Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 270 - Starting Your Campaign

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

Ready to start your TTRPG campaign in some way besides a boring tavern? Episode 270 is here to help! We dive deep into the real purpose of a campaign's beginning and explore three powerful ways to unite your party from the jump   #rpg #ttrpg #dnd #pathfinder #gmtips #playertips #tabletop #startingcampaign Resources: Episode 47 - Comprehensive Session 0 Guide for DMs - https://www.taking20podcast.com/e/ep-47-comprehensive-session-0-guide-for-dms/  Episode 100 - Starting Anywhere But A Tavern - https://www.taking20podcast.com/e/episode-100-starting-anywhere-but-a-tavern/  Buy Me a Coffee! - ko-fi.com/taking20podcast www.taking20podcast.com  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/taking20podcast  Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/taking20podcast  Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/taking20podcast.bsky.social 

This week on the Taking 20 podcast. But that's not the only kind of danger that can make your PCs form a team. Think about environmental dangers, not just combat. The PCs are all passengers on an ocean liner that's begun to sink and need to make their way out of their state rooms and to a lifeboat. Thank you for listening to the Taking 20 podcast, episode 270. Talking about tips for you to start your campaign. I want to thank this week's sponsor, Procrastination.

There are a lot of people who are. who said I'd never amount to anything because I procrastinate all the time. But, yeah, well, they just need to wait and see. First off, I want to issue a huge apology to Kurt and David. You both donated to my podcast, and evidently my email notifications decided to shut off again, so I didn't get a chance to properly thank you whenever you donated. You've both donated the podcast multiple times, and I cannot tell you how thankful I am for your generosity keeping this podcast alive.

Also, a listener named Adrian gave me a great topic for a future episode for GMs about supporting absolute newbies at the table. Look for that in the near future. By the way, while we're on the topic, do you have any topics you'd like me to discuss? Send these ideas to me on the socials. The links are in the description or email me, feedback at taking20 podcast.com. This week is the beginning of a series I'm just going to call Setting Expectations. I'm part of a lot of subreddits and Discord servers and discussion forums where DMs help other DMs. All of us need help sometimes, and sometimes we're in a place where we can help others.

I'm a huge proponent of Iron Sharpen's Iron, and we are better together than we would ever be alone. A lot of the problems I see posted to these various sites boil down to mismatched expectations, which is what caused me to start writing this and the next episode. So many times it's because the start of the start of the first. the campaign doesn't kick off an adventure properly, or the tone and setting of the campaign differs compared from players to GM, what they expect, which by the way is the topic for the next episode. To be fair, this is not the first time I have talked about starting campaigns. All the way back in episode 47, I talked about the need for a session zero. There'll be a link in

the description and a card in the corner on the YouTube channel. Go listen to that episode if you want a lot more on that critical and often overlooked part of starting campaign. but let me know if it's not enough if you want more information about session zeros. Also in session 100 called Start Anywhere but a Tavern, I encourage DMs to just do that, be creative in the way you start your campaigns. To rehash a little bit from episode 100, starting your campaign in a tavern is such a tired old trope at this point. If you start a campaign in an inn or a tavern, I'm not going to yuck your yum, but...

Where's the stakes? Where's the excitement? Where's the fantastical aspect of the world? It sure as hell not in a tavern. Ooh, let me guess. There's a mysterious brooding, hooded figure over in the corner that everyone calls a ranger or strider or the stranger or Joe, the guy who never fucking talks to anyone

and only orders cranberry juice because he probably has a UTI. Sorry. Anyway, the point being is that starting in a tavern, is a convenient way to have everyone in an area together, even if they don't know each other. And if you have no other choice, then, sure, start in a damn tavern. Have a bar fight where the PCs start working together, cops show up, they have to flee into the night. Sound familiar?

Probably, because I've started campaigns like that, and I've been a player in a lot of campaigns that started with my fighter smashing someone over the head with the tanker. All I'm saying, there are so many other choices you can make, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I want to get a little bit abstract about the start of a campaign and ask a very basic question. What's the purpose of the beginning of a campaign? At its heart, there are a few. First of all, the beginning of the campaign sets the stage and expectations for the entire campaign, which is why I'm mentioning this first.

But also, the very beginning of the campaign can serve as the catalyst for uniting the team, giving them a purpose and letting the PCs engage with the story. I think these are all critical points that often get overlooked by DMs, and let's talk about them one at a time. Most of the time, the players have come up with their characters independently, sometimes completely so, and sometimes meeting to hash out their character concepts so they don't wind up playing all melee fighters

or having an oops-all-bards kind of party. We're the NeverWins, an all-percussion group of bards from Neverwinter here to kill bad guys and inspire the shit out of, of you while doing so. No matter the party makeup, the beginning of the campaign has some sort of initial action that forces the party to team up in some way. For example, in one Paiso Adventure Path, the campaign begins with goblins attacking the town

of Sandpoint. Now, which one am I talking about? I'm not going to tell you, because no less than 8,340 Pathfinder adventurers begin in Sandpoint. Jesus, that town's three-quarters of the local economy is probably selling equipment to level one newbies. While I can rake Paiso over the coals for using goblin attacks as the initial encounter, the attack does serve to unify the party through a concept known as shared danger. If you're looking to build a team, give them a common threat to their lives or livelihoods.

The goblin attack on Sandpoint serves as a threat to the PC's lives. There's a real danger that they could die from the numerous fires being set and roving groups of goblins causing mayhem in the town, or their homes and businesses could be destroyed. Either one would be bad for the life of a low-level commoner. In these shared threat scenarios, the PCs have the moment where they realize they have a better chance of surviving if they work together. Let's start with an example from an older movie, by the way, alien. Yes, this movie is 50 years old now, but it's a masterclass in creepy storytelling where all of the people are being hunted by an alien they brought on board. They don't know what it's capable of, why it burst out of

a cane's chest like that, and how the rest of the crew are all going to survive. Another source of common shared danger would be a fight. A bar fight in a tavern. See, previous example. They are, by their very nature, chaotic things where punches fly

from multiple directions and some crazy farmhand may decide he wants to spike you head first into the darkboard. The town's being raided, the mines being invaded by orcs or drow from below. Zombies are to bash their way into the diner. Assassons burst into the peace treaty signing. Good old-fashioned combat to start a campaign. Nothing wrong there. Because it generates danger that all of the PCs

are in. But that's not the only kind of danger that can make your PCs form a team. Think about environmental dangers, not just combat. The PCs are all passengers on an ocean liner that's begun to sink and need to make their way out of their state rooms and to a lifeboat. They all happen to arrive at the lifeboat just as it's about to launch to safety. Or maybe they're in a city and it's a major earthquake. The office building they're in is coming down around them. They're in a seaside town and a hurricane is slammed full force into the town of Harborville. And the PCs happen to be in the seaside tavern punching fishermen in the face. No damn it, that's a bar fight again. The PCs have to get some townsfolk to safety before the whatever happens, the wall of water,

the rising tide, the gale force winds. or whatever, hit this little tavern. Damn it. Rescuing townfolk could be another type of unifying situation, though, a shared burden. Instead of starting your campaign with a shared fight, you start the campaign with the same burden placed on all of the PCs. They're all in prison. They're all in debt to someone powerful and important,

like the mob or a local nobleman or the queen. They owe a massive amount of money to the same entity who offers to wipe away the debt if the PCs work together to accomplish something even bigger. They all owe more gold than they could possibly pay back, but they're capable and resourceful. And it just so happens, hmm, the Magister's Crown is on display at the local library. Sure, it's a guarded 24-7,

and the penalty for illegal possession of this priceless artifact is probably death, but just how badly do you want to be out of debt, hmm? You can always refuse, but that means my associate, Jonathan, Nothing over here will show you what your entrails look like as you die. Be smart about this. One night of dangerous work and you're free of me. Yes, look at each other and decide. Do we have a deal?

The party now has to work together to steal the crown and get it back to the... Whoever the hell that handsome bad guy with the amazing voice was. Let's call him the brigand, crime boss of the town of Delokia. If you want a movie example, look no further than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Yes, the ultimate responsibility is Frodo since he is the ring bearer, but the fellowship formed in Rivendell. The idea is that the ring can lead to the doom of all, so all contribute to its destruction. They share the burden of ensuring this ring gets destroyed, even though, yes, the fellowship splinters about two months later. When it comes to building unity, misery very much loves company.

More than likely, no one wants to be in debt to the brigand. He sounds like a real bastard. I mean, obviously a handsome and charming charismatic bastard who probably wouldn't hesitate to take his vengeance should you all fail as heist, though. You're stronger together, and let's face it, stuck together. So you'll have to team up to pull this off. Do it, and you're free.

From there, the party can decide what they want to do. They can continue on to the adventure proper, or maybe the brigand is the adventure. And there's another riskier job for more people, pay, more prestige in the criminal underworld, and voila, your adventuring party is off to the adventuring races. As I was writing this episode, I thought of another possible unifying trait that would be a shared purpose. It's very close to shared danger in a lot of ways,

and that you can argue that shared danger represents a shared purpose, you know, survive. But I want to differentiate between danger and purpose. With shared danger, it's worked together to survive kind of thing, whereas a shared purpose can be lower stakes, at least initially. Imagine the party are strangers, or at least relatively strangers, or estranged relatives, or whatever works at your table. And they've been given a task to do it together. The PCs are all like fifth level,

and they're starting to make a name for themselves. They all worked for the same individual or corporation or guild or the Knights of Columbus, the Watch Commander Phillips, or whatever. And they give the party the old Trunian mansion on the outskirts of town. Sure, it's dilapidated, been mostly abandoned for years, and unbeknownst to the party, but notes to the GM, a small bandit group has been using it as a hideout for some time. But if they can clear it out, clean it up, restore the operation, the party may just have a nice base to start all their adventures from, a place to rest and recover and store all the crap that they accumulate.

The party now needs to work together because they have a vested interest in working together. By doing so, they stand to benefit. Voila, instant cohesion. For example of shared purpose, by the way, think of any movie or TV series with a heist. The movie, The Heist, Oceans 11, heat, inside man, steel, probably a hundred others. A team comes together,

maybe because some of them know each other, but also because they are good enough to pull off this robbery or theft or item recovery or whatever it happens to be. Or you could think of the ragtag team of misfits, like the Thunderbolts or Suicide Squad. They have a reason to be together, so they'll be a team until they don't have to be anymore. Most campaigns would do well to start with some sort of shared danger,

shared burden, or shared purpose to kick things off in the right direction. So how should you start your campaign? To start at the very beginning, it depends on what makes the most sense for and gives the most joy to your players. Some players love combat, and if so, maybe start your campaign with some exciting, in media res or the actions already taking place, and literally the first things you say is

welcome to the table, everybody roll initiative. They're already a team. Cohesion is assumed. Maybe in the session zero, you tell all the players, your characters already know and trust each other, and so the first session starts out mid-fight with low-level baddies, or maybe they're working together to break out a prison, or like a recent campaign I played in, we were commanders in a war. There's a skirmish going on, and we in our troops, groups had to work together to repel an invasion. Another example could be that the party's already escorting a dignitary to a function and they have to fight off some robbers or something.

So my first piece of advice is if you know your players and what they enjoy, try to cater to them if it makes any sense at all. For parties who are built around and enjoy social encounters, maybe the N Media Res is a social engagement, like a dinner party. They're already milling around meeting NPCs, trying to make a good impression with diplomacy and intimidate. The second piece of advice is to pick one of the three categories I listed, shared danger, shared burden, or shared purpose.

Pick the one that makes the most sense to you in the type of campaign you're running. What feeling are you trying to give to your players? A sense of dread, a sense of heroism? Only we can stop the plague. The start of your campaign should be designed to leave them with that feeling you want to impart to them. For example, if I want my PCs to feel like heroes, then I'll start in the middle of a combat where the characters are protecting a bunch of innocence from a brutal attack. If I want them to feel threatened, then they're all subject to a

common looming threat like a crime boss or a litch or something similar. And what's more, just because you start a campaign with, for example, a shared burden, doesn't mean that's going to be the only motivating factor throughout your campaign. As the characters level up, as the campaign evolves, what starts as a shared burden or shared danger can quickly shift to a shared purpose, as they realize they need to work together to defeat the evil king or corporation or dragon or whatever the big bad happens to be. Remember that the start of your campaign sets the stage for maybe the entire campaign, but at least the first act of it. Remember to choose a starting scenario that aligns with the feeling that you want to leave with your characters and the overall tone of the

campaign, whether that's through shared danger, shared burden, or pursuing a shared purpose. Take some time to think about how to start your campaign, and I'd be willing to bet that you and your players would have fun doing it. Thank you so much for listening. I'd like to get your feedback either via social media or email, feedback at taking20podcast.com. Please send me a message and let me know your thoughts on the episode. Tune in next time when I'm going to continue the setting expectations

impromptu series that I'm doing, talking about tone and setting of your campaign. But before I go, I want to thank this week's sponsor, procrastination. I've put off so many things that now, putting something off kind of feels off-putting. This has been episode 270

with tips to start your campaign. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 podcast is Copyright 2026 by Jeremy Shelley. The opinions or views to express by guests are their own,

and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. References to game system content are copyright their respective publishers.