Ok, so what are great ways to start the first session of a new campaign?

Specify genre if you like, or in general.

I guess one classic is "you all meet in the tavern and.."

Another classic is "you're all slaves in an arena, about to be forced to fight gladiatorial combats".

What other ones? which ones are really cool?

RPGPundit

Taking a page from Michael Stackpole, I started a campaign with one character in a sort of "charnal pit" as he was about to be cut into constituent parts by a maniacal researcher, led him through a short battle and then he discovered the cells where the other characters were awaiting a similar fate.  

Then they had to fight their way through the research facility, equipping themselves as they went.  

Did I mention they started out naked?  

One of the most fun for me, was an attack by an ancient dragon on a small little backwater town I had my players start off in. This is sort of a "you had to be there" it was quite a while ago and the details are shaky so I can't really go word for word. Anyway, I got tired of the usual pussyfooting around until everyone got up the motivation to get their act together so I had them place themselves in the most likely spot they would be in based on the brief character history they gave me. An inn, a stable, a smith etc.

It didn't really matter where they were at the time, the entire town is blotted out in shadow from this massive form flying overhead. Roll a save, (they had no chance of making it of course) and they're cowering like frightened children. The entire town erupts into chaos, debris flying everywhere, dust, women and babies screaming, chaos. Eventually everyone is compelled (mysterious dragon magic I'm making up, what the hell do they know?) to go to the center of town. The players, and everyone else now can see the massive red dragon circling overhead. When the time is right he lit on the top of the largest structure that nearly buckles under his weight so that everyone can see him. I play up the size, how though they're terrified out of their wits they can't help but marvel at the magnificence of this titanic creature.

He gives this powerful speech about how old he is, every hero who has tried to slay him has met their end, he's big, he's bad, and he's bored. If there are no heroes worthy of taking him on by the gods he'll make some! So he breaths this special fire (more of that pulled out of my ass dragon magic, again, what the hell do they know?) that splinters off into a thousand sparks and depending on who it touched it either snuffed out or (in the case of my players and a couple NPCs) put a mark on their foreheads of a red dragon in flight.

Anyway, to make an already long story short, those who were marked had something special about them and if in a years time, they didn't comlplete the task that the dragon set them off to do they would die and he would kill everyone in town. If they survived they may become heroes worthy of taking on the mighty dragon of so and so someday.

It may have been somewhat of a railroad but by the time I was done they were so googley eyed they didn't care. I was amazed at the staying power this encounter had on them. They were very driven throughout the campaign to eventually amass enough power and resources to take this guy down. Which they eventually did.

I never cared for the "introduce your character" part of the game as I think they're kind of awkward.  I'd rather just drop the characters in some action right away and do the intros later (if at all).  Sort out the kind of campaign you're running and tailor the start towards it: if you're running a combat heavy campaign, drop the folks in front of a dungeon; if you're running a political intrigue game, drop the folks in the middle of a peace treaty negotiation; and so on.

This assumes, of course, that you spent a session with everyone in the room creating characters and everyone knows what the other guy can do and what direction you want the campaign to go.  If you haven't, then perhaps the "you head to the Broken Mug Inn" scenario is the way to go.

For a long time I've wanted to start a campaign with "The gates of the city give way and ten thousand orcs start pouring into the streets.  What do you do?"

My current campaign started with something like "Hey, are we ready to start?  Great.  Roll for initiative."  Then some guys tried to kill them.

You are survivors of a shipwreck, aboard an emergency raft. You don't who the other people are, and supplies are running short. Suddenly, one of you spots land in the horizon...

Quote from: jrientsFor a long time I've wanted to start a campaign with "The gates of the city give way and ten thousand orcs start pouring into the streets.  What do you do?"

Replace "orcs" with "Picts" and you have the opener to a D20 Conan game I ran last year...

The correct answer was, of course, run like hell!  The climax of the opening scene went something like this:  The PCs were a rag tag group of mercs and adventurers given horses and told by the commander of the doomed garrison to ride to the next city to warn them of the invasion, all while the border town was burning all around them.  It worked out quite well, actually, and gave a real note of desperation and action to the game.

And of course they didn't make it to the next city without some adventure along the way...


TGA

I've used the "Usual Suspects" scenario where the players meet in a prison cell. Of course this was for a group of criminally minded characters, but with a bit of tweaking it could be used for other situations. Prisoner of War camp for example.

I guess I was in high school or perhaps junior high and I had just learned what in media res was and I had just picked up Spelljammer and my buddies and I were eager to give it a go.

They made up a party and we realized that there was no thief.  I started the game with them chasing a flaming pyramid of a mummy who worshipped a dead sun's angry god.

"Why are we chasing this guy?"

"He killed your thief."

And the game started with them chasing down this bastard dead sun mummy, everyone getting a feel for how ship to ship combat worked and killing the thing.

Fun times.

QuoteI started the game with them chasing a flaming pyramid of a mummy who worshipped a dead sun's angry god.

I just wanted to note that you are awesome.

Quote from: jrientsI just wanted to note that you are awesome.

Thanks.  

We started another game, a Burning Wheel 1-shot, set in an elven citadel with every PC waking up knowing that the king had succumbed to grief and headed West, never to be seen again.

The queen who had been cheating on him, the head of his knights with whom he had been cheating, his bastard half-elven son in from ranging in the woods, his estranged sea captain daughter back from her fostering with the sea kingdoms on the continent's westernmost shore, his ancient dowager queen crone of a mother and his loyal squire all vied for the throne.

It rocked.

I've always liked funerals for bringing together disparate parties, especially if you tell them to make up their connection to the deceased

Then you throw in a zombie attack or something.  Everything goes better with zombies

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonI've always liked funerals for bringing together disparate parties, especially if you tell them to make up their connection to the deceased

Then you throw in a zombie attack or something.  Everything goes better with zombies

The adventure already had kinstrife, elven court politics, and six immortal elves all going after the throne full throttle.

Zombies weren't needed.

It was a fun con scenario, ran it once for my home group and once more at Gen Con and it went pretty well both times.

Ok, pundy, here's one I like:

A SF setting, either hard sf or space opera, that opens centuries or so after "the big crash" in which the grand republic/empire/federation/whatever fell and a great dark age came across the galaxy.

The players, struggling to survive, find an ancient warship from the great times fully operational and realize it gives them the power to rebuild civillization.

In other words, for a grand campaign, I'd like to do one like "Andromeda" before Kevin Sorbo's monstrous ego turned the show into "The adventures of Kirkules."

Andromeda had such a wonderful premise and potential, too bad it turned into pure bullshit after a couple seasons as sorbo demanded that the show revolve around his character.