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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaldfont" data-source="post: 80465" data-attributes="member: 1472">In Media Res, et al.I love playing around with these kind of things to add spice to a game.  The music idea is a cool one that I just might steal <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />1) There is a dramatic tool named "in media res" (latin for in the middle of things) that is used in just about every action movie.  Starting a game in the middle of a fight is a pretty fun thing to do.  I did this once for a swashbuckling pirate game--started right off in the middle of a fight between two different pirate ships fighting each other suddenly being attacked by sahuagin in the middle of a gale force storm.I am actually going to kick this method up a notch in my next session by starting players off after they have been fighting a running battle for two days.  I am going to take away hp, spells, items and such like they have just been pounded over the last 36 hours and then hit them with a climactic last defense fight--right at the beginning of the session!2) Start a campaign for a few sessions to set the tone and then hand off DMing to one of the players.  Have each player "guest DM" for a session.  I did this for one campaign and I was amazed at what the other players did with some of my plot lines--things I never thought of! Plus, the players will try to out-do each other and the game will be great.3) Do stuff you never do.  This throws players off balance and makes them think.  If all of your dungeons are symmetrical (I have this problem), joke about it for a few sessions.  Actually hide secret rooms that are easily found if you assume the map is symmetrical.  Once you have lulled the players into this line of thinking, use it against them.4) In a new campaign, kill all the PCs off in the first session and then give them weaker PCs to continue. TSR did this in a Vecna module and it was awesome.  Really powerful wizards were wiped out in a handful of rounds in the first encounter.  Then, their apprentices and minions had to pick up from there.  I still remember the looks on the faces of my players that day I tell you.5) Have the PCs find the journal of a group of adventurers.  Read sections of the journal to set up encounters and then let the PCs play the adventurers.  This is a cool way to introduce secrets and plots into the game.  I had my PCs find a journal on the body of a dead man who was one of a group of paladin brothers who went on a doomed mission to investigate the rising evil in a nearby city.  I had the players play the paladins to the glorious final battle and along the way, the regular PCs learned more about the source of the evil and how to fight it.</blockquote>

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