"72 hours earlier" (flash forward scenes)

[DragonBelow]

I've always wanted to write and run an adventure like this, the closest thing i have come up with was sort of an interlude in the middle of my regular Dragonlance campaign, I started one session by handling pregen characters to my players. I had basicaly 3 objectives with this adventure

1) Give the players the chance to play not really good guys.
2) Have them interact with a very infamous character before she actually gained her reputation. (Kitiara)
3) Explain the origins of the current BBEG

The plot of this adventure was in a nutshell, the son of a noble was kidnapped, he hires the pregens + Kitiara to rescue the child, The PCs come up with a plan to rescue the child while keeping the money. the plan goes bad, some of the kidnappers run away with the child, the PCs keep the money but then they are betrayed by Kitiara who steals the money from them after killing them. The child survives to become a BBEG that the PCs of the regular campaign have to deal with.

 

[Gez]

I think Piratecat started a thread entitled "In Media Res" on that topic. It had a fun example with a d20 modern chase scene as the PCs were pursued by dinosaurs or mutants or mutant dinosaurs or something like that out of a mad scientist's laboratory beneath... Disneyland!

 

[BlackMoria]

I've used this concept a few times and it has worked great on each occasion.

It is important to fill in the blanks to a degree, particularly if you start with a bang like a combat.

For example

Do narrative of the setup of the location and other information to orient the players.

Then .... "The lead person suddenly throws off his cloak, revealing the necklace bearing the symbol of the cult you are investigating. Several of his cronies following suit, bearing weapons. You were expecting the cult to take some action against you, especially after that setback you dealt them but you didn't expect them to act so openly against you, like this crowded market square. They obviously want to send a strong message about interfering in their business for all to see. Roll for initative.

Conduct a round of combat. Then ....

"You duck the slash of the blade. You curse ever accepting the mission from Baron X but the abductions of the children and the deaths of innocents fired up your indignation to bring retribution to those who prey upon the innocent and defenceless. It must have been fated the day the messenger delivered the message from the baron to you in the tavern...."

"Flashback to the tavern. Your group is commenting on the last song of the bard when a officius looking man makes way to your table and clears his throat......"

Go into the adventure start and play out the adventure up until that combat above.

My players really enjoy this. If you have set it up to be engaging and intriguing, the players will bit the plot hook with gusto, despite the rather railroady introduction. They will want to see just how they got into the mess the combat introduced.

 

[Psion]

This is an idea that you need to make sure to get buy-in from your players on, because some people do not like it at all.

Hmmm. Well in this particular instance, I was thinking about doing it at a con game, and I'm sort of rolling the dice there...

 

[Quartz]

Someone - possibly Piratecat - wrote about an adventure that he ran which started with the PCs riding out of town congratulating themselves on a job well done when they began to realise that things were'n quite right. They found they'd been wounded, were down spells, etc.

 

[GreatLemur]

What I did some time ago was start the campaign at the death of the king of one of the realm's modest-sized kingdoms. Each of the players was there at the funeral, and I described the fact that they had met the king and had been involved with him on a series of adventures. His death was seen by many as a tragic sacrifice of a good man, but I said that I would (obviously) leave it up to them to decide how they felt about it. I gave them the chance to ask some basic questions and gave whatever answers I could without spoiling what was going to happen with him too much (I also wanted to leave things as open-ended as possible for the players to change things).

At that point, I gave each of them the opportunity to make a speech about what the king had meant to them, and to share a memory of a time he had spent with them. I told all of the players that I would do my very best to make those memories and events come to pass.

Aw, man. That's pretty damned cool, and sounds like quite a challenge. I'm guessing you and that group have been playing together for quite some time, right? Seems like you'd all need some faith in each other's improvisational skills to dare something like this.

 

[DM_Jeff]

Eyes of the Lich queen, the latest Eberron module, suggests using this technique when opening the adventure and gives tips how to do so.

-DM Jeff

 

[Jackmojo]

I'm a big fan of these sort of cinematic/literary style approaches to RPGs, and if you're a fan of them I'd give it a try, but as has been pointed out you need to make sure your players are onboard.

I ran an entire campaign (Aberrant, super hero RPG) that began with some of the PC's giving testimony at a trial with the events of the trial unfolding as 'flashbacks' during various characters testimony", best moment was when one of the PC's who hadn't testified yet realised his Character was already dead.

My personal favorite was in a fantasy post-apocalyptic game when the PCs visited the grave of the last world and were thrust in to a storm of dead peoples memories, which lead into the next session being a giant montage like session where each Player got to play dozens of pre-generated simple characters in short scenes showing how the world died.

Jack

 

[JustinA]

What I speak if is the convention in shows like Alias, wherein the show starts with a short sequence where one or more of the characters is in trouble. Then at the edge of resolving it, the credits run and the show starts with a different scene with the banner "72 hours earlier" (or some other suitable time interval) emblazoned across the screen.

ALIAS is a great example of this because it not only demonstrated the strengths of the technique, it also demonstrated the weaknesses.

For example of how it DOESN'T work:

Spoiler

The episode where Dixon is driven to despair by, IIRC, the death of his wife. The entire episode would be incredibly powerful -- building up to a moment where Dixon is literally standing on a bridge and weighing whether or not he should jump... The only problem? The beginning of the episode had been a flash-forward to Dixon dramatically threatening to blow himself up along with a suspect unless the suspect gave him the information that he wanted.

This scene not only established that Dixon was suicidal before an episode with a dramatic structure based entirely around building Dixon up to a suicidal peak... but it also removed all tension from the climactic moment of Dixon standing on that bridge.

For an example of when the technique worked marvelously you don't have to look any farther than the very first episode.

Digression aside, I did something like this once: The group I was DMing was running through a lengthy, world-hopping campaign. One of the players had to leave town for several weeks and we decided to put the main campaign on hold. I decided to run the Freeport Trilogy to fill the gap.

During the third episode of the Freeport Trilogy the heroes are at a grand ball. I knew that the other PCs would be coming through Freeport at some point, so I decided to place the entire Freeport Trilogy in the future. When the players arrived at the ball, they met their characters from the other campaign (who, as it later turned out, were there to meet another NPC).

We kept the details of the meeting vague, and then -- several months later, when the main campaign reached that point -- the group had a blast playing out the previously vague meeting in complete detail.

There are also subtler elements: Activities of various supporting cast members in the Freeport campaign became clearer when it was revealed that those activities were tied to the events following the other group into Freeport. (The half-orc captain in the first Freeport adventure was a character already established in the world-hopping campaign (who was in Freeport waiting for the world-hopping PCs to arrive). The ship that the Freeport PCs arrived on at the beginning of the Freeport Trilogy was the same ship -- from the Maiden Voyage Penumbra module -- that would bring the world-hopping PCs to Freeport.)

Fun stuff.

I like doing this type of subtle campaign-binding. For example, that same world-hopping campaign started with Three Days to Kill. When I designed a campaign based around Rappan Athuk, I had the mirror found at the conclusion of Three Days to Kill created by the demon priests of Rappan Athuk.

 

[pawsplay]

It's sort of.... railroading as an art form. It's potentially interesting... also potentially frustrated from a creative or gaming standpoint.