Comments on: 10 Crazy Ways to Kick Off Your Next Campaign

By: ChainsawXIV

ChainsawXIV — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:50:22 +0000

Some good ones there, and in the comments. I’m trying to decide on the intro for my upcoming campaign, and all these good ideas are making it harder, heh.

As a player, I think my favorite introduction was when my character wandered out of the woods and joined an adventuring party already in progress without apparently noticing that it was strange at all. Of course, I was playing a senile druid, so this was perfectly in character.

My favorite intro that I’ve run myself was pretty elaborate. I sat down with each player separately, and we basically did a half hour solo adventure that went wrong in some way:

- A ranger (the PC) adventuring with a party (of NPCs) was the only one who made it to the world ending artifact in the bottom of the dungeon, and didn’t have the means to stop it.
- A rogue (the PC) is hit by a magical trap and finds himself in Sigil, where he promptly wanders through the wrong doorway and ends up on yet another plane.
- A fighter (the PC) and his party (of NPCs) are stuck in Ravenloft and throw themselves at the big bad there, but he ends up bleeding out with his party dismembered and dead around him.
- A wild mage (the PC) uses teleport to return his party to town with the hoard of loot they’ve acquired, and a wild surge sends him careening off into the planes.

All the scenarios ended with a sort of cut to black at the moment of panic, and then the group game began with the PCs just appearing in the crowd of people at a funeral. Except the fighter, who turned up in the coffin. As the corpse. Needless to say, his resurrection was arranged, and they all found themselves on an unfamiliar world with a common problem…

By: nikkeronin

nikkeronin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:24:42 +0000

Best one I have ever heard. you are sitting when a tavern when a ship comes crashing through the wall. roll initiative.

By: ZT

ZT — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:15:44 +0000

Now, this was not really MY fault, but I wanted to start things off with our unholy cleric attaining a magical staff that could talk to him. It told him to raze a nearby village of orcs (because they had ticked off the god to whom the staff actually belonged) by raising all of the dead in the villages cemetery. When we got there, though, he accidentally summoned a humongous undead construct, instead.

And that’s how that campaign started!

By: EdCase

EdCase — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:40:21 +0000

Waitaminnit… I’m a what?

The characters wake up. Each one realizes that s/he’s in a cage in some sort of large carriage. There are other cages here, each on containing an animal of some sort. Slowly, they begin to realize that they can understand the other beasts, until the reality of the situation hits them… they ARE the beasts. Each character has been turned into an animal that somehow either exemplifies or (in the case of the game I ran) seems opposite of the requirements of their class.

In the first case, maybe the warrior is a bear, the wizard an owl, and the thief a raccoon. In the second case, maybe the thief is the bear, the warrior is a ferret, and the wizard a tortoise! (In my actual game, the warrior was a racoon, the wizard a bear, and the bard a rabbit. Animals that can stand on their hind legs and try to use their paws as hands work well, but so can animals with other talents like birds and reptiles.

How did they get into this predicament? More importantly, how do they get out? And where are they going on those cages?

We had a LOT of fun with this one, because it forced each of the players out of the “shell” they created for themselves, and was a fun little mystery to boot.

By: Leftofftheark

Leftofftheark — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:30:42 +0000

I’m still a little wet behind the ears with DMing, but I’ve always tried to put a lot of thought into how I started my campaigns. Here’s the one I liked the best”

Using the old ‘no choice situation’ tactic, they all awake in someones employment. No real memories, not even using the names they gave themselves (and only told me). Their boss seems trust worthy and has them on small time quests to gather recipe items and killing whatever defended it (normally animals or normals mobs), but they come to find they were revived by a rather cheap spell, and were gathering materials to do so to more. The sense of betrayal from the friendly boss, and the fact I had the cheap spell meant they currently had what amounted to six months to live gave a lot of sudden push in the story. (the short term of the spell realized from an NPC who had been around about 6 months longer). By the end they gathered enough to revive only one of the characters who the entire party chose to go on and finish a rather important task at hand. The whole thing was so dramatic, and actually gave a reason to act so fast and rash. This also gave great room for other dramatic touches, like I had one character simply never regain any memories, and how NPCs who were savey to their situation reacted.

And like the others, #1 is a great idea, may play off it in the future, maybe even mid campaign.

By: crdw

crdw — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 18:30:43 +0000

I started my campaign with the PC’s all tied up in a kobold camp, only knowing their names and classes. I had them escape and attacked several times over my agents of my overall villain. What I’m doing is making them all old heroes who were captured by the villain in order to get rid of them. Several factions have come to see them thinking that they are great champions when really only level 3. It’s great fun, as well as te fact that one of the PC’s decided to become evil and slaughtered everyone in a tavern, much to the publics surprise as he used to be an incredibly heroic warlord. It was quite comical. In the end they joined the main villain. :)

By: mrk

mrk — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:00:33 +0000

I think the hardiest thing to do is start an adventure that’s unique, especially if the PCs’ are 1st level a they have no experience and wouldn’t be well known in the Kingdom abroad .I mean, if someone wants to sought out some Adventures to save the day, they’re surely not going to go to a bunch of greenhorns.
That’s why as of recently I’ve been toying with the idea that their are not any real quests or heroic deeds that need to be done anymore and the PC’s have to sought out adventure on their own.

By: Bakel

Bakel — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:57:46 +0000

My last campaign started with the PC’s being held prisoner and forced to fight in gladiator arenas. The PC’s have had their memories wiped and don’t remember much about themselves except their names and religions. They have broken free and are slowly finding out more about themselves (usually by certain npc’s recognizing them). It is a little cliche, but they like it because they dont control what their own backstory is. We have done countless campaigns and created countless characters. This gives them a break from having to come up with backstories. I give them clues to their backstory through dialogue and such. It’s fun for me and them.

By: didub

didub — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:23:28 +0000

paradox’s was great!
I’ll soon have a chance to try all of these out. I plan on finishing up the campaign I’m currently running before summer, then during summer I’ll run a bunch of one or two play adventures. Then I’ll settle on one for the winter.

The only slight problem with the masquerade theme is that the PCs have to be well know _before_ the campaign starts. My ideas for this is that they could choose between starting their character as….
a first level PC that is an elite in his town (town guard, healer, charmer, etc..)
a low level NPC class that is the son of a powerful NPC (governer’s sun, Sherrif’s nephew)
a medium level Commoner that is a respected elder.

Of course the NPC class would multiclass out to PCs. Does anyone know a way to measure one class against another?

By: kevlar

kevlar — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:24:56 +0000

In my opinion, dreams are most effective when they serve to deepen the themes of a campaign. The Baldur’s Gate games are a perfect example of this. The main character is helpless to the events that begin the first game, which parallels the unshakable dreams which follow. Also, the overhanging theme mystery of the first Baldur’s Gate is echoed in the enigmatic dreams that capitalize on symbolism. In the second game, you know what you are and begin to dwell on the past. You can see this echoed in the reminiscent nightmares that assault the main character from time to time.