So from what the comments are telling me is: 1. I haven't played Taverns correctly in D&D 2. It is very obvious I don't go to bars at ALL 😂 3. **EDIT** I HAVE HAD 4 PEOPLE SEND ME ESSAYS ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TAVERN AND AN INN!! 🤣🤣
For a second I thought the twist was going to be that the player was accidentally DMing a modern roleplaying session for the DM... and then the other players were going to join the campaign, trying not to be dragged on quests in a modern world.
1. If your are playing your are playing correctly, is a fantasy world so.... But in the real-world tavern are medival bars to the people of the town get drunk (I mean hang out) 2. Me nether
Yup. Taverns are actual road houses. A bar, sure, but also a restaurant. And a hotel, but most people in a tavern won't stay there. A good DM will decide how busy a place is, and straight up say they don't have vacancy when asked for a room. It was also very very common to see help wanted, bounties, notices, and public events posted in Taverns. You could run a guild hall (adventurers, fighters, mercenaries, caravan, etc) if you're uncomfortable with Taverns.
It actually makes perfect sense when put into the setting context. 1. A tavern is primarily a bar, or pub. You go there to drink and meet people. Not every tavern needs to also double as an Inn (tho many do in this case) 2. Heavily armed people being in there also doesn't raise an eyebrow because Adventurers are a common sight in these worlds. 3. They approaching someone to join them in means the person they do approach either has a known rep OR is also heavily armed (because point 2). 4. Said approach "Wanna go on an adventure?" is the equivalent of being hired for a job, as you get paid. 5. Barman knowing local quests is them literally just listening to local rumors, complaints or serving as a human blackboard (if the tavern doesn't have one straight up). And the last one is, again, the Adventurer-counterpart to a job offer, or a newspaper ad. So the Tavern is a perfectly logical (if maybe overused) location.
To your first point: My Rogue used his money from questing to buy the Tavern and Hotel buildings where he spent a good deal of his time earning that money with quests, after the previous owner tragically died. He's now owner of the place, and helps out if he feels like it. Mostly to use his stupidly high Stealth and Sleight of Hand, along with his insane Passive Perception, to get drinks to people without them knowing, and taking the exact change for the beverage from their pouch without raising alarms. Despite literally being the Thief subclass, he's actually quite ethical.
Exactly, it's a perfectly logical place to meet, since yiu have to think of it as an adventurer not a regular Job. The novel/anime series Mushoku Tensei/Jobless Reincarnation covers this exact principle really well
And then the inciting incident doesn't have to be initiated by the players. If you were at a hotel and a car accident happened outside, some of the people will render aid. A party just formed, coordinating with each other on roles and duties. Adventuers sitting in a tavern when kobolds raid the town. They'll form up into squads to support the town guard in maintaining a defense.
1: If a place lodges guests, it will more likely be called an inn, rather than be called a tavern. 2: It really should be an eyebrow raiser though. I know it's fantasy, and so shouldn't be held to the same real world etiquette, but I really think it should. In Medieval Europe, and Feudal Japan, a warrior wouldn't walk into town wearing their armor, and carrying heavy weapons. They would have a side-arm on them, Dagger for Europe, Katana for Samurai, while the European might also have a buckler. Their combat gear would be stowed in the cart/wagon, rather than worn. Then, when they go on their quest, depending on travel time to their destination, they would either don their armor, and other combat items, in their rooms, and walk out of the inn in such outfit, and would therefore not be surprising for them to then return in such equipment. Etiquette then dictates you return to your room, and take off all the combat gear, and return to dagger, dagger and buckler, or katana, before going to eat. At least, that's how I've always played my Bard. She kept only one rapier on her, because a rapier is a dueling weapon, not a battlefield weapon. Rapier is good for dueling, not for much else. 3: I treat characters, be they player character, or NPC, as if they were a celeberty. Sometimes you mistake someone for a celeberty, because they look almost exactly like said celeberty. Or you don't realize you're talking to the celeberty, and therefore telling the celeberty about themselves as you fanboy/fangirl over said celeberty. Or you recognize them, and immediately start fangirling over them. Or you recognize them, and treat them with a bit more respect. 4: It would be better to use the line "My Buddies and I are going to go investigate this rumor, you want to come?" By saying "investigate this rumor," At least alerts to the potential party member that payment is not guaranteed. This ensures only those looking for adventure, are the ones jumping at the chance, rather than those with a misconcieved notion about "adventuring." 5: The information one can get from those in a drunken stuppor(sp?) makes any place that serves alcohol, even today, the best place to gather information about the local area. Be it from the one behind the counter, the wait-staff, or from the patrons themselves. Rumors, as a result, are far more likely to spread rapidly, in such an environment.
The adventurers guild herald: So should we do something about the Tavern Owners sending ill prepared people on rumor hunts and deadly quests? The adventurers guild treasurer: Nah, we outsourced the none profit stuff to junkies and newbies The adventurers guild chief: We literaly don´t need to test young folks. Recruiting was never easier. And we are not liable for their exploits.
I thought it was going to go something like this: "But, where do we host this job fair?" "Probably a place where lots of people would go to spend time, and a place where meeting room is cheap." "Yeah, that makes sense. Any ideas?" "A tavern." End sketch.
Exactly. I was just about to post this. It's more like a bar than a hotel. And yeah, you do usually meet people at a bar, and you talk to the bartender about a lot of things. I mean, it's a big trope in RPG's to get information from a bartender, to where Mass Effect made a joke about it.
'You all meet in an elevator' actually sounds like a great premise for basically any modern setting. Supernatural, horror, modern fantasy, sci-fi... being trapped in a confined space with strangers on a device that you are at the mercy of has so many different directions to go in. Hell, even a high fantasy setting, once a character raises the inevitable question of 'what the hell is an elevator'. Good question! /Where are you?/
Now this sounds like fun. You could probably work some sort of primitive elevator in to a fantasy setting. Like a funicular railway acsessing a town on a cliff or something. And now it got attacked by monsters.
Not in my country. We usually come and go with the same people. People are way too afraid of being raped or killed nowadays to speak to and go back home with random strangers they met at the bar. That's pretty much a good way to end like the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer.
The UK "pub" (public house) is probably a better modern analog to ye olde tavern than either a straight up hotel or bar Not sure if there is an exact US equivalent A really kickarse bar?
It's basically a community house first. Got a board for requests around the area (since there is less specialized shops and services in ye oldy days, so asking around for specific tools, items, or tasks is easier), has space for people to meet up, have a good time, and eat meals. At night that'll be more of a bar setting, and the lodging is basically a B&B more than a hotel. So yeah, it's basically an English pub and a B&B in one.
@@DyslecticAttack I'd 100% agree, but suggest that a (modern, at least) pubs' room-for-rent is more like a B&B than a hotel anyways, well put I'm coming from the perspective of Australian pubs, which probably more resemble taverns (many are even named as such)
Since D&D is typically in a medieval setting, taverns were the center of activity in a village, town, or city neighborhood. People did go to them to meet and socialize, conduct business deals, and find work. It makes perfect sense that a medieval tavern would be a standard place to form an adventuring party.
interestingly, most DnD is now mystical steampunk, which still gives rise to this kind of setting and allows for a lot of variation. You get normal fantasy out in the sticks (where most adventures start) or up to super-advanced depending upon how good the trading is in an area and its magical expertise
@@dmnemaine flying ships, elevators, magical teleportation services. The bigger the city, the more tech-like the magic is. At least according to the games that the company rarely makes.
@@changer_of_ways_999 I know right? Almost like in small towns with zero infrastructure, places designed to be GATHERING PLACES and LODGING might be the single most concentrated collection of people in any community. Odd how that would be a useful plot device to insert an Inciting Incident into a storyline.
While functionally the tavern/pub acts like a hotel, in some ways it acts closer to your local coffee shop, being the local watering hole that people gather around either at the end of their long work days or during their break to swap stories and relax, that is why they act as a starting point. Plus, you already have the adventurers gathered by them all happen to being staying in the same place.
You know. I do just talk to random people at the coffee shop. And usually people are friendly there because they have or are about to have that coffee we all desperately depend on. Though now I agree with the B&B argument...
On a more medieval setting this would be the local fairground/marketplace for cities and larger towns, or church/temple for smaller towns and villages. IF there is a single church/faith with required weekly attendance. All the way into XIX century saturdays were effectively marketdays as people gathered around a church for mass. And where people gather, merchants gather. And where merchants gather producers (farmers, craftmen) bring their produce for sale/exchange. And where people gather there is talking and rumormilling, which is how your adventurers find out about a long dead sorcerer (actually a lich biding his time) and the cursed tower noone returns from (his hideout), plus buying supplies be they food from farmers, replacements for used up tools, potions, maaaybe some new gear but thats a bit dubious.
A campaign I played once started with the adventurers meeting in a tournament. The monarch wanted strong soldiers so they started a tournament with a bunch of challenges, Not only does it serve as a "Tutorial" for new players, It also makes sense how the adventurers meet! And when the tournament is set and done, The adventurers are put together in a group with one or two NPCs, Then they're set off to their quests and adventures!
I mean, logically, many parties are going to start in the Adventurer's guild hall which was built to hand out the many quests that were coming into any medium-sized town or larger. It may just happen to back up to the tavern because of course the adventurer's need somewhere to stay and spend their hard-earned gold after a long quest. (tavern owner was the original patron of building the guild-hall because it would be good for business)
Even the overnight part was not like a modern hotel. It was cheaper to make large beds than it was to make multiple beds, so beds were often shared with strangers
And in smaller towns where there are no guilds… or perhaps you party does not want to officially join a guild because it takes 70% of your earnings… Taverns are a good backup.
I think it has a lot to do with the stage of their lives the characters are in. I've never personally agreed to go out and stab creatures with a group of strangers in the hopes that it would bring me fame and fortune. But if I had, it probably would have coincided very closely with the time in my life I was hanging out in bars most frequently.
I always saw taverns as more of a 'bar and grill' restaurant that happened to have a couple of beds in the back for you to sleep it off when you drink too much to stagger home. It's also where much of the town/village goes at the end of the day to catch up and exchange gossip. (Essentially, the "hey, wanna grab a beer after work?" place) The tavern owner/barkeep would thus be *very* up-to-date on the goings on of the whole village, as he sees a great deal of the citizens nearly everyday and hears about their lives.
Tavern is a Bar and In is aHotel and they often come paired "Aziara86's In & Tavern!" They also often include Stable so travelers can leave their horse there for small fee. This basically solves the three problems. Where do locals meet, gossip and party after hard work? Tavern! Where do travelers and adventures sleep? Inns! And where do people leave their horses mean while? Stable!
The first campaign I played in started on a train that got hijacked by bandits. Pretty neat way of having all the party members stuck in a carriage together only getting together out of 'coincidence'.
I DMed an adventure that started exactly like that, also works as "inspiration" for the players if the DM's plan for the adventure is for them to hijack a train later on, without "forcing" them to it
_Public house_ is the relevant part here Or "the pub" as UK English would put it I'm not sure if there is an exact modern US analog, besides maybe a really kickarse bar?
@@Loromir17 definitely I'm more trying to think of an in-person one People today can use social networks to organise meeting up at a pub, just as people in the middle ages could make such arrangements using carrier pigeon or whatever The physical meeting place is the thing I was looking for, if there's a modern US analog to it Maybe the centralised social hub of the pub was kinda replaced by more interest-specialised social hubs in the US even before online social networks? Where would you go to meet random new people in America in the 80s/90s? I'm curious here, Australia (where I'm hailing from) has the same centralised pub culture as the UK
@@demonic_myst4503 probably right by the classical definitions, but there's plenty of "taverns" in Australia offering beds The line between "tavern", "inn" and "pub" is blurred pretty well out of existence here
Modern society doesn’t map neatly to what a D&D society would be like. Taverns were often used for many purposes, historically, and if a concept like adventurers who travel and take care of dangerous tasks exists, then a tavern would actually be a very good place to use to distribute that work. A world like Eberron might be less likely to have a meeting in a tavern…but that said, my Sharn campaign started with them meeting in a tavern because the spymaster hiring them rented a private room to discuss their first job in.
In my current campaign, the party met up in tavern. I offered all of them 200 XP if they included a bard NPC in their backstory as a trusted friend, then started the campaign with them all receiving a letter from this bard asking them to meet her at a certain tavern in a certain town on a certain night. They all ended up sitting together as they were clearly the only folk in the tavern who weren't locals, waiting for the bard, and then she got murdered in the alleyway behind the bar and suddenly they were a party as they all sought to find out who killed their friend.
THANK YOU! I was coming in here looking for a response like this. A VERY large city in medieval Europe, pre-Renaissance, was MAYBE 50k people, though I'm sure there might have been exceptions. A village - where a lot of the trope D&D 'we met in a bar' stuff happens would have a few hundred at most! Its literally the only place in towns and villages that strangers would gather in large numbers. Stores likely never had more than a couple of people there at a time. The only exception to this might be the 'Adventurer's Guild' or something similar. Booze. Live music. Food. Busty tavern wenches. The chance for a bar brawl - everyone knows all the tropes, I'm sure. Its probably the only place that a group of strangers in a rural area COULD meet, realistically... aside from maybe prison!
@@wolfofthewest8019 That is a good idea. I have my players add things to their back stories as well. Usually it is an NPC/quest giver that sends all of the PCs to a location, but I reward them in different ways since it is usually established in my series of session zeros.
My first D&D campaign started with all of us already been kidnapped by a band of goblins and we were all in their dungeon and needed to escape, it was pretty cool
One of my campaign ideas takes place entirely in a weird tavern. Basically the party is locked in and the locks are set on a timer. The tavern exists in a void while the door is locked, so there’s no point in going out the windows or anything. The party can either choose to wait the 20 years before the locks open automatically or go get the keys from the employees from each of the rooms upstairs. Each room is actually a pocket dimension filled with all sorts of unique encounters and challenges. How many keys the party needs and where the doors lead can be adjusted for levels and how long the party wants to actually play for. It can be a one-shot or several meet-ups depending on preference. Ultimately the end goal is to leave the tavern. Now if only I understood the rules well enough and a group to play this with.
My go to place to start campaigns is usually with all the PCs captured and trapped in the same jail/dungeon. Think about it, there’s no reason why they’d have to know each other before the enemies captured them, plus it immediately makes sense why they’d have to get to know each other and cooperate in order to escape.
I always thought of this trope revolving around the idea that those medieval fantasy taverns have public boards with quests pinned so that every adventurer could choose what job to take. Thus, the barmaid or barkeeper knows about those quests too and they can just add details from what they hear, but they do not get every detail of a quest just from listening.
You could have a bulletin board at the tavern where people post quests they want done, and the party could form because they all picked the same flyer to ask about and decided to do it together.
A tavern is more like a bar. They can have an attached inn which would be a hotel, but their primary function is to get the drinks. So makes perfect sense that they'd start in a tavern, because everyone has their best ideas on how to make money at a bar especially after a few drinks....
Meeting in an elevator makes so much sense. The people are trapped together from the beginning so the party is already formed. Just need to add a common goal to help binding the group together like getting out of a stopped elevator before it falls, or even as it is falling before it hits the ground. After that they either hate each other so much you can call it a one-shot and make different characters (or find different players eventually) or they'll immediately be a group of people who have gone through a lot together and trust each other with their lives.
I always thought the Taverns more of a kind of DND Hostel equivalent. Gathering place for Travelers and likeminded people. Even the staff consists of other traveling people who want to stack up some money. I have been to many Hostels over my journy across the ocean and found mostly the same atmosphere in every establishmend. Friendly people who most of the time dont mind a total stranger siting on their table. So yea Taverns are Hostels alright ^^ Thx for comming to my Tedtalk
I have actually had some adventurers start with the players seeing an ad looking for adventurers and everyone meeting up at a location chosen by the quest giver. Like at their house with them saying "thank you for coming today, I am hiring you to deal with a matter of great importance".
I'm planning to do a oneshot starting in a tavern because it's a great bottleneck location. All the party are there for the evening/night when suddenly a group of undead attack. Understandably any armed patrons and staff unite to defeat the monsters and afterwards the innkeeper puts up a new bounty poster to clear the nearby crypt that the other adventuring parties clearly failed to defeat.
Several reasons: - Most fantasy conflate Taverns (place for food and drink; Bars) with Inns (Sleeping place, that might also offer limited food and drink; Hotels). For this part, the Bar function is more important - pre-existing groups and parties will go there, because they need to sleep and eat/drink - quest givers want to meet there, because it is public enough to feel save, yet not so much eavesdropping is rampant or trivial - they are the first place to get information if you are totally new in town. See, just about every western. - they _are_ job fairs for adventurers. There are single bars and work bars for a reason. This is more a work bar. - it is really that, a prison, the job-board in town or a questgivers place
These are so well acted, I consistently forget Duke is just one guy hahahaha I think these are valid points, but they take our context as a premise. I agree that it would make more sense to form a party at the Adventurer’s Guild tavern than at another tavern, but still, in the D&D setting, adventurer is a valid career path, in such a way that tavern owners would be used to asking adventurers to deal with the town problems or passing on rumors, and adventurers would know they could find and form a party of people interested in adventurers at those places. Makes sense to me, at least
Lemme remember on where the party in my games meet for first time (which happed to be never in a tavern): 1. They are all bodyguard mercenary to begin with. 2. In prison 3. On the graveyard 4. At the house of alleged drugs dealler 5. At noble's (barbarian's family) mansion 6. At the garden of a witch 7. Inside an unknow ruin
A tavern is actually closer to a bar and have deals with local inns to stay. Shadiversity did a great video on them. I did have an idea of starting a party at a wake of a friend/family member.
Taverns are hotels, bars and communal food locations, they are also the central gathering place for small medival towns and villages along with the main square. They are the location you would meet up with other people. However, the tavern trope also tends to assume that younall either from the same village, or already have a job to be meeting up to get details on.
A tavern could be seen as a job fair. In the past the guy who owned the tavern would know most of the usual customers, and know if anybody was looking for adventurers
I started my first campaign with the players being assigned an adventure by the king, that not only brought them together but also forced them to work together!
Thats the start of my campaign! A king with a disease made a public request for everyone willing to take this jurney and this adventure to free him from his curse, that a magician's dark book gave him and the lands of his kingdom. Now my party met the guards and the guild leader for this legendary quest, so they can fight on the evil wizard to get the magic book and free the land to be worshiped as the heroes they dream to be
I Made the Emperors First Librarian get some strangers nobody knows to find the important magic Things that got stolen from him. He doesnt want anyone talking about it, so he gets the First weird Random strangers He could find. The Team screwed up imediately, let the Things get stolen again by cultists and accidentaly Set a greedy wine Making Vampire on the tracks of the Artifacts, who by now became a more horrifiing Version of Dio Brando. Just let them Start in a tavern, everything Else will go terribly wrong. This is what I wanted to say
one of my gm's likes starting at a market: great place to buy and sell loot, hear rumors, has billboards and people offering quests/jobs, and usually has a tavern just around the corner
It makes sense because Medieval/Renaissance Taverns were FAR more central to daily life in that time period. And though a fantasy world, most Dnd setting are Medieval or Renaissance. Though personally I'm a fan of the "Adventurers Guild" which is also a Tavern and Bank.
The best idea I heard still goes back to when teleportation had this roll to fail and bring you to any other place. _Party pops up randomly in any location_ _confused looks for a second_ "Did your wizard also...?" "Yep."
I think an easy fix (it’s probably already been done tho), is have the meet in a tavern be like a hogwarts thing where they got a mysterious letter or something like that to meet at this location to meet for something. Sounds like a good idea…maybe?
Now, we'll need a large, open space with plenty of tables to host the adventurer's job fair. If it's a large city, it's fair to say this will have happened enough times that there will be some kind of organization or guild running it. But if it's a small town someplace, it will probably just be an arranged time and date where everyone gets together to bring jobs to those looking to work. Maybe someplace with food, like... I've got it, a tavern!
I also think another place to start a party would be in a caravan. Like you are all already traveling together even if you don't know each other and there are any number of events that a GM can use to inspire his players to work together and cooperate. And it still fits any setting you may want to play in.
I actually started my Middle Earth campaign by having a festival in Lake-town to commemorate and celebrate the 10 yr anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies. A major activity I put in was that King Bard and the Council of the North held a meeting (sort of a townhall like function) where halfway through it, the captain of the town guard came in and interrupted the meeting with news that local fishing village a days travel down river had been attacked. So King Bard was to send a squad of guards to investigate and asked of the audience in the meeting hall if there were any volunteers that wished to accompany them to investigate the attack and promised a decent sum of coin to any that returned with news.
Eh; I’ve been to a job fair. The only jobs going were the sort of jobs not confident in their ability to hire people through regular advertising channels. They’d probably all be fetch quests.
In the sessions I’ve been in, the party meets by being kidnapped by a wizard wanting us to save his friend, enslaved by drow, and wondered into a town that’s on fire because we all agreed walking in to a flaming residence was the best idea anyone could ever have. Not once have I been in a tavern.
I started a campaign by telling the party they are meat in a tavern, and they thought I was joking. No, they had to rip themselves off of meat hooks, and escape the town with less than half their HP and no equipment. They then had to travel for days whilst being chased by cannibal towns folk till they could get to the next town to report what happened at which point they got 150 gold each, and a level up.
It’s closer to a bar. Also a tavern might be the center of a town. Especially if they are know for there wines and beers. So you’d probably find a quest board or a notice board.
Ive often started on a cruise/ferry. Introverts can stay in their rooms, and generally some enemy attacks the ship forcing those willing to fight to step up and meet each other
Incidentally, this trope likely harkens back to Lord of The Rings: The Prancing Pony, where Aragon joins the Hobbits, is basically where the adventure really starts picking up the pace and starts introducing the other characters.
My first campaign we started by boarding a ship. Everyone had their own reasons for traveling and then we slowly coalesced into a proper party as the adventure ramped up. Another time we all started as kidnapped victims of the first BBEG and had to break out of our cells and escape his creepy murder island. Both were great for rp, nothing like imminent death to turn strangers into allies.
In my campaign, the players met when they were grouped together as part of the final exam for graduating from The Adventurer's Academy (They then spent 3 levels paying off their student loans.) And in one campaign I play, our characters were kidnapped and made to play in a death game that used clones so we could keep going when we died.
Funny you mentioned the elevator being a place to start an adventure! There is a Greek mystery comedy series that has the main 5 characters meet in an elevator!
Taverns are bars and gathering places first and foremost. The barkeep knows the quests because everyone confides in him (bartenders are unpaid therapists sometimes). And since it is a gathering place, people meet, there may even be a notice board for problems others are having (do you want to help Greg find his lost sheep? Or maybe help Bill repair his roof?). And it is incredibly easy to convice a group of drunk friendly folk to go on an adventure.
My campaign had the players meet the king on the same day, and he basically said they were a party now. Worked well as a start and he gave them their starting equipment.
Y'know, if you think about it, the classic RPG thing where the local lord opens applications from adventurers to compete for the main quest and other assignments is basically a fantasy medieval version of a job fair. At least, for adventurers anyway. But inspired by my first ever DM, whenever I start adventures I try to give every brief - sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic - "intros" into the story based on their backstories, resulting in a little assembling scene.
I get why this is, but in a lot of games,anime, and fantasy medieval based whatever you actually go to an adventurers guild to form parties and get quest. In fact D&D is one of the few i know of where this is common to do all that in taverns instead of a guild or just being put together by the leader of a town, city, nation,or country then given the main quest.
Out of the various campaigns i've played, i literally started at a tavern once and it made sense why they'd meet there that once. The other places in my other campaigns: -A bulletin board for quests in a plaza -A magic school's ball -Gathered by the main NPC in a dock to fight off the undead as a party -A literal horse wagon
You could argue that it became the default because adventures are frequently celebrating their numerous victories over drinks. Since there are frequently people who show up to drown their sorrows and vent to the bar keepers, they tend to know what's going on in the town, the latest tall tales, rumors, gossip, and heard some good legends from bards or the old folks that want to tell a good story. It's less like a motel and more like a bar with rooms in the back. Plus, this is before the internet.
Taverns are a great way to showcase your campaign setting. In a tavern you can see a general sample of the population, see how they feel about the events of the world, and see how they react to the player characters or just adventurers/mercenaries in general. They can be boring and generic, and but taverns have the potential to really deliver the campaign setting to your players.
Meeting in a bar makes sense mostly because D&D is played by many introverts and we have no idea where people might meet as we usually try to avoid people. But to make the game work we think and remember that we heard some extroverts say they met people in bars. Another idea is to make the group meet behind bars. Breaking out of jail together can help the characters bond.
Think about backpackers and youth hostels. They often travel alone and they totally meet up in the community rooms to talk to strangers. Also as many already said, taverns aren't hotels, they are bars and restaurants and sometimes offers rooms as well.
Not only are taverns also bars, but there was an entirely different culture around them. Taverns were basically the local meeting place and so having a conversation with strangers there wouldn't be too odd. Information also tends to flow freely there.
In a medieval like setting, taverns where indeed all around gathering places. The rooms they had where mostly after though. At the time, there where no hostel, and no restaurants. Inns where initially extensions of taverns to host travelling guesses, and, later, most dedicated inns added a tavern part to entertain the guesses, and generate additional revenue.
My first homebrew campaign starts on an airship, the party has been called here from other lands and start out separate, they then have to work together to save everyone on board, this forms the party, gives them a purpose, and gives them an introduction.
Every fantasy hotel (I mean tavern) has a flyer for forming a franchise under Acquisitions Incorporated even says "Franchise's guaranteed quests upon signing" :) But seriously think it would be like Wild West saloon where would be a help wanted board, filled with quests or wanted posters etc
I think the only campaigns (or sessions) where I have not routinely had adventurers meet one another at a tavern were a few non-D&D games where there was explicitly a different culture: such as in RuneQuest, where individual cults or temples will hire or request their own adventuring parties. You work for the local temple then. Or you are the main heroes and troubleshooters for a specific town or tribe or clan already, so presumably you all grew up there together and have known one another since you were toddlers. I have heard of a few worlds where adventuring and dungeon-delving is deliberately very meta, and there are active adventurer guilds hiring people, and/or the adventurer guild has a notice-board or even a front desk that you can get your quests from. Other than that, I like taverns and bars just fine, and I love it when adventurers have their regular tavern that they can happily return to, Cheers-style... Where everybody knows your name...
We met in an open field in which one of the characters went around in a circle kicking all the other characters in the shins repeatedly. With varying levels of success ranging from a halfling getting punted into a building and filling out massive amounts of paperwork to the kicker getting thrown through the air and crashing into a tavern.
Taverns are like the the large u.k. pubs that had a few room to stay but also had the downstairs bar drinking and gathering area around a mini stage as well as the saloon.
Best place to meet is in the middle of the desert with your backstory already explained to the whole party already so you don't have to make awkward small talk
I think the biggest thing that messes up people on the Tavern setting, is that at the start of the game your DM will have you introduce yourself to the others. This is for the players benefit, not the characters. If you are starting in a tavern then its usually assumed you all wanted to meet there for some kind of quest, maybe a few of you are from out of town so meeting in the tavern where you are staying is just easier. or maybe you want to drink before heading off on your grand adventure etc. etc. The last "You start in a Tavern" I did was using this exact method, I described how the party had already been adventuring together for a while(its why they started at level 3) then talked about the how they finally made it to this tavern in the dead of night on the anniversary of the old kings death etc etc. Worked really well and lead into a festival the next day for some fun dice rolling before combat
So from what the comments are telling me is:
1. I haven't played Taverns correctly in D&D
2. It is very obvious I don't go to bars at ALL 😂
3. **EDIT** I HAVE HAD 4 PEOPLE SEND ME ESSAYS ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A TAVERN AND AN INN!! 🤣🤣
And also its a different world where quests are normal and adventures are kinda common
For a second I thought the twist was going to be that the player was accidentally DMing a modern roleplaying session for the DM... and then the other players were going to join the campaign, trying not to be dragged on quests in a modern world.
1. If your are playing your are playing correctly, is a fantasy world so.... But in the real-world tavern are medival bars to the people of the town get drunk (I mean hang out)
2. Me nether
Yup. Taverns are actual road houses. A bar, sure, but also a restaurant. And a hotel, but most people in a tavern won't stay there. A good DM will decide how busy a place is, and straight up say they don't have vacancy when asked for a room. It was also very very common to see help wanted, bounties, notices, and public events posted in Taverns. You could run a guild hall (adventurers, fighters, mercenaries, caravan, etc) if you're uncomfortable with Taverns.
The joke was still hilarious.
It actually makes perfect sense when put into the setting context.
1. A tavern is primarily a bar, or pub. You go there to drink and meet people. Not every tavern needs to also double as an Inn (tho many do in this case)
2. Heavily armed people being in there also doesn't raise an eyebrow because Adventurers are a common sight in these worlds.
3. They approaching someone to join them in means the person they do approach either has a known rep OR is also heavily armed (because point 2).
4. Said approach "Wanna go on an adventure?" is the equivalent of being hired for a job, as you get paid.
5. Barman knowing local quests is them literally just listening to local rumors, complaints or serving as a human blackboard (if the tavern doesn't have one straight up). And the last one is, again, the Adventurer-counterpart to a job offer, or a newspaper ad.
So the Tavern is a perfectly logical (if maybe overused) location.
To your first point: My Rogue used his money from questing to buy the Tavern and Hotel buildings where he spent a good deal of his time earning that money with quests, after the previous owner tragically died.
He's now owner of the place, and helps out if he feels like it. Mostly to use his stupidly high Stealth and Sleight of Hand, along with his insane Passive Perception, to get drinks to people without them knowing, and taking the exact change for the beverage from their pouch without raising alarms.
Despite literally being the Thief subclass, he's actually quite ethical.
Exactly, it's a perfectly logical place to meet, since yiu have to think of it as an adventurer not a regular Job. The novel/anime series Mushoku Tensei/Jobless Reincarnation covers this exact principle really well
And then the inciting incident doesn't have to be initiated by the players. If you were at a hotel and a car accident happened outside, some of the people will render aid. A party just formed, coordinating with each other on roles and duties. Adventuers sitting in a tavern when kobolds raid the town. They'll form up into squads to support the town guard in maintaining a defense.
1: If a place lodges guests, it will more likely be called an inn, rather than be called a tavern.
2: It really should be an eyebrow raiser though. I know it's fantasy, and so shouldn't be held to the same real world etiquette, but I really think it should. In Medieval Europe, and Feudal Japan, a warrior wouldn't walk into town wearing their armor, and carrying heavy weapons. They would have a side-arm on them, Dagger for Europe, Katana for Samurai, while the European might also have a buckler. Their combat gear would be stowed in the cart/wagon, rather than worn. Then, when they go on their quest, depending on travel time to their destination, they would either don their armor, and other combat items, in their rooms, and walk out of the inn in such outfit, and would therefore not be surprising for them to then return in such equipment. Etiquette then dictates you return to your room, and take off all the combat gear, and return to dagger, dagger and buckler, or katana, before going to eat. At least, that's how I've always played my Bard. She kept only one rapier on her, because a rapier is a dueling weapon, not a battlefield weapon. Rapier is good for dueling, not for much else.
3: I treat characters, be they player character, or NPC, as if they were a celeberty. Sometimes you mistake someone for a celeberty, because they look almost exactly like said celeberty. Or you don't realize you're talking to the celeberty, and therefore telling the celeberty about themselves as you fanboy/fangirl over said celeberty. Or you recognize them, and immediately start fangirling over them. Or you recognize them, and treat them with a bit more respect.
4: It would be better to use the line "My Buddies and I are going to go investigate this rumor, you want to come?" By saying "investigate this rumor," At least alerts to the potential party member that payment is not guaranteed. This ensures only those looking for adventure, are the ones jumping at the chance, rather than those with a misconcieved notion about "adventuring."
5: The information one can get from those in a drunken stuppor(sp?) makes any place that serves alcohol, even today, the best place to gather information about the local area. Be it from the one behind the counter, the wait-staff, or from the patrons themselves. Rumors, as a result, are far more likely to spread rapidly, in such an environment.
The adventurers guild herald: So should we do something about the Tavern Owners sending ill prepared people on rumor hunts and deadly quests?
The adventurers guild treasurer: Nah, we outsourced the none profit stuff to junkies and newbies
The adventurers guild chief: We literaly don´t need to test young folks. Recruiting was never easier. And we are not liable for their exploits.
I thought it was going to go something like this:
"But, where do we host this job fair?"
"Probably a place where lots of people would go to spend time, and a place where meeting room is cheap."
"Yeah, that makes sense. Any ideas?"
"A tavern."
End sketch.
Legitimately, hotels often rent out rooms for big events like that. So it's plausible even with the real world comparison.
A Tavern is not an hotel, its both an hotel and a Bar. In the bar, everybody is very drunk, henceforth, they dont reason normally.
Also a restaurant.
But yeah. People literally go to the tavern to mingle and meet people. Literally an introvert's nightmare though.
Exactly. I was just about to post this. It's more like a bar than a hotel. And yeah, you do usually meet people at a bar, and you talk to the bartender about a lot of things. I mean, it's a big trope in RPG's to get information from a bartender, to where Mass Effect made a joke about it.
Up until you have warforged or anyone who doesn't drink.
@@joeschmoe6356 but still, social gathering place, like a bar. You go to meet and talk to people.
lots of hotels have bars and restraunts, the closer you are to the ocean you get the more "mandatory" it seems to become.
'You all meet in an elevator' actually sounds like a great premise for basically any modern setting. Supernatural, horror, modern fantasy, sci-fi... being trapped in a confined space with strangers on a device that you are at the mercy of has so many different directions to go in.
Hell, even a high fantasy setting, once a character raises the inevitable question of 'what the hell is an elevator'. Good question! /Where are you?/
Would that mean the quest giver is making their Elevator Pitch?
What is this, CoC?
Now this sounds like fun. You could probably work some sort of primitive elevator in to a fantasy setting. Like a funicular railway acsessing a town on a cliff or something. And now it got attacked by monsters.
@@jakobrosenqvist4691 Or maybe the elevator itself is a character, a sort of lifting friend if you will
Real question is, who farted?
Taverns... Are bars first... Hotels second
People talk in bars
People meet people in bars
Not in my country. We usually come and go with the same people. People are way too afraid of being raped or killed nowadays to speak to and go back home with random strangers they met at the bar. That's pretty much a good way to end like the victims of Jeffrey Dahmer.
The UK "pub" (public house) is probably a better modern analog to ye olde tavern than either a straight up hotel or bar
Not sure if there is an exact US equivalent
A really kickarse bar?
It's basically a community house first. Got a board for requests around the area (since there is less specialized shops and services in ye oldy days, so asking around for specific tools, items, or tasks is easier), has space for people to meet up, have a good time, and eat meals. At night that'll be more of a bar setting, and the lodging is basically a B&B more than a hotel. So yeah, it's basically an English pub and a B&B in one.
@@DyslecticAttack I'd 100% agree, but suggest that a (modern, at least) pubs' room-for-rent is more like a B&B than a hotel anyways, well put
I'm coming from the perspective of Australian pubs, which probably more resemble taverns (many are even named as such)
Allegedly
Since D&D is typically in a medieval setting, taverns were the center of activity in a village, town, or city neighborhood. People did go to them to meet and socialize, conduct business deals, and find work. It makes perfect sense that a medieval tavern would be a standard place to form an adventuring party.
interestingly, most DnD is now mystical steampunk, which still gives rise to this kind of setting and allows for a lot of variation. You get normal fantasy out in the sticks (where most adventures start) or up to super-advanced depending upon how good the trading is in an area and its magical expertise
Although a campaign in modern time with modern socializing standards sounds like fun, very complicated and probably head breaking but fun😅
Town Halls could also work. As could a prison cell for drunks.
@@nathanielbass771 Most of whose D&D is that?
@@dmnemaine flying ships, elevators, magical teleportation services. The bigger the city, the more tech-like the magic is. At least according to the games that the company rarely makes.
One of the most famous meetings if you think about it, is Ben and Luke meeting Chewy and Han in a bar.
Or Frodo and Aragorn...
or every Saloon scene ever from Westerns.
@@changer_of_ways_999 I know right? Almost like in small towns with zero infrastructure, places designed to be GATHERING PLACES and LODGING might be the single most concentrated collection of people in any community. Odd how that would be a useful plot device to insert an Inciting Incident into a storyline.
You mean, an experienced wizard and his new apprentice meet a rogue and a fighter in a bar?
@@christopher3226 More like rogue and barbarian Chewie is pretty much nekked, and likes to rage when he fights.
American independence started in a bar
While functionally the tavern/pub acts like a hotel, in some ways it acts closer to your local coffee shop, being the local watering hole that people gather around either at the end of their long work days or during their break to swap stories and relax, that is why they act as a starting point. Plus, you already have the adventurers gathered by them all happen to being staying in the same place.
You know. I do just talk to random people at the coffee shop. And usually people are friendly there because they have or are about to have that coffee we all desperately depend on. Though now I agree with the B&B argument...
Also, people usually visit hotels when arriving to a new place, so they don't have to sleep on the street.
On a more medieval setting this would be the local fairground/marketplace for cities and larger towns, or church/temple for smaller towns and villages.
IF there is a single church/faith with required weekly attendance.
All the way into XIX century saturdays were effectively marketdays as people gathered around a church for mass. And where people gather, merchants gather. And where merchants gather producers (farmers, craftmen) bring their produce for sale/exchange.
And where people gather there is talking and rumormilling, which is how your adventurers find out about a long dead sorcerer (actually a lich biding his time) and the cursed tower noone returns from (his hideout), plus buying supplies be they food from farmers, replacements for used up tools, potions, maaaybe some new gear but thats a bit dubious.
A tavern is just another word for a pub or bar.
A campaign I played once started with the adventurers meeting in a tournament.
The monarch wanted strong soldiers so they started a tournament with a bunch of challenges, Not only does it serve as a "Tutorial" for new players, It also makes sense how the adventurers meet! And when the tournament is set and done, The adventurers are put together in a group with one or two NPCs, Then they're set off to their quests and adventures!
I mean, logically, many parties are going to start in the Adventurer's guild hall which was built to hand out the many quests that were coming into any medium-sized town or larger.
It may just happen to back up to the tavern because of course the adventurer's need somewhere to stay and spend their hard-earned gold after a long quest.
(tavern owner was the original patron of building the guild-hall because it would be good for business)
Even the overnight part was not like a modern hotel. It was cheaper to make large beds than it was to make multiple beds, so beds were often shared with strangers
That's if the setting has an adventurer's guild.
makes sense to me
And in smaller towns where there are no guilds… or perhaps you party does not want to officially join a guild because it takes 70% of your earnings… Taverns are a good backup.
whats an adventuring guild? disconnect from "starting in a tavern" as unreal but we have a union for people to dungeon crawl.....
I think it has a lot to do with the stage of their lives the characters are in. I've never personally agreed to go out and stab creatures with a group of strangers in the hopes that it would bring me fame and fortune. But if I had, it probably would have coincided very closely with the time in my life I was hanging out in bars most frequently.
That makes an uncomfortable amount of sense 😮
I always saw taverns as more of a 'bar and grill' restaurant that happened to have a couple of beds in the back for you to sleep it off when you drink too much to stagger home.
It's also where much of the town/village goes at the end of the day to catch up and exchange gossip. (Essentially, the "hey, wanna grab a beer after work?" place)
The tavern owner/barkeep would thus be *very* up-to-date on the goings on of the whole village, as he sees a great deal of the citizens nearly everyday and hears about their lives.
Tavern is a Bar and In is aHotel and they often come paired "Aziara86's In & Tavern!" They also often include Stable so travelers can leave their horse there for small fee.
This basically solves the three problems. Where do locals meet, gossip and party after hard work? Tavern! Where do travelers and adventures sleep? Inns! And where do people leave their horses mean while? Stable!
The first campaign I played in started on a train that got hijacked by bandits. Pretty neat way of having all the party members stuck in a carriage together only getting together out of 'coincidence'.
I DMed an adventure that started exactly like that, also works as "inspiration" for the players if the DM's plan for the adventure is for them to hijack a train later on, without "forcing" them to it
A tavern: a public house that primarily sells food and alcohol and provides overnight rooms for traveling guests.
Duke: “Oh, so it’s just a Marriott.”
_Public house_ is the relevant part here
Or "the pub" as UK English would put it
I'm not sure if there is an exact modern US analog, besides maybe a really kickarse bar?
@@347Jimmy modern analog is a social network.
@@Loromir17 definitely
I'm more trying to think of an in-person one
People today can use social networks to organise meeting up at a pub, just as people in the middle ages could make such arrangements using carrier pigeon or whatever
The physical meeting place is the thing I was looking for, if there's a modern US analog to it
Maybe the centralised social hub of the pub was kinda replaced by more interest-specialised social hubs in the US even before online social networks?
Where would you go to meet random new people in America in the 80s/90s?
I'm curious here, Australia (where I'm hailing from) has the same centralised pub culture as the UK
Taverns dont have befs actualy thats an inn a tavern is just a pub
@@demonic_myst4503 probably right by the classical definitions, but there's plenty of "taverns" in Australia offering beds
The line between "tavern", "inn" and "pub" is blurred pretty well out of existence here
I would love an irl skit of Duke going to a hotel and asking the clerk for a quest 😂
Modern society doesn’t map neatly to what a D&D society would be like. Taverns were often used for many purposes, historically, and if a concept like adventurers who travel and take care of dangerous tasks exists, then a tavern would actually be a very good place to use to distribute that work.
A world like Eberron might be less likely to have a meeting in a tavern…but that said, my Sharn campaign started with them meeting in a tavern because the spymaster hiring them rented a private room to discuss their first job in.
In my current campaign, the party met up in tavern. I offered all of them 200 XP if they included a bard NPC in their backstory as a trusted friend, then started the campaign with them all receiving a letter from this bard asking them to meet her at a certain tavern in a certain town on a certain night. They all ended up sitting together as they were clearly the only folk in the tavern who weren't locals, waiting for the bard, and then she got murdered in the alleyway behind the bar and suddenly they were a party as they all sought to find out who killed their friend.
@@wolfofthewest8019 that's evil. I love it.
THANK YOU! I was coming in here looking for a response like this. A VERY large city in medieval Europe, pre-Renaissance, was MAYBE 50k people, though I'm sure there might have been exceptions. A village - where a lot of the trope D&D 'we met in a bar' stuff happens would have a few hundred at most!
Its literally the only place in towns and villages that strangers would gather in large numbers. Stores likely never had more than a couple of people there at a time. The only exception to this might be the 'Adventurer's Guild' or something similar.
Booze. Live music. Food. Busty tavern wenches. The chance for a bar brawl - everyone knows all the tropes, I'm sure.
Its probably the only place that a group of strangers in a rural area COULD meet, realistically... aside from maybe prison!
@@wolfofthewest8019 That is a good idea.
I have my players add things to their back stories as well. Usually it is an NPC/quest giver that sends all of the PCs to a location, but I reward them in different ways since it is usually established in my series of session zeros.
My first D&D campaign started with all of us already been kidnapped by a band of goblins and we were all in their dungeon and needed to escape, it was pretty cool
One of my campaign ideas takes place entirely in a weird tavern. Basically the party is locked in and the locks are set on a timer. The tavern exists in a void while the door is locked, so there’s no point in going out the windows or anything. The party can either choose to wait the 20 years before the locks open automatically or go get the keys from the employees from each of the rooms upstairs. Each room is actually a pocket dimension filled with all sorts of unique encounters and challenges. How many keys the party needs and where the doors lead can be adjusted for levels and how long the party wants to actually play for. It can be a one-shot or several meet-ups depending on preference. Ultimately the end goal is to leave the tavern.
Now if only I understood the rules well enough and a group to play this with.
That sounds like the Super Mario games that involve collecting stars. Just with the goal being to leave rather than reach and defeat a final boss.
That sounds awesome!!!!!!
Brb stealing this for a story.
Isn't that just an escape room?
@@axldave9940 yes, but that doesn’t make it any less fun of an idea
My go to place to start campaigns is usually with all the PCs captured and trapped in the same jail/dungeon. Think about it, there’s no reason why they’d have to know each other before the enemies captured them, plus it immediately makes sense why they’d have to get to know each other and cooperate in order to escape.
Like the Usual Suspects?
The Elder Scrolls Special.
I always thought of this trope revolving around the idea that those medieval fantasy taverns have public boards with quests pinned so that every adventurer could choose what job to take. Thus, the barmaid or barkeeper knows about those quests too and they can just add details from what they hear, but they do not get every detail of a quest just from listening.
You could have a bulletin board at the tavern where people post quests they want done, and the party could form because they all picked the same flyer to ask about and decided to do it together.
A tavern is more like a bar. They can have an attached inn which would be a hotel, but their primary function is to get the drinks. So makes perfect sense that they'd start in a tavern, because everyone has their best ideas on how to make money at a bar especially after a few drinks....
You forgot the quotes around "best ideas"
Meeting in an elevator makes so much sense. The people are trapped together from the beginning so the party is already formed. Just need to add a common goal to help binding the group together like getting out of a stopped elevator before it falls, or even as it is falling before it hits the ground.
After that they either hate each other so much you can call it a one-shot and make different characters (or find different players eventually) or they'll immediately be a group of people who have gone through a lot together and trust each other with their lives.
Startup themed adventuring party? I'm in.
But the barkeep at a tavern is really not comparable to the reception at a hotel.
We don't currently offer benefits or competitive wages, but we give everyone stock options.
Oh and now I'm realizing that I've reinvented Acquisitions Incorporated
I remember a campaign where the characters didn't meet in a tavern, but in a "caravan taxi zone" in a small desert village, it was actually cool
Taverns are more pubs than hotels
I always thought the Taverns more of a kind of DND Hostel equivalent. Gathering place for Travelers and likeminded people. Even the staff consists of other traveling people who want to stack up some money. I have been to many Hostels over my journy across the ocean and found mostly the same atmosphere in every establishmend. Friendly people who most of the time dont mind a total stranger siting on their table. So yea Taverns are Hostels alright ^^ Thx for comming to my Tedtalk
Two words. ✨Guild Hall.✨ They are basicly a tavern and a job fair rolled into one.
I have actually had some adventurers start with the players seeing an ad looking for adventurers and everyone meeting up at a location chosen by the quest giver. Like at their house with them saying "thank you for coming today, I am hiring you to deal with a matter of great importance".
Tavern owners always roll a Nat 20 on Persuasion for "Meeting at a specific place"
I'm planning to do a oneshot starting in a tavern because it's a great bottleneck location. All the party are there for the evening/night when suddenly a group of undead attack. Understandably any armed patrons and staff unite to defeat the monsters and afterwards the innkeeper puts up a new bounty poster to clear the nearby crypt that the other adventuring parties clearly failed to defeat.
Several reasons:
- Most fantasy conflate Taverns (place for food and drink; Bars) with Inns (Sleeping place, that might also offer limited food and drink; Hotels). For this part, the Bar function is more important
- pre-existing groups and parties will go there, because they need to sleep and eat/drink
- quest givers want to meet there, because it is public enough to feel save, yet not so much eavesdropping is rampant or trivial
- they are the first place to get information if you are totally new in town. See, just about every western.
- they _are_ job fairs for adventurers. There are single bars and work bars for a reason. This is more a work bar.
- it is really that, a prison, the job-board in town or a questgivers place
A tavern is essentially a pub, and a bunch of people meeting in a pub before an epic adventure is a very British night out. I always approve.
These are so well acted, I consistently forget Duke is just one guy hahahaha
I think these are valid points, but they take our context as a premise. I agree that it would make more sense to form a party at the Adventurer’s Guild tavern than at another tavern, but still, in the D&D setting, adventurer is a valid career path, in such a way that tavern owners would be used to asking adventurers to deal with the town problems or passing on rumors, and adventurers would know they could find and form a party of people interested in adventurers at those places. Makes sense to me, at least
Lemme remember on where the party in my games meet for first time (which happed to be never in a tavern):
1. They are all bodyguard mercenary to begin with.
2. In prison
3. On the graveyard
4. At the house of alleged drugs dealler
5. At noble's (barbarian's family) mansion
6. At the garden of a witch
7. Inside an unknow ruin
A tavern is actually closer to a bar and have deals with local inns to stay. Shadiversity did a great video on them.
I did have an idea of starting a party at a wake of a friend/family member.
Taverns are hotels, bars and communal food locations, they are also the central gathering place for small medival towns and villages along with the main square. They are the location you would meet up with other people. However, the tavern trope also tends to assume that younall either from the same village, or already have a job to be meeting up to get details on.
A tavern could be seen as a job fair.
In the past the guy who owned the tavern would know most of the usual customers, and know if anybody was looking for adventurers
“Job Fair” was exactly what I was planning for my Spelljammer setting.
I started my first campaign with the players being assigned an adventure by the king, that not only brought them together but also forced them to work together!
Thats the start of my campaign!
A king with a disease made a public request for everyone willing to take this jurney and this adventure to free him from his curse, that a magician's dark book gave him and the lands of his kingdom. Now my party met the guards and the guild leader for this legendary quest, so they can fight on the evil wizard to get the magic book and free the land to be worshiped as the heroes they dream to be
I Made the Emperors First Librarian get some strangers nobody knows to find the important magic Things that got stolen from him.
He doesnt want anyone talking about it, so he gets the First weird Random strangers He could find.
The Team screwed up imediately, let the Things get stolen again by cultists and accidentaly Set a greedy wine Making Vampire on the tracks of the Artifacts, who by now became a more horrifiing Version of Dio Brando.
Just let them Start in a tavern, everything Else will go terribly wrong. This is what I wanted to say
one of my gm's likes starting at a market: great place to buy and sell loot, hear rumors, has billboards and people offering quests/jobs, and usually has a tavern just around the corner
It makes sense because Medieval/Renaissance Taverns were FAR more central to daily life in that time period. And though a fantasy world, most Dnd setting are Medieval or Renaissance.
Though personally I'm a fan of the "Adventurers Guild" which is also a Tavern and Bank.
Yeah, before the internet, a tavern was a news station and a platonic Tinder too.
I made my group start in the waiting room of a mercenary contractor. Worked like a charm.
The best idea I heard still goes back to when teleportation had this roll to fail and bring you to any other place.
_Party pops up randomly in any location_
_confused looks for a second_
"Did your wizard also...?"
"Yep."
I think an easy fix (it’s probably already been done tho), is have the meet in a tavern be like a hogwarts thing where they got a mysterious letter or something like that to meet at this location to meet for something. Sounds like a good idea…maybe?
Now, we'll need a large, open space with plenty of tables to host the adventurer's job fair. If it's a large city, it's fair to say this will have happened enough times that there will be some kind of organization or guild running it. But if it's a small town someplace, it will probably just be an arranged time and date where everyone gets together to bring jobs to those looking to work. Maybe someplace with food, like... I've got it, a tavern!
This is one of the single best sketches I have ever seen! I absolutely fucking love it and shall suggest this to all my DMs.
I also think another place to start a party would be in a caravan. Like you are all already traveling together even if you don't know each other and there are any number of events that a GM can use to inspire his players to work together and cooperate. And it still fits any setting you may want to play in.
Approaches Duke in a back alley. “You want to go on an adventure?”
I like that player and DM wear the same wedding ring. Makes me feel like they are close.
I actually started my Middle Earth campaign by having a festival in Lake-town to commemorate and celebrate the 10 yr anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies. A major activity I put in was that King Bard and the Council of the North held a meeting (sort of a townhall like function) where halfway through it, the captain of the town guard came in and interrupted the meeting with news that local fishing village a days travel down river had been attacked. So King Bard was to send a squad of guards to investigate and asked of the audience in the meeting hall if there were any volunteers that wished to accompany them to investigate the attack and promised a decent sum of coin to any that returned with news.
Eh; I’ve been to a job fair. The only jobs going were the sort of jobs not confident in their ability to hire people through regular advertising channels. They’d probably all be fetch quests.
If I was starting a business around killing dragons, I would imagine that it would be a struggle to find employees... Lol
In the sessions I’ve been in, the party meets by being kidnapped by a wizard wanting us to save his friend, enslaved by drow, and wondered into a town that’s on fire because we all agreed walking in to a flaming residence was the best idea anyone could ever have.
Not once have I been in a tavern.
I started a campaign by telling the party they are meat in a tavern, and they thought I was joking. No, they had to rip themselves off of meat hooks, and escape the town with less than half their HP and no equipment. They then had to travel for days whilst being chased by cannibal towns folk till they could get to the next town to report what happened at which point they got 150 gold each, and a level up.
That is a GENIUS subversion!
It’s closer to a bar. Also a tavern might be the center of a town. Especially if they are know for there wines and beers. So you’d probably find a quest board or a notice board.
Dude it's 6:00 a.m. why are you posting now
It 11:04 pm
It 2:05 pm
9:05 am here
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Ive often started on a cruise/ferry. Introverts can stay in their rooms, and generally some enemy attacks the ship forcing those willing to fight to step up and meet each other
Incidentally, this trope likely harkens back to Lord of The Rings: The Prancing Pony, where Aragon joins the Hobbits, is basically where the adventure really starts picking up the pace and starts introducing the other characters.
My first campaign we started by boarding a ship. Everyone had their own reasons for traveling and then we slowly coalesced into a proper party as the adventure ramped up. Another time we all started as kidnapped victims of the first BBEG and had to break out of our cells and escape his creepy murder island. Both were great for rp, nothing like imminent death to turn strangers into allies.
In my campaign, the players met when they were grouped together as part of the final exam for graduating from The Adventurer's Academy (They then spent 3 levels paying off their student loans.)
And in one campaign I play, our characters were kidnapped and made to play in a death game that used clones so we could keep going when we died.
Ah, so this is why my first dnd session ever didn't start with "You all meet in the tavern."
Funny you mentioned the elevator being a place to start an adventure! There is a Greek mystery comedy series that has the main 5 characters meet in an elevator!
Taverns are bars and gathering places first and foremost.
The barkeep knows the quests because everyone confides in him (bartenders are unpaid therapists sometimes).
And since it is a gathering place, people meet, there may even be a notice board for problems others are having (do you want to help Greg find his lost sheep? Or maybe help Bill repair his roof?).
And it is incredibly easy to convice a group of drunk friendly folk to go on an adventure.
My campaign had the players meet the king on the same day, and he basically said they were a party now. Worked well as a start and he gave them their starting equipment.
Y'know, if you think about it, the classic RPG thing where the local lord opens applications from adventurers to compete for the main quest and other assignments is basically a fantasy medieval version of a job fair. At least, for adventurers anyway.
But inspired by my first ever DM, whenever I start adventures I try to give every brief - sometimes funny, sometimes dramatic - "intros" into the story based on their backstories, resulting in a little assembling scene.
I now want to dress up in adventuring garb and ask a person at a hotel check in desk for a quest
I get why this is, but in a lot of games,anime, and fantasy medieval based whatever you actually go to an adventurers guild to form parties and get quest. In fact D&D is one of the few i know of where this is common to do all that in taverns instead of a guild or just being put together by the leader of a town, city, nation,or country then given the main quest.
Another - sightly more chaotic - possibility
*"And you all met...at Comic-Con"*
Out of the various campaigns i've played, i literally started at a tavern once and it made sense why they'd meet there that once.
The other places in my other campaigns:
-A bulletin board for quests in a plaza
-A magic school's ball
-Gathered by the main NPC in a dock to fight off the undead as a party
-A literal horse wagon
“You all meet in a tavern…and all wake up in a cell the next morning.”
You could argue that it became the default because adventures are frequently celebrating their numerous victories over drinks. Since there are frequently people who show up to drown their sorrows and vent to the bar keepers, they tend to know what's going on in the town, the latest tall tales, rumors, gossip, and heard some good legends from bards or the old folks that want to tell a good story. It's less like a motel and more like a bar with rooms in the back. Plus, this is before the internet.
I suddenly feel like going to every hotel bar in town and asking folks if they got any work or quests that they need doing.
next adventure: starts in a hotel elevator
Taverns are a great way to showcase your campaign setting. In a tavern you can see a general sample of the population, see how they feel about the events of the world, and see how they react to the player characters or just adventurers/mercenaries in general. They can be boring and generic, and but taverns have the potential to really deliver the campaign setting to your players.
Meeting in a bar makes sense mostly because D&D is played by many introverts and we have no idea where people might meet as we usually try to avoid people. But to make the game work we think and remember that we heard some extroverts say they met people in bars.
Another idea is to make the group meet behind bars. Breaking out of jail together can help the characters bond.
I literally started my recent Campaign like this:
"You all meet... *not in a tavern* "
Think about backpackers and youth hostels. They often travel alone and they totally meet up in the community rooms to talk to strangers.
Also as many already said, taverns aren't hotels, they are bars and restaurants and sometimes offers rooms as well.
A tavern was like a town hall, central bar, main restaurant, hostel, and public forum.
My theory is that Taverns are basically bars, so "let's go adventuring!" would sound a lot better, because you're drunk.
Lmao I love how this comes out after I started my latest campaign where the party meets in a tavern
Not only are taverns also bars, but there was an entirely different culture around them. Taverns were basically the local meeting place and so having a conversation with strangers there wouldn't be too odd. Information also tends to flow freely there.
Basically having them meet at the complimentary breakfast for their hotel stay is funny.
In a medieval like setting, taverns where indeed all around gathering places. The rooms they had where mostly after though. At the time, there where no hostel, and no restaurants. Inns where initially extensions of taverns to host travelling guesses, and, later, most dedicated inns added a tavern part to entertain the guesses, and generate additional revenue.
My first homebrew campaign starts on an airship, the party has been called here from other lands and start out separate, they then have to work together to save everyone on board, this forms the party, gives them a purpose, and gives them an introduction.
When you have social anxiety but people in the tavern keep trying to talk to you.
I was expecting it to loop back to the job fair being held in a hotel conference center lol
If I don't forcibly pull my party into another world to start a campaign, I usually start them in a guild hall
Every fantasy hotel (I mean tavern) has a flyer for forming a franchise under Acquisitions Incorporated even says "Franchise's guaranteed quests upon signing" :)
But seriously think it would be like Wild West saloon where would be a help wanted board, filled with quests or wanted posters etc
I think the only campaigns (or sessions) where I have not routinely had adventurers meet one another at a tavern were a few non-D&D games where there was explicitly a different culture: such as in RuneQuest, where individual cults or temples will hire or request their own adventuring parties. You work for the local temple then. Or you are the main heroes and troubleshooters for a specific town or tribe or clan already, so presumably you all grew up there together and have known one another since you were toddlers. I have heard of a few worlds where adventuring and dungeon-delving is deliberately very meta, and there are active adventurer guilds hiring people, and/or the adventurer guild has a notice-board or even a front desk that you can get your quests from. Other than that, I like taverns and bars just fine, and I love it when adventurers have their regular tavern that they can happily return to, Cheers-style... Where everybody knows your name...
My party met at a Funeral, specifically the grave of a former adventurer
It makes so much sense
I don't know why but it does
We met in an open field in which one of the characters went around in a circle kicking all the other characters in the shins repeatedly. With varying levels of success ranging from a halfling getting punted into a building and filling out massive amounts of paperwork to the kicker getting thrown through the air and crashing into a tavern.
I needed this. Thank you
I personally have two ways of "you all meet":
- In media res, you met offscreen while applying for the same mission
- Prison
Taverns are like the the large u.k. pubs that had a few room to stay but also had the downstairs bar drinking and gathering area around a mini stage as well as the saloon.
Wow,this explains a lot! I’ve been curious about this myself for decades. To the job fair!
Interesting places were you party can start:
-in a hole
-at the blacksmith
-in a lab
-your DM's basement
-"that place"
Best place to meet is in the middle of the desert with your backstory already explained to the whole party already so you don't have to make awkward small talk
I think the biggest thing that messes up people on the Tavern setting, is that at the start of the game your DM will have you introduce yourself to the others. This is for the players benefit, not the characters. If you are starting in a tavern then its usually assumed you all wanted to meet there for some kind of quest, maybe a few of you are from out of town so meeting in the tavern where you are staying is just easier. or maybe you want to drink before heading off on your grand adventure etc. etc.
The last "You start in a Tavern" I did was using this exact method, I described how the party had already been adventuring together for a while(its why they started at level 3) then talked about the how they finally made it to this tavern in the dead of night on the anniversary of the old kings death etc etc. Worked really well and lead into a festival the next day for some fun dice rolling before combat