Good(?) Ideas to Bring the Characters Together

>>54209742
You were all prisoners. You were able to get your freedom and/or escape the headman's axe, but you had to enter endentured service as professional badass, Night's Watch style.

>>54209742
>You've all had a shared vision of a certain location

>>54209742
All of these could work with cooperative players but will instantly fall apart if the players don't agree to have a reason to work together.

>>54209742
You are all travelers, coming to a new land by ship. There were a few other passengers on the ship, and you were making swift time. Just before dawn, not long before you were meant to arrive, a massive storm came out of no where, and swept the ship several miles south, dashing it against a rocky cliff face. Many of the passengers and crew have been killed, you are all strangers here, but you believe you saw lights from a town not far away.

There's a dungeon, go fight stuff.

>>54209742
There is a legendary treasure that you all seek, your reason for seeking it is up to the player but seek it you must. No one knows exactly where the treasure is, only that it is hidden in a great dungeon, and to access it you need several codes to unlock magic barriers. You have each come across one of the codes needed, how you came across it is up to you.

For an added plot hook, all of you together have almost all of the codes needed, but there's one more that none of you know, and you have to track it down, as well as the location of the dungeon itself.

>>54209742

I prefer the session zero approach. Start out with 'You are an adventuring party, work out how you know each other and why you work together', let them figure it out from there.

>>54209742
I once simply started with the group in a room, corpse of someone in the middle, each of them having their weapons in hand, remembering nothing about the last 48 hours.

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>>54209742
"There is a literal army of bloodthirsty killing machines at our front gate. You're a squad sent to hold this gate. Hope you can cooperate so we don't all die."

"Alright, you're an heiress setting out to earn her own fortune like daddy did? Aright, we've got two mercinaries whose players we all know don't give a damn about backstory, so they're your hired goons to start off. The Necromancer is your pocket-mage who you're funding in return for magical support as long as the graverobbing doesn't get traced back to her name. The drunken master monk who's established themselves as a hobo....Let's see. Oh, Lawful Good Rogue is looking for a way to dry out her old childhood friend and asked to come along since you're not going too far out yet and hopes it might re-ignite the drunk's Martial Spirit she remembers. Cool, we missing anyone?"

"Carrie's got-"

"Another one. Alright, Your contact for the mission is a surface-passing dual-wielding drow with a...oh it's a bear companion this time, aright, progress."

"Okay folks, let's go see about helping out that druid grove."

>>54209742
>you all meet in a tavern
>it's going to hit the ground in three rounds
>go

>>54209742
>All right recruits, welcome to the army! You are part of a new elite task force dedicated to hunting down extraordinary threats.
>So there we were, waiting in line at the DMV, when suddenly we were shunted into a pocket dimension of hell. So, basically, we lost our cars, and that's about the only change.
>And that's when the blood-spattered man ran in, desperately asking for cellphones.
>One day, the sigil of great power appears on each of your shoulders. You have been chosen by fate as the six warriors of the light, who must stop the demon lord. Seven of you make it to the meeting.

I've done the
>You've all lost your memories and have no idea why you are all shackled together. By the way, you are in combat already with a sea hydra on oyur collapsing boat. Roll initiative

That worked out pretty well.

Your village is under siege.

>>54209742
My friend who is my groups Forever DM told me when I started putting together my campaign for the first time I was the DM that he liked to just have the characters in the same location, saying this is where your travels have led you, and then has something go wrong in the town that would bring the players into a group, like say they all find themselves in twon square and a bank robbery is underway.
this all functions on the belief that your players will want to be where the action is, though, and I've only seen it not work when someone is trying to be a special snowflake mary sue type asshat.

I had them meet in a tavern, the twist was they also had to live in it for the next 8 levels. Well they could move out around 4, they just chose to stick around.

Don't think the way matters nearly as much as how you execute it and what the details are, just do whatever. Depends on what the theme, goals, tone are and if it's including travel or a more static location, etc.

the adventurers guild is basically a fantasy unemployment office

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>>54212109
You mean to tell me that you had them play an apartment living simulator?

You are summoned here against your will to test the dungeon defence.

>>54212248
Nah, the whole campaign was set in one huge city. But that's a good idea, have the setting be inside one big ass apartment building like the ones in Dredd.

>>54209742
>you all meet at a cave

>>54212415
Sounds like a hive city to me. I like it!

>>54209823
This but you actually escaped from prison and are on the run

>You are being led down a corridor with a sack over your head and chained together
>Trying to shake the interrogation Magic from your heads
>Through the sack you can make out armored guards leading you towards a door, one of them prattles on about why anyone would try adventuring, let alone magic, when it has clearly been outlawed for the last 15 years
>or how any Magoc user was allowed to run around without an inhibition collar to this age
>Reaching the door you're momentarily blinded by the sunlight streaming through the burlap
>you can now make out the podium and the axeman waiting for you

I-is it good?

>>54214843
No.

>>54209742

A premise for my games is that all characters are in the same area. Their origin might lie somewhere else, but they must have at least some reason to be in the starting area.

Before starting session 1, when all players are already assembled, I ask everyone to define their relationship to one other character.

If some characters end up without enough ties to the group I might give them one or two additional choices.


Don't let the DM do work the players could do better themselves.

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>>54214889
Oh ok

>>54209742

best way to bring characters together is to allow the players to act in character and let their interactions with each other form bonds/rivalries to keep them together

I tend to start from neutral and let the characters meet each other naturally.

>>54211411
Why are fresh recruits suddenly in an elite task force?

>>54212226
That's how it functions in my setting. Another, albeit more interesting and life threatening, temp agency.