How to bring a group together...

[Chrono]

Our group is playing their first adventure next week. We already went through city creation and character creation (yes, I know those are part of the story as well). Now I am planning a mystery to have the 6 characters solve, and I realize I have a small problem: they have no reason to work together!!

When we did the character creation, I also made a character in case we trade GM's later in the campaign, so I was a guest star in 2 stories and had 2 guest stars in mine. That means there are 2 characters that I only know through other characters (friends of a friend). This isn't a big deal for my character since I am the GM and all, but I did not realize at the time just how distant that would make some of the group. None of the characters are fast friends, but nobody really hates each other either. They all established various degrees of respect, but not appreciation.

So what is the best way to get them to work together? Start them off working individually and have the adventure steer them together? Get a City-wide threat that forces them to join forces? Put them all in a tavern and have someone ask for a group of adventurers?

[JDK002]

Coming up with a common ground for the players to team up is important for the narrative.  The game can drag if you try and set up each characters starting point individually.  Come up with a catch all reason they would all be in the same place at the same time.

My characters were originally all hired on for a job by a guy who "obtains" supernatural items of interest and sells them off at a profit.  They all had personal reasons or a history to take the job.  But it gavee an easy answer to how they all know eachother even if they don't really like eachother.

[THE_ANGRY_GAMER]

Have them all at a party where the crime is committed (or similr situation). They're all at the crime scene, thay have a reason to work together, progress from there. Plus, they will know each other in any future adventures.

[admiralducksauce]

Start them off in a warehouse standing over a corpse and a bag of money, pistols pointed at each other.

Then flashback to your actual adventure. 

[InFerrumVeritas]

Your city has a bar, right?  Can't they just all meet there?

Seriously though, I think the best way to handle this is to ask your players why they'd seek each other out. 

Or compel the hell out of them.  If it's their first time playing, extra fate points won't hurt.

"You need a wizard.  Your friend *Other Player* knows someone.  Go ask them for help."  Bam, three characters in one place.  Someone happens to be visiting *Other Player* or *Wizard Friend* when they get there.  They decide to join forces for better odds.  That's 4.  *Player 5* is working the case as well, hired by a different individual and they run into him on the way.  *The Last Guy* is tailing them and bails them out of trouble. 

[Silverblaze]

Very noir...

It all starts with a girl.

The girls are suspicious of her or are jealous of her.

The guys all want her or have history with her/ hate her.

[Haru]

A great thing about the DFRPG is, that you can get your players to do part of that work for you. Create the mystery and present it to them as a 3rd person pre-story. You know, the kind of stories that some novels start with, from the perspective of the first victim of a crime or something similar. That way, you can get your players interested and give a bit of the story away, and then they can come up with a way to get pulled into the story. This is kind of part of the city creation part, too. Let them have a fate point for what they come up with, so they tie their aspects into the story.

Another way to go is to give each of them an individual reason for being somewhere, and then drop something on them, that they have to work together, if they want to get out alive, and this will draw them into the adventure. A bit on the nose, but it gets the job done.

Instead of a threat, you can have a common friend invite them, which is a pretty common way to go as well, but with far less action, of course. You already kind of did this, maybe you can build on that. Maybe one of the items from the last game were cursed or something, and something happened to the collector or will happen to the characters if they don't take care of this second problem.

[UmbraLux]

Do they have any similar aspect you can use to bring them together?  If not, an easy method is to have them start as the suspects.  They've got to solve the murder or <some authority figure mundane or supernatural> is going to pin it on them.  Perhaps the simplest method of all is to start in media res - have them jumped while together...and use the opportunity to drop your first three clues.   

[Ghsdkgb]

This is the kind of thing I always let my players handle. They're the ones piloting their characters, so they would know best how to justify things like that. Besides, they all WANT to play, otherwise they wouldn't be there around your table. So I just let them guide themselves in that regard.

Oftimes this ends up with us spending half the session at each other's throats, but that's half the fun of playing, anyway.

[KOFFEYKID]

I actually think the best way to get them together would be to have a murder involving somebody they all know and respect.

Create an NPC who's only job is to be the thing that they all have in common. This figure would be somewhat of a rallying point for supernatural creatures in the area (depending on how supernatural your group is).

I mean, think about it like this.

Harry dies, everybody who has ever been helped by Harry would have an interest in solving his murder.

You need to create a Harry for your group and then off him in such a way that the supernatural public is shocked and mystified by.

[Praxidicae]

an easy method is to have them start as the suspects.   

I so want to build a 'Usual Suspects in the Dresdenverse' scenario now.

[BigMrE]

Your city has a bar, right?  Can't they just all meet there?

Argh!  You beat me to it!

[LepRecon]

Lots of ways can be used 2 of my fav ones for DFRPG have been:

1. Party start in a chase after the big bad, they are told he is getting away and you need to catch him. Follow him into a TV store. As they enter it explodes sending them back and out (minor stress). With that I took them 12 hours earlier and set up the whole game. 2 hours of gameplay later and they were back chasing down the street. Not a lot of Railroading required just a few motivators that suited the characters.

2. My favourite one. Party all know they need to be a certain location at a time but are unsure why. They just know its very important. On turning up they meet each other (who they know from their character gen). Then a woman walks up to them and say "so have you solved the problem?" Characters don't know her but she knows them. She then goes "oh no its got you." Explains she is cursed and people keep forgetting her. She doesnt know who cursed her but she hired the party to find out who, as she was advised they knew the supernatural. She then produced a DVD which she played to the party showing them each saying they had agreed to the task. At this time each person had to reveal a secret they would be happy for the others to know. Many funny ones came out. The best one was the Goth Girl Minor Takent who looked at the party and said "I secretly love ABBA!"
The party had to solve the problem as they already had said yes the day before. Including the price. Party liked it as well.

[amberpup]

A bar, a girl, and two shot glasses filled. One or both may be posioned.... and both characters are about to drink.

[Silverblaze]

I started one game (Werewolf: the Apocalypse) off with all the characters waking up in free fall from a plane.  They had no parachutes.

 

(click to show/hide)

(For those of you who don't know, it is very hard to kill a werewolf in that system, so long as you decie the damage from the fall isn't aggravated.)

When they collected themselves from various states of damage etc.  They had a common goal. 

Find out how they wound up in this position.

  Maybe get revenge.

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If I were you:

I'd give your players parachutes and skip rolls to see if they can land near each other or successfully open the chutes for this intro.  Just gloss over the details.

Drop them off in a hostile area or in the middle of nowhere.

Start your game from there.