.
> It all takes them to around level 3, when their personal plots come to an abrupt end, when something happens.
> Somebody fucks them over. It may be an evil overlord, conquering lands, kidnapping maidens and burning down villages
> Or a "charming" rogue acting like your typical sociopathic PC
> Or maybe some scheming asshole duke with no concern for the lower class and no sense of honor.
> One way or another, he utterly fucks them all over in a way that must make them want revenge.
> However, first they must deal with the consequences of being fucked over and form an alliance with those three strange people they ended up in the same situation with...
> ...and escape from the prison, where they are awaiting execution.
> ...or a bandit camp, where they are being held hostage.
> ...or a strange death world, where they've been planeshifted.

What do you think, Veeky Forums?

There's a party
PCs came to party independently
*Monster* came to party
Party is now on fire
Are you a bad enough dude to put it out?

>*freeze frame* *record scratch* You all wonder how you got here, It all started in the summer of 87...

YOURE IN A ROOM

MONSTERS IN ROOM

MONSTERS NOT NICE

WHAT DO YOU PLAYERS?

NO PLAYERS, YOU ARE MONSTER

I great arch-wizard had sent you all magical invitations to a party he was throwing

upon arriving the wizard tower is completely abandoned, the pcs are the only ones there

At the slave market, a prospective gladiator entrepreneur buys all of you and makes a ring around you with his guardsmen. He throws you some weapons and tells you all to fight it out until the last man standing.

Ideally the PCs would band up and take down the slavers and find whatever items they wanted to start with in their caravan.

You all awake in the back of a wagon bound with ropes. Your equipment is missing. You have no idea where you are. Each of you see 3 other random people waking up at about the same time. What do you do?

Maybe this is too close to "the king sends you after the mcguffin", but I've had some success with one player being given a mission from their organization or family or what have you, something that would reasonably involve talking to other people. Lo and behold, the first people they talk to are all PCs who have a reason for seeing the task through to the end (ie the constable wants to find the missing person or the wizard believes there's a magical tome in the dungeon).

I have a game stating this saturday and i was about to star everythng by
>you guys don't remeber how you got here.

Oh, dammit.

You were born under a special sign, and trained to be the greatest warrior band of your tribe's history.

The manhood ceremony is tomorrow, and then it's time to conquer those fuckers who live downriver.

Skyrim?

Mine was:

> All the players are passengers (the only passengers) on a merchant ship
> Said merchant ship is pulled over by naval forces
> Turns out the merchant is guilty of smuggling, him and his crew are taken onto the navy ship into custody
> Navy splits their crew between navy ship and merchant ship with players still on it
> Later both ships get caught in a bad storm
> Naval ship sinks
> Merchant ship with players is battling the storm
> Flash of lightning
> Oh shit, Pirates!
> Pirates caught in the storm as well, end up colliding with the merchant ship
> Pirate ship sinks, pirates jump aboard merchant ship
> Between flashes of lightning players see pirates and navy fighting and/or working together to keep the ship afloat
> The storm passes
> The merchant ship has survived, but the main mast is broken
> On one end of the ship are the remaining pirates
> On the other end are the remaining naval forces
> In the middle are the players
> wat do

I really like starting mid dungeon.
How did you get here? Who knows, but you clearly just activated a mind wipe trap.

A significant amount to the quest can be your characters discovering who they are, and embracing or rejecting their past.

>in accordance with local law, strangers are picked randomly from the streets to serve as jury during a trial.

>The party meet as jurors in a case accusing someone of banditry.

>When the first witness comes to the stand and is asked to identity the man who attacked their caravan, the witness points at the jury and screams.

>>When the first witness comes to the stand and is asked to identity the man who attacked their caravan, the witness points at the jury and screams.

>"Your honor. We've reached a verdict. Not guilty." *Runs Away*

Your mercenary company is escorting a merchant band through a lowland forest when arrows burst from the treeline.

What do you do?

You have no idea how you got here but you're in a pit, wearing rags, using dull weapons, and a three-headed tiger is leaping towards your group.

>You wake up in complete darkness
>There is dirt all around you
>After a few minutes of frantic digging you break through to the surface
>You find yourself emerging from an ancient grave, the marker too worn to read
>There are several other wild-eyed figures covered in dirt poking out of other graves nearby
>You remember nothing of how you got here or who you are
>The Bloodmoon shines balefully in the sky above

>suicide squad: RPG edition

not bad

Nobody expected the summer rains to be so strong and last quite so long, but the road in all directions has turned to mud and you've all been stuck for the past two weeks in this shitty humid tavern, in this podunk village and your coin is starting to run low, and you're willing to do anything to break the boredom.

Sounds like you took a page from MCU. Gives each of them time to shine, but you'll wait a bit before they each interact. Could be good for new players.

How many people here make their party meet all at once? Or do they sort of start as a chance meeting between two people, and you pick up the rest of the gang on the way?

You all meet at the dawn of a new era, a god has a mission for you.

I've run something similar, and my only advise would be to have members of the party then have their backstories intertwine a little.

Maybe this means people are paired off with one other player in their conjoined backstory, maybe everyone is already a team before the real sessions begin.

Try not to have the party meet up without their characters knowing somebody, though. The group I ran for took forever to trust the other characters enough to ask for help, which lead to some problems. That said, they weren't the best roleplayers ever.

>Each character has booked passage on a trans-Atlantic passenger liner for their own reasons.
>A few days out and the captain is found stabbed to death.
>After that, people just start to disappear.
>Something can smell the blood in the water.

Funeral for some dude.
At some point ask the players why they're at this funeral, but not before explaining what sort of person this guy was known to be.
At some point have some shit go down during the funeral, or have the dude's will or a trusted servant/family member of his ask you to do something.

I'm gonna steal that

>you all meet at an orgy

Enjoy, I stole it from a Hackmaster adventure. I like it because it's quick and simple, assumes everyone has had at least 2 weeks to get to know each other, and gives all the PCs a strong motivation to jump at whatever potential adventure pops up.

I've done this. Except not mercenary company, nor the ambush.

Just some travelers who need to get to a destination and decided to make some coin accompanying a merchant's carriage along the way.

I had all my players start in coffins in the basement of a serial killer, who had wiped their memories and turned them into horrible beasts as a precursor to some sort of evil ritual. They had to fight their way past him, and then had to escape from the wizard police on flying cars the cops had flying cars, not them.)

After that they just bumblefucked their way through the countryside until they were eaten by vampires. Good times were had by all.

A terrible and sudden storm breaks out at night while you're on your way aboard a passenger ship, but you pass out when a book fallen from the bookshelf hits you on the head before you find out what's going on. The next morning you wake up with a terrible headache in what appears to be the belly of a gigantic sea monster, surrounded by a bunch of people who seemingly got there earlier, discussing what to do with you.

I can say, with certain pride, that not a single one of my adventures ever started in a tavern. My most recent parties boarded a wrong ship because of an idiot announcer in a port, were sentenced to community service cleaning shit out of magical stables, won prizes at the lottery and saw a shared dream.

But taverns are the best.

I work for the (adventuring) union
'Cuz she's so good to me
And I'm bound to get that dragon job
That's where she said I should be!

>bbeg revealed
>sentient iceberg powered by the souls of those that died on a similar voyage long ago

Stereotypes aside, looking for a job in what's essentially a pub makes no sense.

Instead of tavern why not start from
>Opera house
The characters are members of high society and personally witness the assassination of the King. Soon they need to pick their side in the following civil war and fight for what's right (in their opinion).

>Auction house
Characters are collectors and treasure hunters who have individually come to bid on an artifact rumored to lead to a great treasure. Bad guys interrupt the proceedings and steal the item right before their noses.

>Art gallery
The opening of new exhibition by a famous eccentric turns to chaos, as one of the paintings comes alive and swallows the characters into an alternative world inspired by surrealist art.

>All night cafe
Characters arrive to investigate rumors of strange happenings; rumors turn out to be true.

"As you seize the artefact, the temple around you starts collapsing. What do you do?"

"You all meet in a tavern. An hour into your introductions and such, you notice that the tavern is trying to eat you, because it's a damned mimic."