What are good cataclysmic or immediately compelling events to start a campaign off in a way that immediately gets your party's attention?
Something that avoids the mundane quality of starting them off in a tavern, and giving them a basic fetch/enemy clearing quest, or trying to railroad them to follow a certain path for the purposes of a larger plot? Something that just throws a larger plot at them, and challenges them to deal with it in whatever way they can.
>>47690723
Full scale nuclear war, promptly followed up by a zombie holocaust.
Or simply read Black Easter and The Day After Judgement" by James Blish and see what a combined nuclear assault/satanic armageddon can do to raise a few pulses.
>>47690723
Eruption of a super volcano.
>>47690784
It's good, but I would want a way to fit it into the campaign's larger plot.
Start of a war between the volcanic god, and the god of the sky?
Magically induced eruption to take out a castle full of political figures?
>>47690723
As mediocre as Skyrim may be, the intro does set a bar that's hard to raise.
>>47690723
Take a page from.. Every RPG in existance. The party members all start in a small town. Give them some time to roleplay, to have fun - half an hour, maybe. Then their town gets invaded and burned to the ground by an invading force, they are amongst few survivors.
>>47690815
It's sort of what my inspiration for this thread was. It begins by facing you with a threat too insurmountable to face head-on so you just have to escape and survive. It immediately sets up the conflict of the game, and avoids any feeling of "what's all this about?" that needs resolution later.
>>47690815
As far as Skyrim goes, I actually find that starting the players off as prisoners or slaves is far more valuable than the whole ZOMG DRAGON ATTACK part.
>>47690831
Or pretty much any Elder Scrolls game, where you start out as a prisoner and end up being recruited for a cause you barely understand.
>>47690861
>I actually find that starting the players off as prisoners or slaves is far more valuable than the whole ZOMG DRAGON ATTACK part.
Why?
So the PCs are heading for the local tavern on an autumnal evening, the flickering street lights glinting from the rainsoaked cobblestoned street. The party chattering about their week at work (5e backgrounds could represent their day jobs for example) as well as their adventuring plans for the weekend.
They round the corner, excited to have that first sip of honey mead, to over hear some eldritch rumour or be approached by some merchant for a wagon bodyguard job or goblin cave clearing mission, when to their surprise they see only an empty lot.
There, standing where the tavern once was, the only good tavern in the entire damn region, is a lone figure, scratching their head, confused.
He proceeds to tell them the tale, after spending the early hours of the night shift breaking up bar fights between CE parties and kicking out rangers who refused to buy drinks and instead just sat smoking and waiting to mysteriously hand out quests, the barkeep slipped out the back for a slash.
He turned to see the tavern enveloped in a flash of magical fire, then all of a sudden, the damn thing sprouted massive chicken legs and wandered off, babbling crap about going to complete some fetch quests or something.
Boom
Queue adventure to reclaim the tavern!
![infernal_by_anthonyavon-d562dbf[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/HDluLAS.jpg "infernal_by_anthonyavon-d562dbf[1].jpg")
>>47690723
The party-to-be is heading towards an inn when suddenly a meteor crashes into it. Bonus points if it's an elemental or golem.
>>47690723
New continent found!
Ruins of ancient civilization everywhere bloated with powerful magical artifact, only problem is that there are strong monsters everywhere.
The old continent's kingdoms are rushing because the newfound artifacts may threaten the military balance, adventurer are rushing because it's a promise of wonders fame and wealth, bandits are rushing because everyone else are rushing, so there are lot of people to steal from.
>>47690815
>As mediocre as Skyrim may be
Please tell me any other games that are better than Skyrim so that I can laugh at you.
>>47691638
2013 wants their troll back.
>>47691638
Kingdoms of Amalur, kek
but we are goin' offtopic
>>47691318
I didn't see this coming. Genius
>>47691747
Kek.
>>47691747
You know, it's funny you mentioned kingdoms of Alamo, because if I had to pick a game to hold up as an example of one of the most forgettable openings, that left me with that "what's the big point here?" Feeling, it would be that game. That, and the realization that the map was planned out with the expectation of proceeding methodically across it after clearing each area, with more difficult enemies the farther east you go, rather than with free exploration in mind, was one of the reasons I lost interest.
>>47691638
Oblivion, morrowind, daggerfall, fallout 3, fallout new vegas.
And that's just games from the same studio.
>>47691318
>Queue adventure to reclaim the tavern!
That is absolutely utterly genius, and I applaud you for that. I definitely have to steal that eventually.
After being brought into a coliseum, the party fights monsters and other gladiators until suddenly assassin's appear in an attempt to slay the emperor/king. If the PC's try to save him, they are made free men and agents of the Empire trying to track down the assassin's and their leaders. If they escape, they must find allies and smuggle themselves back to their home country, past the imperial garrisons occupying the front
>>47690723
I started a campaign off with a 9/11 equivelent, but it was a space ship crashing into a massive skyscraper in the biggest assassination of everyone ever.
>>47690723
One campaign I've wanted to run
> Beginning of the first session the party starts off in a beautiful walled city at the foot of a northern mountain range, busily mustering an army to either attack the goblins in the mountains, or a neighboring nation-state, whatever
> The party has an enlisted individually, they don't know each other. All are stationed in a barracks within the city walls, possibly in the same unit
> Perhaps I go on at length about the city and the politics behind the coming war, maybe purposefully being boring earlier will be a good juxtaposition
> either way, early on in the first session, the day before the army marches, night falls and the individually fall asleep in their bunks
> perhaps if one of them had gone to bed late enough, they would have seen the sky filled with birds and other winged animals flying away from the mountains as fast as they could
> they awake in the middle of the night to shouts and screams, some fires and general mayhem
> strange beasts are pouring through the city streets
> the beasts are coming through the northern gates, from the mountains, clambering over the walls if able, some large enough to make holes in the walls themselves
> they move in a wild, haphazard fashion, smashing into stores and each other, falling over, screaming, sometimes attacking passersby or things that get in their way, but just as many are completely ignoring the world around them and it's clear that in general they're mostly trying to do whatever they can to head south
> troops are rallied out of their barracks to deal with this strange threat, either to fight the apparent invaders or put out fires and plug the walls
> there are goblins too, and there are shouts of a surprise goblin invasion but slowly realisation creeps over the soldiers that the goblins are just as panicked and confused as all the other creatures and many have no interest in fighting, and those that do behave like cornered animals
cont.
>>47691814
All Bethesda did was publish new vegas and collect checks, they played no role in developing it.
Also 3 is a terrible game.
>>47691916
Is there more?
>>47691916
> as time passes the invading creatures get weirder and weirder
> early in the night the farms and towns outside the walls were filled with fleeing farm animals, goblins, wolves, and even a few people, which all then poured into the city as the gates and walls were broken by larger beasts from the wild foothills - minotaurs, owlbears, bullettes, giants
> harpies from the mountain tops and small fire-breathing drakes fly over the walls, screeching and flying erratically, many smashing into tower and spires, starting fires and getting caught in the streets
> over time things get weird - strange insectoids, creatures made of rock and blind, eyeless things all rumoured to haunt the mostly unexplored mountains
> illithid are seen feeling on strange flying creatures, hanging on for dear life, southwards with everything else
> the ground erupts in places as hideous cave creatures emerge from old dwarven tunnels that run underneath the city
> these too, like everything, flee for their lives away from the mountains
> at some point someone notices a growing roar in the distance
> the party forms in happenstance amongst the mass confusion, their original orders and squads lost and scattered in the fray
> they fight a series of confused encounters that start and stop seemingly at random
> they'll find themselves drawing an ankylosaurus away from crowded tenaments only to have it then bound past them. Goblins will take wild swings at them and form battle lines only to break and flee as something terrible comes out the end of the street besides them and roars down the other. They'll be saved from creatures far outside their ability by the fortunate arrival of a platoon, only to be separated again as a massive leathery flying creature smashes into the house between them, etc
cont.
>>47692177
> then the crescendo, just as the army leaders start to get the soldiers back in order and sensible plans set out, there is an enormous thundering roar as an entire castle-sized terrasque explodes through the northern wall.
> some brave commander, who'd just rallied the forces is swept aside by a enormous clawed hand
> no one has ever seen a beast this large or this terrifying, a creature rare even in tales
> the beast cuts through the city and it's soldiers like paper. The party does what it can to lead the terrasque away from the populated areas, and the fortified barracks which are quickly filling with refugees
> it doesn't make a beeline for the south like the others, it twists and turns through the city, reacting the fire from the defending troops, and the larger creatures still within the city
> "this is it! this is what they're running from!" yells some leiutenant
> but then, having found themselves facing the great beast in the ruins of some previously stunning palace, the party comes face to face with the huge beast, and realises, just like all the others, that terror fills its eyes
> the panic striken animal then tears out of the city, away from the mountains, out in the night, over the now trampled and ruins fields south of the city
>>47692314
the campaign starts from the next day as the city tries to pick up the pieces and figure out what the fuck just happened. Something terrible is brewing in the mountains. Something happened that was so frightening it scared everything into mindless terror for miles around. Something happened that was so horrifying it awoke the slumbering Terrasque from beneath the mountains and drove it south.
The main plot hook would be the party exploring the mountains to find the source of ruckus, meeting the BBEG and the easy plot happening from there. They could also stay in the city and let some politics happen (the enemy the city was preparing to fight should take advantage of their incredibly weakened state) while the BBEG goes about his business anyway, and see how those two collide. Or the party could go off after the Terrasque and try and stop it or distract it or draw it away from civilised lands but I'd hope they don't go that route as I have no idea what to do with it.
>>47691318
"We cant start our adventure in a tavern like a real band of adventurers if the taverns wandered off! What would all the other bands of misfits out there think!? We need to retrieve it so we can start our adventure properly!"
>>47690723
You are participating in a massacre. The village is in flames. You are all carrying blood-soaked jewellery, torn from the hands of dying villagers.
And then the mind-control helmets stop working.
>>47690723
I started of my players as guards in a barons castle once, immidiately tribal raiders attack it and slaughter everyone after some harsh fighting (this serves as a tutorial for the fighting system aswell). When they are all dead we switch to the real party, one of them is now the heir of said castle through his mother and he and the party must defeat other claimants, survive a civil war thats been raging and win back the castle.
Depending on the party's level, I might start them off in the aftermath of a decisive battle.
>you're all in your tent back at camp, deciding what to do next
>your side lost the battle, badly
>the war itself is effectively over
>enemy army barreling down
>which side did you guys fight for, and why?
> how do you plan to survive this mess?
The sea level has been rising a foot every day for the past X years. No one knows why but every civilization is having to improvise ways in which to live on a (temporary?) water bound world.
That is slow enough that different groups can come up with different plans but fast enough to be an impending disaster. Even if it dealt with by plot and the water recedes, the areas where the water invaded will be effectively wiped clean.
>>47690723
The airship is on fire and falling out of the sky rapidly.
>>47694246
I always like this. Start the players just after a loss or similar failure to give them an immediate need to rectify the situation. Don't wrap up every end in the event so they'll have a reason to keep coming back for more.
Last game I started, I began with the players on the run from a paramilitary force through a skyscraper. Men in suits would sometimes be among the forces, seemingly completely unnoticed by the OpFor, and simply observe the players' progress. Just before the escape, in complete calm, four of them actually made a move to confront the players with just a hint of things being "off" about them, which set up a lot of questions:
What did we get ourselves into?
Does the VIP know more than he's letting on?
Who were the men in suits?
Where do we go from here?
>>47692327
It wasa spooky skeletonwasn't it?
>>47692381
Better. Have them play out attacking a 'goblin camp' and looting the bodies for coins and gems
Then the mind control helmets stop working
>>47690723
I got my party once with 'You all start in the governor's office. He's lying on the floor dead with a knife in his back, and the guards are trying to break the door down.'
>>47696168
Yes.
Bumping for interest
>>47690723
The party's chilling in the tavern and is being told stories by a traveling wizard of his planar travels, when suddenly there's a commotion outside. Everyone's looking at a streak, a line of smoke that follows... Something in the air. By the looks of its arc, it's going to hit somewhere close to the town. The traveling wizard looks at it, wide aghast, saying that it's an Aisibi'em, a destroyer of worlds he witnessed in one of his planar jaunts...
>>47690723
The players are in a slum. All wood, buildings close together. Let the slow shit happen for a minute. Now the slum is on fire. You can't stop it. You can't save everyone and everything. Let them encounter normal city stuff (valuables, innocents, assholes looting) but on fire.
>>47691638
Flappy bird
