How Did Your Party Meet?

I will say only this and will close the subject as far as I am concerned. I have been playing, mostly as a GM, for more than 45 years. I have run literally hundreds of games, both for friends and at conventions or meetups. I'm not saying that my way is best, not at all, and I have used every trope under the sun in my time as a GM. But out of all those tables, I have only ever had one player who didn't like my style.

We ran a series of Session Zero's to roleplay the meeting encounters with the variouscharacters in our campaign.

Salundra von Drakenburg (Noble/Soldier) met Gunnar Hrolfsson (Dwarf/Slayer) in 'The Crooked Hammer' Tavern in Ubersreik. She was drunk and he rescued her in the street outside when she was migged by three local thugs.

Else Sigloben (Witch Hunter) met Ferdinand Gruber (Amythyst Wizard) in the woods close to Hershald in the Duchy of Saponatheim when she was sent to the village to investigate a carrot eating daemon that was said to be terrorising the village. The daemon turned out to be Ferdinand.

Moli Brandysnap (Halfling Thief) met Amris Emberfell (Elven Merchant Prince) when he wandered into her street in the East end of Altdorf on his way to the notorious 'Three Beards Tavern' where he was told he would be able to hire a thief to steal back his family ring from his wicked step-father.

We subsequently roleplayed the meeting between Else and Ferdiand and Moli and Amris in Altdorf, and the final meeting with Sali and Gunnar was planned to occur in Ubersreik.

Have you and the group settled in to GP then, Didz?

Nope! sadly not. I gave up in the end. Looks like I won't be running anymore games.

I quite like in media res, but probably my favourite as a GM was with a WFRP game, using A Private War, where the characters didn't know each other, but each had their specific reasons for travelling through a marketplace (one was a scribe who had been delivering some scrolls he'd copied out for a client, one was a pedlar who'd set up his apple stall in the marketplace, one a bonepicker who'd had a tip that one of the sewers was blocked, and that there might be a big wodge of rags and animal parts causing the blockage, one a pit fighter who was simply lost and found an open market where he could ask for directions to the pit where he'd be fighting that night, one a militiaman who was stationed in the market to keep an eye out for pickpockets and the like, and who was coming to the end of a lone shift in which he'd been drizzled on for the last 6 hours or so, and one a sewer jack who'd been sent to the market to deal with a blockage.

The scribe, starving, was perusing the apples and complaining to the pedlar that they were all bruised and rotting, the sewer jack and the bonepicker were remonstrating with each other over who got to get stuck into the blockage first, the militiaman was narked and was deciding which argument to go and sort out by bashing heads together, and the pit fighter was getting in his way to ask directions, when the blockage exploded as a weird critter burst forth and started attacking everything in sight and tentacle reach. In the aftermath, they were all rounded up for questioning, blamed for what had happened (it being WFRP and that's the way of things when you're in the wrong place at the right time), then when eventually exonerated (more due to lack of evidence of guilt that anything else), they were "asked" to look into another matter (and to refuse would be to point to their guilt after all).