The cinematic opening

[DanMcS]

I'm planning on starting a one-shot I'll be running thanksgiving weekend with the PCs battling werewolves. Gives me a chance to introduce them to the system, since we're playing MnM and only one of them has played it before.

My ideal, ultimate opening, which I WILL use someday, is to start the game with the PCs rattling down an underground track in a mining cart, make a couple gratuitous die rolls, and then shoot the cart out of the side of a cliff and describe them falling into space...

And then rewind to a couple of days beforehand, and let them play out how they ended up in a mine cart racing down the tracks.

 

[barsoomcore]

It makes such a difference. No more players sitting around, chatting, trying to work themselves up to being ready to play.

You don't have to roll for initiative, either.

I started this season of Barsoom by saying, "So you're riding a triceratops in the middle of a parade in Petrahegna."

Just a startling image or situation will do. Something that they can immediately focus on and start picturing in their head. Some recent session-openers on Barsoom:

"The inn door bursts open and a woman in uniform points her sword at you and says, 'If you ladies and gentlemen will do me the honour of resisting your immediate arrest, I promise you I am well-prepared for such play.'"

"You look up as a the entire cap of the mountain appears to break off and come crumbling down towards you."

(That one got the response, "What mountain?")

It really, really helps.

 

[Mallus]

"So you're riding a triceratops in the middle of a parade in Petrahegna

"The inn door bursts open and a woman in uniform points her sword at you and says, 'If you ladies and gentlemen will do me the honour of resisting your immediate arrest, I promise you I am well-prepared for such play.'"

"You look up as a the entire cap of the mountain appears to break off and come crumbling down towards you."

Barsoom, those are fantastic.

And not just for the gratuitous use of dinosaurs and talkative, sword-wielding women in uniform...

 

[LostSoul]

I love to begin in media res. Much fun.

When I was playing a certain d6 Star Wars campaign, each week I would print up a "Title Crawl" for that session and read it just before the game begun (most of the time with the Star Wars fanfare playing).

I thought the players found it cheesy, but once, when I was going to skip it, they asked me to read it to help them get into the mood.

 

[Kannik]

It works great!

One of the few things about my current campaign that has gone well (don't ask ) was the 'cinematic' opening.

I actually took it a slight step further; at the start none of the characters knew each other, so the whole scene was meant to tie everone's story together in a way to engage them with the storyline. Each player received, just before we began, a one-page 'your last month' story, taking points from their character histories and leading the characters to a single starting location. Once those were all read, I laid out a scene on the table and read the cinematic intro, placing the character's into the scene as I introduced their appearance (Gets over the awkward 'what do you look like' part) and placed their mini on the table. With the confluence of several unrelated events, the characters were all there, and action ensued immediatly... with the hopes of drawing everyone in.

In this case, a combat start worked, but I don't think it needs to be combat per se. }

Kannik

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

My ideal, ultimate opening, which I WILL use someday, is to start the game with the PCs rattling down an underground track in a mining cart, make a couple gratuitous die rolls, and then shoot the cart out of the side of a cliff and describe them falling into space...

And then rewind to a couple of days beforehand, and let them play out how they ended up in a mine cart racing down the tracks.

Piratecat ran a Feng Shui game I played in at a GameDay where we started off in free-fall over San Francisco - without parachutes.

Then we rewound 5 minutes to right before the 747 we were on blew up.

 

[barsoomcore]

Each week I would print up a "Title Crawl" for that session.

Brilliance, in a message board post. Write that one down, kids.

Piratecat ran a Feng Shui game I played in.

Thus I hate you.

I like to write up "Intro scenes" and post them to the Barsoom site before a game night.I say "I like to" but I haven't for some time. Still, it's helpful.

One of the goals is to reduce the barriers to immersion. Anything you can do to accomplish that is good. And the DM has to be the one to set the tone -- it's pretty rare that your players will get MORE engrossed than you are, so you better be engrossed!

 

[Mercule]

Then we rewound 5 minutes to right before the 747 we were on blew up.

Now, that is something I'd love to have the courage to try. I'm afraid that if I did a play/rewind bit, my players would (intentionally or not) avoid doing anything that led them down that path. Period.

 

[DanMcS]

Now, that is something I'd love to have the courage to try. I'm afraid that if I did a play/rewind bit, my players would (intentionally or not) avoid doing anything that led them down that path. Period.

Yeah, you need players you can trust for a rewind to work. That, or put them into a situation where it's unavoidable. That's why I haven't gotten my "mining cart shooting out of a tunnel on a cliff" thing to go yet, I can't exactly make it unavoidable enough, plus my imagined rewind is too long.

Rewinding 5 minutes would be straightforward, though.

Maybe I should run an adventure memento-style, where they start at the climax of the adventure and then rewind scene-by-scene until they reach the inciting incident.

 

[Krug]

Yeah, you need players you can trust for a rewind to work. That, or put them into a situation where it's unavoidable. That's why I haven't gotten my "mining cart shooting out of a tunnel on a cliff" thing to go yet, I can't exactly make it unavoidable enough, plus my imagined rewind is too long.

Rewinding 5 minutes would be straightforward, though.

Maybe I should run an adventure memento-style, where they start at the climax of the adventure and then rewind scene-by-scene until they reach the inciting incident.

Hmm.. well wouldn't some suspense be lost? The characters would know they'd survive into the future...