Getting PCs Together for the First Time
- Thread starter JohnWFox
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alex_greene
Guest
The theme is the same: getting everybody together for the first time.
Of course, you could leave that bit out altogether. Just start the game somewhere in the middle, with the crew already gathered together, wearing their Patron catchers, standing outside a bar in Startown where a potential Patron has arranged for a meeting with them.
Adelai Niska.
Of course, you could leave that bit out altogether. Just start the game somewhere in the middle, with the crew already gathered together, wearing their Patron catchers, standing outside a bar in Startown where a potential Patron has arranged for a meeting with them.
Adelai Niska.
How about they are all passengers travelling to a specific system and in flight there is a "Mis-Jump" where they end up crashing on some world. They and a few select NPCs manage to survive the initial crash. Have them work together to rescue themselves from the situation and then have them escape to space where maybe they are then picked up by someone. As a GM you can then tailor different plots and situations to mesh these folks together into a team/group/unit and start the campaign going. It also helps if you state that in their careers that they have all bumped into one another from time to time and have a kinda of slight friendly relations with one another. They don't have to be best friends of one another but they might have had run ins with one another over their careers and gotten to know one another. Remember "Birds of a Feather, Flock Together"! Your the GM so design something that fits for you and works into your campaign.
Penn
Penn
alex_greene
Guest
"Ohmygod! That thing burned through the faceplate of his helmet visor and wrapped its legs around his FACE!"
*pause* "Hey, Science Officer, why is white milk coming out of your eyes and mouth?"
*pause* "Hey, Science Officer, why is white milk coming out of your eyes and mouth?"
alex_greene
Guest
"Goddamned stinking jungle. Hey, what's that girl saying? "La selva cobró vida y se lo lleva?" Sounds like she just said that the jungle came to life and took him ..." What does she mean, "El diablo cazador los hombres y hace que los trofeos de ellos?""
kafka
Mongoose
1. Papers are in a card game played against the opposing wing of the services...Army vs Navy; Marines vs Scouts; etc. Things are going well and one of the players decide to cheat...opposite services get wind of it start a brawl landing the players in the same cell.
2. Standard Starport Bar routine (you know - the Tavern openning).
3. Players are getting their mustering out papers when they all manage to get working passage on a tramp trader from the Battle of Hell (allows you to introduce a merchant into the party mix).
4. A letter from an old commanding officer recruits them and they meet en route finding that they have the same letter.
5. Family bonds - the players are from the same clan or nation (if the world was balkanized) always dismissed as hicks. Now an urgent request from the head of the family/nation calls them back into service of the clan/nation.
6. Players noticing that each one has a strange tatoo on their arms. They don't seem to remember how it got there but clearly it must mean something. When the players get separated by more than 100km something begins to hurt.
2. Standard Starport Bar routine (you know - the Tavern openning).
3. Players are getting their mustering out papers when they all manage to get working passage on a tramp trader from the Battle of Hell (allows you to introduce a merchant into the party mix).
4. A letter from an old commanding officer recruits them and they meet en route finding that they have the same letter.
5. Family bonds - the players are from the same clan or nation (if the world was balkanized) always dismissed as hicks. Now an urgent request from the head of the family/nation calls them back into service of the clan/nation.
6. Players noticing that each one has a strange tatoo on their arms. They don't seem to remember how it got there but clearly it must mean something. When the players get separated by more than 100km something begins to hurt.
alex_greene
Guest
Every time they come near a spaceship, or even stand together posing, an orchestral John Williams musical score begins to swell around them ...
77thPatron
Mongoose
Employers hire people they believe are competent and can be trusted. Either they get that feeling during a formal interview or someone they trust vouches for the new guy. That's how it works in the real world, that's how it will work in any human centric society millions of years from now.
So if you have a Patron who needs 3 people to do a job, the only intro you need is what you find in Reservoir Dogs; so-and-so, knows so-and-so, who knows so-and-so, which is why you are now sitting around drinking coffee and talking about the earning power of waitresses relative to the work they perform. Screw up this job and you'll have a hard time getting more work.
This works for any SOC 1-15 characters. “Good chap that Shuguli, I think you’ll find him quite up to the task your Grace.” Say it in a British accent if it makes you feel better.
Toss amnesia, low berth failure, and all that crap out the window. It’s trite, contrived, and shows players that in your world, magical things happen (thus you should really be running a D&D game), and that you are unconstrained by logic, common sense, or realism.
Occam ’s razor should rule. What’s more likely, uber-patron hire six people to do a job then uses some TL-15 device to blank their memory while leaving them in some precarious state from which they will be able to escape?
Or would he/she hire six people to do a job, then use a few thugs with TL-6 guns to kill them all afterward.
Don’t go cheap on the intro. It cheapens the whole game.
My 2 Cr.
So if you have a Patron who needs 3 people to do a job, the only intro you need is what you find in Reservoir Dogs; so-and-so, knows so-and-so, who knows so-and-so, which is why you are now sitting around drinking coffee and talking about the earning power of waitresses relative to the work they perform. Screw up this job and you'll have a hard time getting more work.
This works for any SOC 1-15 characters. “Good chap that Shuguli, I think you’ll find him quite up to the task your Grace.” Say it in a British accent if it makes you feel better.
Toss amnesia, low berth failure, and all that crap out the window. It’s trite, contrived, and shows players that in your world, magical things happen (thus you should really be running a D&D game), and that you are unconstrained by logic, common sense, or realism.
Occam ’s razor should rule. What’s more likely, uber-patron hire six people to do a job then uses some TL-15 device to blank their memory while leaving them in some precarious state from which they will be able to escape?
Or would he/she hire six people to do a job, then use a few thugs with TL-6 guns to kill them all afterward.
Don’t go cheap on the intro. It cheapens the whole game.
My 2 Cr.
No, no, no... you got that all wrong...
First, uber-patron hires six people to do a job for an extreme amount of credits, then uses some super-exotic TL-16 device to blank their memory while leaving them in some precarious state from which they will be able to escape.
Then, he/she hires six cheap, rank amatuer thugs with TL-6 guns to kill them all afterward.
First, uber-patron hires six people to do a job for an extreme amount of credits, then uses some super-exotic TL-16 device to blank their memory while leaving them in some precarious state from which they will be able to escape.
Then, he/she hires six cheap, rank amatuer thugs with TL-6 guns to kill them all afterward.
alex_greene
Guest
And then the player characters, unarmed bar for haircombs and copies of the Gideon Bible to hand, just flannel the thugs, come after their Patron and take their rightful pay.
Trust me, I've seen player characters achieve far more with far less. That's why they're so eagerly needed by the Patrons - their unbelievable resourcefulness.
Trust me, I've seen player characters achieve far more with far less. That's why they're so eagerly needed by the Patrons - their unbelievable resourcefulness.
I just started a new campaign and wanted to use the Psion book. All the characters were raised in "The Institution". A secret planet that cultivated genetically superior human psions. They were raised together their whole life. They are old enough and took off on a trip similar to spring break.
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