Our Story Begins…
You’re running a new game, the players have all created characters, you’ve (by some miracle) found a time everyone can make, but you have no idea how to bring the party together…
The Classic
A bard is tuning up his lyre on the stage, and a barman is carrying drinks across the taproom. Most of the patrons are locals, but several adventurers are scattered around the tavern, looking forward to a meal and a good night’s sleep. Suddenly the door slams open and a heavily cloaked old man stumbles into the room.
“Someone, anyone, please help! The kobolds have taken her!” he yells and several bold adventurers step forward to answer his plea.
This is the stereotypical ‘Tavern’ start to a fantasy RPG campaign. It’s a cliché, and one that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as it plays against most player’s expectations of how teams should form.
Consider the great movies and novels you know and love that contain teams, mostly they’ll form over multiple scenes, each individual joining with a different motivation, they don’t just all agree to work for an unknown stranger they’ve never met before. Some agree out of loyalty or duty, some have to be cajoled, threatened, or coerced, and others have to have their ego stroked.
Often this type of ‘gathering the party’ becomes a large part of the story. Look at the Lord of the Rings - the Fellowship isn’t formed until they reach Rivendell, or Avengers Assemble - the group isn’t working together until the last act. This type of staged approach works in fiction but isn’t great as an active part of a role playing game. Players gather at the table to play and having most of them sit by while each of the others joins a mission one at a time isn’t ideal, particularly at the start of the game.
Typically this type of approach also allows players to create characters independently, with backstories, attitudes, relationships, and ambitions all set before the game starts. With all that done ahead of the game actually beginning, is it any wonder that the Necromancer who wants to become a lich, and the Cleric who wants to build a magnificent shrine to their god aren’t all that interested in fighting kobolds, or working together?
GMs get here with the best intentions, they want to provide players the freedom to create whatever they want, but it presents a real danger of de-railing a campaign from the outset or leaving an underlying gap in party cohesion that could erupt with little warning to destroy a party.
Setting it up
My take on this is to put the ‘team building’ into the game and character’s backstories. Not only does this provide the players some boundaries and guidance on where to go with their character concepts, but it also builds a connectedness into the game. As a bonus it avoids anyone coming up with the oft encountered “I’m playing a lone wolf” (in an inherently cooperative game) type character.
When doing this I look to ensure I have three bases covered:
Motivation - Why are the characters going to be involved in the core of the story (or at least its first few chapters)?
Stickiness - What is going to bind the characters together and make them a group?
Freedom - Within the above have I given the players enough options?
Examples
With that in mind here are some examples I’ve used for campaigns that set up a group dynamic before or as the game began.
Hunters
The characters are hunting someone and have been traveling together for a short while before the game begins. Their motivations may be different, but they’ve all agreed for whatever reason to hunt down this figure. This gives a great baseline for the first adventure but doesn’t create a long-lasting bond; that I built into the first adventure.
In a game I’ve run using this, the party was hunting a dangerous and evil sorcerer. Several characters were on a revenge mission for murdered loved ones. One was not particularly invested, but obediently bringing a villain to justice, and another was seeking the sorcerer’s tomes so that they could learn some of the powerful magic he wielded. During the climax of the adventure, the party destroys a portal to a demonic realm opened by the sorcerer in the middle of town. As a result, they gain an instant reputation as the “Heroes of Chitterbrook” and were immediately asked to solve a different issue for a local merchant, then others needing help began to seek them out.
Raid
The party are all from a single town and know each other since childhood. They have been away or occupied for a few days, but as they return to their home they discover a town destroyed, burnt almost to the ground. Arriving in the smoking ruins they find each other and just enough survivors to know their loved ones were taken away in chains by the raiders. Players are immediately bound by the tragedy and the need to rescue their friends, family, or mentors.
At the end of the first adventure for this campaign, the players had destroyed a baron’s illegal slave trading operation. He was too well connected politically and the evidence too flimsy to bring him to justice, but they were formally thanked by the local Duke. They were then presented with two options; a fast boat to a new place where the baron wouldn’t be able to take revenge or agree to work for the Duke as a special command to keep them under his protection.
Prisoners
The characters wake up in chains; this one’s almost as often used as the classic described above. At a tavern, on the streets, at work, asleep, or as they entered town each was arrested and now they’re in the cells. This can be the result of mistaken identity, an act they committed in the past, a set-up by some rival, or a simple tavern brawl. What they did (or are accused of) is serious enough that they’ve been sentenced to death. This can proceed to the party joining an escape attempt, an offer of pardon for completing some probably deadly task, a rescue from the gallows, or a stranger bringing proof of their innocence that earns them the enmity of the corrupt official who accused them.
When I ran this I asked the players to include in their backstory a criminal secret committed against the oppressive lords who ruled the land. They were offered the chance to join an attempt to escape and ended up helping the head of the local thieves guild regain her freedom. That bound them as a group because whatever they were wanted for before now paled into insignificance against helping her escape and of course that meant the rebels wanted them to join…
Hunted
The game opens with the characters all traveling in the same direction by ship, barge, train, or wagon. They may not be friends, some may be guests while others are crew or guards, but they are all together when their transportation is attacked. Lots of innocents are caught up in the attack that is eventually beaten off. Among the remains of the attackers is found a note that contains a drawing or description of the party and a fortune offered in reward for their capture or deaths.
A variant of this I’ve seen but tend to stay away from is the Prophecy. This is really popular in fantasy fiction, but very hard to make work in an RPG without putting the players on the orient express (aka a railroad).
The game I started under this set-up saw the characters on a rope bridge as part of a train of wagons. As they crossed, the bridge was fireballed from under them in the first five minutes of the game. Cue a fall into the river at the bottom of the canyon and a fight to get clear of the wreckage. Once they’d dragged themselves to the shore they found one of the assailants, a member of a crazed cult, with a cryptic note describing each of them and offering 20,000 gp for them dead or alive. Time to find out who sent these fanatics after them!
Commanded
The characters start the game as loyal members of an army, guild, secret society, faction, religion, mercenary unit, or noble house. Whatever their other ambition might be, and they can have many, they are first and foremost part of that group. This sets up a reason to work together and (when ordered) a reason to go out and adventure.
I’ve used this several times with great success, but because of how dictatorial it can feel it needs to be used with some caution. In most cases you should offer objectives not directives, giving characters the broadest latitude in how they deal with an issue. For example; If they work for an adventurer’s guild, they should not be given the directive; “go kill the bears that are annoying the farmers”, but rather the objective “make sure the city’s grain deliveries arrive on time”. Also giving the party lots of time between orders to advance their own plans is a good idea.
Good luck with your next great story however it begins
Onward to adventure!
