Random weirdos in a tavern?
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?
A running gag of my campaigns is that they all start in a tavern (or bar, or mess hall, whatever fits the setting).
The barkeep is always an orc (in a modern setting I'd describe him as incredibly tall, muscular man, with a sickly skin tone, etc.) who wipes down the used beer mugs with his apron and puts them back on the shelf.
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.
That's a great idea!
This looks fun ! Here is my try:
I’m free on Friday nights, I’ll bring pizza.
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.
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
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.
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.
I just had this happen, sort of, in a completely unplanned way. The party had already met but in the course of events they asked a caravan master to recommend a tavern or inn. He thought for awhile, looked them all up and down, then said “I reckon folks like you would hang out a
<insert inn name>
.”The party’s face asked what he meant by “folks like you” and he basically said adventurous and prosperous folks.
They went to the inn and the staff and clientele (randomly generated by donjon.bin.sh) were all female, which made them think something was up. The definitely-not-a-face orc ranger tried to befriend the innkeeper and ended up accidentally scaring the crap out of her. I decided it wasn’t that he was personally frightening but that she had mistaken the party for a different, much more nefarious, band.
Based on her bowing and fawning over the party, the other folks in the inn began to stare. At that point, Mr Face decided he needed to talk to every woman in the room.
Ultimately, based on a weird sequence of crit fails and successes, they ended up with a side quest to kill a demon that been terrorizing a nearby village, assisted by two fairly stupid local mercenaries.
I hadn’t planned it but they didn’t know that until I told them to give me 5 minutes to make a new encounter map!
I love this kind of serendipity - this often creates the best scenes!
The cast of "piano man" by Billy Joel and don't tell your players