I am getting ready to start my first campaign as a DM but before i walk my players through character creation i want to start my campaign in a way besides shoving them into a tavern. My friend's campaign which i enjoy started us in a dark cave which bored me and i dont want to make the same mistake. Got any tips?

- All members of the same family.

- All folks from the same village who have lived their all their life, and some peril to the village causes them to come together to overcome the peril.

- All prisoners in the same cage being transported across country when the opportunity comes to make an escape, and there's no other civilisation nearby so they have to stick together.

- All summoned by the local leader and told to do something.

- All decide to enter a competition which involves competitors being put into groups, and they are put into the same group.

- All hired as guards for a caravan travelling across country.

^^^ Some good ideas there.

Another one -- they all have visions or dreams of the same thing and need to investigate to understand/stop the visions from happening. Careful with this one - it depends on the PCs. I tried to run it in Champions once and one of the PCs was an extreme "unbeliever" type and the player felt his character would just ignore the visions no matter how intense they got -- even after listening to a radio call-in show in which the other PCs and one of the NPCs called into the psychic host and told them about dreams and she said that she could counsel them all. He was like nope, my guy would not even listen to this radio show let alone go for counseling. Can't remember what I did about it but -- check your PC attitudes first and make sure one of them won't blow off the visions.

The thing about stereotypes is that they are often true.  The whole "meet in a tavern" thing works.  You put the characters in a nice easy to recognize and understand setting, and it provides a group of total strangers a plausible reason to be there.  All you need then is a plausible reason to start an adventure.  It's a kind of strange thing to have someone playing a game with something called an "Adventurer" who doesn't want to go on them.

"Add" means, among other things "for" and "Venture" is about moving.  People who don't want to go on a specific adventure are fine.  People who don't want to go on any adventure are usually called "Edge Lords"  Even those types can usually be worked around.  There is the option to let people like that play an "Anti-Hero" as long as they are willing to put the emphasis on the Hero part of that.  That's someone who is essentially good, who does bad things to the bad guys for good reasons.  An experienced player can even do Evil all the way down the line.  About the only time I'll have a problem is if they do it to another player's character.

The advice I tend to give new DM's is "Don't sweat the small stuff".  Start with something simple.  There is a thing called "railroading" which is where you force a story to come out a specific way.  If you want to avoid that, take out all the train stations, and don't have a specific destination in mind.  They call that a "sandbox" game.  There really isn't anything wrong with a railroad as such, it can be a good thing for new players.  All you need then is make sure they don't have to stop at any given station.  It they want to ignore all the stations and skip to the end, why not?

I've seen a movie where the characters were literally dropped out of the sky into a dangerous situation and had to work together.

You meet in a tavern...hanging by your ankles and surrounded by a dozen blood-thirsty goblins who are debating over the best way to cook a gnome, an elf, and a dwarf.

You meat in a tavern.

Quote from Blootimbs >>

I am getting ready to start my first campaign as a DM but before i walk my players through character creation i want to start my campaign in a way besides shoving them into a tavern. My friend's campaign which i enjoy started us in a dark cave which bored me and i dont want to make the same mistake. Got any tips?

 ohhhhh have i got an idea for you fey wilds everybody remembers their past but for some reason the way you all got here eludes you. You all wish to escape before all those you know and love die and trek treacherously through the wilds noticing more and more how the biomes are getting chaotic and out of sorts(ex:swamps on mountain tops, caves appearing in the sand without even filling with sand, sea hags and swamp hags living peacefully... impossible, exetra) It's the party's job to help restore order to the three fey courts while battling the ever looming dread of how many years could pass while you're in the wilds.

But whatever you choose or create make it yours and make sure you and your players enjoy it.

I really like the summoned by a local leader idea. Might use that one, thanks

reminds me of the illithid visions in baldurs gate 3. Really neat idea, might use it in a future campaign

The advice I tend to give new DM's is "Don't sweat the small stuff".  Start with something simple.  There is a thing called "railroading" which is where you force a story to come out a specific way.  If you want to avoid that, take out all the train stations, and don't have a specific destination in mind.  They call that a "sandbox" game.  There really isn't anything wrong with a railroad as such, it can be a good thing for new players.  All you need then is make sure they don't have to stop at any given station.  It they want to ignore all the stations and skip to the end, why not?

 

 these are some great tips, i definetly don't want to railroad my players especially since they have experience with railroaded campaigns. Thank you

Thank you for the idea! I won't run this in the campaign i am preparing but i do see myself using an idea like that in the future cause i love the Feywild

One setup I have logged and will likely use in my next campaign:

A pure caster class (if one is in the party) is a passenger on a caravan, traveling from one major city to another.  1-2 melee classes are guards in this caravan (they can either already have a history or not, depending on your player's preference)  Another (assuming a party of 4) member is encountered on the road, fighting for his/her life against some local monster (orcs and goblins are the standard fodder for this) 

The engagement of combat ties them together, as the monsters are about to overrun the caravan and overwhelm the guards, but when the caster jumps in, it turns the tide enough for all to survive.  Once the players are "together" it's on them to start forming a bond and perhaps enter to a common theme.  As mentioned above the whole meet in tavern is really cliché, but it works so well and so easily mechanically I think is why so many do adopt it.

The last 2 campaigns I played in, we were all following signs/posters, to a spot where a job was being offered.  The NPC offering the work said if we all worked together, we might be able to handle it, but he wasn't about to send anyone in alone, to their certain death.