Let's Start In A Tavern! | Running the Game

Episode 46. It's a perfectly cromulent place to start.

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[edwoodgrant]

I remember talking to my wife about the “starting in a Tavern” cliché. And she was a bit grumpy about this because she “has never started in a tavern” in any campaign, and wanted so bad to start there at least once. Precisely because of this "never start in a tavern" advice. So I promised her the next time we started one game I GM'ed, it would be in a tavern, definitely.

[Jasonwolf]

Favorite story start:

You are in a tavern... it is on fire.

[noblenineseven]

Hearing Colville say "I believe in you" makes me feel like I can run shadowrun.

[Leoevans]

google says "Just for the record: in some Shakespearian texts, the masculine version of a wench is a swain."

[NurseGodOfMischiefof]

My brother, who is into D&D in a *severe* way (I myself play and DM too, though), once designed this campaign setting after he had heard someone somewhere challenge someone else to have a campaign set wholly within a tavern. It's basically a big, Spirited Away-style bathhouse, founded by this epic-level cleric of some goddess of civilisation, meant to act as a sort of neutral ground for all kinds of people and creatures, where they could meet and essentially hang out, negotiate and generally wheel and deal in luxury. Could be just two nobles clearing up the issue of some land ownership, could be a group of ambassadors from two different empires negotiating a marriage contract. Could also be two emissaries from the plane of Earth and the plane of Air working on a peace treaty.
The party would be essentially employees of that cleric, working on the premises, and their adventures would all be about stuff like negotiating with the goblin tribe of coal shovelers who went on strike because there's something in their burrows, stealing their young. Or maybe evicting a party of adventures who made a mess of their rooms and refuse to pay for damages. Or maybe one day a freaking pit lord showing up, demanding to be served, while the celestial emissary and his posse just arrived.

[Razzrazz]

Here's one interesting way I'd suggest "starting in a tavern": the players wake up with a headache in the middle of a tavern, and all other patrons are dead. BAM. Immediate intrigue plot plus your players have a reason to work together.

Main bad guy's a Mind Flayer? All the other patrons are dead but seem to be *physically* unharmed. Maybe one's missing his brain.

Medusa? Nothing but stone rubble in a mostly wooden tavern save for a couple stone hands or legs on the floor

Vampires? All are drained of blood. The players feel weak but were left for dead with marks on their necks.

Demons? Pentagrams. Corpses and pentagrams.

The players are special. They survived because they're tougher or stronger or the like than the civilians that just died.

[danielsantarosa]

Start your game as prisoners being carried in a cartwheel, accused of supporting the rebellion of some white blond strong warrior and being dragged on to be eecuted when suddenly a dragon, a creature thought to be a legend, not seen in centuries, attacks the village ou've dragged on to right when the players are about to be executed

[JacksonBockus]

One of the WotC people said they once had a campaign that started with everyone in a tavern, when suddenly a cow flew in through a high window and crashed to the ground.

That's an opener, right there.

[masonfino]

I often find it hard to get through an entire video of yours without getting distracted because something you said sparked an amazing idea and my mind just goes off to explore it as the video plays on in the background until you say something else equally inspiring and I start exploring that idea instead

[SamWickens]

I've just started my first campaign as DM (and at all) and I think I put a decent twist on the Tavern start. The party didn't know each other and I couldn't see them getting along based on their worldviews, so instead of putting them in a tavern and having them rollplay smalltalk, I gave the tavern as backstory. On their individual journeys they all ended up in the same village, and had all got involved in a huge tavern brawl (possibly instigated by one of them) and had, in doing so, inadvertently saved the village from a goblin raid. Goblins came into the village just as the fight was heating up, and all got killed by stray spells and arrows. So the players were praised as heroes and got a summons to the castle to receive a reward from the Regent. The campaign began with them on the road, and they got to know each other from their actions and reactions along the way.

[ooccttoo]

When I started my first campaign in a tavern, I just had the NPC who was going to hand-hold my players on their way to their first quest just walk right in and say "HEY. ADVENTURERS. I HAVE MONEY IF YOU WANT TO KILL THINGS."

The only issue after that point was "How much?"

[DragonKnightJin]

My first D&D game: Started in a tavern. There was a drunkard that wanted to start a fight with our Wood Elf Warlock. My Dragonborn Death Cleric (hooded) broke it up before it could turn into a brawl. Even got 10gp from the tavern owner for saving his place from getting wrecked. Nice start to a campaign.
10/10, would start in a tavern again.

[shinrafugitives]

Add a more medieval twist to your campaign by starting in either a monastery or hospital, probably among a group of peasants that are staying the night during their pilgrimage.

[southron_d]

Sam was excellent. Proof that you can get the rules wrong and still have a great game.

There was a moment in one of my campaigns where someone lost a character and rolled up a new one. This Dwarf Wizard hadn't met her companions yet. We were also down a few people that night, so we had the player of the Dwarf Wizard and one player who chose a Half-Elf Bard to play along. They came across each other in the street during a festival and both noticed a quiet tavern in a laneway. A quiet tavern during a festival? They duly investigated and found themselves trapped for a time in Babi Yaga's Hut. In my setting, she's known as Jezibaba - thanks to Dvorak's opera, "Rusalka".

That game was a variation on the theme of beginning in a tavern.

[coco_bruce]

3:43 "But I believe in you" little things like this make me love this channel more and more

[nAmless-gqjc]

I love how these old medieval taverns just sound like the pub down the street in the uk

[PaulCharvet]

Excellent ideas! 
An additional interesting thing I discovered when I started my first campaign a couple years ago, in a tavern of course, was that my group (almost entirely new players) had a vague familiarity with the trope of starting in a tavern. So when I said, "You are all seated in this tavern [that I'd just described], " they all became thrilled and delighted that they were getting the full traditional D&D experience of starting in the most classic way. Based on that reaction alone, I was glad I hadn't chosen one of the other openings I had considered. So there's something to be said for following tradition precisely *because* it's traditional.

[tribulancer]

"It's a perfectly cromulent place to start."
Love the use of a Simpson's word in there.

[whatcookgoodlook]

God bless the beard, God bless the hair, God bless Matthew Colville

[Torvik]

"We'll get into [hot starts] in another video."

Three years later, makes a video about hot starts...