Getting the Troupe Together: Guest Post by Kinslayer

February 8, 2009 No comments

It’s time to start a new campaign. You’ve already done the complicated part, getting the players together (no, I can’t help you with that part), and now you need some hook to get their characters together and involved. “You all meet in a bar and decide to spend the rest of your lives together wandering through caves stuffed with monsters and gold” is trite. Let’s face it, if that were the only start of a gaming plotline, you probably wouldn’t still be playing. No, you are here for something more, something better.

Some methods can work, but not for the long-term. These methods can also seem a bit forced. For example, having the same villain kill the families of all the player-characters can work as a plot hook to get them all together for revenge initially, but there’s no reason for the group to last once vengeance has been met. Similarly, a forced quest or other single goal only lasts until that objective is reached. Something else for lasting group cohesion is needed.

The easiest method, and the one my own Midian game uses as something of a default assumption, is that the player characters are part of the same guild. Those who aren’t actual members still have some tie to one or more of the other characters. This gives everyone a reason to work together, but still allows each person to have their own personal reasons for joining the guild in the first place. There are many sorts of guilds: crafts, treasure hunting, mercenary, training, merchants, public relations, and more. A guild is really just a group of people with a common interest–usually making money at a craft, but here we can use a looser definition. Even if your group isn’t officially incorporated into a guild of some sort, the term ‘guild’ can still be used to refer to the player-characters collectively. It’s much shorter than “the collective bunch of characters that you and your friends run while roleplaying plus all of the non-player characters that hang out with you.”

Another way that the game helps you get everyone together is right there at character creation. Character backgrounds can give all or most of the player-characters a similar upbringing. Rather than everyone being from just a small town, everyone is from the same small town. That is, your characters could have been friends since childhood. Characters without such backgrounds can still live in that same small town; you didn’t grow up there, but you live there now. Even characters with very different backgrounds can at least know one or more of the others, so there is some group cohesion right from the start.

One possibility that brings together characters from all over the map is that you all served in the military together. This can be the army of one kingdom or another, a mercenary company, or even just the local militia. People you otherwise would never have ever met, much less become friends with, can become lifelong compatriots after their time in the service together. Nothing brings comrades together as quickly, or with bonds as strong, as military combat. Just ask any veteran. The nobleman’s son from eastern Stormundia, the pig farmer from Lukkar, and the mean-looking foreign kid with the mohawk, can all end up in the same unit.

Faith can also work wonders. Having the same religious beliefs gives the group a common bond, shared views, and provides an excuse for them to have known one another. In an historic Europe campaign the Catholic Church has a strong presence, and it’s easy to assume that everyone belongs to the same church. Not every player will be comfortable with this, so be cautious of their feelings.

Other methods that can be employed include everyone working for the same employer. This can be a noble or house, a mercenary company, or otherwise have the same job or place of employment. Note that this can often mean that one person–at least officially–is the boss of the others, or is at least higher ranked. If everyone has the same job–or otherwise works at the same place–not only is there an excuse to travel and do stuff together, but there is also a ready-made source of income. A noble or government employer works well because failure also may bring legal difficulties. For mercenary companies, some hire people with a variety of talents, others will take just about any warm body that can hold a spear. Either works to get the group together.

A variety of methods can be combined. There doesn’t have to be one unifying reason. For example, three people are members of the same guild, one is the squire of another character, the fifth is married to one of the guildmembers, the sixth player-character is the brother of that spouse, and the final is the best friend of that character.

Avoid the “dark and brooding loner” cliché. Trust me; this is for the best. If you really are such a bad-assed (though tragically misunderstood) lone wolf, why would you get involved in a group? If your primary goal with this first game session is to disrupt everyone’s good time by how much of a bad-assed loner you are, don’t be surprised when they leave you to your dark and mysterious brooding all by yourself, alone. That’s not much of a good time, watching everyone else play without you because you had to go the brooding lone wolf jerk route. Things really break down when everyone wants to play one of these characters. And if you aren’t playing with others, well, you’re playing with yourself… You can be mysterious, self-sufficient, and tragic all you want (in the deeply recessed shadows of your black hooded cloak, sitting with your back to the corner, eyeballing everyone in the bar), you can even dual-wield scimitars, but be a bit more of a people-person, okay?