I love playing in a group where the characters have a common backstory. It enables so many opportunities for role playing and storytelling. A married couple with in-laws or other relatives, family connections have great dynamics. A group of former slaves, who bought their freedom. A troupe of artists on tour. Delegation of athletes. All from the same village. Fans of the same football team.
Yeah I don’t think I would happily play another “and then you all meet for the first time and work together” game unless it was like intentionally subverting the trope. It adds so many problems and suspension of disbelief problems.
The last game I played started with one party member‘s birthday party. Everyone gave a little speech reminiscing about past experiences they had together.
The adventure began, when the party was interrupted by the bad guys.
I think the best game I’ve done started as “it’s a DND world and you’re a band on tour”.
It started with a simple “the bridge is out on the way to your next show”, then there was a battle of the bands, a sketchy record label, and then the players organized a recall of the mayor that was in bed with the capitalists. That game went great places.
I think it depends on why you all meet for the first time.
You’ve all seen an “adventurers wanted” poster, gone to the listed address, passed the interview, and been hired? Fine.
You all randomly meet in a tavern, hear a rumor from one of the locals, and decide to work together with complete strangers? Stupid.
You’re all agents of the authoritarian wizard king “Friend Wizard”, assigned to enforce their authority. You’re also all members of different prohibited secret societies with secret missions to steal from & sabotage Friend Wizard. If you die Friend Wizard will resurrect you, the first 6 resurrections are free and more 6-packs can be purchased. Your DM is running Paranoia in D&D, wacky hijinks will ensue. Silly.
No disagreement here.
I realized when reading one of the other comments that my similarly sized complaint is it creates a lot of potential for problems at the game level as well as narrative when people make their characters in isolation. I kind of assumed that comes packaged with “and you all meet in a tavern”.
Like, everyone makes a fighter and shows up to session 1. The dm’s going to have a head scratcher thinking about balance, and some players might be annoyed they don’t really have a niche of their own. A weird party like that can work, but it’ll be a happier experience if folks talk about it ahead of time.
This is part of the reason I love Monster of the Week. Unlike in many TTRPGs, the default expectation is that you all have a common backstory.
This is why in every game I am a part of now, if the GM doesn’t take the initiative to do so, I message the other players to figure out who my character has connections with, why, for how long, etc. I can’t stand to have another “you meet in a tavern”.
