Hey guys 

I'm thinking of some starting areas but I can't think of any and I don't want to have the starting in the tavern cliche. Feel free to send ideas and tips.

until next time DRAGOLICH12  

Watch videos and read one shot materials. There's plenty out there to get inspiration from.

I started my players in a village all together going through training. Then a npc came to collect them to a guild. To register. But that npc had a life. He knew that the day he picked up the players was the same day a fight was being held at a local tavern. Soon as the players went in they were in a fight. One player got punched in the head. It was on!

So use your imagination and come up with fun stuff.

I had a campaign that started out with the players meeting each other in an arena as champions of their classes. That gave me the option of deciding how much they knew each other from fighting together in the arena. I've had one with folks meeting on a ship. I've also had campaigns where all the players didn't meet at once but different side quests brought them together as the campaign went on.  

My old party bought a house in Neverwinter that serves as a sort of homeless shelter for adventurers. They left my character to run the place while they went out adventuring more to keep it funded (while I take over DMing) We have two campaigns running with two sets of PCs, so yeah, one party knew each other already, but the new PCs for the new campaign all responded to a flyer sending them to The Bella Gold House for Wayward Adventurers.  Once there, they learned it was really just a recruiting tool for the formation of a new party and they were assembled and sent on tasks from there (by my old PC as an NPC), with instructions on how to get a cut of their treasure to their new Agency.

Another idea is that either your players or you create ties in their backstories to each other before they start the campaign.  Maybe two of them are childhood best friends.  Maybe a different two used to work together. For some place that has since been destroyed.  Maybe one was a tradesman and has done work for any number of the other PCs before deciding to join them on the road. Maybe one was contracted by the others as a guide, and got attached.  Once you have these relational ties, you can start them anywhere, because of course they’d be together already.  They all have a common history.  Starting on the road guarding a caravan? Sure.  Starting with just the 5 of us on a ship pointed toward a dark island? Sounds about right. 

Another idea is that they were each recruited by means of a written invitation (or magically lured, maybe by a harpy NPC’s song) to the office of the person who will serve as the party patron. They meet there for the first time as they are told why they were each chosen. (If you have a bard PC, make them the Patron’s nephew or something, and say “And I’m sending my sister’s son, Wanderlust, with you. Not because he’ll be especially useful, but my sister wants him out of her basement.”)

I just started a campaign last night. It is set in an alternate version of ancient Rome, and we began at the town Forum with a politician speaking to the citizens and fielding their complaints. One of the complaints was undead in the cemetery. The politician told them they were crazy, there is no such thing as zombies... and just as he said it, zombies attacked the town, and the PCs had to help fight them off.

Went pretty well, I think.. and it definitely wasn't starting in a tavern. Although the PCs went to the inn and had something to eat after the fight was over.

The game I am currently DMing, all of the PCs were wondering around the streets of the capital city looking for work. They each heard town criers advertising work for one of the local churches, so all the PCs officially started at the job interview.

Back in the day we started adventures right at the entrance to the dungeon.  But personally, I like starting in a tavern, its a great place to hear rumors and get to know the people of the town.

Quote from Utticer >>

Back in the day we started adventures right at the entrance to the dungeon.  But personally, I like starting in a tavern, its a great place to hear rumors and get to know the people of the town.

 Yeah, for me the interview was the “entrance to the adventure” because part of it is finding the lost dungeon in the first place.

Thanks for the ideas I got an idea of the players starting off getting executed for something they didn't do.

P.S-Not taking too much off Skyrim