How do you get your parties together for your homebrews? Alliance of circumstance (everyone shows up to answer the call for help) or do you prefer to have them with intertwined back stories?
Personally I prefer that the back stories are linked somehow, but I usually leave that up to the players.
I will provide them with some overview information about the campaign and the starting point and then, as a group, we sit around and discuss ideas for characters and backgrounds.
My current group are running through LMoP and all decided that they wanted to be Dwarves, so that nicely allows me to make them all extended family with some relation to Gundren.
"How do you get here?" is the perfect question to create backgrounds ("here" is probably a tavern btw). As they tell a story of their own, I make small adjustments to fit the campaign and voila!
My preference is to start with my players as an established group, already in some danger, and then let the players describe how they all got there. That way you avoid having to role-play the "should we go on an adventure together?" opening scene. The answer to that question should pretty much always be "yes" (otherwise why are you playing D&D?)
How do you get your parties together for your homebrews? Alliance of circumstance (everyone shows up to answer the call for help) or do you prefer to have them with intertwined back stories?
Personally I prefer that the back stories are linked somehow, but I usually leave that up to the players.
I will provide them with some overview information about the campaign and the starting point and then, as a group, we sit around and discuss ideas for characters and backgrounds.
My current group are running through LMoP and all decided that they wanted to be Dwarves, so that nicely allows me to make them all extended family with some relation to Gundren.
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I ask them.
"How do you get here?" is the perfect question to create backgrounds ("here" is probably a tavern btw). As they tell a story of their own, I make small adjustments to fit the campaign and voila!
Starting as slaves or prisoners is fun. How they escape is their origin story. I once had them roll up characters without backstories or gear, then they drew from a hat that gave them starter gear and background based abilities and proficiencies. Also some trinkets I made personal. (Stuff like a set of thieves tools with the name "Steve" on them, or a broken engagement ring with "for Sarah" engraved on the inside) then I told them they all had amnesia and didn't know what had happened. The backstories were tied into the campaign (Steve was that character's brother, who they later found in a cage where he was held by a werewolf until he completed the turning, Sarah was the character's fiancé, and he was wanted for murder for killing the man who put her in a coma after ******/robbing her, stuff like that)
I've made a party arrive at a new port together on a ship, and a kinetic event roped them all into a major quest.
they don't all have to be drunk in a tavern
it could be worse, you could be on fire.
My preference is to start with my players as an established group, already in some danger, and then let the players describe how they all got there. That way you avoid having to role-play the "should we go on an adventure together?" opening scene. The answer to that question should pretty much always be "yes" (otherwise why are you playing D&D?)
More or less the title of the thread.
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