What opening scene was the best you've either set up or played in? No believe opening scenes really help set the tone of the game and can make or break if the players are hooked from the start.
My favorite was in a game I ran Call of Cthulhu 1929 nighttime bare knuckle boxing scene in a warehouse in Chelsea,MA. Really set the stage for depression era Lovecraftian horror that I was trying to set up.
Lets see.
Group started off by waking up chained in a slave ship bound for parts unknown.
Group was attending a festival when a spectre visited asking for help.
Group was visiting a town just as all hell breaks loose as the town is raided. The PCs havent even gotten there yet!
Lone PC washes ashore on Lemuria.
Group is caught in a Dragon Storm and everyone changes into dragons, unicorns, werewolves, gargoyles... The evil creatures creatures that cause the mutating storms. Cue PCs having their world turned upside down as everything theyd believed about the storms, the necromancers and the dragons is shown false.
Group washes ashore on the Isle of Dread... and promptly captured by cannibals. THAT did not start well! Jannets half-orc ended up turning on a spit over a fire.
Yikes ... I'd find a campaign that started in Chelsea, of all places, to be depressing by definition! :eek:
(Okay, eastern MA thing there. Carry on!)
Hrm ... one opener I particularly remember is the PCs all being teenagers on an idyllic tropical island, having known one another all their lives, and a cool, serene evening on the beach, sitting by a fire and enjoying the night ...
... with the players getting increasingly apprehensive, wondering when the hammer would fall and knowing it would.
Two for me.
Owod game using holy knights and camerilla on a detective road trip.
Game starts with a huge gathering of camerilla being addressed by the venture justicar in desercrated cathedral. Blah blah exposition stuff then the reval that the camerilla were going to work with the holy knights to defeat this sabbat threat to mankind. The knights walk in.... all combat gear and night vision kit with Templar and matlese crosses. The knights power is all true faith so they create this invisible force field as they walk in and the vamps all part for them in obvious pain. Great start.
Mud.
Mud was an adlibbed idea for a single session that ended up becoming a plane dimension hopping game that ran for 2years.
The party are caravan guards, their charge a particularly poor excuse for a caravan. Their destination durba a drap depressed little place where it always rains. The whole scene is in dull tones and the rain keeps coming and the road is like a quagmire. The carts get trapped and the party are struggling to lift them through the mud when the raiders show up. Thus was born the legend of josadek horse slayer (even though he died 2sessions later)
Yes Chelsea. I know it fairly well as my parents and grandparents grew up there.
Good stuff guys.
Reminded me of another I really liked. After players create D&D characters I told them not to buy equipment. Opening scene was them on a ship as they booked passage across a really large lake. Storm rolls in and ship is destroyed. Party is shipwrecked (not on a desert island or anything).
Had a friend that had the idea of playing a group of PC's, intentionally TPK'ing them, then having the SECOND group find them, some secret revealed, and the adventure REALLY begins. Never did it, for obvious reasons, but I can see picking it up from "finding the second group" and fate dropping "scary thing X" right into the PC's laps.
Interesting idea, Cranebump. I wouldn't do it, though. It's logistically tough enough for my group to make 3-4 times a month. Maybe in college when time was more flexible . . . In another life.
Quote from: Vic99;813269Interesting idea, Cranebump. I wouldn't do it, though. It's logistically tough enough for my group to make 3-4 times a month. Maybe in college when time was more flexible . . . In another life.
Man, you ain't kidding. We've had a campaign break of 6 weeks due to people moving, traveling for work, and several bouts of the flu. The way it looks now, we have yet ANOTHER two weeks of break. Thankfully, I managed to put together another student group at the school where I teach, but that one only meets for about 90 minutes, once/week. Regular gaming....hard to do...Someday maybe, when I'm retired?
Bells were ringing from the local church as the PCs entered the town. A mass of people was filing out of the church. As the PCs stood and watched the event unfold the local priest emerged holding the arm of an old woman. Behind them were pallbearers carrying three coffins. The mass of people, following the priest, the old woman, and the pallbearers moved toward the PCs. Upon reaching the PCs the old woman stopped, looked at them, and cursed at them in her native language before spitting on the ground in front of them. The people then proceeded out of town to the graveyard on the hill.
I think the players were a bit shell-shocked by the way this campaign started; however, it set a nice tone for the campaign.
Quote from: Ravenswing;812952Yikes ... I'd find a campaign that started in Chelsea, of all places, to be depressing by definition! :eek:
There were a few things I didn't like much about living in Chelsea, like just about every time they got a jumper on the
Tobin Bridge. The Search and Rescue parties would carry on for days.
One had to stay on the right side of the
Goodfellows in Chelsea, and the gangs from Revere too. The rest of it was awesome. Really awesome.
Just five minutes from downtown Boston. Twenty minutes from Cambridge, MIT & Harvard on the MBTA.
All the hot young babes. The Irish Bars. Shopping in Boston, and the awesome and inspiring Restaurants. The Back Bay. The North End. The restaurants and fresh seafood from the Boston Wharf. The Museums. Sunday Brunch with all the celebs at the Copley Square Marriot. Macy's, Filene's Basement, Lockober, The Boston Common, 4th of July with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fiedler and John Williams. Rik Ocasek and Paula Porizkova getting drunk as hell (like falling odwn drunk) at Daisey Buchanans (the Pour House?), or the Back Bay Social Club. St. Paddies day in the South End.
I used to see J Guiles all the time. He hung out in Harvard Square and would write music.
Or a Sunday
Red Sox game where
Lee Smith would come in at the 7th inning and wrap up the game for the
Red Sox with his sneaky low fast slider balls. he saved Roger Clemens sooooo many times.
Chelsea was awesome!
Definitely had some good times there!
Chelsea would be exceedingly good for a Lovecraftian game of any kind.
There used to be some hot nightclubs down by Fenway Park too. They still there?
"You are on the highway, several miles outside of Barstow, when the drugs begin to take hold..."
You have the massive gem in your hands finally, after braving numerous traps, threats and monsters on your way into the temple. You've sweat, bled, and lost more than a few companions on the way, but this moment has made all the hardship worth it.
Just before you start slapping each other on the back, the ground lurches under you. Dust, pebbles, and stones rain down from the ancient ceiling above, and an earthshaking bellow nearly deafens you. Sections of the floor either shift violently upward or fall away, leaving black pits that gape open. The temple is breaking apart, and something immense is coming for you.
What do you do?
And another.
Why has winter persisted despite it being the start of Spring?
Does the sun seem... dimmer?
Are there stars... missing in the sky?
What is this new cult that has sprung up? Oh and here have a pamphlet...
Quote from: Vic99;813104Yes Chelsea. I know it fairly well as my parents and grandparents grew up there.
Good stuff guys.
Reminded me of another I really liked. After players create D&D characters I told them not to buy equipment. Opening scene was them on a ship as they booked passage across a really large lake. Storm rolls in and ship is destroyed. Party is shipwrecked (not on a desert island or anything).
I started one D&D campaign with a shipwreck, the situation on the island being inspired by R.E. Howard's "Gods of Bal-Sagoth" (as adapted for Marvel's Conan the Barbarian comicbook in the '70s).
I don't recall many other "opening scenes," but I'll say that starting with immediate action has a lot of appeal.
Quote from: Phillip;813665I started one D&D campaign with a shipwreck, the situation on the island being inspired by R.E. Howard's "Gods of Bal-Sagoth" (as adapted for Marvel's Conan the Barbarian comicbook in the '70s).
I don't recall many other "opening scenes," but I'll say that starting with immediate action has a lot of appeal.
When I ran a lot of James Bond every game starts with you skiing (whilst pursued by black clad henchmen on snow sleds), driving an Aston Martin through a busy Italian market (whist being pursued by black clad henchmen in SUVs), halfway down the wall of a Russian Datcha when the abseil rope is cut (cue black clad henchmen on other ropes) etc ....
I also love to start a D&D game halfway up a tower on a rope, usually a tower associated to a bizaare new snake cult.
Yes, like with a good speech,a solid book is really important. Starting with action or starting with something unexpected keeps them coming back for more.
I don't do it every time, but often I like to try to end a session with a cliffhanger if possible. Have to wait a week,but the anticipation can work in your favor.
Quote from: James Gillen;813392"You are on the highway, several miles outside of Barstow, when the drugs begin to take hold..."
I did that.
Quote from: RPGPundit;814424I did that.
I am not surprised.
jg
Quote from: James Gillen;814480I am not surprised.
jg
"bat country" is an encounter area in a surprising number of my RPG settings.
For me, the best intro has always been to have the PCs engaged in combat as soon as they're rolled up:
"You are on a ship that has come under attack"
"The town crier announces that the gates are closed as the town/city/castle is now under siege"
No need for introductions or exposition until after the initial action is resolved. Why they're being attacked can be figured out later.
In D&D, I've had the PCs standing outside a burning tavern, usually as a result of a bar fight gone out of control. At the very least they try and get their stories straight before the watch comes and arrests them.
In Star Wars, I like the Starfall opening. Your ship is broken, adrift, and rapidly falling out of orbit. Go!
I started a Stormbringer campaign with the PCs crucified in Pan Tang...then rescued by Yyrkoon, Elric's insane cousin, who sent them on a quest to stop Elric from destroying the world.
...they did not succeed...
Our latest actually did work out pretty well.
Setting: The cabin of Lawyer, former hero of the Border Wars turned Ranger. In attendance, his human smith friend, and the Elven Druid Xanth. Riders belonging to Lawyer's old unit come down the path, among them, Princess Audra Coogan, Lawyer's childhood friend and old flame (doomed relationship, him being a commoner, and she vowing never to marry). Audra meets privately with Lawyer to give him back his promise ring from their childhood days, and to invite him to her wedding (which, she explains, she is being forced into, for her family's sake). Audra stretched the invitation to include "the elf, and any of your other 'unusual' friends," basically asking Lawyer to bring along the other players (demi-humans all) to attend a wedding in a place where demi-humans are at the very best, faintly tolerated, as her form of protest over the marriage. Lawyer accepts the invitation.
A few weeks later, off they go, only to find the Druid's enclave has been burnt to the ground in a small-adventure (possible metaplot thread) intended to unit the disparate crew. It's not exactly whiz-bang, but establishing the relationship (with the player's permission), makes for an interesting mix of roleplaying possibilities. The sight of his old unit, and Audra, brings back a passel of melancholy for the Ranger, but, still caring for his flame, he gathers the crew and off they go.
Now to make sure everyone else gets the spotlight somewhere...
My recently-finished ICONS campaign started with the PCs, all brand new mystery men, meeting each other when they thwarted a group of gangsters that were dressing up as little green spacemen to rob banks.
Years of real time later, the very last adventure of the campaign (set 10 game years later) had the very last team adventure of the Mystery Men, Inc. group stop a team of high-tech super-criminals (led by the infamous supervillain known as the Sky Pirate) that were pretending to be aliens in order to rob banks.
Aberrant: Players wake up in an armoured truck on their way to be euthanized by the covert Foundation agenda. Cue all hell breaking loose.
Red Shetland: PCs are in a tavern. Paul Kidd,s Miffy the Spider Sorceress walks in. Cue all hell breaking loose, a few recruitment drives for a pleasure cult, some PCs deciding fighting a giant cursed two-headed frog monster was safer, and no one being turned into lawn ornaments... that could be proven...
Same game: Lone PC wakes up in a cell with a bunch of kids (because she is short and was mistaken for one) imminent to be sacrificed to Death by a death cult. PC proceeds to tell a horrific story to the kids which causes them all to freak out which draws over a cultist who then gets clobbered. Cue lead cultist finding out the hard way why sacrificing people, especially kids, to Death is a really really poor career choice. Said leader was cursed by death into a skeleton that had to follow the surly little adventuress everywhere. She hung a lantern in its rib cage... Another adventurer draped a sheet over it. So you had this phantasmal glowing sight.