Starting a Campaign in media res?

[MonsterMash]

I started my last campaign as GM with the characters as guards on a caravan which was attacked by hobgoblins. Went pretty well though I found that I'd slightly overpowered the hobgobs (it was my first 3.5 session as DM) and had to do a bit of fudging to avoid a TPK, but apart from that it gave them an immediate mission to recover a stolen item and was pretty good to run.

 

[Von Ether]

I've often been curious how in media res isn't the exact same thing as railroading from the players' perspectives--?

The biggest difference is setting up expectations, starting conditions and organization. If we combine S'mon's example with my experiences we'd get something like "Everyone make up a futuristic character. You're all on the Planet X." Some GM's wouldn't even go that far and have to pull them from all over the glaxay. Then the GM would find some way to shoe horn the disparte PCs into signing on for merc duty, including the anarchist hacker who'se got a wheelchair.

Or the GM can say "We're playing a action/adventure military SF game and you're in a merc company." If you start them off defending the ridge and tell them evac is on the way, most player will go for the ride.

Ironically, the only player I had who balked at starting off the game in the breifing room of a superspy game later on went to do his own media res by starting everyone on a mission for a fantasy military game.

 

[The_Gneech]

I'm going to start my new Star Wars game that way on Saturday. The adventure begins with the party in a pair of Y-Wing fighters, scouting a supposedly-deserted system, when an Imperial stealth cruiser decloaks behind them and opens fire.

Assuming they survive, it should make for an engaging start!

In a previous SW campaign I ran, I became famous for my adventures having an "Oh ****!" opening -- which the players loved.

-The Gneech

 

[Ryltar]

I think I got that term right.

*nitpick* Actually, it's "in medias res", in the middle of things .

On topic: I've found it to be a great way to get the PCs immersed in the action right from the get-go. However, I'd only use this with an experienced group of players. If the PCs have to fight their first-ever battle, right in the beginning when they maybe aren't yet wholly "in character", things might turn ugly really quick - PC deaths are more likely, I think, in a combat right at the beginning of a session than in the middle of it.

 

[The_Universe]

Make sure, if you do this that either 1) a description of the entire situation the characters find themselves in is unnecessary or 2) you provide a very full description of the situation the characters find themselves in.

I began one of my favorite Star Wars campaigns a number of years ago in the middle of a starfighter battle, just as the enemy squadron was breaking formation to engage the PCs (who also found themselves in starfighters). A few of them "died" during the battle, and it was revealed to them (in another room) that it was just a practice sim against a more experienced squadron.

It worked pretty well because the bait and switch was harmless, and it still demanded that they react to what appeared to be a high risk situation quickly, and as a team. Further, the starfighter aspect of Star Wars is relatively familiar to most people, so I didn't need to exhaustively describe the type of action, the ships, etc. I was able to say that there were "TIE fighters coming in on vector (insert random numbers), your proximity alarms are blasting in your ears - roll initiative!"

 

[jrients]

My plan is use in media res for every session of my next campaign. Every session will begin with a fight or occasionally a chase or some other action sequence. "Roll for initiative" will be the first thing I say every time we start play. I plan on using some of the opening fights like violent hors d'oevres (did I spell that right?) but others will contain plot snippets embedded in them. Like the bandits fought at the beginning of the campaign are part of the big bad wizard's troops.

 

[The Shaman]

Forget in media res...

Has anyone started a game in flagrante delicto?

 

[BJP]

When "I, Tyrant" was released and I was going through the beholder stage of my life, I planned out the idea for a campaign based around a new beholder city that had located near established settlements - similar to the accompanying modules for that series, but on a much larger scale.

The campaign was going to start with a beholder invasion of the players' city. They start hunkered down in trenches as they first spheres appear out of the early-morning mist... Yup, 1st level characters against beholders and beholder-kin (albeit with a few thousand NPC soldiers to add to the excitement). Think of eye-rays scything out of the mist, panic and screeming all around - I had WWI images in my mind whilst thinking of it all.

So the players get some prepared defences (nets, archers, pits to hide in to surprise the beholders from underneath), but after that they're on their own. There's a few problems with this approach (mainly the fact that you have to be somewhat protectionist of the players, but then again that's what the meat-shields - urgh, sorry, NPC soldiers - are there for), but the images this idea brings into my head still make me think this is a great idea. Street-to-street fighting with beholders - yum!

Never thought it all the way through though and consequently never played it, so it's probably chock full of loop-holes.

 

[Wraith Form]

Forget in media res...

Has anyone started a game in flagrante delicto?

Uh....eeeeeeeeeeew.

I guess I'm concerned that if I start players in the midst of a battle, they'll turn to me and say, "How did we get in this fight? We would have posted sentries if we'd been given the chance, and I would have cast ( ____insert spell here___ ) if I'd been given the chance, and..." etc etc.

Thus my question about railroading--doesn't it take some of the control out of the hands of the players to throw them in the middle of events, when possibly if they were in control then the events might have transpired differently?

(I don't DM much at all so pardon my ignorance.)

 

[Pants]

Thus my question about railroading--doesn't it take some of the control out of the hands of the players to throw them in the middle of events, when possibly if they were in control then the events might have transpired differently?

In my example, before we acually started play (and char gen) I was planning on telling them 'Make up characters that have a reason to be in the military.' They'd be low-level grunts and thus wouldn't have a chance to really make any real changes to events other than some dead enemies. It wouldn't be until their Captain bit it in the first few minutes of play that they'd really get a chance to affect the outcome.

Is that a little railroading? Possibly, but all campaign setups are to some degree.