“You’re in a tavern.” It’s the standard opening line for a campaign, isn’t it?

There’s a storm outside, but a roaring fire in here. There’s a barbarian in furs with an unrealistically large axe. There’s a shifty looking bloke with a hood sharpening his knives. On his own, in a corner, is an older fella with a beard wearing purple robes and leaning on a long staff. A buxom barmaid is pouring out the beers and, depending on the age of the players, there will be a few references to how big the jugs are. All the while, the locals are muttering into their tankards about a terrible curse…

I think I first encountered it in the Bard’s Tale, a game that I truly loved and played to near death (although nowhere near the end, I was hopeless at it), and in many ways I can still see how it serves as the perfect place to start an adventure. You have a relatively confined space so it’s easy to make sure everyone can talk to the right people, you can easily establish a tone for the world you’re in (even if that’s just a case of confirming all the cliches) and you’re offering an obvious place to come back to as a sort of base.

As a wide-eyed child, the thought of stumbling into a famous drinking establishment and inevitably encountering the perfect mix of warriors, mages, rogues and bards all seeking adventure and a chance to right the wrongs of the world was irresistible. As a GM with a bit of knowledge of history, an inn of some sort is the perfect spot to throw together any number of player characters from very different backgrounds because inns catered to every socio-economic background and from all sorts of places. As an adult, I find most of my favourite stories start in a pub somewhere.

I’m not bashing it as a starting point; it’s done so often because it works so well. I guess I just wanted to try something different. Especially if you don’t have a session 0, but also if you do, I think there are a few things you could consider when you’re planning the start of your campaign:

Why are the characters here?

What’s going to keep them together as a group?

What’s happening?

Why they’re here should be largely driven by what the characters’ background and motivation tells you. Not to say this rules out any particular location, but you need to know why, say, a dwarvern princess, a priest looking for holy artefacts and a shy scholar would be collecting together in an inn. Remember, this is your first opportunity to immerse them in your world – you want it to feel credible to them. Again, it’s a great chance to set the tone for your campaign. With the Northern Group, I had them all on a ship travelling to a mysterious island in the east.

Keeping them together as a group follows on from this, in my mind at any rate. I tried to offer a clear motivation (and I mean motivation, I didn’t force them) to start working together. None of the characters had backgrounds that suggested they would know each other already, so we worked with that. For the Southern Group, this involved having them all be sent to join a guild and earn their right to live and work in the city.

Finally, a lot of people advise that you throw them straight into some sort of action. I’ve tried both ways, and with a small sample size so far, I agree. When I started the campaign with a social interaction, the players were quite awkward and it felt very difficult to get things going. By contrast, a bit of action early on stunned them all into having to form opinions and make decisions, allowed more vivid descriptions of things going on, and seemed to make it much easier for them to get in character. With the Northern Group this was done fairly simply – the ship they’re all on was wrecked, and they found themselves trying to get themselves to shore.

It’s probably glib to say that there’s a real need to balance things being comfortable and familiar with things being surprising and unsettling. I think this will turn out to be one of the most important skills in planning and executing a campaign. It’s down to reading the group and adjusting accordingly. There are certainly times when the characters want to bask in the warm glow of a tavern hearth and talk about their lives (and I still kick myself for once cutting short an episode exactly like this for the sake of one player in the group looking bored) but there are also times when they need to be shaken up to see what comes tumbling out. I encourage everyone to consider the latter as a way to get things started.

Gosport