Thanks to everyone who commented, both here and on Facebook. There were a lot of great ideas and a few... interesting ones :) Just so everyone knows, this potential 5th party member won't be showing up right away, and I won't be divulging its race and class until she or he makes their appearance. I want to introduce her or him (it?) to the story organically, meaning that I want it to be a natural consequence of what is going on in the strip at the time. The stereotypical way for most adventurers to team up is for the DM to tell the players some variation of this sentence: "You all meet in a bar." I've always thought that was a clumsy and uninspired way to start a campaign, and I don't want the same thing to happen here. If and when the 5th party member appears, it will be for a good reason. So sayeth the DM/Cartoonist :)
See you all Wednesday!
~Rob
why do I hear the song “Some Velvet Morning” in my head seeing that last panel?
@FSilvermane: I… have no idea. 🙂
Rob hired a gnome with a cd player to stalk you just to make you ask that.
Ah, the Uninspired Bar meeting. I have a variation of a Bar mseting in my campaign- They all go to the same Bar, get blitzed (Except Avitus, oyr Iron livered Knight) and awaken in the morning Late for the work they came to town for. Gathering up their gear, they all rushh to leave the inn at the same time, and meet on the way Its a little more original, keeps in excellent character and of course, Is far easier than something overly complex.Especially with These guys Backgrounds…
I once used the Tavern Trope with a bit of irony, just to get things going…”You’re all sitting around in a bar, wondering what to do with your new-found powers, when suddenly…”
Bribery??? Blackmail??? Waiting till its the right time??? Decisions-Decisions…..time to hit the Tavern and polish off an ale or three.
Our DM decided to begin one of our adventures with the “you are sitting in the bar” and the whole group cringed and complained about using the “old standby”,..DM smiled and continued the build up,… the “scene” ended with none of us meeting at the bar though we were all in there,…our characters all go to our separate places to sleep. DM has us take a break to grab sodas and such,..when we get back to the table he begins with “you awaken with a enormous headache in the pitch black,… you are blindfolded and gagged”,…each of our characters had been Shanghaied by the Tavernkeepers,…..
@FSilvermane: Now THAT is is an excellent way to start an adventure! Reminds me of a Dark Sun game I ran long ago where I had all the players thinking they were going to enlist in the army of Tyr, only to be sold as slave gladiators instead. Good times.
most campains should start in the local version of a bar. Consider Dhur. Where else you gonna find him when he’s not in a dungeon killing something? Also, it’s the; Come in and relax, get wasted thing. Because what does almost every race have in common? Social drinking:) And what does every class have in common? They’ve seen things that they would rather get wasted over then remeber;)
What made the above even funnier was that the DM had a sneaky way of seeing if the characters had noticed that their drinks had been spiked,… when we took the break he got up and poured everyones soda for them while the rest of us were gathering the munchies and pizza that had been delivered a few minuted earlier. While we were paying attention to what we were doing he dropped a Sweet-tart in each of our glasses. Since none of us noticed him do this and none of us realized that the drink had something in it [even though it should have changed the flavor slightly] as we drank them he declared that all of us were successfully “poisoned” by the TavernKeppers. When we complained that he did not roll to see if we had been poisoned he told us what he had done and each of us lifted the glass up to see the little Sweet-Tart at the bottom. Suffice it to say we were all a little miffed and quite proud of his sneakyness. Now this did not stop us from declaring that he was being denied his DM right of the last piece of pizza,..lol.
That makes for a nice piece of theater, although it might not have been entirely fair if one of the PCs had a particularly high Perception/Spot/Craft Alchemy or some other skill that suggests that the character is more likely to pick such things than the player. Mind you, that can be a spot for secret die rolls – possibly pre-rolled secret die rolls if the DM knew the character’s stats in advance. The RL drink “spiking” then becomes a test to see if the players, and therefor the characters, are being observant for such details above and beyond what their skill checks would indicate.
I guess I just never noticed that my gaming group always started with you met in a bar. It was very rare for my GM to start us any other way. He used to be more inventive, but then he got married and the games became focused on his wife. Oh, well.. Real life intrudes!
The situation worked real well for my Half Orc Fighter Grath,..the Slavers were member of the Cult of the Dragon [complete with alter on the ship to Tiamat]. Once we fought our way free and took out the guards on us we get surrounded my more guards plus 2 Clerics of Tiamat,..we were in the same room with the Alter,..my character being a somewhat literal person gets told to “do something” so he grabs the alter/alter pieces and uses the small parts as missile weapons,..uses the base as an improvised Greatclub. After the group escapes the guards again, sets fire to the ship and steals a small boat we all get back to land. The next day my character is approached by a Paladin in silver armor who informs us he had followed the signs of his patron Bahamut to locate me,..I was immediately ordained as a Paladin of Bahamut and told in a dream that my destiny was not the Temple but to travel. So at the end I was a multiclass Half Orc Fighter/Paladin of Bahamut,……