Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 100 - Starting Anywhere But A Tavern

Episode Date: November 21, 2021

Taverns are the most overdone trope of starting campaigns.  Taverns are familiar and easy but also bland and boring.  While you can start your campaign with a clandestine meeting or good old fistfight in the local tavern, there are so many better options available to you.  In this episode, I make a case for making a better choice.

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. It's not that starting in a tavern is bad, per se. I'm just saying there are other very good options for the beginning of a campaign that can push it in the right direction from the very beginning of the very first session. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 100 of the Taking20 podcast. This week, starting campaign to anywhere but a tavern. This week's sponsor, alcohol. If you only want a little drink, make it a martini.

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I may or may not have another contest in the future, but thank you so much for entering. I appreciate all the suggestions that I've gotten for topics, and you'll likely see those topics as episodes over the next few months. Taverns have been used to start campaigns since, well, god, since campaigns were a thing. It's a convenient common meeting place where both local populace and travelers can commingle. Nearly all towns have at least one tavern, from the sprawling city of Waterdeep to the small town of Sandpoint. There are a ton of reasons to start a campaign or an adventure in a tavern. You don't have to come up with a reason for the characters to be there. Tons of NPCs are there for the PCs to interact with. PCs can proactively engage with the NPCs approaching them. NPCs can approach the PCs and proactively engage with a party.

Lots of opportunities to introduce major factions and people central to your campaign. In a tavern or inn, you can start a bar fight. Everyone gets to square up and throw down, and that's a good way to start a campaign. There can be clandestine job offers in darkened corners. Some of the taverns could have message and bounty boards. Let me start off by saying I'm not going to yuck someone else's

yum. If you want to start your campaign in a tavern, then welcome to the Wasp and Harp Inn and let's do this thing. The sorcerer sits at the bar making little illusions dance to the delight of the locals. The ranger and the barbarian are playing knivesies at the table as the ranger makes a pass at the lithe serving boy. The rogue sits in the darkened corner, all edgy and brooding, only removing his mask to drink his ale. So if you want to start your adventure in a tavern or an inn, there's nothing wrong with it at all. Have fun, go with the gods.

It's not that starting in a tavern is bad, per se. I'm just saying there are other very good options for the beginning of a campaign that can push it in the right direction from the very beginning of the very first session. Ideally, where you start your campaign sets the tone for the entire rest of the story. Is it gritty or is it fun? Is it realistic or fantastic? Is it zany? The opening to your campaign is there to kickstart that feeling of your world and set events into motion. Ideally, the starting locations would be something players would remember, and taverns, unless they're really unusual, just aren't memorable. Anybody remember the name of the inn I mentioned not 30 seconds ago? How was the serving

boy described? See? Two quick facts. Maybe half of you could answer one of those questions. Taverns really aren't memorable. The start of your campaign should find a reason for your party to work together, whatever that start happens to be. And there's two easy ways to do that. One, there's either a common event that they experience, i.e. something they need to overcome maybe together. Or two, there's a common enemy to fight, i.e. someone to unite against. If the start of your campaign does one of those, then the location of the start really doesn't matter. It could be a spaceport, a five-year-old's birthday party, or even, yes, a bloody tavern. So let's talk about how you do

those two things. How do you unite your party in a common event? The event needs to be something that the entire party experiences, even if they're experiencing it individually, but they wind up coming together. Otherwise, it's not conducive to forming a strong bond between the party. If the campaign begins with, I don't know, one character in a fistfight with an NPC, what are the rest of the characters doing that will make them engage? Are they watching? If so, they're really not involved. Even worse, are they not even in the crowd and they're off playing darts? Now they're not even seeing a potential party member and there's no way a bond is going to be formed quickly. In the event of a fistfight the entire

party isn't involved in, you'd almost be better off with none of them involved in it. The local constabulary shows up and, oh, off the top of my head, they try to arrest the entire party. They attack the party. Or maybe a halfling jumps up on the table to say, hey, the fight was started by these four never-do-wells and points at the PCs, even though he knows the PCs didn't start it. He grins evilly and then makes his escape in the ensuing commotion. Whatever the event is, it needs to be of a sufficient threat that the party knows that they have a better chance of survival together rather than separately. I love starting adventures with like a disaster or similar major event. It forces the characters to act together even if the

characters have never met. They work together to solve the problem. That unites your characters through this shared experience. Examples include the ship that they're on is starting to sink. There's a fire in a room. There's a flood, avalanche, snowstorm. You can even crank it up and instead of just a regular old run-of-the-mill disaster, it's a full-on catastrophe or cataclysm. Some world-shaping event that the PCs get caught up in. A solar storm that's going to destroy the city they're in and it's scheduled to arrive in, oh, an hour. They have that long to figure out a way off this rock. The world is

tilting on its axis and there are global floods, earthquakes, tornadoes as climates and geographical areas change. The sky is raining fire and rock as a meteor swarm has entered the atmosphere. Golgerek, the giant space crab, is approaching and just ate the planet two worlds over. Or it's Kryn and the gods just threw a mountain at the planet because of man's hubris. It's Galarian and Earthfall is happening. You're in the elven kingdom of Maeratar and the dark disaster has come. In other words, shit's going down and it's the end of days. Only a few brave souls hold the key to saving man, elves, drow, or the hyper-intelligent space whales. Yep, the PCs.

Think about it. It's session one, your players get ready for the beginning of an adventure, and your first line is, The sky burns and rocks fall, lit by terrible red lightning flashes from a crimson, angry sky. The once peaceful countryside of your home is quickly being flattened and burned as you watch. You close the doors to your shelter with sadness and wait for the shaking to stop. Fuck, now I want to play that campaign. You could be loners traveling from place to place rescuing the lost and saving the hopeless, or the campaign could revolve around your attempt to keep the survivors in your town alive, finding food, water, rebuilding shelter,

defending it from these mutated beasts that have shown up. And then you hear about the sorcerer leading an army of the dead in an attempt to conquer all. Hang on. Making notes. Cataclysm. Cataclysm Necromancer My Little Pony soundtrack. Got it. What? It could work. You could always start your campaign on a vehicle or ship, like Skyrim. You know, the hey, you, you're finally awake thing. Spoiler alert for a game that is now more than a decade old as of this release date.

You quickly find out that you're heading to your execution. Hey, older listeners, have you noticed that you start every single Elder Scrolls game as a prisoner? Arena? You start in prison. Daggerfall? You start in a jail that's in a cave. Morrowind? You're a prisoner transport waiting to be pardoned. Oblivion? You start in prison. Skyrim? You're on a wagon to your execution.

I can't wait for The Elder Scrolls VI whenever it comes out. I bet you start off as a rich vineyard owner. Just kidding, they'll probably start the game with your hanging. Skyrim isn't the only example of starting an adventure on a vehicle. The Pathfinder Adventure Path Skull and Shackles starts with the players waking up on a ship after being kidnapped. The vehicle or ship could experience a traumatic event, like a jump drive failure, the wagon overturns, or one of the horses dies. The players have to use their skills to fix the issue or discover a new way to get back on their path. The players could be sole survivors of a traumatic event. Instead of starting the adventure in the middle of the event, start it after the traumatic event's over. The disaster has happened and the characters are among the survivors.

They have to rebuild, avenge, rescue, punish, or whatever your campaign entails. The party could be just arriving at a new destination. This could be part of the on-the-vehicle start to your campaign. The two examples that I thought of immediately are the game Borderlands and the Dead Suns Adventure Path in Starfinder. In Borderlands, you start on a bus, arriving at your first quest hub. In Dead Sons, the adventure path starts with the adventurers all arriving on Absalom Station, Docking Bay 94.

Once the characters disembark the vehicle, perhaps in a strange new location, anywhere you need your adventure to start, that's where they are. All the PCs could have won a contest or lottery. I was talking with my wife about ideas for this episode and she threw this idea out there, so all credit to her. Thank you, love. For anyone listening, by the way, she's way smarter than I am and probably should start her own podcast. By the way, she told me her dream podcast podcast is how to murder your husband and get away with it. I hope, um, um, wait a sec. Honey? Love you. She assured me it's purely an intellectual exercise and I don't need to look in the trunk of her car for anything. Anyway, imagine all of your characters win

various contests or are randomly chosen by lottery to go on the big hunt, venture to the next village, or go with the caravan to serve as guards. The drawing could be a positive one like, congratulations, you get the honor of carrying the anointing oil to the eastern vault tomb where Indoloro the Magnificent is buried. Or it could be something horrific like Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. Go read that short story if you want to know what I'm talking about. All the characters are coming of age together. My first custom campaign that I ever put together with the group that I'm currently running with started with the adventure The Crypt of the Everflame,

where all the characters are becoming adults, and part of the ceremony is for young men and women to go to the Crypt of the Everflame to bring the flame back to the town for the winter. This is a good reason for all your players to be youngish and have a pre-existing relationship. They went to school together, grew up together, they had their first experiences together, and now they're having their first adventure together. They're all bright-eyed and excited and hungry, and they haven't been beaten down by the world yet. The adventure could start with a reunion of seasoned adventurers.

The adventure could start with a reunion of seasoned adventurers. This is great if you're starting a high-level campaign with all the characters already 12, 13, 14, 15th level. They survive the obsidian maze and the retired level 11 badasses going their separate ways to set up whatever businesses they wanted to set up. Maybe their hometown needs them, though, and they're all returning to answer the call. I'd love to start similar to the movie The Watchmen, where lost colleagues are returning because of a funeral for a friend, a partner, or a beloved NPC who passed away. The adventure starts when it's revealed that that person died under mysterious circumstances. Maybe all of the PCs have been summoned by an external force. I'm thinking ruler, but it could be fun for all of your player characters to have been summoned by some extraplanar powerful entity. Some devil lord towers over you.

I have summoned you here because my daughter has been kidnapped, and I need you to save her. When you return, I will still need your help because I do not know how to bake cookies. Maybe the entire party responds to the same job offer. They're all at the job board at the same time and the flyer says that multiple adventurers are needed to get rid of the rats in the winery basement. They all look at each other and say, hi, all right, let's go kill some rodents. I think you get the idea about the common event. The 10 examples were disaster, cataclysm, on a vehicle experiencing an event, sole survivors, they're arriving at a new destination, they won a contest, they're coming of age together, a reunion, they're summoned by some entity,

and they're responding to a job offer. But what about uniting against a common enemy? You could always start your adventure in the middle of an action sequence. It's a literary device called In Media Res where the adventure begins in the middle of the plot or middle of the action. You could then use flashbacks to see how they got into this mess. It starts the game in a kind of a how the hell did I get here kind of feeling. Start the adventure in the middle of some action sequence or chase, gradually fill in the details as the sequence unfolds. The opening scene is the party chasing a half-elf through the streets of Magnamar.

Is it a thief? Murderer? Do the PCs just want to ask her some questions? Oh crap, she just talked to the guards and they drew weapons. Now it's getting serious. To unite the party against a common enemy, maybe they're all slaves under a common master. This could be the catalyst of a revolution, or maybe just a simple revolt against their master so they can escape. This gives the party a common person or group to despise, and it can unite the group faster than any other. Start the party in prison, just like every Elder Scrolls game. It quickly unites the party in an us-versus-them feeling. The start of the adventure could be the breaking out of jail. Maybe the party are all

workers at a common location. The location experiences some sort of event and the group of PCs are co-workers or they're at lunch together. They're eating at the Venusian slug street vendor when a portal opens to the nether plane and here come the invaders. The vehicle that they're on comes under attack by bandits, pirates, or space cannibals. This naturally will unite the party against the attackers. With all these common enemy choices, the party's choice is very clear. Fight or die. Or be beheaded. Or mistreated. Or eaten. None of those are good. I don't want to get eaten, so fight it is. This brings the party together against a common enemy,

even though the party may be from different perspectives, a la the Avengers. So what are some tips for starting off a campaign? Start the campaign with something low stakes. Don't go too big too quickly. Getting arrested sounds like a big deal, but not when compared to saving the town, stopping a war, or reviving a dead god. Make the opening objective clear for the party. They have to survive the disaster. They have to escape the prison cart. They need to rise up and overthrow their cruel masters. If you're starting the campaign with a

fight or in the middle of a fight, I like my first words to be, okay, everybody ready? Good? Everyone roll initiative, please. What? What? What are we doing? What's happening? What are we fighting? We'll get to it, but for now, please give me an initiative roll. Use the first part of the first session to set the tone for the entire campaign. Is the campaign combat focused? If so, then I would start with a combat. Is it roleplay focused? Then I might start the first session with a roleplay encounter. The first session is your chance to grab the player's attention. That's why comedians usually open with a good joke, and the first track of an album is usually the best one. Hook them early,

make them interested in what the rest of the adventure will bring, and most importantly, Hook them early, make them interested in what the rest of the adventure will bring, and most importantly, have fun doing it. If you like this podcast, please help spread the word. Tell your friends about it, mention it to your gaming group. Also, just because the contest is over doesn't mean I don't like receiving topics. If there's something you'd like me to cover, or if you'd like to provide some feedback, please send it to me at feedback at taking20podcast.com or send it

to me on one of my numerous social media outlets like Instagram and Twitter. Before I go, I once again want to thank our sponsor, alcohol. If you're not feeling great after a night of drinking, consider calling in absinthe to work the next day. Oh, and by the way, don't drink absinthe. It does sneak up on you. I do not want to relive that next morning. I thought I was dying. That was 15 years ago. I can't imagine doing that now. The colors my body produced,

my toilet looked like the inside of Graceland. Don't forget to hydrate if you're going to legally drink. Anyway, this has been episode 100, starting your campaign anywhere But a Tavern. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2021. References to game system content are copyright of their respective publishers.