In a 3.5e game my DM started us with: You wake up naked and covered in blood in a field littered with corpses. Roll for initiative. He described it better, but it really set the tone.
I always enjoy starting on the edge of an uncharted frontier—the West Marches approach. Many spins can be put on it, creating a clear "Hey, go see what's here!" starting option.
I also like going through character creation with the players and mining their backgrounds for adventure seeds and plot arcs that matter. Instead of fully populating a world in advance, this ensures that their character stories are THE stories.
Ultimately I like heros, anti-heros if we must, back stories, and players being instructed to write their back stories to get to a starting point. "The adventurers guild (king, queen, deity, whatever) has brought you and these four others together to handle a strange series of occurences in a far off village...."
I despise the whole "so you are all in a tavern and you notice..." which almost always results in some PvP combat. Going by memory (I think it was 3.5E) the one that I walked away from was when a DM had started a new group. His favorite player had someone talked him into some magic bow that was entirely inappropriate for the level and said character was using it IN A TAVERN against the groups presumed fighter. My character, a rogue, attempted to sneak attack and use sunder to attack the weapon and scored a critical hit. There was a lot of discussion and it was ultimately decided, by the DM and his favored player, that a longsword could not damage a bow even if that bow was in the act of firing. Ever since that I have cringed whenever we have the "standard" meet in a tavern opening.
PvP SOMETIMES has a place in the story but that is an EXTREMELY limited scenario for most groups and it is almost certainly not at the first meeting.
My favorite was a bit of a "reluctant heroes" start. A small town was attacked by orcs and the 3 PCs rose to the occasion to help defend it. With a rush of adrenaline a young man with a bit of previous weapon training found his footing as a Fighter. A frightened young lady with no previous inkling she had powers awakened her Sorcerer abilities in a moment where she had to defend herself or die. And a particularly devout temple-goer called on his goddess and found that she granted a surge of power to her new Cleric.
My favorite campaign start from the DM side opened on the characters getting swept up in a sudden brawl at a festival. They defended themselves from drunk belligerents for a few rounds, then decided to resist arrest when the cops showed up. That didn't go great for them, so they all ended up in a jail cell together and then we did character introductions.
My favourite campaign start overall was run by a friend of mine for a four-session short. Our characters were level 12 retired adventurers meeting up for an annual party reunion. It was just a standard "you are all in a tavern, when..." opener, but we ended up spending the first 20 minutes of the session improvising increasingly absurd reminiscences about our characters' adventuring days. Then a giant lifted the roof off the tavern, abducted the DMPC, and told us to return an artefact we'd allegedly stolen years ago if we ever wanted to see our friend again. Unfortunately, the only party member who knew anything about it was... the guy who just got abducted. It was a great way to set the tone for a very silly adventure.
Yo! whats your favorite campaign start youve ever had as a player or DM? what was your least favorite?
In a 3.5e game my DM started us with: You wake up naked and covered in blood in a field littered with corpses. Roll for initiative.
He described it better, but it really set the tone.
I always enjoy starting on the edge of an uncharted frontier—the West Marches approach. Many spins can be put on it, creating a clear "Hey, go see what's here!" starting option.
I also like going through character creation with the players and mining their backgrounds for adventure seeds and plot arcs that matter. Instead of fully populating a world in advance, this ensures that their character stories are THE stories.
Ultimately I like heros, anti-heros if we must, back stories, and players being instructed to write their back stories to get to a starting point. "The adventurers guild (king, queen, deity, whatever) has brought you and these four others together to handle a strange series of occurences in a far off village...."
I despise the whole "so you are all in a tavern and you notice..." which almost always results in some PvP combat. Going by memory (I think it was 3.5E) the one that I walked away from was when a DM had started a new group. His favorite player had someone talked him into some magic bow that was entirely inappropriate for the level and said character was using it IN A TAVERN against the groups presumed fighter. My character, a rogue, attempted to sneak attack and use sunder to attack the weapon and scored a critical hit. There was a lot of discussion and it was ultimately decided, by the DM and his favored player, that a longsword could not damage a bow even if that bow was in the act of firing. Ever since that I have cringed whenever we have the "standard" meet in a tavern opening.
PvP SOMETIMES has a place in the story but that is an EXTREMELY limited scenario for most groups and it is almost certainly not at the first meeting.
Treating the start of a campaign as a coming of age type story, where it feels like we are discovering the world and our characters together.
My favorite was a bit of a "reluctant heroes" start. A small town was attacked by orcs and the 3 PCs rose to the occasion to help defend it. With a rush of adrenaline a young man with a bit of previous weapon training found his footing as a Fighter. A frightened young lady with no previous inkling she had powers awakened her Sorcerer abilities in a moment where she had to defend herself or die. And a particularly devout temple-goer called on his goddess and found that she granted a surge of power to her new Cleric.
My favorite campaign start from the DM side opened on the characters getting swept up in a sudden brawl at a festival. They defended themselves from drunk belligerents for a few rounds, then decided to resist arrest when the cops showed up. That didn't go great for them, so they all ended up in a jail cell together and then we did character introductions.
My favourite campaign start overall was run by a friend of mine for a four-session short. Our characters were level 12 retired adventurers meeting up for an annual party reunion. It was just a standard "you are all in a tavern, when..." opener, but we ended up spending the first 20 minutes of the session improvising increasingly absurd reminiscences about our characters' adventuring days. Then a giant lifted the roof off the tavern, abducted the DMPC, and told us to return an artefact we'd allegedly stolen years ago if we ever wanted to see our friend again. Unfortunately, the only party member who knew anything about it was... the guy who just got abducted. It was a great way to set the tone for a very silly adventure.
Your in a Tavern.........