I’ll soon start my next #DnD campaign, and I’ve decided to start with a classic - the PCs all meet in a tavern. Now, the PCs intended to meet in a tavern and have plans to go elsewhere (the city of Ptolus, if it matters), but I want to start the campaign to start in a lively manner.
Which means populating the tavern with all sorts of weirdos for some good role-playing opportunities. Any suggestions?
Colville suggests that starting in a tavern is a chance to show off the setting in a microcosm. Put folks there that represent various factions or attitudes prevalent in the setting. When I ran a Savage Pathfinder game and had my players start in a tavern, I had some incurious off-duty town guards, the dillettante son of the mayor. I couldn’t figure out a way to work in the diabolist church (I set my game in Cheliax), but I did have a choice of several “first jobs” for them to take.
Honestly I feel “you meet in a tavern” is cliche and uninteresting, but if you must do it give them something to mechanically interact with the NPCs through - a drinking game, some kind of gambling, someone who gets aggressive and has to be face-skilled down from a fight, that sort of thing. First session roleplay is always awkward and needs something to focus around, which taverns aren’t really for.
If they’re immediately leaving for another city there’s not much point in giving them memorable NPCs to interact with though, because they won’t be interacting with them again. Why not start them off already travelling to Ptolus as a group? You can have them travelling with/pick up along the way a memorable NPC from Ptolus, so they arrive with someone already familiar with the city and can point them in the right direction, while setting up a familiar face for the party later when they interact with them again. Throw in fending off a bandit attack and a skill challenge - maybe a wheel breaks on the cart they’re in, or they have to overcome a blockage in the road - and they should arrive at the city just in time for the end of the session, leaving them hanging on a description of the city waiting for next week.
I want them to establish an identity of a group first before they reach the city gates.
Do you mean that as in identifying how each individual fits into the team, or establishing them as a single unit who works together? It’s important to remember that you don’t need to cover every moment of each character’s life - the session is there to introduce the players to each other’s characters, so the individual interactions of the characters meeting can happen off screen as long as the opening session established who they each are properly.
Either way, that’s what the cart ride and 3 events are for: you start with the traveller, giving some roleplay as the group establishes who they are, if they trust them enough to travel with them, and get more information from them about the city. People get to present their character’s general demeanour, how chatty or questioning they are, what it is they pay attention to about people.
Next up a fight, where they have to work together to defend the cart/fellow traveller. The group naturally comes together against the threat, with a common goal in mind of defending their stuff. Players get to show off their character’s fighting style and work out how they fit together - who’s in the front and back, what advantages they have in their role etc.
Finally, a skill event letting the players flex their imagination and show off their characters noncombat abilities to each other, whether that’s knowledge checks to recall how to fix a wheel or raw athletics to move a tree aside, while again working together to overcome an obstacle.By the time you’ve finished you’ve given them ample opportunities to show their character rather than just tell each other about them, establishing the individuals and how they work as a team in the time it takes to reach the city gates.
Thank you for the alternate suggestions on how to start the campaign, but I am not going to change my setup:
- I realize that “you all meet in a tavern” is a cliche, but it’s not actually one I have used before - my last three #DnD campaigns all started with the PCs going through the local immigration offices together, and I wanted to do something different for a change. Besides, I love playing with well-established tropes and see how I can twist them.
- I have already told the player that this is how the campaign is going to start - the PCs have agreed to meet in this tavern because they want to travel to the big city together for their common goal (find out what their magical birthmarks mean). The tavern will serve as the setpiece for their initial meeting where the players can get a feel for each others’ characters, and get involved in the local shenanigans (some of which will be relevant for the campaign later on).
So I am not looking for alternatives here, but local color and perhaps some red herrings.
Ok, it’s your game and all that, but your op says you want to change plans, so I responded to that.
As usual, don’t forget to discuss plot hooks in session zero, and make sure that the PC have an in game reason to work together. We all have heard the horror story about the party of a chaotic evil, a lawful good hating each other while the stict neutral robber has a not my problem attitude which basically makes the whole game a hell.
Knowing how player behave, I would expect that some of these "weirdoes"will be recurring NPC. Some thoughts though
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Just a couple of locals, you know the farmer complaining that there was too much/not enough rain, the other ones thinking that adventurer are crazy and badluck, the tavern maid who wish to marry a rich adventurer to get out of that shitty town, the farmboy who dreams of becoming an adventurer.
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The recruiting sergent escorting a couple of young enlisted to the next-town, and trying to find some others, it’s a great way to tell A war is ongoing
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The travelling merchant with tons of wonders, tales from the town, and potentially a recuring NPC
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The doom prophet, like the half-crazy priest who comes to the town to talk about a great evil coming (a Great way to tell something bad is awaking)
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If the campaign is more fun, the Mysterious and darkly dressed person who in fact is just a teenager in their “all black phase”
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For a mini scenario in the tavern, add a ghost
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The local noble, who pretend to be more important than they are, but you need to deal with them to do anything in that viallage
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The mage and their apprentice travelling for a strange reason in aotally differnet direction
Oh, we’ve already had Session Zero and agreed on the overall campaign premise. This is just the introductory evening before the PCs travel to the Big City for the main campaign.
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Use this as an opportunity to set the tone for your campaign and introduce the players to the world. What sort of races/professions/attitudes are common? Have your initial NPCs representing them.
This looks fun ! Here is my try:
- a emaciated monk in a corner of the tavern, who scrutinize every patron and have incendiary arguments with anyone trying to eat anything (drinking booze leave him unfazed). Call him Brother Leffe !
- a table of 4 card players which include a very small dwarf. The dwarf can’t see the others well (his eyes are barely at table level), loses a lot of gold, and can’t stop playing until he wins. The others are cheating quite openly.
- a hulking half-orc, laden with scars and equipped for war, chugging pinchers after pinchers of milk. Afraid of drinking alcohol.
- a farmer with his 2 elder sons sitting with their cow at a table. It is their only chance of earning money this season and will not leave the cattle any minute. They will get violent if anyone gets too closed to the cow.
- a pointy hat magician seems to have a telepathic discussion with a cat sitting on its table. He looks turn by turn surprised, inconvenienced, worried, anyway it looks like the cat is leading the talks at its disadvantage.
