This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Burai: Hmm. When I first wrote the entry, I was originally going to cite PlotCoupon, but I talked myself out of it because I wasn't sure if that trope applied — it's actually not that common for the Old Man At the Inn to show up with an actual Plot Coupon on him so much as he has the collector's book for pasting PlotCoupons into.
Ununnilium: I know what you're saying; but I think a link, at least, is in order.
Duckluck: I'd just like to point out that this trope exists out of GM necessity. It is hard to find a reason for half a dozen characters of different backgrounds and diverse motives to be working together. I'm not sure I've ever found a way to make it work without railroading the players one way or another. Starting them at an inn is actually one of the more subtle ways to do this.
Morgan Wick: The RPG equivalent of Ducks In A Row? "You all meet in an internet chatroom"? A parody RPG that begins with the RPG equivalent of One We Prepared Earlier?
Nirual: Would that qualify as Truth in Television? After all, an tavern or inn is just about the only place in a medieval setting where people with similiar interests would come together over a game of dice or cards. And the first place someone would look for some hardy adventurers to hire. Doesn't make it any less cliché, but at least it's a plausible chliché.
Nobodymuch: I had them meet in group therapy.
Your Obedient Serpent: Over the span of several years in the mid-'90s, a friend of mine ran a Mage: The Ascension game that went through three major iterations:
- The first batch of P Cs first met in an online virtual bar in the cyberspace of the Virtual Adepts.
- When we restarted the game with a new group of players, my PC from the first game ran into them in an outdoor cafe in Horizon, the Pocket Universe of the Traditions.
- The third incarnation of the game continued my character's adventures online, as the Storyteller and I had moved several states away. It was a solo game -- but I met the NPC who wound up becoming my sidekick and Romantic Interest in a biker bar outside of Bakersfield.
- It was only several months after this that it suddenly dawned on us both that he'd fallen into the "You All Meet in an Inn" trap without realizing it. I pointed and laughed.
Your Obedient Serpent also had his own personal Getting The Superhero P Cs Together Trope: "You All Meet When Supervillains Take Over The Local Nuclear Power Plant." Haven't used that one in... oooh, 15-20 years?
