Starting In a Tavern

The cliche beginning of a fantasy ttrpg, especially D&D which this blog focuses on. Starting in a tavern is the way that so many of us DMs start our games. Yet there are people out there that say that starting a tavern is boring or just the wrong way to go about starting a game. Well, I am here to call baloney. There is a reason that so many games start in taverns, it’s because they are great, but there are a number of other reasons as well. From my own table to the table of many others, starting in a tavern can be seen everywhere, and not without reason. In today’s post I plan to tell you the benefits of starting in a tavern, how (if you want) you can mix it up, and some examples of how I have started my own games in a tavern.

Natural Meeting Points

Taverns are, as the heading says, natural meeting points. It is common for any number of people to be in a tavern and therefore for our players to be in them. The common adventurer needs a place to sleep and what better than the local tavern. Having the game starting in a tavern allows the players to be gathered in a place that will allow them to meet and start their adventure together. The tavern is a place that the players characters would naturally be in and allows you, the DM, to not have to do a lot of work just to figure out why or how the players find themselves together.

From a point of realism, it just makes sense for the players to find themselves in a tavern. Any and every character will find themselves in a tavern at some point and all the players happen to find themselves in the same tavern at the beginning of your game. It is a lot easier to say that the player’s character decided to go to a tavern than saying that they accepted a job before the game even began or some other type of start. I don’t think that those starts are bad or wrong, but it requires the player to give up control of their character before the game even begins. Starting in a tavern allows the player free reign of their character before the plot ropes them in.

Relaxing Setting

One example of starting the game in a different way is the action start. The game starts with a lot of action to hook the players in and get straight to what some would call the best part of the game, but I believe that this start can cause some problems. If the game starts with action, then it may feel wrong to go to a relaxed structure where the players can roleplay and introduce their characters without conflict. What I am saying is if the game starts with action the plot is most likely already started and once the plot starts it may feel weird to introduce your character when there are more pressing matters, the plot.

The benefits of the relaxing setting are that it allows the players to introduce their characters and roleplay (and yes, I know I have said that a lot). This is the beginning of the game and is the most appropriate time to introduce characters. The tavern setting allows general descriptions of looks, but it also allows players to describe their characters when they are in a more natural or relaxed mood, since the rest of the game will most likely not take place in that type of atmosphere. Also, the relaxed start allows the players room to roleplay, if they want. This beginning roleplay could let players figure out more about their character or allow players that are nervous about roleplay a chance since there is nothing else to do at the moment.

An example of this in one of my games is in a recent one player game of mine. I started the game in The Crying Snake (if it wasn’t obvious that’s a tavern). The player was new to the game, and I decided to play with just one on one, since I wanted to give him the best first experience before throwing him into another group. To get him dragged into the world, after I described the location, I had him describe his character. He was a little lost, but he ended up having a lot of fun as ended up describing his trophy from the soldier background was a skull that hung at his waist. The new player was also rather interested in roleplay but didn’t know where to start. So, I had the local barkeep talk to him before the plot started. With the help of a fun NPC my player was able to start roleplaying, at least a little bit, and as he ran out of things to talk about the plot walked in (something that will be talked about in the next section). I think that all of this allowed him to get a good experience with certain parts of the game that is harder to get into once the plot starts.

Easy Action

The final benefit of starting in a tavern is that it allows easy action. This means that the plot or action can easily start at any time. All it has to do is come rushing through the door. Whether it is the blacksmith saying goblins kidnap his daughter (*wink* Matt Coville *wink*), a group of rats rising from the cellar, or just a good old bar fight. It can be almost anything and is rather easy to start.

The reason that this easy action is great is because it allows the game to smoothly move onto the next section of play whenever the players are ready. When you see the players starting to run out of things to say and the game is coming to a slow pace you can just knock down the door. Any number of things can be the thing that revitalizes the energy of the game and get the plot rolling.

In one of my games the plot that came rushing through the door was the rats that I talked about earlier in this section. Rats came up from the sewers and the players had to fight them off. I also had someone rushing out the door that some of my players decided to chase after. The guy was acting suspicious before the action and resulted in an interesting start as the players were split up, some trying to chase the dude and the others fighting off the rats. After the action the players were hired to clear out the sewers of rats, where they eventually found that suspicious guy again.

Mixing It Up

Now that we have gone over the benefits of starting in a tavern let’s throw those out to mix it up, because why not. If you want to start in a tavern but don’t want the traditional start here’s what to do. Before that let me be clear what a traditional start is. It is when the players sit around and talk until the plot walks in. You probably got that from the rest of this post, but I wanted to be clear. If you don’t want that then you are going to need to sacrifice one of the benefits of the tavern start. You can start with action, therefore getting rid of the relaxing setting but maintaining the other two benefits. You could have a more sandbox game where players seek out their own action. This would result in the easy action benefit to go away but maintain the other benefits. The tavern start can be mixed up in a number of ways, but it will always result in a loss of one of these benefits. Before you mix it up, I would like to state that you can do a lot with the traditional start so think about whether you need to before you do. Despite saying that feel free to do whatever you want, it’s your game.

I started one of my games in a tavern but decided to mix it up. I decided to forgo the relaxed setting for an action filled start. The game started with the players in their individual rooms at night, but the tavern was on fire. They needed to escape the collapsing tavern and after they did combat started with the creatures that started the fire. I did this because the players I was playing with were not that interested in roleplay and so the action start worked, but I still think allowing them some room for roleplay could have been nice, as they were new players and did not know much about roleplay.

Epilogue

Well, that’s what I have to say about starting in a tavern. I think that it gives the DM an easy way to start the game with lots of benefits. Despite saying that you can start the game in whatever manner you want. It is your game, so feel free starting it however you want. I was just trying to outline why starting in a tavern is still viable and why it has maintained its stay as the go to for beginning games.

Have a great rest of your day and if you feel like it, check out more of my content. You can check out the Sap-Ling, a monster I posted Monday, or you can come back Friday for a table filled with Tavern Attractions.