>>43339879For a new campaign with a group of unfamiliar players, I generally have them all arrive at (destination together) as part of the same caravan. Usually, with adventurers, they get hired for shit pay and food and travel expenses to go with a merchant and help out and defend if necessary.
The players should all have come up with a reason to be travelling to or through this location, and if they haven't thought of one, now's their chance. Vague is fine, it gives you latitude. My players tend to like petty criminals, so dodging the law tends to factor into their backstory.
For the campaign itself, depends on what you want to do. If you're looking for something gritty, find ways to push their buttons and make them do something they're not morally comfortable with. I'd strand them somewhere, and make them choose between risking starvation or doing something shitty.
If you want something more heroic in tone, an abandoned ruined filled with rats is my go to for that level. There's a pretty good module called The Sunken Citadel that I like. First level is your basic rats and shit, second level has warring kobold and goblin tribes, with whom the party can kill or deal with, and the third level has an insane druid who's feeding people to a necromantically charged tree. The module has the party originally hired to locate some other adventurers who went missing (tree ate them).
In terms of tone, I like to think about the difference between deeds and tasks (words chosen arbitrarily). if you want a heroic campaign, focus on deeds. Deeds are done once and then stay done. Killing an evil warlord, etc.
Tasks are the things that have to be done daily, and they're just as important. Games involving tasks have characters dealing with the fallout of their deeds, like dealing with the power vacuum caused by killing a warlord. Tasks are always present, but the party doesn't have to be the ones to do them. Just depends on the type of game you want to run.
