Forget the Tavern
Many a campaign has started the same way: "You're sitting together in a tavern when a stranger/wizard/guard/old woman/the barkeep/noble/etc comes up to you..."
It's the classic intro, the fallback, the safe bet. It allows for the characters to get to know one another before being thrown in to the fray. It's also the perfect - if a little cut and dry - way to set up the scenario using a handy NPC as quest giver, or allowing the new characters to pick up rumours and info in the tavern. The group has time to interact, plan their course of action, and ease their way into the game. There is a reason why this opening is so common. It's a formula that works, and it's easy to set up.
The truth is, however, that adventures don't always happen in a nice orderly fashion, Sometimes there isn't time to plan ahead. Sometimes trouble finds you when you're not expecting it, or you find yourself in dangerous circumstances beyond your control and are forced to act in order to survive. One of my favourite rpg story openings of all time is the opening sequence of events in Skyrim (If you haven't played it yet, you need to!) You're a prisoner (wait, Morrowind starts that way too...) on your way to your own execution, but moments before your head is summarily lopped off, a dragon attacks, and you now must make a choice of who to follow in order to just get out of the town alive. You don't have time to think. If you don't move fast, you're going to die, from dragon's fire, from buildings collapsing on you, or at the hands of guards or members of the faction you didn't decide to get out of town with. The action begins immediately. Sure, you get a chance to get your bearings eventually, and the story unfolds as you make calculated choices, but you are thrust into the thick of it from the get-go.
There are also many tavern-like beginnings that, while changing the setting, still hold to the same formula. Maybe you start as part of a guild, and you're given your first assignment to carry out. Perhaps your little band of adventurers has come to the call of a friend (Lost Mine of Phandelver for example), or has come to collect on a bounty put out by a King or town mayor, etc. Basically, these are all tavern starts, in that the story starts sans action and has plenty of room for establishing the setting and giving the group the opportunity to sort a few things out first.
Now, you might be asking, is that such a bad thing?
Well, no. There is something to be said for giving players a chance to settle in and get ready for the adventure. But there's also something to be said for throwing them in the deep end and forcing them to swim with the sharks. Take the beginning of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, the first published story arc for 5th edition, for example. The characters start in the town of Greenest as it is being attacked by a dragon and the nefarious Cult of the Dragon. The town is overrun with cultists and kobolds, and there is no time to dawdle. Baddies need deading and townies need saving!
Ala HOTQ, I'd like to suggest some alternative ways to start your campaign that puts the characters right into the action out of the starting gate. It's a good way to build excitement and anticipation for the story, and can actually serve as a good hook to get new players interested much sooner.
Under Attack
In Dungeons & Dragons, there is potentially a lot of travel time between encounters, depending on your campaign of course (theoretically, you could have an entire story take place within the walls of a single city.) Those "in-between" times offer the perfect example for unexpected danger, such as random encounters. What if the story began with such an encounter? The party is on their way somewhere when they are attacked by bandits or ambushed by orcs, or find their campsite suddenly under attack by a pack of hungry wolves. They begin on the defensive with enemies coming at them, and the adventure begins! In truth, this initial encounter doesn't even need to tie in to the main story. It could just be a random group of thugs. Or, it could be a tie-in. The attackers could be connected in some way to whatever it is the PCs are on their way to encounter.
Under Arrest
I ran a campaign once where I put the characters all in prison at the very beginning. They weren't associated with each other, but were all locked up together (in separate, adjoining cells) for various reasons. The one thing they all had in common was their fate: public execution. They were being held in the dungeon cells of a castle in an extremely totalitarian, military-controlled city-state, where most crimes were punishable by death. It was the government's way of enforcing order. The city guards were given the right to use their own discretion in determining whether or not somebody was breaking the law. As such, you could be arrested for an insult, if the guards thought it necessary. Knowing their fate, the characters all knew they needed to find a way to escape. They had to work together, primarily using their abilities and skill checks to get out of their cells, find their gear, and then get out of the city. While the "action" didn't necessarily begin right away, the danger did. There was a time limit in place. If the characters didn't pull off their escape in time, the guards would return. If caught attempting to break out of prison, they'd be killed on the spot. I've been told by some people that this beginning was cruel, and, depending on who you're playing with, maybe that would be true. But it certainly puts their feet in the fire right away and forces players to become engaged without hesitation.
Under a Spell
Imagine that you suddenly find yourself in an underground chamber, surrounded by, oh I dunno... let's say skeletons. You have no idea how you got there. You're standing back to back with a handful of other people you don't recognize, and who don't remember you, either. You don't know who to trust, but you know you're in danger. You have to survive the imminent threat, meaning you'll likely have to work together with these other strangers. Once the skeletons have been defeated, you're now faced with a tonne of questions and uncertainties. Where are you? How'd you get here? Why can't you remember? Who are these other people? Why are they here? Can you afford to trust them? Can you afford not to?
As a DM, you can use this scenario to place the PCs in the middle of a dangerous mystery that will force them to work together AND learn about one another as they make their way through wherever it is they are and begin to unravel the truth about their circumstances.
Marooned/Shipwrecked
Like the "Under Attack" beginning, this one assumes that the PCs are on their way somewhere when disaster occurs. This one fits best within a sea or coastal setting, but could be modified for any situation. The PCs are on a ship that encounters a rogue wave or a bad storm, and ends up crashing on an island or on some unknown shore. The party has to figure out where they are, and if they're stranded on an island, how to get help or get off the island. Or perhaps the action starts during the storm. As the ship is being tossed about and coming apart, the characters need to make skill checks for balance, or maybe they need to try and steer the ship to avoid the deadly, jagged rocks up ahead that will spell certain death. You could even mix in the Under Attack introduction and have the ship being attacked by pirates or a sea monster/s of some sort.
Ask the Players
The final option I want to suggest involves some party creativity and player input. One thing that new DMs discover all too quickly is that nothing ever goes completely according to plan. You've spent hours coming up with a detailed, intricate story, only to have it railroaded or sidetracked by the actions of the PCs. You come up with clever ways to hid a secret room, but the party never finds it. You have dynamic, interesting NPCs the characters are supposed to interact with, but they kill them instead, or ignore them. Your players decide to pull a Jonah and board a ship in the opposite direction of where you meant for them to go. It happens all. the. time.
Some players are happy to just follow along wherever you are leading them, but more often than not, they will appreciate the opportunity to not only decide their actions in any given situation, but to decide how the story progresses. If they have options, it empowers them to take ownership of the story and truly make it theirs. To that end, you can begin by giving them some options as well. Give them a bit of a prelude to the campaign, and then ask them: where do you guys want to start off? Do your characters know each other or have they just met? Do you want to start right off in the 'first' location, or begin somewhere else and travel there? Let them create their own adventure hook and decide where to begin. Don't worry, you can still get to your story. If it doesn't start out exactly how you thought it would, find a way to weave it in to what the players decide their characters are up to.
There you have it. Some alternate ideas for starting a campaign that let you ditch the tavern (sorry, friendly but mysterious barkeep) and kick off the action in a different way.
-C.
