How do you handle the party relationship on a first session? Do you let them meet up for the first time and handle first impressions etc? Or do they already (somewhat) know each other when you start out?
I usually tend to go with the second option as it tends to move things along a bit faster and I've had some awkward moments with some players reciting their life stories to people they've known for about ten minutes.
What's your approach? Any advice on character introduction or related stories?
Create characters together so that they all have a reason to be working together in the first place.
In general it gets templated as follows:
>Give me no less than two and no more than twelve important events in your life
>Give me one major positive relationship you have in-universe (old friends/the excellent chef/some contact you know the face and enjoy meeting)
>Give me one major negative relationship in-universe (people who want you dead, folks that stole from/have stolen from you etc)
>Give me one or more people in the party you know, tell me why
It avoids shit like stick in the mud Pallies in mostly morally ambiguous parties and edgelords in campaigns that have no use for them. No backstory/empty backstory = no play, and you'll probably not get invited again.
Party members will usually know base info >>43587763 OOC beforehand and learn expanded info IC as time goes on.
The option that worked out best for me was a little bit of both; the more mundane or easily connected characters are a preexisting adventuring party (or organisation/group) with the special snowflake/loner type character meeting them by circumstance at the start of the first session. Before things can get awkward, they are all immediately thrown into a conflict or battle of some sort, bonding them and giving them something to discuss. Maybe they are attacked by bandits or find the loner locked in combat with some monsters.
>>43587720
I've only seen it done once, but I'm telling you.
Running away from a botched job (let them fill in the details while they run) is the best.
Thanks guys, I'll keep those things in mind!
>>43587792
This, sorta. Starting on the move from Point A to Parts Unknown is the important thing, while the motive is left to the GM. It establishes that they already work together, skipping the oft-awkward tavern/ orphanage/ etc/ intro part of chargen and starts the show with
>implied
imminent shared danger and tension while creating a void for the GM to spackle with some tasty situational awareness exposition and laundry list of nearby places of interest to get the ball rolling, as it were.
Good call, anon.
>>43587720
As DM, my players have options.
Either they come to me with a full party background fleshed out, or I give them a first adventure survival horror event where the survivors, if there are any, have now bonded.
>>43587768
>Give me one major positive relationship you have in-universe (old friends/the excellent chef/some contact you know the face and enjoy meeting)
How many of these people end up dead by the of the campaign whenever you need some forced motivation for the players?
Is it all of them?
I'm guessing it's all of them.
>>43591050
They usuallyserve as a convenient replacement PC when a player drops. I don't even have to write a backstory, it's great.
running apokemon tabletop unitedgame where the players all wake up in a city that has been completely destroyed, and minus what they had on them, they have to scavenge all their starting items. After a little bit of looting, i plan to start warning them subtly that whatever blew up the town is on it's way back, and they need to get out of dodge
>>43592086
Really, because I'm used to the wholesale slaughter of everyone in any back story I write up to and including my character's entire hometown for dramatic effect.
Not that I'm bitter or anything...
>>43592310
That's just shit GMing.
>>43592310
Eww, no. Mass-murders of people precious to PCs only happens when they do something to warrant it AND the players have OOC AS WELL as IC reasons to care, so usually people that *I* introduce and let grow close to the players. I'll not fuck with FREE backstory shit handed to me. That's like getting flushing food someone brought to a potluck just to make a point.
This is a precious, precious resource. I'm a selfish cunt, but exactly that's why I'm disinclined to waste work people have done for me. Healthy self-interest, yes?
>>43592561
The problem is I've had GMs pull this shit enough times that writing a decent backstory isn't worth it because it's probably just going down the shitter anyways. You sound like you value your players' efforts, but if I joined a game and the GM asked for NPCs with close relationships, it would set off some alarm bells.
Let me tell you a story. My usual GM is a pretty good guy, writes complex campaigns, and is infectiously enthusiastic about the game. But, he has a habit of offing important and/or loved NPCs in the same sense that Whitney Houston had a bit of a drug problem. They drop like flies. So, when he asked me to give him a lot of backstory about the village my farmer boy turned warrior had to leave behind to protect, I was skeptical it would end well, but I went through with it anyways.
So I wrote about the daughter left behind with the neighbors. And their family. And the family who owned the biggest parcel of land and 6 kids (everyone gossiped that the newborn was actually the eldest daughter's, no one saw her for a few month). And the trader who helped people get by when they needed it and snuck candy to the kids when their parents weren't looking. And the two woodsman who lived on the edge of town (totally just bachelors, no one talks about their lifestyle) and the little half-orc boy they found in the forest and were raising. I thought that maybe if I filled it with enough developed characters... you know, maybe he'd kill just my daughter or just a family. He wouldn't off the whole village, right?
Anyone who fought was left dead in the streets and everyone who hid was burned with their homes.
Now I'm a muderhobo.
>>43587720
>You have each, for your own reasons, been hired as caravan guards.
In the campaign I'm currently GMing, I've killed one PC's father (causing her to inherit a noble title,) and made another PC kill her ex-husband. The third PC managed to rescue his changeling brother from the fey, and the fourth is on a quest to free her orc tribe from slavery. Reactions to all this have been positive.
I love players who give me backstory. A good backstory is like a pinata: I will beat the shit out of it, and delicious loot and story will fall out.
>>43592310
>tfw 0 player parents have been killed by my GMing but the players became so invested in the story risked themselves to bring back a fallen comrades effects for their parents, and one player actually cried due to the parents being so glad that they'd brought back his sword
GMs who kill off parents ade missing out on so much drama and pathos you can do.
>>43593580
Must be nice.
>>43593574
Maybe you managed to do it well, but I hate that approach. I'm sure you'd hate it if they just slaughtered NPCs you put time and effort into.
The campaign I'm brewing right now is going to start in a crossroads tavern during a storm. The PCs will have, for their own reasons, seeked shelter within it before a wounded man would burst in, begging for them to save his village.
The ensuing adventure will bring them together. If, to begin with, the promise of saving a village (for both good and a reward at the end) does not appeal to one of the characters, and they don't have some other bond that makes them join the adventure, that's not a PC I want in my campaign.
>>43594479
Choo Choo
>>43587720
Holy shit, is that an Elmore? I fucking love Elmore.
>>43594666
I like how the 5e art seems to be a throwback to his style.
>>43594623
My god, an adventure hook!
>>43594623
I'm sorry. We'll just drop them on an endless, featureless white plain with crisscrossing blue lines. They'll have total freedom then!
>>43587720
Either require they have some reason they'd be working together, or dump them all together into something and give them an opportunity to establish character relations through doing stuff.
No fucking "this is who I am" speeches bullshit.
>>43595607
>It's either rails or chaos!
>There is literaly nothing else!
>You either follow the plot or I'll dump you in a place where you can't do anything and nothing!
>>43595607
muh false dichotomy
>>43594623
Yeah where to people like him get off? Expecting you to make an adventurer who goes on adventures for this adventure game. Damn control freaks.
>>43595281
>>43595607
>>43595682
>>43595726
>>43596057
Thanks for the derail, guys
>>43587720
They're mercenaries who just lost a battle and most of their buddies.
>>43597166
And?
>>43594666
How do you not know that is a Larry Elmore painting? It was in the AD&D 2nd Ed. Players Handbook. Fucking younglings.
