Favorite ways to start a new group

C&C discussion. Fantasy roleplaying.
New products, general questions, the rules, laws, and the chaos.
Post Reply
User avatar
Captain_K
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 2747
Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 10:37 pm
Location: North Coast

Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Captain_K »

So, What are your favorite ways to start a new group of PCs?

Do not just think first level PCs or brand new players...

1) New players and new PC
2) seasoned players new PCs
3) seasoned players higher level PCs

1) They go to dinner with their "master", to a meeting of the old adventuring party of the master, so nice dinner out clothing and equipment only... the dinner is interrupted.... the apprentices are sent on a simple task, things go sideways....
2) You each wake up chained in a covered wagon bouncing along a path, slavers have you... they rescue themselves if they're clever, if not, a high level NPC sets them free and sends them to an inn with instructions to return the favor he has done them.....
3) "OK guys, no need for starting drills, let's just assume your PCs all know each other and have been adventuring together for years. Cool? The dragon attacks at dawn while the thief is on night watch, roll for surprise..."
Wow, Another Natural One! You guys are a sink hole for luck. Stay away from my dice.

AntiquarianAspirant
Ungern
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:37 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by AntiquarianAspirant »

1: Keep it classic. You all meet in a tavern, or the local lord put out a call for adventurers and you showed up, or you're all contracted to clear out some dungeon together. Keep things simple, and keep the setting a somewhat generic fantasy setting ('somewhat' granted what an absolute mess generic fantasy seems to have become lately).

2: Sponsored by local lords to handle problems... And inevitably get dragged into court politics alongside whatever else is going on. Alternatively, contracted out as mercenaries, or their town of residence gets utterly wrecked by whatever instigator of the plot is necessary, or perhaps something else. Hard to say, I try to be more creative with experienced players since they generally know (or at least SHOULD know) what they're doing.

3: I don't actually start with high level PCs much, but assuming I didn't just go with the same starts as with low characters, I imagine I'd have plot events and/or villains start interfering with the holdings/possessions/businesses/territory/et cetera that they'd possess as a higher level character.

I do my best to avoid having adventurer guilds or thieves' guilds; I know they provide a very strong way to glue a group together and provide a simple and easy start for new players, but they make so little sense to me that I'd rather just use noblemen or nouveau riche sponsors for the same role.

Also, I heard 'wake up chained in a covered wagon' and immediately had the Skyrim intro scene start playing in my head. :p

anvil242
Hlobane Orc
Posts: 132
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 5:04 pm
Location: Jacksonville, FL

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by anvil242 »

AntiquarianAspirant wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:19 pm
('somewhat' granted what an absolute mess generic fantasy seems to have become lately).

Can you elaborate?

User avatar
Lurker
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 4349
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:00 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Lurker »

Well, this is one I need to think about since I will soon start a face to face with 3 ot of 4 of the players being new …
My Masque of Red Death campaign, and my Traveller 1 shot both started with the group not knowing each other, but in a closed loop - a train & a space passenger liner. It has been years before those 2 games and I don't remember how I normally started the groups. Soooo, it seems that at least now, I lean toward a closed loop introduction to the group as each player notices things about the others and about the surroundings, and then takes the hook into the first adventure.

Now that said, I HATE the 'you are all at a random inn with random people and now decide to go risk your lives together … so even if you consider the inn a closed loop scenario, there still has to be something that draws the group together to start adventuring

I do like the idea of Traveller, where in character creation you know at least 1 other player, who knows another player who … I'm not sure I'd use it in C&C, at least not whole sale, but it could work.

As for 'high level' characters … I can't speak to that part of the question. I can't remember the last time I played a high level group and haven't ran one in years. Even then the max level I played is 12 -14 ish. And I don't think I've ran a game beyond 9 or 10 is, and never started one at that level.

Hmmm, having an idea for the face to face … Louis L'amour , The Walking Drum, The protagonist is traveling and meets a caravan with 3 or 4 merchants, a famous teacher, and a few others, plus merchant guards. He notices a few of the guards are iffy (and I forgot what else keyed him in, plus there was some political intrigue going on too) but he figures out that some of the guards are working for local bandits and warns the teacher with his guard, and a few guards he trusts to be ready, and they are able to fight off the attack in the night at the Inn (a real medieval common in set up, not the fantasy bread and breakfast Inn). Let me think on that. I just might have the intro encounters for the face to face.
"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

User avatar
Persimmon
Ulthal
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 5:11 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Persimmon »

I haven't used this one myself, but there's also the "you're the only survivors of ambush/battle/siege/shipwreck/zombie plague etc." trope. You could even start as it's happening.
Behind closed eyes, realize your sight....

AntiquarianAspirant
Ungern
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:37 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by AntiquarianAspirant »

anvil242 wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:11 am
AntiquarianAspirant wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:19 pm
('somewhat' granted what an absolute mess generic fantasy seems to have become lately).
Can you elaborate?
Cheap and flashy magic that everyone can use and carries little weight, a huge selection of playable species yet not a one is developed to a degree that would differentiate it from a human with a funny appearance, and a society that functions largely the same as modern society in terms of norms and values with a very thin veneer of monarchy (sometimes) plastered over it.

Now I have a particular love for monstrous PCs (there's a reason I own both Council of Wyrms and In the Company of Dragons), but it bothers me when people play them, and then proceed to ignore the fact that they're playing a monster and play them as if there's no difference between, say, a bugbear and a human.

The modern typical, generic, 'default' fantasy is packed to the brim with style and flash, but lacks substance and weight. Any given element of it wouldn't be bad on its own- if done well- but it all seems to be played for spectacle, power fantasy, and player comfort.

User avatar
Lurker
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 4349
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:00 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Lurker »

AntiquarianAspirant wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 4:43 pm
anvil242 wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 11:11 am
AntiquarianAspirant wrote:
Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:19 pm
('somewhat' granted what an absolute mess generic fantasy seems to have become lately).
Can you elaborate?
Cheap and flashy magic that everyone can use and carries little weight, a huge selection of playable species yet not a one is developed to a degree that would differentiate it from a human with a funny appearance, and a society that functions largely the same as modern society in terms of norms and values with a very thin veneer of monarchy (sometimes) plastered over it.

Now I have a particular love for monstrous PCs (there's a reason I own both Council of Wyrms and In the Company of Dragons), but it bothers me when people play them, and then proceed to ignore the fact that they're playing a monster and play them as if there's no difference between, say, a bugbear and a human.

The modern typical, generic, 'default' fantasy is packed to the brim with style and flash, but lacks substance and weight. Any given element of it wouldn't be bad on its own- if done well- but it all seems to be played for spectacle, power fantasy, and player comfort.
Rgr that, I am right there with you. Well, not with you on 'love for monstrous PCs', I don't think I have ever played even a half orc and never played any other monster (I did make a half ogre back in the day, but the game fell through before we played) but I still completely agree with you.

Like you said, magic is cheap and EVERYONE has it, even a thief can cast spells …. and everyone is a human with different features.

An elf is an ELF not a human with pointed ears that lives longer and sleeps less, a dwarf is a DWARF not a short stocky human with a beard, etc etc etc.

That is what has taken the lion share of my home brew for Middle-Earth C&C. The differences of the races and cultures.

Persimmon, that is a good intro, especially the 'in the process' of being the survivors of an ambush etc. I've thought about that, and would use it, but since these are 3 young players, I don't want to through them into the deep end right out of the gate. Now the Monday Night Ne'er-do-Wells … that may be an option, and it is close with what I did on the 1 off Traveller game.
"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

AntiquarianAspirant
Ungern
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:37 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by AntiquarianAspirant »

Lurker wrote:
Mon Apr 19, 2021 7:05 pm
Rgr that, I am right there with you. Well, not with you on 'love for monstrous PCs', I don't think I have ever played even a half orc and never played any other monster (I did make a half ogre back in the day, but the game fell through before we played) but I still completely agree with you.

Like you said, magic is cheap and EVERYONE has it, even a thief can cast spells …. and everyone is a human with different features.

An elf is an ELF not a human with pointed ears that lives longer and sleeps less, a dwarf is a DWARF not a short stocky human with a beard, etc etc etc.

That is what has taken the lion share of my home brew for Middle-Earth C&C. The differences of the races and cultures.

Persimmon, that is a good intro, especially the 'in the process' of being the survivors of an ambush etc. I've thought about that, and would use it, but since these are 3 young players, I don't want to through them into the deep end right out of the gate. Now the Monday Night Ne'er-do-Wells … that may be an option, and it is close with what I did on the 1 off Traveller game.
I had a rousing glorious time playing a metallic dragon in my Pathfinder group, though I was a bit miffed that my DM ruled that eating sapients was an irredeemably evil act; I was a dragon, not a man, and it simply made sense to me that unjust scum and vile villains served better as food than fertilizer. Which gets back to what I was mentioning before: I love playing monsters, and I love to play monsters. If I'm playing a metallic dragon, I'm going to be benevolently authoritarian, caring yet aloof, a bit overly proud but not malicious, and I'm certainly not going to adhere to the social dictates of silly little humanoids. And when I played a vampire in Savage Worlds, a friend was so surprised when I murdered a random traveler I met alone on the road for his blood, as if I wasn't a horrible violent creature preying on the unsuspecting with no motive or desire to leave a living witness! I'm not in this to, say, play a tiefling or tabaxi or genasi or whatever and just act like any plain jane human outside of a kewl and special appearance with kewl and awesum abilities.

Perhaps it's lingering weariness with modern D&D and D&D-adjunct systems but even C&C's mishap-free casting, 6/13 classes with magical abilities (7 if you count the Knight's capstone abilities, which I'm not sure should be), and magic items with scaling bonuses still leave me a little gunshy. But I think now we're well outside the topic of this thread, so I'll stop typing here.

anvil242
Hlobane Orc
Posts: 132
Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2011 5:04 pm
Location: Jacksonville, FL

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by anvil242 »

Antiquarian, thanks for your answer. Sounds like 5th edition nonsense to me. My son plays that, but I haven't yet. Typically when I start a new group, I start them in the middle of some action, goblin attack, prison escape, sinking ship, that sort of thing. This will give them a shared trauma to bond over, set the mood, and they can learn each others strengths and weaknesses. I have come to loathe the tavern meetup of strangers. How many times has some new guy wanted to play the "loner" but come along on the adventure anyway? But it has been a long time since I started with a whole crew of new players.

AntiquarianAspirant
Ungern
Posts: 62
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 6:37 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by AntiquarianAspirant »

5E embodies it, but look at 4E and Pathfinder; 5E's arguably a step back in the right direction in some ways (and the wrong direction in many others).

Agreed that the tavern setup needs some glue to keep the party together, I'd dangle a very obvious plot hook or some external force to help cement the group together there.

On that note, I have never seen the 'you all have some sort of history together' approach work. People change as they grow older and drift apart; if PC personalities don't gel as they're played at the table in the here and now then they're going to need a more immediate binding force (a shared goal or a shared employer or similar) to outweigh that.

User avatar
V00d00
Henchman
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Feb 13, 2021 8:40 pm

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by V00d00 »

Usually as part of a session 0 or part of a session 0.5, I come up with a gimmick of how the PCs know one another (they’ve been working on a caravan together for example, or they all attempted to raid the same temple and met.)

Then depending on the system, I’ll stage a few “flashback” encounters and we will role play them out or actually do the combats. This could be going around the table as each player describes a montage, or I set up some exploration, or a series of combats that relate.

The sneaky thing about this way is that if the players are new, you are teaching them a rules as well while hashing out the groups history. Super useful for new systems.

If I’m running a system that my players are super familiar with, the usually I just do the flashback as a montage with each player describing a portion of it.

This gives the group a solid foundation and some pre-history before we launch into the present day session 1 campaign stuff.

User avatar
Lurker
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 4349
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:00 am
Location: Oklahoma

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Lurker »

Voodoo

I like the idea of you 0.5 flash back session. Especially on teaching the group the system. I may have to steal it from you :D

Like the montage idea too

Thanks
"And so I am become a knight of the Kingdom of Dreams and Shadows!" - Mark Twain

Forgive all spelling errors.

Knight Errant & Humble C&C Society Contributor
C&C Society

User avatar
Bifford
Site Admin
Posts: 125
Joined: Fri May 24, 2019 7:39 pm

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Bifford »

Totally situation-dependent. For our A0 game the characters had met on the road and through the need for company and talk had decided to walk with each other a-ways. In that walk they got to know each other and work out that they wanted to explore the world and try to "do good" so decided they might as well do so together.

Which is when they came upon a Wanted! poster of Gritznak.

User avatar
Captain_K
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 2747
Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 10:37 pm
Location: North Coast

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Captain_K »

We were hired by the local authority to rid an area of Griznak the Bold... all strangers thrown together.... as the "last priest of Odin" I could not get anyone to convert to the All Father... but then the Dwarf Priest of a Dwarven God could get everyone to wear his symbols because it gave game bonuses... religious persecution at its finest... just kidding. As a 1/2 orc assassin-cleric I keep getting moral retorts, even from Lawful Evil fighters, that poison is for cowards and animating the dead to carry the loot, or bury themselves, or fight their own is "evil"... But big strong, magically armored fighters slicing people in half and leaving the bodies is lawful good... I always have issues with these sorts of things... morality is the morality of the day. But I too digress.
Wow, Another Natural One! You guys are a sink hole for luck. Stay away from my dice.

User avatar
Captain_K
Greater Lore Drake
Posts: 2747
Joined: Sun Dec 29, 2013 10:37 pm
Location: North Coast

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Captain_K »

Here is one I almost did for a new group of low level PCs, first time to CnC.

You are old high school friends, you have not seen each other in over a decade, the pandemic has made seeing each other in person impossible. You're now middle aged with families. But the Pandemic has started you gaming again semi-virually via Zoom for something to do. You dust off your old dice, books, and mini's. You wake up one morning, hung over, after a Zoom game session and you find yourself changed and magically transported to a fantasy world... Something must have gone wrong with the Zoom session of CnC last night with your old HS friends... now you are your PC and your friends are with you at a stinky old tavern... yep, there it is, a sign "Adventurers Wanted".
Wow, Another Natural One! You guys are a sink hole for luck. Stay away from my dice.

User avatar
Persimmon
Ulthal
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 5:11 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Persimmon »

Remember the intro to the old D&D cartoon where it was a carnival ride that took them to their campaign world? I suppose you could use that too. Everyone on the ride got transported together.
Behind closed eyes, realize your sight....

User avatar
Persimmon
Ulthal
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 02, 2017 5:11 am

Re: Favorite ways to start a new group

Post by Persimmon »

This isn't entirely original because I'm stealing it from an episode of the TV show "Highlander," but for an upcoming adventure I'm going to have all the PCs receive a cryptic message in Dwarven rune stones telling them to come to a specific place at a specific time. I'll allow them to use whatever means at their disposal to translate the stones. And I'm buying a set of rune stones off Amazon to use as a prop.
Behind closed eyes, realize your sight....

Post Reply