Campaign starting ideas

[Deewun]

Let's face it, a Ravenloft campaign is unlike just about anything else out there. I haven't found another setting that requires such a unique way to start a campaign. Sure, you can do the "everyone meets up in the bar" or "everyone already knows each other" style thing, but come on, this is RAVENLOFT!

I want to hear (and compile) ideas for interesting ways to start campaigns in Ravenloft! This is entirely edition free, just ideas, almost like an Adventure Hook gallery, but for the first sessions of games. Share how you started your campaigns in the past. Share ideas of how you might start campaigns in the future. Let's just have a bank of interesting ideas that everyone can see!

CAMPAIGN HOOK BANK
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ANYWHERE

1. Ask a Question - "How did [your character] get to [starting point]?" - Deewun
2. All the PCs are looking for a different missing friend/relative, and they have all disappeared at the same inn. - DilisnyaRevenge
3. The group is captured independently and bands together to escape - "You all wake up in a room together. You feel like you may have been drugged. Strange scratches cover your body. (etc.)" - DilisnyaRevenge
4. Each PC receives a letter from a mysterious patron and arrives at an old house on the same day. - DilisnyaRevenge
4a. Each PC receives an invitation to a dinner, story, and seance. All questions directed towards the host must wait until after the seance. - Five
5. Strangers summoned by the mists to a new town and framed for murder - Deewun
6. Variations on "meet at an inn" - One fun way to subvert the "meet at an inn" cliche is to let them all arrive at the inn separately, go to the common room expecting they'll be meeting there, and then attack the inn before they can get a word in. Or use another classic trope, and have a dying messenger stumble in the door. Or have all the lights go out suddenly and a ghostly figure manifest in the middle of dinner. Whatever hook might serve for the first adventure, springing it on them before they've made their introductions gives their PCs a chance to strut their stuff in a crisis immediately, and breaks the ice by making them rely on one another's brawn or brains from the outset. - Rotipher of the FoS
7. They all meet at a religious service. This can be anything from the fact they were all captured by an evil cult, or that they are all followers of Ezra who are at a local 5th day service. It doesn't have to just be preaching though, a friend of the characters could have converted to the Ezrite faith or is baptizing their child and they are invited or part of it. - herkles
8. They all meet at a funeral. The characters are invited to a funeral of some character that they knew about, could be a relative though it doesn't have to be. - herkles
9. They all meet at a festival. - herkles
10. (They) all attended a wedding that went terribly wrong ... as the killings began, sides were drawn, the party found themselves, as they were ostracized from their own friends/connections to the wedding. The dark events at the wedding sent all to Ravenloft. Beginning an adventure where everyone was wearing tuxedos (more or less) made for an interesting start. - MichaelTumey
11. The PCs are passing each other on the street when they hear a crash from above. A man falls to the ground from a shattered window, landing at their feet with a crunch. He's dead. Did he jump? or was he pushed? As newcomers in town, they will be the first suspects when the police arrive. Now they have to solve the murder to clear their name. - Gonzoron of the FoS
12. "The ones who survived" - The PCs are the (only?) survivors of a calamity of some sort. This could be a shipwreck, opera house fire, earthquake, forest fire, zombie apocalypse, vampire bloodbath, etc. - DilisnyaRevenge
13. Amnesia: No player need bother with a history because their characters all have complete amnesia (with the exception of one bad apple who is in on it?). They simply all wake up in a room together with no idea or who they are or how they got there. - DilisnyaRevenge
14. The PCs are all new recruits for a merchant company looking to expand trade in and around the Core. Unbeknownst to them, the company is involved in a very bitter feud with a particular Vistani tribe. - Five
15. Each of the characters has his or her own reason to come to a gathering, expecting to find something -- a job offer, a contact, the best apple pies in the county, an old friend they haven't seen in years, or maybe just a date for the weekend -- but when they get there, the NPCs they'd expected to meet are missing. Someone or something has come to the gathering first, and kidnapped everyone; the only ones who can solve the mass disappearance are the people who, for one reason or another, got delayed en route and arrived late, so missed the kidnapper. (Fey are good culprits for this, as are opponents with mass charming powers such as harpies.) - Rotipher of the FoS

DARKON

1. The PCs are in Darkon. They can't remember a damned thing and people are attacking them in the alleyways of Il Aluk. - HuManBeing

WARZONE
Works for militarized nations like Falkovnia, Invidia, Sithicus, and Gundarak ... and any domain that borders them - HuManBeing

1. Running from the fires and the stink of corpses, the players find themselves all taking a moment's rest at an abandoned tavern, where there are still some salted meats and cheeses and wines for the looting. Who are they all? Where were they going? What skills do they have to stay alive and escape the warzone? They'll have to stick together to survive this. - HuManBeing

GENERAL TIPS/IDEAS

1. Have two factions of the party already know each other (i.e. PCs A and B are old friends from the same village and PCs C and D fought together in the war). - DilisnyaRevenge

[Deewun]

I'll start:

I love starting a campaign with a "Why are you all here?" Such as, for a pirate campaign, my only question was "How did you get on the boat?"

Another I did was a murder mystery, as the entire party were outsiders brought in from the mists, and the murder of 4 sisters was pegged to them.

[DilisnyaRevenge]

A variant on the "inn" that I have used: All the PCs are looking for a different missing friend/relative, and they have all disappeared at the same inn.

Another old classic: The group is captured independently and bands together to escape. Alternatively (also used many times before): "You all wake up in a room together. You feel like you may have been drugged. Strange scratches cover your body. (etc.)"

I remember seeing this one on an old gaming forum: Each PC receives a letter from a mysterious patron and arrives at an old house on the same day.

Another tactic I like to use is to have two factions of the party already know each other (i.e. PCs A and B are old friends from the same village and PCs C and D fought together in the war). The reason I love this one is that it is far easier to come up with a good reason for two groups to be together than it is to shoehorn 6 separate individuals together.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

One fun way to subvert the "meet at an inn" cliche is to let them all arrive at the inn separately, go to the common room expecting they'll be meeting there, and then attack the inn before they can get a word in. Or use another classic trope, and have a dying messenger stumble in the door. Or have all the lights go out suddenly and a ghostly figure manifest in the middle of dinner. Whatever hook might serve for the first adventure, springing it on them before they've made their introductions gives their PCs a chance to strut their stuff in a crisis immediately, and breaks the ice by making them rely on one another's brawn or brains from the outset.

[HuManBing]

The PCs are in Darkon. They can't remember a damned thing and people are attacking them in the alleyways of Il Aluk.

Darkonian campaign ensues.

[herkles]

There are three ways I have thought of that are slightly more unique, though a tad related to each other.

*They all meet at a religious service. This can be anything from the fact they were all captured by an evil cult, or that they are all followers of Ezra who are at a local 5th day service. It doesn't have to just be preaching though, a friend of the characters could have converted to the Ezrite faith or is baptizing their child and they are invited or part of it.

*they all meet at a funeral. The characters are invited to a funeral of some character that they knew about, could be a relative though it doesn't have to be.

* they all meet at a festival. The characters well meet the local town festival. This well can be any sort of festival. a small town festival though works well. It could be a religious festival, or it could be something secular, such as a carnival type festival.

Of course during any of them, things may not be so simple. Murders, theives, ghosts, clues, finding dead bodies, poison, intrigue and so on can all happen.

[MichaelTumey]

My last party that went to Ravenloft (back in 2e days) all attended a wedding that went terribly wrong. They were guests and strangers to one another - as the killings began, sides were drawn, the party found themselves, as they were ostracized from their own friends/connections to the wedding. They dark events at the wedding sent all to Ravenloft. Beginning an adventure where everyone was wearing tuxedos (more or less) made for an interesting start.

[Deewun]

Oh man, these are wonderful. The wedding and funeral ones especially are favorites, just for how simple and elogant the idea is, yet how it can easily twist into a nice Ravenloft starting point.

Keep em coming! I love compiling them all in the first post, so let's just let this thing go to hundreds of pages of ideas!

[herkles]

do you want information for particular domains as well, as some methods are more likely to happen in one area then another.

Also for a general tip: some of my methods involve the PCs knowing NPCs or being part of a similar religion, so make sure you check and speak with your players before hand. For example, in the funeral one, it makes it more important if the guy was someone they knew albit for diffrent reasons that helps tie them into the plot easier.

[Deewun]

Specific domain campaign starters would be awesome!

[HuManBing]

Warzone: Running from the fires and the stink of corpses, the players find themselves all taking a moment's rest at an abandoned tavern, where there are still some salted meats and cheeses and wines for the looting. Who are they all? Where were they going? What skills do they have to stay alive and escape the warzone? Worse still, the commander of one of the belligerent armies has taken a specific beef with them and wants to hunt them down, for whatever reason. They'll have to stick together to survive this.

(Works for militarized nations like Falkovnia, Invidia, Sithicus, and Gundarak - and any domain that borders them.)

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

This one's kind of cheesy, but it worked for me. the PCs are passing each other on the street when they hear a crash from above. A man falls to the ground from a shattered window, landing at their feet with a crunch. He's dead. Did he jump? or was he pushed? As newcomers in town, they will be the first suspects when the police arrive. Now they have to solve the murder to clear their name.

[DilisnyaRevenge]

Two more that I've seen used:

"The ones who survived" - A favorite of the disaster and horror genre: The PCs are the (only?) survivors of a calamity of some sort. This could be a shipwreck, opera house fire, earthquake, forest fire, zombie apocalypse, vampire bloodbath, etc. The opening moments of the campaign are terrified moments where they separately fight for their survival before coming together to live through the calamity.

"You wake up..." - A campaign that begins with simply these words. No player need bother with a history because their characters all have complete amnesia (with the exception of one bad apple who is in on it?). They simply all wake up in a room together with no idea or who they are or how they got there.

[Five]

- The PCs have all received a card of invitation to a dinner, story, and seance. All questions directed towards the host must wait until after the seance.

- The PCs are all new recruits for a merchant company looking to expand trade in and around the Core. Unbeknownst to them, the company is involved in a very bitter feud with a particular Vistani tribe.

- The PCs along with the other patrons of the inn they are staying at are jolted from their sleep by the sounds of horses screaming from their stables outside. Panic ensues in the common room as everybody waits for someone else to take charge of the terrifying situation.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Each of the characters has his or her own reason to come to a gathering, expecting to find something -- a job offer, a contact, the best apple pies in the county, an old friend they haven't seen in years, or maybe just a date for the weekend -- but when they get there, the NPCs they'd expected to meet are missing. Someone or something has come to the gathering first, and kidnapped everyone; the only ones who can solve the mass disappearance are the people who, for one reason or another, got delayed en route and arrived late, so missed the kidnapper. (Fey are good culprits for this, as are opponents with mass charming powers such as harpies.)