What I sometimes do when I need a hook for the characters is letting them describe it and go from there.

• "Ah, you guys remember your old friend, the card-shark, wasn't he a green dude or blue or something bright?...
• What was his name again?...
• Aah, of course, good old [ blank ] What did he look like?...
• How did each of you meet him?...
• You remember that story he never got tired of telling everyone about that mining outpost in the outer rim he swindled from that one sullustan governor, where was that?...
• Ah, exactly. Well, sadly he has gotten pretty ill in last year and he needs urgent help with maintaining order on the outpost since a rival mining syndicate has taken interest in the planet..."

et voilá.

You can do the same thing in the prep session or at the beginning of the first session, who was that guy that brought them to the rebellion?

PS: One day I will start a gaming group with the hangover scenario. Complete with small sullustan in the trunk, Hutt baby and Rancor in the bathroom

I think I'm actually going to start doing this on a slightly different scale, whenever NPCs show up that one of them knows from their past or saw on the Holonet or something. Any other great ideas on how to get the party more actively involved in creating the story with you?

Depends on the type of game you are running. If you are running a more "episodic" game you can build on that and have players use for example streetwise for looking for jobs(rumors) or warfare for possible missions (intel).

If you and the players are on the same level and you don't play as an antagonistic GM (Kill the players, give them nothing, me against them) you can also ask players to describe the scenes, or the rooms they are in. You just have to be carefull about your phrasing, because a lot of the time players will try to describe unfair advantages for them in the scenes, sometimes even unconsciously, so ideally when you ask the player what he sees you want to give him something to start with, "like what do the two shuttles in the hangar look like? (instead of ships)"

But be warned, this can also breed malcontent if one player is trying his honest best to describe the scene as he sees it in his minds eye and you have to tell him no because it is something completely different than you prepared for or is tipping the fight or scene in a direction you can't handle. So what I'm trying to say is, it is a great tool to use occasionally, but talk to your group about it and make sure they know that when you shoot them down it is for their own benefit (or: the stories benefit)

I think it also says so in the rulebook, that players are encouraged to embellish the scenes. My favorite example was one time they got in a firefight next to a junk yard. They started with running a construction vehicle they fixed (which we reasonable agreed they should be able to find there, don't remember if I even asked for a destiny point flip, I think so) into the barracks, and after that one of the players said that he will jump into that one old metal bathtub that is always lying around on every junkyard ever seen. Since it's technically the same as spending a maneuver to go into cover, and much more fun, I said great idea sure, go ahead.

Or once you have their characters (or at least the concepts) in place, you can figure out the narrative thread. For example - The smuggler, after taking months to restore a recovered freighter ("it's abused, but it's mine damnit!") goes and celebrates completing the overhaul by going and having a few at the local watering hole. And as these things tend to do, got into a bar fight after a bit too much liquid courage and wound up in the local lockup.

When he wakes up, he vaguely remembers his cell mate as someone who had his back during last night proceedings. But the smuggler has to break out and break out now because PERSON FROM SMUGGLER'S PAST has learned of the incarceration and is enroute to have some words with the Smuggler. So the pair break out and have to run away on the newly completed ship.

Wipe to: a couple of games later. The Smuggler and the Co-Pilot are doing a cargo pick up for a Mysterious Source (which will turn out to be the rebellion). Meanwhile the Thief With A Mysterious past has to get off the planet somehow - lets say the local law is closing in on her. Seeing an opportunity to slip aboard, she acts like a member of the loading team and finds a moment she can stow away on the outbound ship.

When they get to the drop off point and it turns out that "Hey, you guys are rebels!", the extra person on the ship casts the team in a very bad light. The Thief manage to talk the three out of a cell and back into a job. Since they have more jobs in the que, the Rebels assign a trusted agent - The Hired Gun - to oversee the party and make sure they're on the up and up for the remainder of the deliveries.

And so on - anyway, you get the idea.

I'm not biting on "because reasons" as a good reason. Why don't your players want to know each other before the campaign begins?

Our current game the characters were all in a prison ship together that crashed and they had to survive on Jungle world with the surviving guards trying to round them up. Something like that can be fun.

Past campaigns we've had like 2 of the characters know each other, and find the other character or two who were in distress for one reason or another. They help them out and all stick together.

Getting people together organically can be tricky, but it can be rewarding. You might give them some parameters for character creation to make getting them all together easier.

Write small encounters for each of them individually, all based around a single location, and thus start the party entirely split. Have them all be in need of something, a service one of the other party members can provide is a particularly good choice. Give each a natural reason to search out an "expert" in that service, the expert they find is of course one of the other PC's.

These scenes should be short, a couple of minutes each at most, in this way you skip around the group as if it was a combat encounter and everyone is talking turns, but everyone is doing entirely different things.

This is tricky to explain, especially without a group of PC's with back stories to use. Some movies do this, where different seemingly unrelated characters have "by chance" meetings which lead to life changing adventures.

Here is a random group as an example.

Perhaps the Pilot needs a Mechanic to fix a complex part of the Hyperdrive, the Mechanic is looking for a new speciality tool. The Scoundrel just did a solid deal on some stolen proprietary tools but kept a couple for himself to sell on the side, the scoundrel probably doesn't want to hang around much longer either. The Assasin has a lead on their next target, but needs to travel incognito to get to the next location, which happens to be where the Pilots next shipment is headed.

Love this idea. Going to see what I can do with this. Thanks.

One technique I like to use is to ask each of the players to make one connection to another PC in their backstory. Maybe they did a job together once or used to date. Maybe one's a minor celebrity and the other once helped them organize an event, etc. That way, when the group assembles, every PC is familiar to at least one other person for an established narrative reason and can be vouched for, helping to overcome the "You're all complete strangers, but you're also PCs, so I will trust you because reasons" disconnect. From there you can have them start out in separate groups and gradually weave together, or go the route of having a third party assemble them for their own reasons.

The Usual Suspects (film) might be an interesting model to follow. Each of the characters is at least known to the others by reputation, so when they are pushed into working together by a 3rd party, they know that the others are competent enough to pull their weight.

To add to what Kaigen said; there was a form here that basically used the FATE background system to weave players together. Each player writes their background as far as mannerisms, behavior, and old history (childhood and before the campaign starts, but leaves holes in it). Then each player passes that sheet to their right. Then they write their character into the other character's back ground and returns the sheet to the original player. This is then repeated, but with passing to the left.

So assuming you have 3 players, A, B, & C. They each write their own back ground, then A passes to B, B to C, and C to A. Player A incorporates themselves into C's past and so on.

With 4 or more people, you will have friend of a friend situation. So with A, B, C, and D. Player A, would get cross over with B and D, but not C, while B would cross over with A and C, but not D, and so on.

This is cool - I'll mention this to my players, see what they think. Thanks guys.

Isn't the whole, "Wake up covered in slime with no idea who the people around you are," thing pretty much every morning in college?

At least, for normal people? That wasn't my college experience, but the data suggests that it was for a lot of the people around me.My sophomore year roommates in particular...

That spurs another idea for me... Start your campaign like The Hangover.

The players have all been invited and/or crashed a party or other event. They get smashed, maybe they overindulge, maybe somebody slips them something. They wake up the next morning having no idea what happened, and they all now have to deal with the consequences of one night of craziness. Maybe they smashed up a Hutt's throne room? They stole an airspeeder with a huge quantity of spice that both Imperial enforcement and the gang that was going to sell it are after? One of them has a Sith artifact in their backpack that gives them weird visions and nobody knows where it came from?

Ha, great idea!

I'm not biting on "because reasons" as a good reason. Why don't your players want to know each other before the campaign begins?

You know, this is a really good question. I think it comes from them (some more than others, in fairness) wanting a bit more independence when designing their hard tees and their backstory. So, for example, the most fleshed out PC so far has rolled up a Droid Ace:Rigger, obsessed with the wrecked spaceship that he/she/it was the only survivor from and languishing in a spaceport somewhere using scraps to get the ship up and running. Which is great character building, but doesn't instantly lend itself to "you're part of a crack team - go!" storytelling.

Our old WEG group came together in the first adventure. Bounty Hunter PC#1 was chasing his prey in the opening scene and cornered him. He is distracted when bounty hunter PC#2 tried to nab the same bounty. Bounty get away and PC#1 and PC#2 agree to work together "For a Few Dollars More" style, but find themselves in need of transport. They hire Pilot PC#3 and Wookie PC#4 to fly them off planet to chase the bounty. Ship is busted so Mechanic PC#5 (who was a contact of PC#2) was brought on board to close out the team.

All of this took place in the first 15 minutes.. The same can also be discussed in the first five minutes in a Session 0 as PrettyHaley mentioned.