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Campaign Openings - Getting PCs together

Started by Steerpike, April 06, 2012, 04:38:42 PM

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Steerpike

#15
I totally agree with Kindling/sparkle that players can be flexible and come together easily; in that sense, the opening doesn't "matter."  I'm just thinking more aesthetically, like how to grab players and get them into what's going on, like a good "first page" of a novel.

My group hasn't decided for sure what setting we're playing in, but I'm going to be pushing for Planescape since I've wanted to run a game in the Planes (using the 2E background material) for a long time.

I'm thinking of starting them off in Pandemonium, the CN/CE realm of madness, where people often get banished.  The PCs will all have been teleported there for one reason or another: a vengeful wizard, a spell gone wrong, a magical trap, etc.  They might or might not know each other.  After a short series of encounters they'll find a portal to Sigil, probably used by the Bleak Cabal, the setting's wonderfully gloomy existentialist/nihilist faction.

Thoughts?  I do have some alternate ideas, perhaps involving one of the Lady's Mazes, but I'm not sure I want to *start* in Sigil, since some players will be new to the setting and it will be fun to have them discover the city "in character."

TheMeanestGuest

No interest in playing in one of your own settings?
Let the scholar be dragged by the hook.

Steerpike

#17
I have some alternative settings we might play in, but Planescape is actually way up there on my list of settings I'd like to GM (back when I proposed running an IRC campaign for the first time, it was one of my possible choices, along with CE and I think Eldritch Earth).

I thought of doing another CE game, but I'm not sure the players would go for its unrelenting grotesquery.  This isn't a regular group of mine - it's actually a bunch of students in my fiance's program who want to play D&D and need a DM.  My fiance obviously knows I'm a pretty experienced DM (though, funnily enough, she's never played a session of a tabletop rpg in her life) and so asked if I'd be interested.  The others are D&D veterans, I think.

LordVreeg

Quote from: Steerpike
I have some alternative settings we might play in, but Planescape is actually way up there on my list of settings I'd like to GM (back when I proposed running an IRC campaign for the first time, it was one of my possible choices, along with CE and I think Eldritch Earth).

I thought of doing another CE game, but I'm not sure the players would go for its unrelenting grotesquery.  This isn't a regular group of mine - it's actually a bunch of students in my fiance's program who want to play D&D and need a DM.  My fiance obviously knows I'm a pretty experienced DM (though, funnily enough, she's never played a session of a tabletop rpg in her life) and so asked if I'd be interested.  The others are D&D veterans, I think.
See, this is when I think you HAVE to run CE.   But that's how I think...
VerkonenVreeg, The Nice.Celtricia, World of Factions

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Seraph

Quote from: SteerpikeI think my favorite openings so far have been the Carbon Skies solo one-off TMG ran with me, where he opened in the middle of an epic battle in a gigantic fortress and I immediately discovered the commander-in-chief's dead body, and Seraphine's Cad Goleor opening, which had the players as children in a Celtic festival complete with sports and games.  An excellent segue into the first quest, too.

Well now, I am flattered that mine made it into your favorites.  It's too bad that fell apart.  Speaking of Cad Goleor, though, I am working on a fic set in you guys' home town.  Starts there, anyway.


"You start in a Tavern" openings have a nostalgic appeal to me, since the first few games I played in started that way.  It takes work to avoid the feeling of cliche, though.

I've done the "start in a tavern" thing, the "summoned by your employer" thing (though in this case 3 of 4 PCs were members of the same Church organization, one a Cleric, one a Pally, One a Monk.  The rogue was someone the Pally dragged along to teach the value of honest work.)

II have also started games in the middle of a War.  The heroes were rather like a "special forces" unit.  They all knew each other, and had fought together in the past. 
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