How do you guys normally start your campaigns? Classic tavern, or something unique each time?
I’ve been thinking of starting my next one with a surprise DMPC.
He’ll be mid-high level and over the top, inducting the players into his party because despite his power, the contract he has specifies it must be accepted by a party. He’ll want them to do nothing but stay out of his way. I’m thinking the contract will either be a bounty or goblin clearing task. The target either way will be in a small fort with only a rope bridge for access. He’ll tell them to stay with the horses, go off on his own and promptly have the bridge cut out from under him, dieing to the fall.
If the party want the payout, they’ll have to both get the contract from his corpse and then complete it on their own.
I usually have the party band together as part of their backstory, so that we don’t have to roleplay for the upteenth time the characters getting to know each other.
But if we start as strangers, I don’t see anything wrong with the usual tavern or festival. The first session is a bit critical from a roleplay perspective because everyone is playing new characters and is focused on getting the “feel” right, so I don’t mind easing the job for them by placing them in a well known and established setting such as a tavern: in this way, they can relax and think less about their surroundings, and more about their characters.