{{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 PlotCoupon ''on'' him so much as he has the collector's book for pasting {{PlotCoupon}}s 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.

MorganWick: The RPG equivalent of DucksInARow? "You all meet in an internet chatroom"? A parody RPG that begins with the RPG equivalent of OneWePreparedEarlier?

{{Nirual}}: Would that qualify as TruthInTelevision? 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.

YourObedientSerpent: Over the span of several years in the mid-'90s, a friend of mine ran a ''[[TheWorldOfDarkness Mage: The Ascension]]'' game that went through three major iterations:
* The first batch of PCs 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 PocketUniverse 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 "YouAllMeetInAnInn" trap ''without realizing it.'' I pointed and laughed.

YourObedientSerpent also had his own personal Getting The Superhero PCs Together Trope: "You All Meet When Supervillains Take Over The Local Nuclear Power Plant." Haven't used that one in... oooh, 15-20 years?