Episode 23: You Are Not In A Tavern

Loved this episode as well and listened to it on the flight back from iceland. My only feedback would be that while you covered a lot of great ways to start a campaign, it was more general campaign ideas and not location as specific as the tavern we were trying to avoid. So I jotted down all the listed ideas from the meat and have tied them to the actual location they could start in.

Prisoners
-Jail
-Prisoner Transport Carriage

Shipwreck
-On the boat/airship
-On the Beach
-In the Ocean

Dream Sequence/Fashback
-Anywhere

Ressurection
-Graveyard
-Laboratory
-Morgue

Battlefield
-War Camp
-Commanders/Generals Tent
-Mess hall/ feasting tent

Council meeting
-Castle
-Government building
-Ancient council site

Common Enemy
-anywhere
-enemies lair

Summoned by gods
-Churches/cathedrals
-Shrine/Temples

Funeral
-graveyard
-funeral home

Guild members
-guild hall
-secret hideout

Bounty hunters
-local bounty board where posters are hung
-sheriffs office


So that is more of what I thought would be presented in the episode. Again I think the episode was great and I got some solid Ideas out of it, but it seemed to me to be more general "this is how you start a campaign" and less these are places to start your campaign that are more unique than a tavern or inn. Keep up the awesome episodes, about to listen to the survival/horror episode!!!!! Also glad to be back from Iceland!

I just finished listening to this episode and it has helped me out with my current starting point. I can't remember any specifics on having my games starting out in a tavern, though I am sure I did when I was younger. Of course now I can think of a few interesting ideas on starting out in a tavern. Thanks for posting the main points from this podcast, dm-mainprize. Now I won't have to go back and take notes.

In the 5e campaign I am working on, I was just going to have the players start right in the middle of the action, with no background as to why they were together. I would just have them assume they have been together for some time as a fight between them and a group of goblins they have been chasing for the past 2 days through the woods began. At some point, we would go back in a flashback and do their origin story when they were level 0. ( You know kind of like when they were high level, sitting in a tavern, and someone asks them about how they all met for the first time.) I've now thought better of that. I'm still having them start the first game night with the opening sequence being the goblin battle, but I am going to have the PCs all be from the nearby small city. They are finishing up their compulsory "military service" and have been together since "boot camp". They were on patrol when they came across the group of goblins and began the chase. Not all that original but it may be better than what I was originally thinking.

In my 4e campaign, I had all the players start out in a small area that I had mapped and fleshed out in quite some detail. I dealt with them on an individual basis until they were all in the same town from this area. (Some PCs knew each other from character background/creation night, so I had a couple of groups of 2. Luckily some were already starting out in the town) There was a BBEG that attacked the town they were all in and they grouped together to save it. Not really original, but it worked well and they all liked it since they each got personal DM time at the beginning. One PC had been given an item from an NPC during their solo time in the beginning. The NPC gave them this item and told them to run with their dying gasp. The PC did run right to the town and the BBEG was in close pursuit. Obviously this was something important to the BBEG and he wanted it back. Thus began the 4e game.

My 3.5 campaign I called the beginning Once in a Blue Moon. We had a character creation night and only 2 PCs ended up knowing each other before the game started- they were brothers. I gave each person about 15 minutes at the beginning for them to tell me what they wanted to do- some were in a town, some were travelling across country, some were at a festival, the players were from all over the world. At some point, they looked up into the sky and saw a full blue moon rising in the sky. This mesmerized all the PCs and they stopped doing whatever they were doing at the time. All they saw was the large full blue moon, it consumed their every thought, their very existence, and eventually all went to darkness. They all awoke in a glade next to a babbling brook and a small pond. Out of the woods came two elf like beings, a male and female. The players soon realized that they had somehow been transported to the world of the Fae and that they were before Oberon and Titania. Thus began my huge 3.5 campaign that dealt extensively with the light and dark Fae. The Fae mythology fascinates me IRL and I use them a lot in my games. (My opening adventure in 5E will deal a lot with the Fae.)

I also have a tenancy to weave in Cthulhuesque themes in my campaigns, which was another 3.5 game and is what brought the characters together from all parts of the city they started in. They were all dragged into a murder mystery and eventually uncovered a cult that was operating in the city and performing ritual slayings on the poor and dispossessed. This eventually led to a campaign where they had to stop a person from opening a gate which would have brought he who cannot be named into their world. The final adventure for that took place in a huge insane asylum.

That's enough rambling for now...