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Just step off this cliff, please.
Jan. 2nd, 2018 10:43 amPerhaps the greatest campaign opener in role-playing was found in GDW's "Twilight: 2000", a game of post-apocalypse fun in Central Europe. The characters were all members of the US Army's 5th Infantry Division trapped in southern Poland after five years of World War III. The nuclear exchanges had never quite reached the point of a full strategic exchange, but either way, the world was wrecked. C3I (Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence) had almost vanished.
The game opens on 1 JUL 2000, with a Soviet force that somehow has enough gasoline to move, smashing into NATO forces. As things go to hell, the characters hear a final broadcast from division headquarters: "Good luck, you're on your own."
I loved this so much. First of all, it catches the imagination. It paints a picture of desperation and a call to action. Secondly, it creates an immediate conflict: man vs wild. The characters are going to have to find food, clean water, fuel, and ammo to get by in this new situation. Third, it drops the characters into an uncomfortable situation. They are Americans (later rules added options for playing other NATO nations, we never got rules for playing Warsaw Pact troops) stuck in the middle of Poland. Just communicating with the locals is going to be a trial!
Finally, this setting; an area devastated by war where the regular order has broken down, was ripe with opportunities. The first few adventures took the characters on a sort of a grand tour, from Krakow along the Vistula to the ruins of Warsaw; followed by an adventure titled Going Home. But there was so much more. This was a chance for players to explore new options. They could build, helping to rebuild civilization. They could become bandits or fight the bandits. Or they could race to Bremerhaven and catch a ride on the last few ships capable of crossing the Atlantic and go see how badly the United States had been kicked around. (Spoiler: pretty bad.)
I played a game in the Army (how meta can you get?) where I was playing a combat engineer, an officer of the Louisana National Guard. When the time came to make the final drive to the ships, I elected to stay in place. My character had found a home helping to repair the last working nuclear power plant in Europe. I realized this was the decision he would make. It was quite an emotional scene.
Which brings me to the point. Never be afraid, in designing a game or writing a story, of dropping your characters into the fire from the start. Instead of "you all meet at an inn" set the inn on fire. Have the characters flee the dragons attacking the city and end up in a boat together. Wreck the boat on Circe's Island. Get captured by slavers. Have the dying man in the boat whisper the location of a great treasure. Do something to get things moving right from the start.
To me, the gold standard for this sort of thing comes from the BBC. Both Doctor Who and Blake's 7 were brilliant at sending characters straight into peril almost from the start.
In my humble opinion, the expository speeches can wait. Nothing brings a group together, even a really odd collection of folks like your typical group of player-characters, like a sudden combined threat. Struggling to survive, be it in the wastelands of Poland, a mysterious magical island, or the planet of the Death Porgs, gives your group the "push" for the plot. The pull can be something simple. Get back home, find this treasure, avoid being eaten by porgs; or it can lead to a multi-episode campaign: find the treasure so we can return home and raise an army to defeat the mad wizard by stealing the orb he uses to control dragons.
This is where your characters can really shine through. Maybe I'm playing a Lawful Evil sorcerer who goes along with this plan as it will lead to me gaining more power. I'll turn on my compatriots in a second if it advances my position. Having four or five good stories in that boat to start the game makes for a lot of fun down the line.
So don't be afraid to have a dynamic start to your story, whether it is for a book or for a game. Wave your arms, roll dice, shout a bit. Give the players a chance to do the same as your quietly railroad them into the real starting point. Then give them the bad news.
Good luck, you're on your own.
The game opens on 1 JUL 2000, with a Soviet force that somehow has enough gasoline to move, smashing into NATO forces. As things go to hell, the characters hear a final broadcast from division headquarters: "Good luck, you're on your own."
I loved this so much. First of all, it catches the imagination. It paints a picture of desperation and a call to action. Secondly, it creates an immediate conflict: man vs wild. The characters are going to have to find food, clean water, fuel, and ammo to get by in this new situation. Third, it drops the characters into an uncomfortable situation. They are Americans (later rules added options for playing other NATO nations, we never got rules for playing Warsaw Pact troops) stuck in the middle of Poland. Just communicating with the locals is going to be a trial!
Finally, this setting; an area devastated by war where the regular order has broken down, was ripe with opportunities. The first few adventures took the characters on a sort of a grand tour, from Krakow along the Vistula to the ruins of Warsaw; followed by an adventure titled Going Home. But there was so much more. This was a chance for players to explore new options. They could build, helping to rebuild civilization. They could become bandits or fight the bandits. Or they could race to Bremerhaven and catch a ride on the last few ships capable of crossing the Atlantic and go see how badly the United States had been kicked around. (Spoiler: pretty bad.)
I played a game in the Army (how meta can you get?) where I was playing a combat engineer, an officer of the Louisana National Guard. When the time came to make the final drive to the ships, I elected to stay in place. My character had found a home helping to repair the last working nuclear power plant in Europe. I realized this was the decision he would make. It was quite an emotional scene.
Which brings me to the point. Never be afraid, in designing a game or writing a story, of dropping your characters into the fire from the start. Instead of "you all meet at an inn" set the inn on fire. Have the characters flee the dragons attacking the city and end up in a boat together. Wreck the boat on Circe's Island. Get captured by slavers. Have the dying man in the boat whisper the location of a great treasure. Do something to get things moving right from the start.
To me, the gold standard for this sort of thing comes from the BBC. Both Doctor Who and Blake's 7 were brilliant at sending characters straight into peril almost from the start.
In my humble opinion, the expository speeches can wait. Nothing brings a group together, even a really odd collection of folks like your typical group of player-characters, like a sudden combined threat. Struggling to survive, be it in the wastelands of Poland, a mysterious magical island, or the planet of the Death Porgs, gives your group the "push" for the plot. The pull can be something simple. Get back home, find this treasure, avoid being eaten by porgs; or it can lead to a multi-episode campaign: find the treasure so we can return home and raise an army to defeat the mad wizard by stealing the orb he uses to control dragons.
This is where your characters can really shine through. Maybe I'm playing a Lawful Evil sorcerer who goes along with this plan as it will lead to me gaining more power. I'll turn on my compatriots in a second if it advances my position. Having four or five good stories in that boat to start the game makes for a lot of fun down the line.
So don't be afraid to have a dynamic start to your story, whether it is for a book or for a game. Wave your arms, roll dice, shout a bit. Give the players a chance to do the same as your quietly railroad them into the real starting point. Then give them the bad news.
Good luck, you're on your own.
