I'm completely in the "it depends on the adventure" camp.  But if we're talking B/X here and you're pretty much playing RAW the key thing (and difference from 5e) is to not create elaborate backstories no matter how you set up the party since there's the high likelihood that some of them aren't surviving that first adventure anyhow.  I allow PCs to add their entire Con score to starting HP and they still usually suffer casualties in their first adventures.

Quote from: Persimmon on April 03, 2023, 04:06:38 PM
I'm completely in the "it depends on the adventure" camp.  But if we're talking B/X here and you're pretty much playing RAW the key thing (and difference from 5e) is to not create elaborate backstories no matter how you set up the party since there's the high likelihood that some of them aren't surviving that first adventure anyhow.  I allow PCs to add their entire Con score to starting HP and they still usually suffer casualties in their first adventures.

I don't even need to have a large background story to figure out why a character is in the town or bar, just a little backstory is all I need to put it together.  Or at least thats how I do it.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 03, 2023, 03:23:25 PM
I will pretty much always start the campaign with the PCs as at least acquaintances. Doing meet-cutes for 5 or 6 characters is way too much, especially when it's a foregone conclusion that they're going to choose to adventure together anyway. I do generally have new characters that join mid-campaign start as strangers, though. It's more manageable when it's just one character to introduce, and it stretches plausibility for the PCs to be bumping into people they know everywhere they go.

The exception I make to that is if the introductory adventure is going to push them together anyway. So that'd be stuff like starting the PCs off as prisoners or just opening the campaign with them already having contracted to do something.

I generally agree - but I'd go a little farther.

It's actually quicker and easier to just say "you all know each other" rather than pretending to be strangers. If PCs have a history together doesn't mean that it's detailed - it just means handwaving introductions.

Going further, while "adventuring" can vary, PCs tend to stick together through thick and thin, and trust each other with their lives. That needs serious bonds or commonalities to be plausible for me. On the one hand, it's just a game, but I like to put in some effort towards making role-playing believable.

In my current D&D game, they all have a common patron - a wise and good royal oracle. In a previous D&D game, they all were devoted to a long-term quest to rebuild an ancient temple. The game before that was more of "they meet at a bar" -- but the premise was a worldwide apocalypse along the lines of The Walking Dead. They didn't have an option to just leave each other.


I've done meeting at a bar as strangers and then role-playing interactions. Good players can come up with reasons to bond during the adventures. However, to me it feels like going through the motions -- because it's a known outcome that the PCs are going to stick together and form a trusting party. Logically, it would make sense if at least some of the PCs don't get along and they break up after at most a single score. But metagame reasons require them to stick together. So I prefer to start them off with reasons to stick together, and then role-play without a predetermined outcome from there.

I feel that once you've played out the "how do the players meet and form the party" thing a few times, it is just a stumbling block after that.

Having everyone at least know each other if not having adventured together before is far more preferable. We can do character intros and all that for players' sakes, but we don't need to do through the whole thing of getting to know each other or whatever.

There might be an adventure or something specific that might call for the D&D party meet-cute, but unless what I'm running specifically calls for it, I'm not doing it again.

Quote from: jhkim on April 03, 2023, 06:19:02 PM
Going further, while "adventuring" can vary, PCs tend to stick together through thick and thin, and trust each other with their lives. That needs serious bonds or commonalities to be plausible for me. On the one hand, it's just a game, but I like to put in some effort towards making role-playing believable.

Usually, yes.  However, I often run games where the characters don't entirely trust each other, sometimes with good reasons.  We usually draw the line somewhere well short of doing a murder hobo blitz on each other, but there are still shenanigans.

There's a gray area in the middle of complete, almost unbelievable trust versus "party of chaotic evil" looking to stab each other every time they turn the corner.  It does help with this kind of game to have some kind of overarching motivation which explains why they must trust each other more than they normally would.  Then after that first adventure, they've got a reason.   Or not.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 03, 2023, 06:49:01 PM
Usually, yes.  However, I often run games where the characters don't entirely trust each other, sometimes with good reasons.  We usually draw the line somewhere well short of doing a murder hobo blitz on each other, but there are still shenanigans.

Yes! This is the way to do it.  They come together for a common good, but until they actually get to know each other they don't trust one another.

This leads to some really good role playing.

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 04, 2023, 09:20:03 AM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on April 03, 2023, 06:49:01 PM
Usually, yes.  However, I often run games where the characters don't entirely trust each other, sometimes with good reasons.  We usually draw the line somewhere well short of doing a murder hobo blitz on each other, but there are still shenanigans.

Yes! This is the way to do it.  They come together for a common good, but until they actually get to know each other they don't trust one another.

This leads to some really good role playing.

I've done this before -- but to me, it only works if it is an acceptable answer for the players to not trust each other and instead turn against one another. I've done that in Amber Diceless and in some one-shot adventures, where we can actually have fun as PCs fight one another or pursue rival goals. However, those cases are rare.

If I'm role-playing through a decision like "should I trust these people" -- then I want the answer to that to be actually unknown. If the answer is a given, I think of that as acting or performing rather than role-playing.

Quote from: jhkim on April 04, 2023, 01:07:28 PM

I've done this before -- but to me, it only works if it is an acceptable answer for the players to not trust each other and instead turn against one another. I've done that in Amber Diceless and in some one-shot adventures, where we can actually have fun as PCs fight one another or pursue rival goals. However, those cases are rare.

If I'm role-playing through a decision like "should I trust these people" -- then I want the answer to that to be actually unknown. If the answer is a given, I think of that as acting or performing rather than role-playing.

True.  Or maybe it's not that they don't trust each other, they just are working for a common good and feel that getting together with the party is the right move.

There are a lot of different ways to go.

Nowadays when putting together a campaign I'm mostly recruiting strangers to play. None of us know each other. I don't enjoy a game that requires a party of cooperating adventurers where everyone instead sees his character as a loner, an outsider, closed-mouth, who trusts no one. Things degenerate from there as they begin to argue over loot, risks, resources and everything else.

To avoid that I tell them flat out that there will be no "evil" characters, everyone knows each other and has a relationship such that they can reliably trust each other while out risking their lives together. I tell them that it's their responsibility to come up with all the reasons why this is so, not mine.

It works fairly well.

Quote from: Baron on April 04, 2023, 11:13:11 PM
Nowadays when putting together a campaign I'm mostly recruiting strangers to play. None of us know each other. I don't enjoy a game that requires a party of cooperating adventurers where everyone instead sees his character as a loner, an outsider, closed-mouth, who trusts no one. Things degenerate from there as they begin to argue over loot, risks, resources and everything else.

No, I agree.  Most of the time for me it's just players that don't know each other and while they may not be suspicious of each other they work together for the common goal knowing that is worth it.