Figures of Text

 

This article isn’t about running convention games, but from this point on it will be impossible for me to entirely divorce writing the game from running it. I’ll keep the GM asides to a minimum.

 

The opening scene needs to:

• Get the players’ attention
• Introduce the player characters to each other
• Start them roleplaying
• Set the tone of the whole game
• Describe the initial situation
• Tell the players what they’re supposed to be doing
• Funnel the game towards the next scene

That’s a lot of work for one scene, and they’re all necessary to one degree or another. Let’s work through them in sequence. That said, some of these can be dealt with in the player character write-ups. You can introduce the players to each other in their backgrounds (‘what you know about the other characters’) and give them a lot of background information about the setting. 

 

GET THE PLAYERS’ ATTENTION

Picture the scene. Your players are sitting around the table. They’re chatting to each other or sitting there silently, making little towers out of dice and reading the con brochure or whatever games they just bought at the trade stands. If you’ve got a morning slot, they’re probably hung-over or sleep-deprived or both. If you’re very lucky, they’re all enthusiastic about the game, but it’s more likely that you’ve got a mix of the enthusiastic, the vaguely interested, the friends dragged along to the game, and the guys who wanted to play some other game but couldn’t get tickets.

 

You – or rather, the GM running your game – need to drag them into the game. You have to get them excited to play. There are several ways to do this:

• Good characters: If the player characters are written well, and have some urgent problem they need to resolve, then this can draw the players into the game.
• Open with a bang: Have the opening scene be a shocking, dramatic start to the game. ‘You’re all clinging to the edge of a cliff’ works well, as does ‘you’re under attack’. Instead of meeting in a bar, you meet in a bar brawl.
• Staggered start: Another option is to start the game with one player character, then bring in the rest one by one. ‘You’ve all been invited to Lord Faffington’s party. PC1, you’re the first person to arrive. What do you do? Ok, a minute later, a taxi arrives with PC2…’ This lets players interact in pairs and small groups, instead of having all six PCs ‘on stage’ at the start. 
• What are you doing? Just ask the players what they’re doing. Obviously, you’ll need something to drag the players together. This approach works well when the PCs are all part of the same organisation or crew. ‘Right, you’re flying along through space on your free trader. Where are you and what are you doing?’

 

INTRODUCE THE PLAYER CHARACTERS TO EACH OTHER

The players need to know who’s playing who, so you need some device or scene where this information can be conveyed. Most games have the classic ‘ok, let’s go around the table and introduce ourselves’ bit, which works perfectly well if you don’t have any better ideas. Options:

• In-character introductions: Each person introduces themselves in character. Obviously, this only works if the player characters don’t all know each other at the start of the game. (Hi, I’m Bob the Fighter)
• Roll Call: Have an NPC address each character by name, describing the character briefly. (‘Welcome, Lord Fotherington. How’s that game reserve in Africa doing? Still the Kenyan Elephant Gun champion? Have you met Ms. Murray, voted Pluckiest Young Reporter last month?’
• Dramatic moments: Open the game in the middle of an action scene, with each player character being involved in some suitable feat of derring-do. Right. As play begins, Sir Greatchin is battling orcs, Fr. Healbot’s next to him, and Fingers is trying to pick the lock on this treasure test’.

 

However you end up doing it, just think about how the player characters are introduced, especially if the characters are supposed to know each other before hand. Having descriptions of each player character on the sheet works well, although it’s best if you reinforce it.

 

START THEM ROLEPLAYING

The first scene should give the players a chance to speak in character to each other. If it’s a briefing, let them ask questions. If it’s a combat scene, give them a nice big bad guy to shout insults at. Even if the adventure starts with the characters just sitting around at home, then at least throw them a bone and have something minor happen that they can react to.

 

SET THE TONE OF THE WHOLE GAME

If the game is supposed to be a sober investigative game, then the first scene should be low-key and well researched. Drop proper names and dates, maybe even have a map or photo of wherever the player characters are. If it’s a gritty hack-and-slash game, then the opening description should be full of gore and snapped bones. If it’s a political intrigue game, then start by describing the current politics. Players will pick up on tone if you start the game correctly. You could even do up a box text for the GM to read, but a list of points that the GM should mention works just as well.

 

DESCRIBE THE INITIAL SITUATION

Where is the game taking place? What’s the world like? Where are the player characters? The opening scene will set the frame of reference for the whole game. If your game involves, say, the Fangy clan manipulating events to frame the Furry clan so they get wiped out by the Poncy clan, then your opening scene should mention the delicate balance between the Fangys, Furrys and Poncies. If the game’s set in 1928, mention this so the players don’t start trying to trace credit cards or hack computers. (Or, as I did in one Cthulhu game many years ago, pump a musket as if it was a shotgun.)

 

Your game can go beyond what’s established in the opening scene, but it must evolve naturally. It’s ok for the characters to start in London, investigate a mysterious death, and then move onto Transylvania in a vampire hunting game It’s not ok to start in London, have a mysterious death, and then mention half-way through that oh, yeah, this is actually a world where vampires are known and accepted members of society in this setting.

 

TELL THE PLAYERS WHAT THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING

The opening scene should give the players some sort of goal or mission. This is usually, but not always, the goal of the whole scenario. Scene 1: the king says go find the magic doodad. Scenes 2-5: kill magic doodad guards, Scene 6, get doodad. You can run a bait-and-switch game where the players are sent to find the magic doodad in scene 1, only to bring it back in scene 3 and then the king turns out to be Ozgok, Corrupter of Doodads, but you still need to give the players an idea of what they’re supposed to be doing in the opening scene. If there’s not a clear goal for the group, you’ll end up with the players running off in different directions pursuing their own ideas about what they’re supposed to be doing, or else getting so caught up in inter-character roleplaying that the actual plot is neglected.

 

(I’m all for inter-character roleplaying; however, if you don’t give the players something to do, you can end up with the situation where most of the players are more interested in preparing their mansion for the upcoming banquet than investigating the evil cult.)

 

FUNNEL THE GAME TOWARDS THE NEXT SCENE

There needs to be a clear ending to the opening scene, one that moves the group on to the more freeform middle of the game. You need a marker to say ‘right, you’re in charge now, what do you do?’ This can be as blatant as the NPC briefing officer saying ‘off you go chaps, good luck, watch out for the flak’, or a clue leading them onto the next mystery, or even just a stairs leading down into the dungeon. However you do it, you need to give the players a little push to give the game momentum after the pre-scripted action of the opening scene.

 

To repeat, the goals of the opening scene are some or all of:

• Get the players’ attention
• Introduce the player characters to each other
• Start them roleplaying
• Set the tone of the whole game
• Describe the initial situation
• Tell the players what they’re supposed to be doing
• Funnel the game towards the next scene

 

SUCCESSFUL & FAILED OPENING SCENES

So, let’s talk specifics. Here are some opening scenes, and notes on what they do well or fail to accomplish.

 

You were all assigned this mission, and now you’re there…

Opening at the first action scene can make for a good dramatic opener. As long as the character sheets (or a very brief opening description from the GM) can set the mission effectively, then you can jump right into the action.

 

The trick is finding the right situation to open. Compare these two openings:

‘The princess Arelie has been kidnapped by the evil Necromancer Foom. You, a doughty band of heroes, have arrived at the entrance to Foom’s dungeon…’

vs.

‘The daughter of a corporate executive has been kidnapped by the evil Foom syndicate. You, a band of cybernetic mercenaries, have arrived at the hotel where she’s being held…’

 

In the first case, the players kick the door down and start hacking. It’s a perfectly natural place to begin a D&D dungeon crawl. In the second case, the players haul the GM back by about 24 hours of game time. No-one’s going to launch a rescue mission in a cyberpunk game without getting maps of the hotel, infiltrating the hotel’s computer network, observing guard patterns, coming up with a backup extraction strategy and at least four plans involving gas grenades in the air ducts. Don’t tell the players they walked into a situation that they would deliberately avoid.

Solution: Either consider your opening scene from the perspective of the players first, or else put in some added factor that forces their hand. If the Foom gang are going to execute the daughter in thirty minutes, then a frontal assault may be a lot more acceptable to the players.

 

So, the king calls you all together and says…

Welcome to Box Text Land. The GM reads out the background, the mission, a roster of player characters. Unfortunately, most GMs will do this in a monotone. The main danger here is not grabbing the player’s attention, as it’s a pretty dull opener if the GM can’t dress it up. It’s an infodump at the very start.

Solution: Try to liven this up slightly – giving the player characters some input on the mission, or having nice handouts with a map of the threatened kingdom or something.

 

So, you’re all travelling along in Serenity, and you get a distress call…

Or a phone call, or a messenger, or a magic summons. The PCs are roused out of their normal lives and called to action. This has several advantages, as you can let the players determine what they’re doing when the call comes, letting them describe their characters at rest before we see them in action. The downside is that the PCs can ignore the mission. Be careful of writing up characters who have no reason to actually engage with the adventure. A thuggish mercenary who only fights for pay is a fun PC, but don’t expect him to run off and save the penniless village.

Solution: Write the characters so that they’ll go on the mission. Players will accommodate the plot if you give them even a tiny opening; if the peasant mentions that the raiders who attacked the village looked really rich, then the merc’s player will go ‘ah, good booty to be had! Lead on, filthy peasant child!’

 

Don’t confront the PCs with hopeless odds if they’ve got a chance to back up.

 

Suddenly, ninjas!

The PCs are attacked! Roll for initiative.

 

Well, you’ve just gotten the players’ attention with a minor combat encounter, one with no major consequences. It shows off what the various PCs can do, it’s fun, it’s exciting.  Huzzah. Just make sure that there’s something obvious to do next after the smoke clears.

Solution: You still need to give the players a mission in some form. You might be able to combine it with the attack, as long as the hook is a clear one. If the player characters are attacked by ninjas who are carrying a death warrant with the name of a player character on it, then the obvious next step is try to work out why that player has been targeted for assassination.

If the player characters are attacked by orcs, and the hook is that all the orcs were wiped out a generation ago in the Big War of Orc-Killing, then make sure the players know about the war. Don’t assume the players know anything about the setting that you haven’t told them.

 

You all wake up in a strange place…

This is a very common setup, but it can go wrong very easily. The advantage is that the players are drawn in by the mystery, and learn about their surroundings and the other player characters at the same rate as the characters; player and character knowledge are identical. The risk is that the player characters wander off on their own instead of gelling together as a group.

Solution: Ensure that the characters can’t wander off easily – just keeping them together in the first room for a few minutes is usually enough time for them to start talking to each other and working together.

So, you’ve just come home after the funeral of character #1’s wife who died in mysterious circumstances and characters #1, #3 and #5 used to serve together in the war with character #7 but he didn’t come to the funeral and there’s a dead dog in the garden shed that’s apparently connected to your wife’s mysterious death but even though you’ve just had the funeral you haven’t investigated that.

… which was the start of one Cthulhu scenario, Dead Dogs & Black Roots. The opening scene tried to do far too much. It’s ok to break the opening into two or three scenes, assuming you’re willing to take time away from the rest of the scenario.

 

A bad opening scene won’t ruin the scenario; a good opening scene won’t save it. Think of it as the launch pad for your game – if the opening scene goes badly, then the GM will have to do an awful lot more work dragging the players back to the plot and pushing up the energy level of the group. If it goes well, then the GM can just sit back and let the players drive the game.

Next – the core scenes

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