New GM here.
I have been a player before but am going to start being a GM. I was wondering how I bring all the players together. A tavern seems way too generic and I saw other GMs (Brennan Lee Mulligan) start the players off in different places before somehow maneuvering his players into a quest with each other.
How do I do something similar?
This is your first game. That means you're about to learn a lot of things and pick up a lot of responsibilities. You're going to have to find your own style and try to engage your players, all while concocting a story and arbitrating on the rules. So why handicap yourself by trying to reinvent the wheel?
Meeting in a tavern is a tried-and-true way to introduce characters precisely because it works so well. It's a confined space that prevents wandering off, it provides an opportunity for players to immediately show their characters' personalities, and it gives you plenty of chances to push-and-pull with your players narratively by throwing in new elements and events.
If you really do want to spice it up, try to think of another setting that does all the same things. Maybe a small trading post that all of the players are passing through at the same time? Perhaps a barracks, and all of your characters have been enlisted into the local militia. Maybe it's a cave that your party, with a group of other travellers, have set up for the night in.
All of those pose their own difficulties, however. Some may be harder for your players to immediately imagine themselves in. Others may be harder to disrupt when you need to throw the first plot hook.
I, for one, have started my own games in taverns before and they've served me well. My other go-to is having all of my players set out on the same travelling caravan through treacherous lands. This prevents any of them from wandering off, lets me see how all of them act around each other and the NPCs, and gives me ample space to drop plot hooks and other challenges. However, it's also harder to run than a basic tavern scene and took me some practice to be able to describe correctly.
Try to get a preview of how your players will describe their characters. Some players will go on and on for minutes on end about tiny little details, whereas others will forget what type of armor they're wearing. Try to get them to introduce their characters with two sentences: one for what the character looks like, one for how the character carries themselves. Get these in writing if you can - it can be a helpful reminder to the player later anyways.
Don't let any one player hog too much "screen time," but also don't force players too hard into a spotlight they don't want. It's a delicate balance. This is why, for the record, I highly advise against character introductions that start with the characters not being all in the same room together. If you start the campaign with each character going about daily life and receiving some anonymous note promising fame and adventure, it may be really hard to move the scene on to the next player. Keeping everyone in the same first scene prevents this.
Give your first session a bit of everything. Make sure there's talking, some (confined) exploration, some chances to learn about the setting's lore, and a chance to bash some heads. Not only does this make the first session more exciting, it gives each player a chance to showcase how their characters react to a range of situations. Having a bar fight erupt around the calm and composed wizard or having a con man try to pull one over on the country bumpkin fighter can lead to characterization gold.
Most of all, don't forget to breathe! Your first session is your first impression, so make sure you're not stepping over yourself to describe the scene! If a player does an in-game action that requires you to describe something, take a full second to breathe in and out before answering. It'll make your narration come alive, which will invite your players to open up and engage more. This is an art you'll be honing your entire game mastering career.
Since you've left your question open-ended, I'll include some ideas of first plot hooks to get your creative processes started. Take this less as a list of options and more as a way to get into the right headspace to make your own.
A tattooed figure in blue robes walks in, takes one look around, and hurls a fireball at a table full of elves. The adventure begins when the party members are all rounded up and deputized by the local guard to hunt down the mysterious murderer.
In a modern or sci-fi setting, a broken-down TV at the sports bar begins blaring GPS coordinates that nobody but the party can hear. The coordinates lead to a location that no internet searches can gather any information on.
A grease fire from the tavern kitchen quickly spreads out of control. Several innocents become trapped, and the party become the only ones around brave enough to try to rescue them. As the dust settles, the tavern owner realizes that he can't find any trace of the cook and offers a great reward to the party if they can track him down.
The party watches on as all of the natives of the town suddenly stand up, entranced, and begin to walk towards town square in a hypnotic daze. They apprehend and tie up a pair of young women, then march them to the gallows.
This is a very effective tool I have seen from both sides of the table. Simply ask your players to figure out how they know each other. Not all people in the group even need to be familiar with everybody else, A can know B and B can know C, for example.
Do not underestimate players - they are very effective at coming up with these details, so you do not have to. It is really great fun doing it as a player.
You can suggest a theme or a goal for them or let them figure it out. The players might save you a whole lot of planning and even provide and even surprise you by handing over plot hooks on a platter.
The connections players make with each other's characters further helps define them and shape the group dynamics.
Once the characters know one another, it should be a lot simpler to explain why they work together. The players might decide that they all share a background. They went to the same school, or hail from the same village. Or maybe they already worked together in the past and are doing it again. That makes it so much easier to spur them into action.
With another player, we agreed on the following shared background: the other player's character (a monk) performed some funerary rites on my character's sister but messed it up and now her soul was lost. The monk felt honour bound to fix this, and my character wanted to help. Which is why we travelled together. We also agreed to keep the details vague. Neither of our characters truly knew what happened. It bonded them, provided a good reason why they were adventuring, and the GM had a whole new plot to play with.
In another game, we agreed with another player that our characters would be siblings but estranged. We already had the backstories pretty much done, so it was a minor alteration. Then my character directly worked with two other player characters, and my character's sister knew the other player characters. This proved a good basis for why everybody would eventually come and work together.
Although bringing player characters together in the first session can work, most of the time it is a more difficult alternative to other options. Especially if you want to slowly build the group through individual narratives that later wind together.
Rather than throwing a bunch of characters together and hoping that they'll find a reason to continue together, have your players create characters who already know each, already have some shared history, and already have a reason to continue to work together.
My favorite way of bringing the group together is to have them all summoned by the initial quest giver. When I'm being lazy or ham-handed, I'll even require that they include some way that they have a favorable relationship with the first quest giver in their character background.
The quest giver can then help provide an opportunity for them all to introduce themselves and then provide the opportunity for the quest.
This is particularly easy in games like Shadowrun where the characters are usually mercenaries or mercenary like. The first event in the game proper can be meeting a potential Johnson. In something like D&D, an official might put out a call for help, and the official might then set the meeting for all of them at the same time. Its a little harder in something like Exalted where the characters are often not mercenaries, but even then if everyone is required to have a tie to someone specific, they can be expected to assemble if that person puts out a call for help and they'll get to know each other along the way.
Similarly, an NPC can go around assembling a team, not unlike what Nick Fury did in the MCU, and meet the characters separately before bringing them together. This is basically the same idea, except with the quest giver doing the travelling instead of summoning.
On the flip side, they can all start in trouble together. They can be prisoners that need to start by escaping for instance. While not exactly this, the opening to Divinity Original Sin 2 was along these lines.
I suppose this is technically something of a frame-challenge, but it is worth noting that this is very often simply handwaved. They are a team because they are a team and no further thought on that topic is needed.
In the animated version of Vox Machina, they literally start in a tavern, but they are very plainly already a team. At least thus far, very little information on how they met or why they became a team is ever given. Explanations for how they individually became adventurers are provided but not until much later, and short shrift has been given to how they met or formed a team.
This is very common, particularly in games like DND. They can be declared to be a team by fiat and nothing further needs to ever be mentioned.
Some people that are highly invested in the story might find that unsatisfying, but if you have a group of adventurers that at least at first will be doing classic adventurer stuff and particularly if you plan to focus on exploration and combat, not having too much of a backstory for how they became a team is perfectly fine.
The slightly softer version of this is that they assemble as a team during Session 0 and just mutually write it into their backstories. This works very well if there is cooperation and coordination during character creation (which has other benefits outside the scope of this question). It is still essentially by fiat, but it does provide a background story.
Also, I agree with Phoenix Duck. While a bit cliche, "You all meet in a tavern" is a perfectly fine way to start an adventure. Tropes are tools. Don't be afraid to use them, particularly while you are new and figuring things out.
The heart of the question seems to be the latter half:
other GMs...start the players off in different places before somehow maneuvering [the] players into quest with each other. How do I do something similar?
As I've grown as a GM I've leaned into this style more and a few tips from experience are:
Your players are going to need to want to do two things 1) sit and watch as the GM and one or two others play out a small scene they aren't in 2) roleplay with just the GM whilst everyone else watches. If these sound easy and obvious, great, you're in the right sort of group.
You'll also need a backstory, to get a good idea of the character for:
These snippets of time are great for giving each character their time in the spotlight. You want to make each character shine, and each character uncover some small plot point. Perhaps its someone they know, a skill or a position of power they're in - something unique about them gives the audience (the other players) an introduction of what to expect from this character.
Persoanlly, I think this is the perfect time to be generous. Give that character an extra die/advantage/whatever boon your system uses to make it more likely the player rolls well.
If you want something big like a heist or a party, start with things in full swing, or time skip through it. Don't be afraid to take things a little cinematic for these.
Your players know they're playing a game together, if they don't take the obvious bait thats on them. Try to make each short scene end pointing the players toward each other.
Two scenarios I had recently as examples:
"As Verci strides through the halls, the bustle of other healers, all with their own emergencies around him, we cut across to a much quieter scene - a huge building, silent, but for the footsteps of a lone patrol. Jane, would you like to describe who we see?"
"As the last shards of china fall to the floor, that noise echoing in your heart.....we cut over to a busy restaurant, where a waiter is ready to take your order. Adam, would describe who they see looking back at them?"
These keep everyone engaged, we're switching back and forth, but the players know their turns will come around again.
I'm not going to tell you not to do it, but don't expect to be perfect. Meeting in a tavern is popular because its so much easier. Cinematic, individual introductions require planning more scenes, remembering where each one is, switching between them and keeping your player's engagement whilst you do it.
Play the game thats most fun for you and your players, whether thats generic tavern starts or bespoke scenes for each player, you don't have to be perfect - just play what you enjoy.
The answer to this question heavily depends on the system you choose. While the stereotypical meeting in a tavern or in is a staple of fantasy, different genres create different tropes for their stereotypical start. For example, getting a group together in a Cyberpunk setting is as simple as saying: Your contact is calling you for a job, gives you an address and off you go to meet the team. In a Vampire the Masquerade game, the stereotype is that everyone meets at the Elysium because that is what is expected. In Call of Cthulhu, everyone receives a letter or package that invites them to the meeting point. In Paranoia, you receive a summons from Friend Computer. In Ecplise Phase, the stereotype is that you all wake up in a cloning facility... It's all variations on the same trope though.
And for those GMs that want to keep people from running, there's always the Prison Variant.
As stereotypical as these settings are, they are not bad. They are merely tools in the storyteller's pocket. Think of the problem this way: You get a ragtag group of wannabe adventurers without connection to one another. How do you make them work together?
Here the secret ingenuity of the tavern kicks in: it's a spot all characters have a reason to be in. Food, drink, a bed, and last but not least, shelter from the storm outside. As a trope, just saying, "you are in a tavern as the weather turns for the worst" provides an easy buy-in with low stakes. Few players will object to that start, as they can see a reason for their character to be there.
But if you want more ideas, David Morgan-Mar did write a short list of variants to the classic "Tavern", and Dice of Doom offers 8 more.
The real tricky part of GMing only comes now, after getting everyone into the same place: How to turn the ragtag collection into a band of adventurers?
Again, tropes can help here: Do the last two characters to arrive need a scoundrel with a ship to get away? Does a person come in and plead for help? Do a bunch of orcs attack the tavern? Do some patrons start a bar fight? Or does the barkeep need help getting rid of the rats in the cellar lest there be more beer? All of those are classics to get a group's first experience together and lead to further adventure.
This is generally called the "Hook", as it drags the party into the adventure and then the campaign. Another form to phrase it would be the "Challenge" in a "Challenge-Focus-Strike" approach of telling a story, or the "Motivation" phase in the learning phases according to Roth
If you (and your players) are familiar with Dimension20, I believe Kids On Bikes (Mentopolis, Never Stop Blowing Up) has a cool way to establish links between the party. Summary from the free "Ashcan PDF" edition here:
Since in this version you’re all middle school students going to the same school, you all know each other - but that doesn’t mean you all like each other all that much. Spend a few minutes discussing how your characters know each other. It might be that you know someone well--like, best-friend well--or it might be that you barely know them at all--like passed-in-the-halls barely. [...]
[For the fast setup,] starting with the player to the left of the GM, do the following:
- Decide whether you want to answer a question about what’s positive about your relationship with the character to your left - or if you want to answer a question about what’s negative about that relationship.
- Roll a d20 and answer the corresponding question from the “Character You Know - Positive” or from the “Character You Know - Negative” list at the end of this version of the rules. (If the question doesn’t fit your relationship with that character or if the question you roll has already been answered, you may answer a question above or below the one you rolled that hasn’t been answered yet or re-roll.)
Positive relationship table:
- What did this character do for you that makes you owe them a debt you couldn’t repay?
- What do you admire about the character - but would never tell them?
- What great kindness did they do for you that they don’t even remember but you do?
- What trait about this character that they despise do you genuinely appreciate?
- [continues...]
Negative relationship table:
- What thing that this character did in the past do you still resent them for?
- What secret are you keeping from them that you would be devastated if they found out?
- What could make you betray this character?
- What are you sure this character is hiding from you?
- [continues...]
This forms some early bonds that you can use to get players together, or serve as initial bonds if you decide to say "you are an existing adventuring party about to embark on a new mission.."
There is certainly a lot one can learn from watching people play pen&paper RPGs on the Internet. But remember that the main goal of groups playing for an audience is to make the game interesting for the viewers, not for the players. Starting with the characters separated and then bringing them together might make for a more compelling narrative structure. Showing each character in isolation and giving them some screentime is a great way to introduce them to the audience. But it can be pretty boring for the other players who start their first session by watching other people play for hours while twiddeling their thumbs until it's their characters turn to get introduced.
When you are playing solely for the enjoyment of the group, then you want all the players to be able to show off their characters as early as possible, and then quickly give them the call to adventure that kicks off the campaign. "You all meet in a tavern" might be a cliché, but it's a cliché for a reason: It works.
But a hybrid method I like to use that starts the adventure quickly but still gives the players a good opportunity to introduce their characters to the group is this:
Before the first session, I give the players a brief description of the basic situation they will find themselves in in the beginning of the first session. This should be a place where all the characters are in one place and about to receive the call to adventure. I then ask them to come up with a reason how their characters got into this situation. I don't ask them to tell me. This is a preparation for the upcoming session to get them to think about the backstory and motivation of their character.
In the begin of the first session, I start off with describing the place where the adventure is about to start to set the mood. Then I ask each player in turn to narrate the moment their character arrives at the scene and the first impression their character makes on the group. This gives every player an immediate opportunity to show off their character. This should take no longer than a couple minutes per character. Maybe this arrival sequence leads to some interactions between the characters. If they seem interesting, I let them play out. But then I try to redirect my narrative to the call to adventure as soon as possible.
Addendum: Here are some possible alternatives to "You all meet in a tavern":
I will start with a group template. The group template is a definition of what the party is and what it is going to be doing. The purpose of this is to align all players on some common goals and motivation for their players. As part of this I always require that there are some connections between the playing character up front, and that their goals align with the template and each other.
I have been in several failed campaign, and the most common denominator in them is that the group was not tightly enough tied together from the start. Leading to differing goals and ambitions, and no built in trust among the character.
Sample group template: In this campaign we are going to play people running a tavern in city X. You have know each other for at least two years. Everyone is bored out of their mind with the job, and has been talking for years about going on adventure. The city is racist so only human and dwarf are allowed races.
