4e campaign beginning- advice needed

[Sound of Azure]

In 4e, even low level characters are a something special- they're definitely a cut above the rest of the population. So, I thought I'd run with that conceit.

The PCs in my upcoming (and all too imminent!) 4e game will be heroic from the get go, taking the role of Einheriar, to serve the Aesir in their war against the Primordials/Giants (In the Paragon Tier. Much later on, naturally).

The PCs will continue on in Midgar throughout the Heroic Tier, gathering strength so that they will be warriors worthy of fighting alongside the gods later on. If any of the einheriar fall during this phase, more can be introduced, as necessary- though it would cost the war effort dearly.

The characters will face various threats on the face of Midgar, even threats from competing Einheriar- each group's minder, a Valkyrie is looking for as much glory as possible. then there is the growing presence of the primordials and their forces.

Anyhow, I'm having some trouble figuring out how to start the first session.

My first idea was to have a one-on-one with each player (or have them write out a back story about how such occurred), playing out how the character died originally. Then, the first true session would be the party gathering together.

Alternatively, they could all play out a short vignette of said deaths during the first session, then have the party gather. This has the advantage of the players knowing more about the other characters, but has the potential to be boring while waiting for the players waiting for their turn.

Finally, we could simply start them out gathered together, and flesh out how each character died as play goes on. This is probably easiest, though it may lack the cohesion of the other options-at least without a lot of prodding from yours truly.

So ENWorld, how would you start this out? Any ideas regarding the setting are welcome too.

 

[Jack99]

They could also die together, and do the fight together. This of course has the potential to reek of rail-roading, which, depending on your players, can cause some issues. It also has the potential (if done right) to make for an awesome scene that they will talk about for a long time.

In order to do so, they would not have to know that they are supposed to die up front. It would have to be an overwhelming battle, without it feeling like one. Waves of monsters would do the trick here, since you could keep sending in "reinforcements" in small groups, so that you keep the players on their toes, while maintaining the illusion that they have a chance to win. It would be important not to kill one outright, but instead have them all be drained of resources before you start killing them off.

You could maybe key the BBEG (who would join the fray at the end, killing the players) to the further story in some ways. Maybe he is a servant of the Primordials, sent to kill the players before they make their mark in the world on the behest of the gods. Instead, it has the opposite effect, since he causes the players to be able to serve the Aesir directly. If I understood your concept correctly.

 

[Tervin]

As an old Vampire storyteller, I like preludes (= individual sessions before a campaign where you play out parts of the character's backstory) and other storytelling tricks that aren't just following thestandard flow. One thing I came up with after I quit my Vampire habit is the concept of a flashback prelude with extras. That would work something like this:

The party starts the campaign in a regular way (in your case after death has occurred). Once you have the game going you can at times dedicate part of a session to a flashback into a scene or two in a character's earlier life. The other players will be given pregen roles to play in the flashback. Give the main player of the flashback a lot of decision power in this scene - perhaps deciding on the when and where of the scene, who the extras are. If the pregens are complicated, email them out beforehand.

I realise that this might seem pretentious. Yes it is. And it is fun! It also might seem confusing. How come the character doesn't know all his own background? Well, we don't know exactly how the mind works after death. Perhaps it takes a while to remember your life the way it was? And perhaps the memories come back like little flashbacks? (At this moment in the post my inner viking is shouting at me to scrap all my present plans for a campaign and run this instead.)

This would be something to try if you want a very character oriented campaign. I have tried things like that some years back, with very interesting results. The idea of having the other players do the extras bit is something I was shocked to see how great it worked when I first tried it. In one of my old gaming clubs we even invented our own terminology for that gaming style and started to introduce it at any time when our own characters weren't present in a social scene.

 

[Rechan]

I played in a game where the very first scene was my character running from some savages, and leaping off a cliff - to be caught by the flying ship of the party's patron, where the other party members were there.

Then, we all went below deck and started talking, and our Patron asked us "How did you get to this point". So we all had to give a tale from our character's perspective.

Doing this with "So, now that you are together, how'd you die?" would be a way to do it. It's almost reminiscent of "We're in a tavern, let's tell stories."