Am I mean?
- Thread starter Myke17
- Start date
Oryan77
Adventurer
Damn dude, that's harsh. Are you guys going to play a little bit of D&D before you have your friends arrested and beaten? Or are they going to show up at your house with their dice & character sheets and the cops will already be waiting for them?
Relique du Madde
Adventurer
*Hands him a Ratbastard DM hat*
AN awesomer way to way to start a game would be with a TPK. Just to cut to the chase.
Sadly, unless you're setting up a humongous revenge epic, I'm not sure a first level arrest/beat down/defilement would play well with most players.
AN awesomer way to way to start a game would be with a TPK. Just to cut to the chase.
Sadly, unless you're setting up a humongous revenge epic, I'm not sure a first level arrest/beat down/defilement would play well with most players.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
Um...in short: yes.
Violence against players where they can actually fight back is one thing. Violence against players just because you feel it's "interesting" is a very bad thing. Especially if these are really new players.
I'm in the "Start with them already arrested" camp. This can actually give all of your characters a roleplaying and background moment, as you can go around the table, asking each player about their character, their history, why they came to the city and so on, and when they are all done, you can ask them just what they had done that landed them on death row.
Lord Captian Tobacco
First Post
Not at all.
The hero overcoming adversity and eventually succeding is the meat and potatos of any adventure stuff.
To avoid the mess that comes with trying to get PC's to surrender; you might start a few hours later, say, in the holding tank, after the sentencing, or being transported to the prison.
One of the better Sci-fi games in my past had the players sit down at the table WITHOUT character sheets. The characters woke in a dark ally, street clothes, NO memories of their past, and a wanted poster with their face(es) in their lap(s).
The players had a great time running from the past crime, not knowing what skills thay have but trying anyway, and sorting out what happened and why.
The real story included a very powerful mega-corp testing potential junior exec's. How do they think under pressure? Creativity? Agression? Durability?
They got it, eventually. All the police on the planet charging into the headquarters building (a-la Blues Brothers) and a confrontation inthe board room with the CEO in a finale that had attack helos', Gauss rifles, boobytraps, and a thermo-nuculer device...
Too bad I couldn't run this one again.
The hero overcoming adversity and eventually succeding is the meat and potatos of any adventure stuff.
To avoid the mess that comes with trying to get PC's to surrender; you might start a few hours later, say, in the holding tank, after the sentencing, or being transported to the prison.
One of the better Sci-fi games in my past had the players sit down at the table WITHOUT character sheets. The characters woke in a dark ally, street clothes, NO memories of their past, and a wanted poster with their face(es) in their lap(s).
The players had a great time running from the past crime, not knowing what skills thay have but trying anyway, and sorting out what happened and why.
The real story included a very powerful mega-corp testing potential junior exec's. How do they think under pressure? Creativity? Agression? Durability?
They got it, eventually. All the police on the planet charging into the headquarters building (a-la Blues Brothers) and a confrontation inthe board room with the CEO in a finale that had attack helos', Gauss rifles, boobytraps, and a thermo-nuculer device...
Too bad I couldn't run this one again.
Imaginary Number
First Post
First of all, I totally agree with Oryan77: having your players arrested and beaten right off the bat is poor form. Save that for when they do something really egregious, like not paying for their share of the pizza or forgetting to bring their character sheets.
Secondly, even with experienced players, I would never begin a campaign with a surprise "something bad happens to you and now you have to have to do something you didn't expect to do!" move. Every player, no matter how green, when they create their character has some idea of how the character will work as written. Don't make them go off-script before they get a chance to do that. If you want to do a "you start in prison and need to escape" scenario, that's great and potentially fun, but I'd recommend getting player buy-in in advance rather than springing it on them.
In short, for newbies, I recommend giving them a plain vanilla scenario with pepperoni and sausage pizza. I'd save the bait-and-switch scenario and the anchovies for some later occasion when you know your players and how they'll likely respond to what you want to serve up.
Secondly, even with experienced players, I would never begin a campaign with a surprise "something bad happens to you and now you have to have to do something you didn't expect to do!" move. Every player, no matter how green, when they create their character has some idea of how the character will work as written. Don't make them go off-script before they get a chance to do that. If you want to do a "you start in prison and need to escape" scenario, that's great and potentially fun, but I'd recommend getting player buy-in in advance rather than springing it on them.
In short, for newbies, I recommend giving them a plain vanilla scenario with pepperoni and sausage pizza. I'd save the bait-and-switch scenario and the anchovies for some later occasion when you know your players and how they'll likely respond to what you want to serve up.
If it were not for the fact that the players are new to the game, my answer would be an unequivocal "No, you're not being mean."
Some of the most memorable and talked about (by happy, satisfied players) intros to campaigns I've run involved run-ins that end in incarceration or slavery.
The way I do it is to run the encounter- whatever its nature- in such a way as to let the PCs strut their stuff before being overwhelmed. It gets the blood pumping, it familiarizes the players with some of the in-play nuances of their characters in combat. That way, even though they end up in the cooler, disarmed and unarmored, they still feel like they've done something.
But new players may not respond that way. How well do you know the players themselves?
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