Author Topic: Creating the adventuring party  (Read 2116 times)

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Offline Dragonking11

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Creating the adventuring party
« on: September 06, 2017, 12:21:19 PM »
I personally always had a hard time to come up with original ideas that explain why are the players traveling together beside the usual "old friends" or "family" story plot.

The times I tried to just let the players manage that by themselves at the beginning of the session, it went pretty badly actually as each of them wanted to do their own stuff and the game session was going nowhere.

How do you handle it ?

Offline jdale

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2017, 12:59:15 PM »
I found an important NPC in the backstory of each character and decided they were all working together, and therefore each player was being asked by someone with a personal tie to cooperate on their mission. For the characters who didn't have a suitable NPC, I created one and asked the player to define their relationship to that person. E.g. mentor, family member, etc.

In another game I played, after the party pretty much fell apart, we started a new campaign where everyone was family. I thought it worked pretty well because family can have loyalty even when personalities conflict. Wouldn't work as well for a racially disparate setting though.

In our RMSS game, initially everyone was on the local militia (in a frontier area) because they had been sentenced to it for various crimes. The details varied widely between the characters. So, there were militia missions and eventually an offer of release if we did this one important (dangerous) thing. By that point we had seen enough of the big picture that we had a shared interest in finding out more.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2017, 01:10:50 PM »
I've had pretty good luck starting with the end-game method.  What is the goal of the campaign?  Why would each player be working towards that goal? 

The most recent campaign I had going was to find out why all trade was cut off from the nearest town and why the orcs and goblins seemed too-well-organized, and why they were getting bolder and bolder while encroaching on the city limits. 

- One player happened to be in the military (Leader) and that was an easy inclusion.
- One player was interested in starting up a new gambling franchise (Burglar) and the patrician of the city offered a little bit of the one-hand-washes-the-other.
- Another player (Warrior Monk) was already tracking the source of the goblin incursions as his monastery has been under constant looting for weeks
- There was a general posting for adventurers to make some coin and thus the Bounty Hunter joined
- The group needed food and a guide, the Hunter joined
- The mage needed to get to that silenced town to get supplies for his mentor


For the weekend campaign I'm hoping to run, the players will be drawn from the original group who liberated the town and those captors who wish to join the group for revenge or to recover lost goods or missing family members, to help fight alongside the rescuers out of a sense of honour-debt, or other personal goals.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2017, 03:10:50 PM »
if you share a sort of campaign briefing before play starts you can get the players at least on the same page.

This does not have to be a an actual single document but something you can work into each characters back story and either explains how and why the characters know each other or sets the opening scene. One we did, for example, had everyone told that the game would start with all of us forming a rescue mission from a remote mountain monastery to a city stricken with the plague. How the actual adventure unfolded was completely different but the basic briefing at least aligned all the characters.

All my F2F players have known each other for 40+ years and they clash and hack each other off a lot so I have to have a very strong reason why their characters would stick together. Otherwise as soon as the players personalities come through there is no way on earth why two casual acquaintances would stick together.

Family ties rarely work for us as people tend to pick different races.
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Offline Hurin

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2017, 03:12:11 PM »
Great suggestions by everyone!

I just recently ran a DnD group through the module Out of the Abyss, and it had a fun intro: all the characters start in the same prison cell, as they are captives of the Drow. They need to cooperate to make their escape, and in so doing form the party. I guess that's pretty similar to the militia idea, but just thought I'd throw it out there too.
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2017, 03:19:41 PM »
Yamahoppa used a similar campaign start with all the characters being thrown into a prison pit together, no equipment or weapons. I think his version gave the players a couple of minutes head start to give the mob some fun.

I guess that is a bit of a team building exercise for the party.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2017, 03:32:27 PM »
Prison Pit Team Building exercise????

I hope they don't institute that at MY workplace!
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2017, 03:41:17 PM »
Prison Pit Team Building exercise????

I hope they don't institute that at MY workplace!
That would have been a pleasure compared to where I used to work.
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Offline Jengada

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2017, 03:57:34 PM »
Prison Pit Team Building exercise????

I hope they don't institute that at MY workplace!
My previous DM said repeatedly he wanted to use the "all in prison, work together" approach.

My son's got a group of friends who always start with a session where the players and GM talk about what they want to do, what the world is like, etc. They eventually decide on a coherent reason their characters are together, creating back stories at the same time. I've never done that, but I can see advantages.

For my current (RM2) campaign, which is explicitly designed to be a series of adventures with no grand world-goals, I'm trying something different. I've got 6 players/characters, each one chose their character from any part of the continent and any culture they wanted. Once I knew the characters, I came up with "cosmic mystery loaner powers" for lack of a better term. Each character will gain some minor benefit from another, but only after 24 hours together, and it fades if they're more than 100' apart for 24 hours. So, for example:
Rogue from multicultural city grants monk from far off 3 ranks in speaking each of 3 local tongues
Monk grants bard extra power during battles
Bard (half-orc) grants wood elf 1x healing rates, instead of normal 0.7 for wood elf
Wood elf cleric grants nightblade +5 DB, +10 versus shared cultural enemy
Nightblade (with a familiar with excellent hearing) grants fighter excellent hearing
Fighter grants rogue +2 ranks Ambush

They've only just met, and a couple of them have noticed their changed powers. They haven't figured out where they came from, but I think the fighter suspects.
I doubt this will ultimately matter for them staying together, I think they're all experienced enough players to do that. But it will add a mystery component to "hey, why ARE we hanging around together?"
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Offline Peter R

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2017, 04:04:22 PM »
The worst coming together I have ever experienced was in Spacemaster where the GM had all the players think the other players were following them or behaving suspiciously. The game came down to a mexican stand off in a cafe with guns out but concealed under tables and under coats. The only PC not in the stand off walks into the cafe, notices a bit of a tense atmosphere and says "Hello" and everyone shoots each other. Almost every critical was fatal. End of game.
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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2017, 10:52:31 PM »
I found an important NPC in the backstory of each character and decided they were all working together, and therefore each player was being asked by someone with a personal tie to cooperate on their mission. For the characters who didn't have a suitable NPC, I created one and asked the player to define their relationship to that person. E.g. mentor, family member, etc.

In another game I played, after the party pretty much fell apart, we started a new campaign where everyone was family. I thought it worked pretty well because family can have loyalty even when personalities conflict. Wouldn't work as well for a racially disparate setting though.

In our RMSS game, initially everyone was on the local militia (in a frontier area) because they had been sentenced to it for various crimes. The details varied widely between the characters. So, there were militia missions and eventually an offer of release if we did this one important (dangerous) thing. By that point we had seen enough of the big picture that we had a shared interest in finding out more.

yep. agree. i have had success giving them a common ally/NPC contact. specialists hired by the guild (insert type of guild here...) could work. Start off simple. The guild wants something stolen, protected from thieves, guarded or destroyed. you can work out the larger plot later, u dont have to have it all mapped out at the start. Players have a habit of doing unexpected things anyway so roll with their decisions and adapt the story accordingly. Let the players guide the plot thru their characters. Do not railroad them into doing things. Let them make their own decisions but remind the players that their actions effect the world they are in and the NPCs that live there.

Offline RandalThor

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #11 on: September 07, 2017, 01:03:54 AM »
The worst coming together I have ever experienced was in Spacemaster where the GM had all the players think the other players were following them or behaving suspiciously. The game came down to a mexican stand off in a cafe with guns out but concealed under tables and under coats. The only PC not in the stand off walks into the cafe, notices a bit of a tense atmosphere and says "Hello" and everyone shoots each other. Almost every critical was fatal. End of game.
OK, that is fikkin hilarious!!

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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #12 on: September 07, 2017, 07:39:28 AM »
Wow really good ideas everyone

I really like the idea of starting the campaign in a dire situation with no equipments. This will change so much the way players build their characters !

They will need to spread their DPs as they don't know what kind of weapons or armors will be available to them early on and could be anything depending on who or what imprisoned them :)

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #13 on: September 07, 2017, 10:31:53 AM »
The worst coming together I have ever experienced was in Spacemaster where the GM had all the players think the other players were following them or behaving suspiciously. The game came down to a mexican stand off in a cafe with guns out but concealed under tables and under coats. The only PC not in the stand off walks into the cafe, notices a bit of a tense atmosphere and says "Hello" and everyone shoots each other. Almost every critical was fatal. End of game.

Freaking Legen..... wait for it.... dary!!!!

That is awesome!
If discretion is the better valor and
cowardice the better part of judgment,
let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline Hurin

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #14 on: September 07, 2017, 11:04:02 AM »
It may have sucked at the time, but those are the moments that echo in eternity  :)
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline Majyk

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #15 on: September 07, 2017, 06:40:15 PM »
Jengada wrote:
"Bard (half-orc) grants wood elf 1x healing rates, instead of normal 0.7 for wood elf"

You might be reading healing rates wrong, sir.
1x/2x/3x healing rates are longer vs shorter when it comes to recovering from wounds.

Dwarves and Halflings recover super fast and thus have 0.5 Recovery Healing Rates to effectively halve the time they end up rolling on the injury tables.
Due to daintiness, Elves take forever and a month to heal...

Offline Jengada

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #16 on: September 08, 2017, 09:43:40 AM »
Jengada wrote:
"Bard (half-orc) grants wood elf 1x healing rates, instead of normal 0.7 for wood elf"

You might be reading healing rates wrong, sir.
1x/2x/3x healing rates are longer vs shorter when it comes to recovering from wounds.

Dwarves and Halflings recover super fast and thus have 0.5 Recovery Healing Rates to effectively halve the time they end up rolling on the injury tables.
Due to daintiness, Elves take forever and a month to heal...

I wasn't reading them wrong, I was remembering them wrong. I do know elves heal slowly and orcs/dwarves heal quickly. Thanks for catching that, for any readers who weren't aware of it.
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Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #17 on: September 09, 2017, 12:31:07 AM »
In some cases the players themselves will determine why they are there.

I was working on starting a fantasy campaign, on hold for the time being, where I explained to the players the basics of what they needed to know about the setting and asked them to provide what their character did in that setting previous to their new-found 'adventuring'.  Fisherman, smith, scholar, etc.  I would provide basic (non combat) skills that their 'career' would have provided for free.  I then explained that they all meet up in a tavern, arriving separately or together as they see fit (maybe some knew each other already) in order to work for a certain organization and, if they wanted to, let them explain why.  Were they seeking out the work, did the organization seek them out after drawing attention to themselves, etc.

So long story short, sometimes it helps simply to ask the players why their character is there.  Some will come up with ideas for you.
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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #18 on: September 09, 2017, 08:10:25 AM »
In some cases the players themselves will determine why they are there.

I was working on starting a fantasy campaign, on hold for the time being, where I explained to the players the basics of what they needed to know about the setting and asked them to provide what their character did in that setting previous to their new-found 'adventuring'.  Fisherman, smith, scholar, etc.  I would provide basic (non combat) skills that their 'career' would have provided for free.  I then explained that they all meet up in a tavern, arriving separately or together as they see fit (maybe some knew each other already) in order to work for a certain organization and, if they wanted to, let them explain why.  Were they seeking out the work, did the organization seek them out after drawing attention to themselves, etc.

So long story short, sometimes it helps simply to ask the players why their character is there.  Some will come up with ideas for you.

This is a really good approach and will be something I will do for my next campaign. Letting the players come up with their own reasons to a chosen common theme is brilliant. It is easier for them to think it over beforehand instead of being on the spot when the game session starts.

Simple and efficient solution  :)

Offline Cory Magel

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Re: Creating the adventuring party
« Reply #19 on: September 09, 2017, 02:31:03 PM »
We often have campaigns where the players are given a basic setting outline, they then come up with their own place in the world (character history - anything from an outline to a two page 'story'), the GM tweaks anything needed in that background and they finish it off together.  Usually the GM would take it from there and explain the circumstances that has brought them to where they are, but having the players potentially explain why they end up where they do at the start of the campaign, if it makes sense to, was just the next step.

Our campaigns last a long time. Several months (7-8) is a short one for us.  We've had some last years.  So most of us feel it's important for the player to be as invested in that character as possible.
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