[UA] In media res

[Will]

wild at park.net a écrit :
> 
> We've been discussing the technique of 'in media res' recently - starting the
> game in the middle of the action.  One of the points raised by one of my
> players was that when it happens to James Bond whilst the _audience_ are
> dropped straight into the action, Bond isn't.  He's gone through whatever has
> taken him to the point where the audience join him.

Well, they are dropped into the action, and you aren't... :)

I think this is easier for one-shots, when you can have a perfect reason to
have them start in media res. With a campaign it can be a little more painful
(except the introduction scenario for obvious reasons).

> 1.  I could do the "you all wake up somewhere different to where you went to
> sleep" - my players will accept the small amount of flange to get them into
> the action.  However, I'm not particularly happy with that as a starting
> point - it feels more of a jailbreak than an action movie.

A french game (yes, again :) called Reve de Dragon dealt with dreams. There was
something called "grey dreaming", which basically corresponded to a blurry
state. At the end of a scenario, characters would enter this "grey dreaming"
state, and start the next scenario out of it, having only blurry recollections
of what happened.

Basically you have 2 possibilities: with or without a blackout. The situation
described above is with a blackout. This is the easiest one. Other examples
include the famous beginning of The Amber Chronicles, and any other saga which
deals with amnesia. Another possibilities is to use drugs, or abduction. This
technique is used quite often in movies (you're knocked senseless, when you
wake up...). It clearly leads mainly to scenarios in which players first
have to a) figure things out and b) escape.

> 2.  [This being UA, after all] Some strange magics have drawn them all
> together at a catastrophic moment - there's a threat to a significant part of
> the Invisible Clergy and the characters have been manipulated unsubtly into
> being in the right place at the right time.

This is the Bill Toges' effect, I guess. You can refine it a little bit, again
using an idea from Reve de Dragon: in this game magicians could summon some
creatures from other "dreams". In one scenario, the characters are these
summoned creatures. What the spellcaster had in mind was "bring here whatever
is necessary to get me/us out of this situation" and he got the characters :)
Maybe someone in the OU got a copy of a very ancient ritual which has the
same effect. And guess who he needs? :)

Another way to pull this out is to force the players into it. Basically you
can try to corner them, and then there is a way to escape, but they don't
know where it leads... and the good thing is that it leads where you want it
to. This is used quite often in Feng Shui. Check also a novel by Dick in
which they discover an alternate Earth, and then don't know what to expect...

For good examples of how this stunt can be used, you can watch a few episodes
of this TV series in which a guy is sent into someone else body to try to
sort things out. Can't remember the name, and it wouldn't help much since it
was probably changed between the US and french version. Anyway, since this is
without blackout, you can "teleport" the chars into the most surprising
situations, and also _from_ the most surprising situations: you were in your
bathtub...

> 3.  They're in someone's head ... astral projection (can it be involuntary)
> has pulled them into someone else's mind - kind of like the Dream Warriors
> books by Graham Masterton (of which the first was okay and the rest were not,
> IMO.)

This is a bit more complicated since it implies a big change in the way the
UA-verse works. Yet another french game sent the chars (some shrinks)
into the head of someone, and they had to try to cure him from his madness
and/or delusions... You could probably mix that with ideas from the movie
The Cell to use this to the best effect.

Another idea: a friend of mine decided that we were more likely to be
attentive to what happened if we started right away with a good action-packed
situation. For ex. they start in a car, obviously during a chase. Give them
minimal information, such as "you have to get hold of the guy in this blue
car". If the driver asks a silly question such as "but why?", ask him to
roll under his Drive skill with a malus, while saying "while you were thinking
about that, you didn't notice this car/pedestrian/...". When it is finished,
stop everything, make a pause, and then proceed to what happened before this
scene. Then resume. This is used quite often in movies, but the goal of this
opening scene has to be very clear (1 sentence).

Yet another possibility, but it depends on your campaign. One player (usually
one who assumes a role of leader or something) knows, and the others don't.
The leader can be a NPC. The players would have no clue what's going on in the
beginning, and normally you should arrange things so that they don't have time
to ask. Something quite similar used in movies is to give the players a basic
target and it leads them to another assignment. Alternately they just are in
the middle of something and the first thing they know, someone is shouting
"Retreat" or whispering "Mission cancelled" in their headphones...

On a final note, there are plenty of opportunities in published UA material
to start in a "normal" situation which quickly degenerates, a little bit like
the opening scene of Pulp Fiction. This can be used with Bill Toges when he
decides to rob a store, or during the plane hijacking scenario.

Will



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