I think that a tavern or inn, a social site where everyone in a fantasy town visits to relax, might be the worst place to try and start a fantasy adventure. You are literally starting when people are at rest. What are you going to do? Introduce a call to action? Players can just experiment with refusing the call. How does any of this foreshadow the kind of roleplaying that will happen later in the adventure?
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in reply to @Scampir's post:
i can never solve these problems so my campaigns usually start with "you are in government service in exchange for the freedoms adventuring affords/as the condition for allowing you to live outside the prescribed social order" basically
That is such an interesting strategy to develop. Also, this is a preview of one big honkin post so get ready.
I always envision it as a good place to get rumors, hear traveling merchants complain about something happening in a city he came from, and also a good start if you don't want the big threat or overarching thing right out the gate. Send 'em off to a nearby place for a few days/levels, and when they return, shit's gone bad.
You can get rumours at taverns, but like other calls to action it runs counter to players having the agency to refuse the call.
In other words, people already struggle to decide what restaurant they all want to go to. Why not find a way to format the introduction so that it runs more smoothly?
Taverns are not exactly restaurants though; as far as I know taverns are much less formal and historically some merchants were using taverns and inns to sell their stuff, for example.
Hi! The point about restaurants here is not to equate taverns with restaurants. It's that groups of people can struggle with making group decisions.
Have a big boulder slam into the tavern and ruin the town's only place to socialise, take away their means of providing comfort.
But also: Don't start at a tavern (I'm not good at normal rpgs).
I was thinking about how like, a dragon ripping the roof off the tavern would be a great way to actually get things going. I think you can start at a tavern but the adventure has to begin with the tavern being totally disrupted. You gotta be like "who threw that fuckin boulder?"