So i gotta game that's like ghost busters, Indiana Jones and the office rolled into one. I need a good first episode.

Should i introduce any major characters? Start the arc with drama or let them go on something routine to allow party dynamic to develop or to lull them into a false sense of routine before the shoe drops?

Political intrigue, treasure hunting and force mysticism all food for plot!

Somewhat similar in makeup, it sounds, to my Raiders of the Lost Jedi campaign. First mini-session was basically a dungeon crawl. Next session was a basic “fight off monsters” setup. I used those sessions to get a feel for the characters and their chemistry together, and also let them start thinking, “So this is what this is campaign is going to be about.”

Next session, they stumbled across the secret organization that is now their ongoing nemesis, and the real over-arcing story.

I like to start small and local, something apparently innocuous (eg: return the stowaway girl to her parents) that leads to larger things (dad is a lawyer, mixed up in gang stuff, worried about what the girl might have told)...

To hit that Indiana Jones vibe you should start in medias res . The group is in the middle of a caper. Get the players spending Story Points as they react, 'just like we planned.' Whether they succeed or not, clues to the larger plot are revealed.

3 hours ago, O the Owl said:

To hit that Indiana Jones vibe you should start in medias res . The group is in the middle of a caper. Get the players spending Story Points as they react, 'just like we planned.' Whether they succeed or not, clues to the larger plot are revealed.

This is how FFG suggests you start, and how the beginner sets begin.. I say go for it, for the first session, if you can. I would still wait a couple sessions before introducing any major characters. You want to make the campaign's start memorable, but not impossible to top.

A friend.. may have introduced 2 Knights of Ren (yes. You read that correctly. Two) in the climax of the first session with his six year old.. and then had to hear his son blather about the "two knights of ren" for the next year or so. One knight of ren? No fear. Three knights of ren? Impossible. Two knights of ren? Just right. As it should be. It was like I.. I mean my friend.. inadvertently created his own rule of two.

I've been going all 3-act structure lately.

So Session 1 is usually

1. Introduction of setting, situation, and characters, through the crawl and a small encounter establishing the players as "the good guys"
2. An inciting incident/call to action that sets up the adventure.
3. A downbeat with another small encounter and chance for the players to attempt to opt out of the greater adventure, or at least discuss it, or otherwise place a "what now" roadblock in the path.
4. An event or short series of events that firmly cements the players path on the adventure.

Comparisons:

Star Wars ANH:

1. Introduction : Crawl, Droids and Leia on Tantive/Junland Wastes, Luke Buys Droids
2. Inciting Incident: R2 Runs off, we meet Obi-wan and see the full "You're my only hope" message
3. Chance for the players to attempt to opt out of the greater adventure: Learn what a Jedi is, "you must come with me to Alderaan"
4. Cements the players path on the adventure: Burning Sandcrawler, Burning Lars Homestead, Hire Han and blast your way out of Mos Eisley.

Raiders of the Lost Ark:

1. Introduction : Indy recovers the Idol and loses it to Dr. Octopus and Belloch, escapes.
2. Inciting Incident: Feds show up at university, want Indy to track down headpiece and attempt to beat Nazi's to the Ark.
3. Chance for the players to attempt to opt out of the greater adventure: Introduce Marion, Abner's dead, Marion won't give/sell the headpiece.
4. Cement the players path on the adventure: Toht and goons arrive, bar burns down, "I'm your G-D partner!"

To be too picky,

That's not what en media res is. And yes you DID misspell it.

What you are describing is called "Cutting to the chase" or "Dropping straight to the action." THAT works for an RPG.

En media res is a PAIN to pull off in an RPG. Indeed it's almost impossible.

If you really want to understand the concept of en media res, go check out any episode of Flashpoint. And in an RPG you DON'T start the characters in the middle of the climax. Cliffhanger, sure. Climax no.

YES it IS my quest to have this group define En Media Res ! correctly!

Other than that I don't have anything else to add. Carry on.

I believe both the spelling and definition are being used correctly in this thread, by any sort of modern standard. Please elaborate, and cite your "middle of the climax" source. Whichever way you elect to spell it, it translates as " in the midst/ middle of things."

1- I like to keep the first session simple with newer players. Clear goals. More experienced gamers, I can be more elaborate with the first session.

2- En Media Res is completely doable in an rpg, even starting at the climax and working the how and why into the narrative through flashbacks or even dialogue. I'v very successfully pulled it off many times. The obstacle there is that you have to really know your players, their characters, and their character's motivation, AND (more importantly) they have to really trust your storytelling abilities.

The narrative technique of beginning in medias res is pretty common in popular storytelling, with examples going back to Shakespere. And I think it could be a great way to start an adventure or campaign. One may even use a flashback a bit later in the session, or have the second session begin with a flashback. If your group has just finished an adventure with a more standard narrative order this could help to set a different tone for the new story.

And, again, there has to be a good amount of trust in the relationship between the players and the GM. You have to know if your audience can handle that particular method of storytelling.

In my experience, which goes all the way back to 2nd edition AD&D, some groups can handle it, and some can't.

On 9/23/2018 at 10:28 AM, Edgehawk said:

I believe both the spelling and definition are being used correctly in this thread, by any sort of modern standard. Please elaborate, and cite your "middle of the climax" source. Whichever way you elect to spell it, it translates as " in the midst/ middle of things."

Okay I may be wrong! (About the climax). But otherwise, read and learn;

I was originally introduced to this term as a product of a Film School which indicated a very specific usage as associated with the Climax . En Media Res is a specific type of "Flashback." To use en media res, you would put the story in the middle of a conflict and then yank the reader(viewer) backward in time to a point BEFORE the initial material (Not necessarily the climax that Flashpoint did so well).

The term En Media Res comes from Latin which translates to English as "In the middle." IN media res is Latin for "In the central business" which does not sound like a creative device. (Google Translate).

Flashbacks (of any kind) are a very difficult device to pull off, even for a good writer of a written story or a movie. And messing with the continuity of time for an RPG doesn't make sense. For a first time GM, I'd recommend against any kind of flashback. For goodness sake, I'd never try to mess with that as a GM. What a brilliant way to confuse your player. Can you imagine? "Wait, so we're now in the planning meeting before the battle that we were just in? How did we get here? Is this a Star Wars RPG or a Dr Who RPG? BTW, I need a Bazooka for that fight for the unexpected BBEG that showed up before we came back here?!?!?"

Okay I've educated you with the truth. Do with it what you will

As for OP advice:

Grab a bunch of Storm Troopers, set the team in an outer rim colony, and have them engage in a running fight to an awaiting starship. Drop 'em in the middle of the excitement. Then you can move into exposition once the adrenaline wears off.

Fair enough. I don't think anyone is really advocating for introducing flashbacks as an extensive plot device.

For us non-film school students, en media res & in media res are different spellings of the same thing (in current dictionaries and encyclopedias).

I do think an adventure can begin in the middle of things, with the GM and PCs filling in and fleshing out a lot of the background, as they play.

Thank you for the mature response. Reading my own post again, it could have been interpreted as confrontational, when really I was just genuinely curious.

Still as GM's we're all just as important story writers as any film maker or novelist and we borrow many of the same tropes.

Some devices work well in certain media and others work poorly in every media. (Holes used flashbacks effectively, but that was written by a 20 year writing veteran).

And yes, I have latched onto the quest of educating and advocating for the correct usage of "En Media Res" with Don Quixote persistence, but by golly this is MY windmill!

40 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

Still as GM's we're all just as important story writers as any film maker or novelist and we borrow many of the same tropes.

Some devices work well in certain media and others work poorly in every media. (Holes used flashbacks effectively, but that was written by a 20 year writing veteran).

And yes, I have latched onto the quest of educating and advocating for the correct usage of "En Media Res" with Don Quixote persistence, but by golly this is MY windmill!

One key point, however, is if you look at the movies, they pretty much all started "in the middle of things", no flashbacks needed.

Often, Destiny point flips act as small rewrites of the story or fill in backstory, like accounting for gear that wasn't expressly mentioned or creating a relationship with a NPC to facilitate the players goals - or even just make a scene more interesting. Is it that much of a leap to further complicate the narrative structure in interesting ways?

I have used flashbacks successfully. I have played an adventure that took place in the past of a previous game. I am running a campaign now in which each player has a contemporary character and a second character that exists a thousand years in the past. I have even brought players back to the beginning of a scene, presenting the previous happening as a vision of a possible future.

I do agree that these sorts of narrative structures (gambits?) require the trust of your players, but that is at the core of RPGs anyway. We sit down together to have fun, and for me part of the fun often involves surprising my friends with novel changes to structure of the story we are making up together.

Film school or no film school, it can be done. Heck even one of FFG's own adventures uses that very concept. Under a Black Sun starts out with the team in the midst of a speeder chase as they just ripped off some payday from a Black Sun location. No flashbacks, the group is simply told, yesterday you were hired by the Pyke Syndicate to get this info, and boom, here you are.

Thanks whispering skull, but you're not describing En Media Res. You're still describing "Dropping into the action" or "Cutting to the chase."

On 9/15/2018 at 4:52 PM, TheShard said:

So i gotta game that's like ghost busters, Indiana Jones and the office rolled into one. I need a good first episode.

Should i introduce any major characters? Start the arc with drama or let them go on something routine to allow party dynamic to develop or to lull them into a false sense of routine before the shoe drops?

Political intrigue, treasure hunting and force mysticism all food for plot!

Have you tried porting over the Force & Destiny Beginner Set?

3 hours ago, Mark Caliber said:

Thanks whispering skull, but you're not describing En Media Res. You're still describing "Dropping into the action" or "Cutting to the chase."

They sound the same to me. Just one has more background details maybe. Or would require some planning on the GM's part. We're not talking Pulp Fiction or anything. I still say it can be done.

So, it seems that the first mention of in mediās rēs goes all the way back to Horace in his Ars poetica , circa 13 BCE. Man, those ancient Romans would surely be proud that they are still influencing internet messageboard discussions ~2032 years later.

Now I'm itching for an Odysseus-style adventure that begins with the characters imprisoned, and telling the story through flashbacks to their earlier exploits. Then the in the last sessions of the campaign the characters make their escape, encountering the npcs and themes from earlier adventures.