Bad ways for the PCs to meet at the start of a campaign

but there's only four of us

Rolls make it into an orgy witha all pcs

>I forgot to mention my two DMPCs...

>Hi.
>Hi.
>Um… hi.
>What's… like, your name? And stuff.

I was in this once, albeit the awkwardness seemed reasonable. The GM insisted we reset and not do that after an NPC forced a PCs bluff on killing them over the NPC looting a corpse within minutes of stepping outside. The GM disappeared when it became clear half the group didn't agree they were being reasonable - even though they were willing to go along with it.

Hanging upside down in a drider's lair.

>"You know, it's really cool the GM finally figured out a way to get all our disparate character concepts to work together."
>"Drider's are CR 7, this isn't a campaign, this is revenge."

You tell me
youtube.com/watch?v=26qQ4ciy-QA

>tfw new campaign coming up
>All of our party accidentally made freaks and odd-races
>Now everytime i ask where we're all going to begin he tip toes around an answer and changes the subject.

HE'S GONNA PUNISH US, I KNOW IT, OH GOD.

I lived through the worst campaign opening

>NWoD, start as normal humans
>GM tells everyone to make characters separately, with no knowledge of the planned campaign.
>"You start in the office of a mob boss, he wants you to travel to another state and retrieve an item."

>cue five variations of "What? Why would I do this? I have a job and a life. What reason do I have to trust, let alone work for this guy? Who are all these people I've only just met and why should I trust/work with them?"
>GM: "Uhhh..."
>"What even is the item he wants retrieved? "
>GM: "He... he won't tell you. "

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So you meet at the local gay bar

Exhibits in a freak show.

literally the start of my homebrew, only without the sexual motivation

That would be great if a group of powerful adventurers bust in, kill frider, and rescue the PCs. They have to live in the shadow of the powerful group, always being one upped by the rescuers deeds

I hope so!

Lynching of a minority cosplay

‘At all’

Falling from the sky

the adventurer's guild puts them in a team

What's he doing running a bar that hasn't had a patron in over a year?

Waiting to die.

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>go to tavern
>find bard
>start bar brawl

Every game, without fail

taverns are a cliche for a reason, it can be a fun setting to get to know a little about other PCs' personalities. sort of like why bars are popular in real life, alcohol is a good social lubricant in the right doses.

you can make the fair argument that meeting in a tavern is a shitty motivation for a group to stay together, but if the players are all there to have fun and not nitpick the "realism" of the campaign it's a nice, easy "let's get this over with and start adventuring from a hook everyone can recognize" kind of tool.

i don't think a GM-forced plot point is ever going to be as good at keeping the party together as having the players build characters who want to adventure together in the first place.

start in the first episode of 'lost'

The bar is a front for laundering money or something, usually.

haven't you ever seen something like this in real life? like, you go into the corner bodega in some shitty neighborhood and there's like six candy bars and a box of laundry soap on the shelves, two six packs of Bud and some malt liquor in the refrigerators, and everything else is sitting there empty. meanwhile there's three employees hanging out by the cash register watching TV and eyeing you suspiciously. the natural assumption is that they're dealing drugs or hookers or something in the back. or just that the other drug dealers in the neighborhood come here to pass off their money and exchange it for money that doesn't have blood and heroin on it.

or, you know, those fucking Mattress King stores that are all over. there's a place in Boise near the mall where you can see 4 of those fucking stores at the same intersection. brightly lit, expensive mattresses, always staffed by at least one guy, no fucking customers ever. how often do people need to buy a mattress that you can support all those locations? and guess what? the state just took them to trial on suspected money laundering.

>join a 5e group
>DM tells us "Make any character you want, feel free to give them backstories and personal goals"
>day of the game
>"I'm running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, you all meet on the road outside a town, and you see a dragon attacking it. What do you do?"
>mfw
So you expect us all to go into battle together, despite the fact that none of us know each other, we don't have any connection to this town, and there's really nothing stopping us from turning around and walking away from this fucking mess.

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Last men standing in a battlefield. For both sides.

That sounds like a really neat introduction to a campaign, actually.

Shit DM alert, leave.

>So you expect us all to go into battle together, despite the fact that none of us know each other, we don't have any connection to this town, and there's really nothing stopping us from turning around and walking away from this fucking mess.

Yes.

Because if you made a character under the expectation that you weren't going to be working together as a group, seeking out adventure and excitement, then you're the one at fault.

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At an orgy

I found that odd as well. The first time playing HotDQ, our DM set us up as caravan guards/merchants who'd been on the road together for a short time. When we came across the burning town, my character (a quixotic old Halfling) charged in, in a blaze of stupid chivalry. It made sense for him, but any rational character would've ushered the wagons off the road and waited for the dragon to leave...

This is how you start a campaign:
>let the guy who rolled an evil toon get into trouble
>have the girl who rolled into a female knight be forced into marrigage by her father
>Have the neutral guy who genuinely roleplayed loitering in the tavern/marketplace pass out from drinking
>evil takes girl hostage, steals a cart to escape, neutral was sleeping off his wine in the cart
>drop paladin on them a bit later

This, honestly. You're adventurers, were you expecting to stay home?

>DM has us roll characters
>decide as a group to be a knight, his squire, and two members of his retinue
>DM starts
>"You're all members of a chain gang, breaking rocks at the remote end of a quarry. Suddenly, the guard watching you suffers a heart attack and dies. What do?"

It wasn't an overall bad idea, we just weren't told we'd be criminals to start.

Nah, mate. If he wants us to have a reason to stick together, he should have given us a tiny bit of context beforehand. I'm not asking for an entire session dedicated to the players getting to know each other, but doing the bare minimum isn't praiseworthy.

How about something like
>The campaign will start near a town called Fucksville, known for the high quality of the hacky sacks they produce. Try to work in a reason your character might be travelling there.
When we start, we can establish that your characters encountered each other on the road to Fucksville. We can do a bit of RP beforehand where you guys talk a bit.

Took me a few seconds to come up with that, and it's a much better solution than
>The timeline of all your characters existences has conveniently converged to this single moment, so fortunately we don't have to waste time before we jump right into the first combat encounter

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there is, obviously, a happy middle ground here. don't go out of your way to pretend to be retarded. you're too convincing.

I did this too. They woke up without memories and items, and about to be thrown into the pits. I didn't even explain the mechanics, I just had them panic and figure it out as the goons came to their rusty cage.

The players loved it

dat filename

Does it really matter?
If it's something that can be explained away with half a second's thought, than it sounds like it's not really important, and acting like it is means you lack the flexibility to maneuver in medias res.

The game starts with the expectation that your characters have a reason to stick together. There's next to no reason to have a character that doesn't, aside from wanting to buck the formula. With the expectation in place, does it really matter when you reveal (or even decide) what that reason is?

It's like complaining about the DM expecting your characters to be adventurers in any other regard, and then having to stop to address how you each became adventurers. As interesting as your backstory may be to yourself, it's not exactly a paramount concern when there's a dragon attacking.

Clearly the DM wasn't concerned with the how and why, since he had enough trust in you to find reasons of your own, and that aspect of the story wouldn't be featured prominently in any case.

>Does it really matter?
Yep. Pretty stupid of you to ask this.

Establishing that our characters exist as actual people within the game world, who didn't just suddenly pop into existence at a moments notice, is a good way to draw your players in. If he had simply stated outright "This won't be a roleplay heavy campaign. Go ahead and make backstories for your characters if you want, but they probably won't feature prominently", then that might be one thing. But not informing us of the nature of the campaign beforehand, telling us to feel free to add a backstory and goals to our characters, and then simply expecting me to sit back and clap as he does the absolute bare minimum is pretty laughable.

I don't know exactly what kind of scenario you're imagining in your little pea brain, user - if you're thinking that each of us threw up our hands and refused to move forward until all our characters sat down and had a long discussion about our storied pasts, you're wrong. We went into the town, killed some kobolds, and saved some villagers. It wasn't a huge deal, but it very easily could have been done much more organically, and I'm not going to refrain from pointing out laziness when I see it.

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I played Baldur's Gate 2 as well.

in a burning tavern, lit up by the past adventurers

The drider keeps following them and capturing them again because he' socially awkward and that's the only way he can say 'I love you please don't go'.

>bla bla bla

Once again, you seem to care, but failed to actually present it as important.
You're complaining about "laziness" when you've also gone ahead and shown that what was omitted wasn't anything that required any depth of thought.

>It wasn't a huge deal

So, you agree, but just wanted to run your mouth a little bit more. Nice.

>You're complaining about "laziness" when you've also gone ahead and shown that what was omitted wasn't anything that required any depth of thought.
No idea what your logic is here - just because something doesn't require notable effort, it shouldn't be attempted at all? This is a ridiculous stance to take, and I doubt you actually believe it.

>So, you agree
I never said it was a huge deal. You asked "Does it really matter?" and I illustrated that yes, it does in fact matter (which you have not refuted). Is it the only thing that matters? No, but I never said it was.

Perhaps you meant to ask if that particular aspect of the DM's storytelling was really that vital, or if my general enjoyment was greatly impacted by his particular style - in which case, I would have answered differently. But I gave you an honest answer and you seem to be confounded by that. Perhaps you should be more clear about what you are trying to argue, in the future.

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the shittiest of tastes

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>ignores bits of the character stories by just saying you're all old friends or some variation
Every fucking time it happens and they never understand why people hate it or leave.

Nobody gives a shit about your character's backstory but you. Deal with it.

You forgot the bit where he sexed a sex God so good she taught him sexomancy so he could spread her glory instead of succubussing him like every other man she met then the following 2 chapters dedicate to him using sexomancy on literally every girl in town younger than most men lose their v-card.

>not forcing PC's to pick a minor crime they were convicted of and having them all share a cell together

I'm peeing somewhere in your home on my way out.

>so what are you in for?
>rolls dice and checks chart "uuuuhhh...everything?"
>the rest of the party slowly scoots away

>reduced to semantics

When someone asks if something really matters, they're asking if it's important, and not if you can eke out some excuse to how it could potentially matter to someone if they exaggerate its importance to themselves. Your task isn't to convince people that you care about insignificant things, but to convince them that its actually significant, which you admitted it wasn't.

Next time you ask if a GM expects some pretty obvious conventions that are so basic that they can literally go unsaid without any impact on the game, don't get so upset about the answer being "Well, duh."

>That Guy confirmed

I knew I never should have let you join, Craig

It's literally your own fault. You made me do this, Jim.

>Craig in charge of taking responsibility for his actions

I don't make garbage, Craig, I burn it!

>But what I obviously meant was...
A bit too late to start backpedaling, user.

If you were asking me whether it had any affect on my perception of the game, then I answered fairly - don't get upset over the fact that it wasn't an answer you expected and aren't able to refute.

Next time just say you disagree, and be done with it, because at this point it's quite obvious that when you asked "Does it matter?", what you're actually trying to say is "I wouldn't care, so neither should you, and nothing will ever convince me to change my opinion". And that's fine, but just be upfront about it.

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>clarifying the obvious to an idiot is backpedaling

Whatever you say. I realized you're not just stupid, but deliberately acting stupid just to prolong this "argument" that you've already conceded.

>"no u"
just going to pop in and say how hostile you're dealing with the subject rather approaching it more civilized like

>You are all maids and manservants for Tim Cook
>You all heard the same plan to take over the entire home appliance market and must foil his dastardly scheming

Haven't clicked the link but I will put 5 bucks on it being the Matt Colville start in a tavern video.
Expected it to show up once I had read the OP.

You'd lose the 5 bucks, it's that one band hipsters love.

You burned the house down by starting the fire, Jim. I was only trying to put it out with what I had on hand.

If someone is acting like an idiot, there's no reason to mince words.
And, if you're having difficulty understanding how a guy is simply being stupid when he agrees something isn't important, yet is still arguing as if it was, I think I'm going to go ahead and say that you're being particularly stupid yourself at the moment.

What you had on hand? I'm surprised you didn't shit on my coffee table, considering how full of that you are!

I didn't have any on hand I left it all at the table with your campaign notes, Jim.

>Shit player and GM detected

At the funeral for a local barkeep

This is actually a great way to open a campaign. Each player has a different reason for being at the funeral, but everyone has the common thread of knowing the recently deceased.

>he thinks other people actually care about his "epic" backstory

You're probably just shitposting, but if you aren't then I'm confused as to why you play TTRPGs in the first place. Why would you play a game about playing a role and telling a story if you aren't playing a role and don't care about the story?

>That Gif
Man, that hits hard.

Total newbie here, what's wrong with this option?

I love playing a role and telling a story, but the interesting part of a character's story should happen at the table, not be buried in his backstory.

And I really don't care to read yet another half-assed novel about how your half-elf's parents are dead and you swore vengeance and joined a cult of assassins and murdered the killers but then you were wracked with guilt and all that shit. Spare me.

There are varying degrees of importance. Saying that if something doesn't have major significance, then it must have no significance at all, is a completely specious claim. If you're unable to understand why that is then, no joke, you might be legitimately autistic.

At the gallows, all accused of the same crime in a botched trial where all the villagers are still under the effects of a magical fungus that inhibits rational thinking. PC's made the save and tried to fix stuff.

PC A and B, you're walking through a forest.
PC C and D, a mysterious stranger told you A and B murdered your pet goat

"Why are you guys killing each other?"

What if they made a realistic portrayal of a shitty tavern?

"You all meet in a dragon"

I don't come to game night for knife fights or suicide based bets. I go to the shitty tavern where at least I can get drunk among similar company instead of the dm just getting uppity that we'd all rather be drunk for his shit over sober.

"So, you're all at the brothel when the Virtue Crusaders set it on fire..."

"You're all members of the old king's harem, but he just got killed by the invading general..."

>"So, you're all at the brothel when the Virtue Crusaders set it on fire..."

I want to start a campaign with this now.

You're all in a tavern. It's on fire.

>"You all wake up together, stripped completely naked, in the middle of a field. There's nothing around you for miles."

I've actually done this, except they weren't participating, 2 had the same target of an assassination another was the live band, and the other was just in to kill

Your party stumbles upon a vile act and are in position to stop it. What's their battlecry?

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"Stop this nonsense, immediately."

>semantics

Quit being dumb when you were already called out on this.

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>all the player characters have been falsely accused and imprisoned
>huge prison riot and tons of criminals and the pc's escape
>they are in a chain gang and must flee together

Just going along with what you said
>If someone is acting like an idiot, there's no reason to mince words.

Nothing wrong with being autistic, user, you just have to realize why you look so foolish to everyone else.

It's the town guard! Nobody move, you're all under arrest!!