The start of an adventure in Pen&Paper must be captivating. To avoid it always starting in the tavern, fresh ideas are needed.
When one wants to start a new campaign in D&D or any other Pen&Paper setting, the first impression is often crucial. A classic starting point is a chance meeting in a tavern. Someone is looking for a group of adventurers and your players just happen to be present with their characters. That’s the classic – it’s tried and true and always works. However, this can also become a bit monotonous.
One player wanted to know how to spice up the campaign from the start – and promptly received a lot of answers.
Community offers a plethora of ideas for cool campaign starts
In the DnD subreddit, there is a lively response to the question. A whole range of suggestions comes from al_stoltz, whose starting points allow for much variation:
The group is at the end of a battle and they are on the losing side.
The group is traveling by ship, gets caught in a storm, and the ship runs aground on an unknown shore.
The group is captured and escapes as part of a prison break.
The group is at the funeral of a mutual friend/parent/prince.
The group wakes up in the hideout of the great villain and must escape.
Just in this response, there is already something for every group. Not starting as a shining hero, but as a loser or confronted with a loss can create an immediate emotional connection to the other characters – or invoke a bonding desire for revenge or justice.
“I had them all crawl out of their graves and then they had to figure out what happened to them.” – SventheMagnif
Especially for dark role-playing games, like maybe Vampire, such an entry is perfect. The apparent “heroes” are dead and either rise as undead from their grave or still live – this immediately creates an exciting mystery to explore.
“I don’t really like to play out the moment where the group meets for the first time. It’s much easier to say that everyone already knows each other with the possibility that people write each other into their backstories during session 0. This allows the first session to basically start anywhere, even in the middle of a common mission.” – Yojo0o
Especially when you know that some characters are rather selfish or have a dark touch, it can be worthwhile to say beforehand: “Your group knows each other already, you have a certain basic trust in each other.” This avoids the group drifting apart early on, and as a game master, you don’t have to keep pulling new reasons out of the hat for why the nasty rogue isn’t being expelled from the group.
The start can begin with death
“One of my favorite starting points is to simply begin in the middle of a fight with a ‘Roll for initiative.'” – HornetParticular6625
This kind of start allows you to dive directly into the action. In the heat of battle, where you are worried about your character’s survival, questions automatically arise which, however, take a backseat for the moment: Why are you here? Who is fighting whom? How did you end up in this situation? Finding out such things only after or during the battle can be a refreshing start to a game that begins with action.
How do you prefer to start your adventures? Do you jump straight into the story ensuring that all your characters already know each other? Or do you choose the traditional start of a cozy meeting in a tavern, dreaming together of the great treasure and then embarking on an adventure?
If you still need some hooks for great adventures, perhaps you’ll be inspired by the 10 spells with the most expensive components – and partially world-changing effects.
