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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Edrac on October 17, 2012, 02:41:17 PM

Title: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Edrac on October 17, 2012, 02:41:17 PM
I'm planning a game for my FLGS and I want to start it with a bang so to speak. So I was wondering, what are your coolest Dresden game beginnings?
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Mr. Death on October 17, 2012, 02:56:38 PM
Our first campaign began on the night
(click to show/hide)
Suffice to say, the session quickly had everyone covered in blood and trying to figure out what the hell happened.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Taran on October 17, 2012, 03:06:55 PM
I had the Bear shifter wake up in a public park naked and covered in blood lying beside a half-eaten dog, that was obviously someones family pet.

He quickly gathered his friends to figure out what the hell was going on...once he found a way to get home without any clothes, money or phone...
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Mrmdubois on October 17, 2012, 05:35:35 PM
Quote from: Mr. Death on October 17, 2012, 02:56:38 PM
Our first campaign began on the night
(click to show/hide)
Suffice to say, the session quickly had everyone covered in blood and trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Literal bang then.  That sounds awesome.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Lavecki121 on October 17, 2012, 05:39:35 PM
We almost imediatly had one of our PC's house blow up. Then a gunfight ensued. Causing half of the PC's who were not clued in to almost immediatly become clued in.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: ways and means on October 17, 2012, 05:54:39 PM
We had our pc's literally dragged into a killer dream, and spent the first couple of weeks of the campaign in an environment that could be altered by successful discipline rolls. 
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Mr. Ghostbuster on October 17, 2012, 08:32:20 PM
Quote from: ways and means on October 17, 2012, 05:54:39 PM
We had our pc's literally dragged into a killer dream, and spent the first couple of weeks of the campaign in an environment that could be altered by successful discipline rolls.
Oooooh, that sounds interesting.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: YPU on October 17, 2012, 08:37:27 PM
I have a building I am itching to throw my players of, however this will go hand in hand with a big reveal I want to hold back on for a while. So I hope somebody here comes up with a nice bang start I can use.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Lavecki121 on October 17, 2012, 09:52:30 PM
I think it really depends on what your PC's are doing and who they are. You arent going to have a bunch of homeless people with the one I said. It all depends on the setting and stuff. Especially since most of the people and locations are made by the group.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Addicted2aa on October 17, 2012, 09:56:51 PM
Quote from: YPU on October 17, 2012, 08:37:27 PM
I have a building I am itching to throw my players of, however this will go hand in hand with a big reveal I want to hold back on for a while. So I hope somebody here comes up with a nice bang start I can use.
You want to throw them off a building? Are you using the following rules as written? Cause that's pretty harsh.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: YPU on October 18, 2012, 10:03:35 AM
Quote from: Addicted2aa on October 17, 2012, 09:56:51 PM
You want to throw them off a building? Are you using the following rules as written? Cause that's pretty harsh.
Nah, its going to be a big reveal and shock moment but I'll make sure everybody is stocked up on fate points. I'll be allowing any reasonable explanation as to how they save themselves. Also the building is surrounded by water so should somebody for some reason fail miserably (and a smart GM keeps that in mind, right?) I can still have the actual damage taken be harsh but not lethal.

Actually assuming everybody sticks to their current character concepts I'm sure they will manage. We have a were-cat freerunner princes. We have a wizard with a focus on air, we have a changeling like character who is itching to be able to take wings and a red court infected build to be as damage resistant as he can be. (sound cheesy i know, the player made a cliché combat oriented character then told me he wanted to do backstabbing politics and double agendas, nobody expect that from this kinda guy)

EDIT: scrap that, I kind of am doing it with the rules as written. Just the part that says that falling damage from an attack is part of the attack, not bonus added on top.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Addicted2aa on October 18, 2012, 06:57:09 PM
Quote from: YPU on October 18, 2012, 10:03:35 AM
Nah, its going to be a big reveal and shock moment but I'll make sure everybody is stocked up on fate points. I'll be allowing any reasonable explanation as to how they save themselves. Also the building is surrounded by water so should somebody for some reason fail miserably (and a smart GM keeps that in mind, right?) I can still have the actual damage taken be harsh but not lethal.

Actually assuming everybody sticks to their current character concepts I'm sure they will manage. We have a were-cat freerunner princes. We have a wizard with a focus on air, we have a changeling like character who is itching to be able to take wings and a red court infected build to be as damage resistant as he can be. (sound cheesy i know, the player made a cliché combat oriented character then told me he wanted to do backstabbing politics and double agendas, nobody expect that from this kinda guy)

EDIT: scrap that, I kind of am doing it with the rules as written. Just the part that says that falling damage from an attack is part of the attack, not bonus added on top.
Sounds like you got it covered. Tale of woe from my end though, I was running a Song of Ice and Fire RPG session and one of my players took a poison that killed him almost instantly. I wasn't worried, because the game has a benny system that lets you avoid certain death if you want to spend a benny. So I'm waiting for him to describe how he survives and he's just like "Nah f it. Good time for him to die."
It was the highlight of the game, but still threw all my plans to shreds and really slowed the next few sessions down, and ground the game to a halt. Anyway, post the report on how it goes. That sounds like a really cool scene
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: YPU on October 18, 2012, 11:07:36 PM
Quote from: Addicted2aa on October 18, 2012, 06:57:09 PM
Sounds like you got it covered. Tale of woe from my end though, I was running a Song of Ice and Fire RPG session and one of my players took a poison that killed him almost instantly. I wasn't worried, because the game has a benny system that lets you avoid certain death if you want to spend a benny. So I'm waiting for him to describe how he survives and he's just like "Nah f it. Good time for him to die."
It was the highlight of the game, but still threw all my plans to shreds and really slowed the next few sessions down, and ground the game to a halt. Anyway, post the report on how it goes. That sounds like a really cool scene

To be honest I see one particular player of my group pulling something like that, but as things stand he wont be joining in for a while yet so perhaps I should have this scene pop up before he comes around. As to your story, actually that sounds like something that would happen in a song of ice and fire, but I can see how something like that would completely screw with your plans. Anyhow I have been discussing city creation for a long time now with my players and this weekend we will finally get around to putting it all down. I might very well write a report of it here as well as discus my plans for the future.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: fantazero on October 19, 2012, 02:20:05 AM
You start off Robbing a Bank
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Wyrdrune on November 29, 2012, 01:33:26 PM
our second campaign started with the autumn court (in our game world a fae court centered around the lady of the lake from arthurian legend) claiming a young boy as new champion/knight. knowing this might be a cruel life for the kid the characters intervened. end the end - after some trials - they struck a bargain - the boy will be their champion when he has reached adulthood and one of the player characters will prepare him.

one of the trials was to present the court with a "sword for a hero". (in the first campaign the group has gotten hold of the fourth sword of the cross (there are pictures with jesus nailed to it with four nails, I used that to get a sword free of harry's story). they had lying it around, waiting for a sign who would be a new wielder for the sword, but nothing happened. so they took this as a sign and so they handed it to them and the lady of the court - i think you would have guessed it - stuck it into a stone.)

for them it was pretty awesome and an interesting start into the campaign because they were at the heart of a fae court for the first time and it was something completely different from what we did in the first campagin.

but the nice thing is, later it came all full circle in the end of the campaign. during the progress of the stories a close friend (NPC) was transformed into a hellish killer monster, and the group went any length to find a cure (they even got to the library on the icy wastes of leng, where they learned that that only a weapon like the sword of the cross can kill that creature, no cure possible). just the night before they planned to travel to avalon - the seat of the autumn court - another character, a wizard of the white council, was betrayed and abducted by his teacher who wanted to sacrifice the char to an outsider in exchange for immortality (he had planned this for years since he noticed that his apprentice's blood has certain properties). so the group broke into the castle ruin where the ritual was taking place and tried to safe their friend. they burned his mentor to ashes, but the character was as good as dead, bled out. just as they left, they noticed a barge in the water trench around the castle. in it was the lady of the autumn court, saying that avalon "desperately needs heroes". the island was under siege of the thuata de danann (who are possibly the spring court in my game world) and a new bargain was struck - the life of the young wizard and the sword and they will help in the defence of the island. from all present persons only the least likely - a crossroads demon from hell - was able to pull the sword out of the stone. they managed to end the siege by tricking the attackers into a contract that made the war into a sports event. in the last story the demon uses the sword to bring salvation to their friend an act that will ultimately make her the new knight of the sword.

the whole campaign is here (sorry, it's in German, but this is the language of my RPG-group): http://www.worldofmagic.at/wiki/index.php?title=Wizard_for_Hire_Season_2
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Blechpirat on November 30, 2012, 05:45:36 PM
My Campaign startet in modern day Berlin, where the heros suddenly had to deal with WWII Soldiers, both german and soviet, fighting the Battle for Berlin again...
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Mr. Death on August 02, 2013, 05:03:23 PM
So, I think last night I started with the biggest bangs we've managed yet.

Some backstory: The game's set in LA, and the players have been put up against an alliance of the Black Court (run by an Elder souped up with an Outsider Sponsor) and a rogue court of Faeries. They've stopped three or four schemes, usually involving trying to revive the Red Court (who had been a third prong of the alliance before Dresden exploded them). Additionally, they've made significant headway in identifying the enemies, and it's been made personal on both sides.

So last night, starting a new scenario, I lowered the boom on them with simultaneous assassination attempts. I tell you, the players' reactions when I said the first thing I was doing was making 7 fate points' worth of compels between the three main PCs was worth the price of admission alone.

One player, playing a blind mage who sees auras, I had set up in the previous downtime scenario that she was regularly receiving packages and letters from an NPC that she had to step outside and sign for. After several weeks of this, I start the scene describing the same thing--only to compel the blindness and have the courier be a gunman, who hits her from ambush. Some magic armor saves her from further injury, but she ends up with a gunshot wound (Severe consequence, the first a player's taken so far). Of course, it turns out attacking a wizard on her own doorstep is a bad idea, so the gunman is struck by the wards (earning a Severe consequence of his own) and runs off scared shitless.

The second character, a mortal cop who has a Denarian's shadow in his head, is the target of a minor entropy curse--someone screwing with traffic while he's crossing the street. He narrowly manages to escape injury (and save his ex-wife and kid, who'd gotten caught in the crossfire).

The third character is an overpowered Wizard on the Dresden template, who has among her aspects a terrifying reputation, and has made the fight the most personal. As such, she warranted overdoing it--a lowercase 'd' dragon, flanked by giant bugs I ripped off from Scyther and Beedrill. The hilarious part? When I flat out told the players in the previous scenario that the rogue faeries had a dragon on their side, they assumed the NPC was speaking metaphorically.

The dragon and his cohorts, it turns out, are very much prepared for the wizard--the dragon's first action is specifically to take care of a 7-shift shield item the wizard's been relying on for defense, which leads to the bees poisoning her--with a special poison forcing an Endurance check equal to half the power of any spell she throws.

They knock her out of the sky, and onto a speeding semi on a major highway, where she proceeds to take a Severe mental consequence in order to go nuclear--she throws out a 16-shift spell (12 power, +2 to make it a zone attack, +2 to exclude herself from it), and dumps every fate point I'd given her (6) to roll it at 19. Needless to say, it's super effective against the mantis and the bees...but the dragon is immune to fire. And, it turns out, the truck she was standing on was not, so it derails and throws her for a loop, giving the dragon an opening to knock her out and capture her--making it the first time one of the PCs has outright lost a fight. And said player was excited about it, noting that it feels more Dresdeny if the wizard gets her ass kicked once in a while.

We cut to the cop, who's in the hospital (the ex-wife sustained some injuries). Where his boss comes in and tells him that the blind wizard (who's dating the cop) was brought in with a gunshot wound, and another ex-PC (player had to quit for life reasons) was found in her apartment beaten to within an inch of her life. Then he finds out the GMPC was captured, and the nuclear wizard is MIA (only clue being some grainy footage on the news of her exploding).

So, the pure mortal is the only PC who isn't injured, half the party is MIA, and it's clear that the badguys are making their move. The pure mortal is seriously considering taking up the coin to even have a fighting chance, and I am stoked for the next few weeks' sessions.

And then in our OOC chat, things went off the rails when another PC, playing a pixie, decided because his character was the only one who wasn't viciously attacked, and because the attacks were all tailored to the PCs, said pixie was the prime suspect.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Dr.FunLove on August 02, 2013, 11:05:33 PM
That sounds like a hell of an opening to a new chapter Death. It was a new chapter right? Sounds like the game has been going on for a while. Keep us all up to date on what happens next!
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Cadd on August 03, 2013, 07:34:26 AM
My story opened with the two PC's meeting over coffee at a cafe to talk over the weird sh*t that had happened to them the week before (one of the First Story/Guest Starring phases), and just so happens to become witnesses to the robbery of a goldsmith. By dead people! That night, one of them gets press ganged into service to Cerberus and it all just sorta gets more complicated from there :p
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Mr. Death on August 03, 2013, 02:57:48 PM
Quote from: Dr.FunLove on August 02, 2013, 11:05:33 PM
That sounds like a hell of an opening to a new chapter Death. It was a new chapter right? Sounds like the game has been going on for a while. Keep us all up to date on what happens next!
Yeah, it was a new scenario for a game that's been going on for a couple years now.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Taran on August 04, 2013, 03:28:50 PM
I thought this was pretty cool.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,38321.0.html

One of the PC's is a time traveller so I'm running the time-line in reverse.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: fantazero on August 06, 2013, 03:08:45 PM
Doing a Roll20 online game using Dresden.
A Suicide Bomber tries to kill the President. Wizard stops him (traps him in a Earth Shield), Warden sees that and basically goes "Well, some suicide bombers don't die, but you killed that dude using magic, you're on the list (didn't make the player take a Lawbreaker stunt, but I like the idea of a lot of Lawbreaking is in the eye of the beholder)
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: PatchR on August 06, 2013, 03:42:32 PM
....that sounds... messy.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Ulfgeir on August 06, 2013, 05:46:20 PM
We started the campaign I am playing in the following way: All the characters were students at the Boston university.

First every character got some screen-time of their own were we introduced their private lives. My character (focused practitioner with specialization in divination) who worked parttime at a theatre as an actress had some stuff there as the old director had quit, and a rather spoiled kid wanted to take over. He was of course a worthless actor as well. The Werewolf worked as the bouncer at the local student pub, the Emmissary of Power (belongs to Ferrovax) worked as the bartender. They had a small scene where some underage girls were visiting and some guys managed to get them drunk. The activist worked at a political event for the Obama re-election, and the rather clueless genie helped her out. I can't remember what the changeling prince and the journalist were doing. I think the Changeling was on a date/one-night-stand...

Then we started getting into the supernatural, as my character were woken up from a rather bad nightmare (beings trying to push their way into our reality) by her roommate who had tried waking her up for over 10 minutes. The activist who lived in the same dorm came in to check what had happened, and found that my character was bleeding from the eyes due to the nightmare. She called an ambulance, exaggerating and saying it was blood everywhere. (Let's just say that delicate medical equipment in an ambulance and a rather upset magic-user, who is frightened out of her mind, was not a good combination).

Then fast-forward a few days and everyone one was at a halloween-party at the student bar. The activist came as Little Red Riding Hood, carrying a huge sword that the Genie had gotten her. The werewolf bouncer who didn't like her of cource confiscated said sword. my character who is the typical goth girl came dressed up as a sexy vampiress. The morning after, my character has a new nightmare, and is again bleeding from the eyes. This time it was worse... The werewolf and the dragon emmissary were out for their morning jog, when they come across a murder-scene. Two students had been killed and hanged up in a old sacrificial tree near the library. The cops were already there. As they are about to leave, the activist makes her way home to the dorm (with the sword of course), and she goes past the murder-scene. She of course acts uppity against the cops, and they decide to bring her in for some questioning...

Later we all start to investigate as the leader of the wiccan sorority is missing. The two gitls that had been killed before had been members of the same sorority, and it turned out that there had been some weird stuff happening earlier on involving that sorority.

/Ulfgeir
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: finnmckool on August 29, 2013, 07:06:47 PM
My game was set in my small city of a hometown of Lexington Ky.

Four words. Big troll. Small bridge.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: InFerrumVeritas on August 31, 2013, 01:20:43 PM
All of our PCs (except one) were independently hired to steal the same thing from a museum.  It was a set up, sicking the wild hunt on them.

We actually started in media res, the day after the heist, with the one PC investigating the break in as the others kept running.  So she was chasing after them too, but in a very different way.
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: blackstaff67 on August 31, 2013, 08:31:58 PM
Quote from: fantazero on August 06, 2013, 03:08:45 PM
Doing a Roll20 online game using Dresden.
A Suicide Bomber tries to kill the President. Wizard stops him (traps him in a Earth Shield), Warden sees that and basically goes "Well, some suicide bombers don't die, but you killed that dude using magic, you're on the list (didn't make the player take a Lawbreaker stunt, but I like the idea of a lot of Lawbreaking is in the eye of the beholder)
I would soooo challenge that Warden:  "He nuked himself, I didn't use any magic to press that button or force him to even push it.  Mangez moi."
 
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: fantazero on September 01, 2013, 01:41:06 AM
Quote from: blackstaff67 on August 31, 2013, 08:31:58 PM
I would soooo challenge that Warden:  "He nuked himself, I didn't use any magic to press that button or force him to even push it.  Mangez moi."
 
you mean "in character" or out of character?
In Character, oh yeah, it's been a "sticking point" between those two* Basically one of the Wardens Aspects is "Everybody gets one" and that, in the slanted view of our Warden was "One" next time, it's head chopping time.

Out of character
The Player understood that basically I was painting the Grey Warden as a SOB.

*Recently the Warden was about to cut off a dude who was legit guilty of law breaking. The problem was the PCs needed to talk to that character. So they were able to convince the Warden to not cut his head off for 10 minutes so they could talk to him. The Warden shot the Law breaker in the gut, as a "Just in case". So soul gazing with a dying man was a mental marathon for our Wizard
Title: Re: start it off with a bang! (your coolest campaign beginnings)
Post by: Lanodantheon on September 01, 2013, 05:03:20 AM
My group rotates GMs. Most GMs write-out their characters through "They're off training" "Getting inducted into a secret society" or "In Disney Land Paris as a cover for further Venatori Training".


One fateful session (http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/the-emerald-city/adventure-log/the-cauldron-of-murder-1) our GM decided to write out his Wizard Character by having a Potion over-dosing Hulk-like guy bounce him off a car. The session went well from there...