A lone aircraft emerging from the clouds is one of those classic prologs because it can have so many possible meanings and lends itself to visually cool images.
Image by Joao Hoyler Correia from Pixabay
Digital painting and image rotation by Mike

In part 1, I looked at the dictionary definition of Prolog (Prologue if you’re not from the US), and found it inadequate. So I formulated my own, and then took a good hard look at the implications. In a nutshell, used properly, and when appropriate, a Prolog can massively enhance an Adventure, novel, play, or media presentation; used improperly or inappropriately – and there were far more pitfalls than peaks – it could wreak incomparable harm.

A prolog exists to deliver information to the players or to the PCs, in an RPG context. That information can take many forms – from character background (the past) to prophecy (the future) and all points in between.

The dangers posed by a prolog are many, and even if the prolog is properly managed and formulated, they are not entirely eliminated. Ultimately, they exist to give players information they did not have, and that their characters might not know, and that’s always dangerous – but sometimes it’s necessary.

Having looked at prologs in the abstract, it’s now time to get into the practical reality. What are all the ways of beginning an RPG adventure?

The Big List Of Adventure Beginning-points

I’ve ended up with a list of 18 different beginning points for an adventure – i.e. 18 different types of content that you could put in front of an adventure. Some of these are similar, but differentiated by some minor detail; others are quite different, and present to perform a quite different service on behalf of the plot.

I’ve attempted to use vague, almost poetic labels for the options because I wanted to employ as broad a brush as possible.

In particular, I was interested in the traits that characterize and distinguish each type of beginning, the plot functions that each performed, the benefit so provided to the adventure, and what the relationship this ‘beginning bit’ has to the rest of the adventure where that differs from the benefit. I’ll also note any significant pitfalls from an RPG point of view and how they can sometimes be avoided.

My original intention was to examine all 18 in one article, but the complications of the Holiday period haven’t permitted that – so this time around, I’ll look at types 1-9, and next week, at 10-18.

The list that I’ve come up with Is:

1. Action Sequence
2. Aftermath
3. Personal Lives
4. Tranquility
5. Ominous Developments
6. The First Breadcrumb
7. An Introduction
8. A loose end
9. Omniscient Alarms
10. Metaphors and Allegories
11. A Glimpse Of The Past
12. A Glimpse Of The Future
13. Prophecy
14. A Startling Event
15. A Dream Sequence
16. Food For Thought
17. Where We Left Off
18. Nothing At All / Housekeeping

There’s a lot to do, so let’s get started!

If this were just a picture of a hot-rod, it wouldn’t have half the dramatic impact. It’s the context in which it’s been presented that makes it something more. Prologs often serve a similar function with respect to adventures. And this makes a cool image with which to illustrate the first type of Prolog – Action Sequences.
Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
Digital color manipulation and image proportion edit by Mike

1. Action Sequence

Starting with an action sequence has a number of effects on the plotline. It creates inherent excitement, gets the adrenaline pumping, and gives the more violence-oriented characters a turn in the spotlight, which in turn opens up the initial part of the adventure to a slower, more roleplay-oriented, buildup.

But there can be problems when those roleplay-oriented characters want to try options other than violence.

One solution to this is the mini-railroad, which I sometimes describe in jest as the “Light Rail” (You’d get the joke of you lived in Sydney). I describe the build-up to the current situation in Narrative, showing that all reasonable alternatives were explored as the situation escalated to the point where play begins. While I wouldn’t do this every game, on the one occasion when it was used, it worked a treat.

However, (1) the characters and their standard tactics were well-established; and (2) the players were informed at the start of “play” that if they felt I had anything egregiously wrong, I would listen to complaints and adjust if necessary. That took what was ostensible a narrative situation and made it interactive. (Because of 1, and careful plotting on my part, there were no such complaints).

Another key is to make sure that the narrative comes across as being in exactly the same tone that the players would have experienced in-game. While you might be able to use this as a non-standard tone delivery vehicle, it’s my feeling that this opens you up to complaints about players not being permitted to play their characters, whereas if everything proceeds as the players would have done it anyway, you have far less scope for that complaint to hold any validity.

So significant are the practice and practicalities of starting with an action sequence that I’ve already made them the subject of dedicated articles twice.

The more positively-oriented article is Starting In The Middle. The other article, Kickstarting The Story, takes a more conservative approach, driven by philosophic underpinnings, and is more abstract in its approach.

2. Aftermath

Another long-accepted literary approach is to start the story with the aftermath, either of a key set-up sequence in the middle of the plot (actually, usually the beginning or end of the middle), or of the main plot itself, both contained in a prolog. The rest of the story is about how this situation came to be.

I opened the first part of this double-headed article with a discussion of how the GM’s use of prophecy can discombobulate players. I don’t think I gave enough prominence to how problematic prophecies could be for GMs.

And make no mistake, starting with an Aftermath scene is binding the GM to a prophecy with absolutely no allegorical wriggle room. That tends to bring out the worst in any given GM because from that moment on, the GM is serving three masters.

Most GMs are adept at serving two masters: the entertainment of the players and the story that they are weaving. They achieve this by being prepared to sacrifice the latter if necessary to satisfy the former. But this adds a third, sterner, master – the prophecy. And it demands that even the players’ satisfaction be sacrificed at its altar if necessary.

There are sometimes solutions to this.

Wrapping the aftermath in a dream sequence sent by some hidden ally (or enemy!) makes this a foretelling of a worst-case scenario, giving the GM enough cover that he can place “service to the prophecy” in between “the story” and “the players” – all that he needs to ensure is that there is a potentially-likely pathway from the “Now” being experienced in-game and the “Future” forecast by the prophecy.

In a sci-fi environment, framing an aftermath sequence as an out-of-character prologue taking place in some parallel dimension turns it into a purely literary device.

In a time-travel campaign, you can literally go from the aftermath of an undesirable aftermath to the beginning of a crisis as a straightforward recounting of the players’ situation (but don’t overuse this approach).

In most campaigns, you can restore some of the much-needed vagueness by further abbreviating the prolog into a mere tease.

Where there are four solutions, there will be more. You could, for example, conclude your narrative with something along the lines of “With that final pronouncement of doom, the stranger elevates his bushy eyebrows and settles back in his chair, leaving you all to speculate on the import of his tale.” – which effectively takes “service to the prophecy” off the table while retaining all the benefits.

So, what are those benefits? In a nutshell, such aftermaths are inevitably of doom and gloom (I’ve never heard of one that wasn’t, at least), and that motivates the PCs to try to avoid the prophetic warning. As soon as they can arguably do so (if not sooner), the players will begin to shape their character’s thinking in response. They will tend to second-guess every decision, looking at how they might contribute to the outcome of which they have been warned. They will look for ways to protect themselves, and back doors that they can prepare in advance – there’s little as satisfying to a player as being able to say to the gloating Villain who thinks he’s won it all, “There is one small thing that you’ve overlooked,” before tearing down the victory before the villain’s very eyes.

Often, such warnings will make players more cautious, less prone to taking chances. At other times, it can cause players to be more inclined to brash chances. I have once had a player who started looking for ways to overcome the prophecy with a Heroic Death.

And that’s the other very big, very real danger of this type of beginning in an RPG as opposed to a novel: it can make characters react in strange, unexpected, unpredictable, and out-of-character ways.

What’s more, this danger is inherent and cannot be excluded, regardless of the approach used to mitigate the other problems. Employ it in an RPG at your peril, therefore.

3. Personal Lives

The typical adventure from the Adventurers’ Club campaign consists of 5-6 acts. The first of these, and sometimes the second, are usually devoted to the ongoing personal lives and personal dramas of the PCs.

This has multiple effects on the campaign. One, it keeps what would otherwise be a very static, episodic, campaign moving and developing. Players can never tell when an incident will be a passing phase and when it will have long-term implications for their characters’ lives. Usually (but not always), one of these personal developments will lead into the main adventure – which makes those adventures a natural outgrowth of the lives the PCs lead.

In a word, this approach provides context for the adventure.

But this is not the approach being discussed here, or not completely – we’re talking about taking this same approach and cutting it down to fit into some sort of prolog to the main adventure. This has the effect of confining the impact of those personal lives, relative to the main adventure – which might be appropriate for some campaigns, but will certainly not be appropriate for all.

Even this is not the end of the story when it comes to this approach, however; you also need to consider the potential of combining these results with intermissions in which these personal plotlines continue.

For example, consider the following structure:

• Prolog: Personal Lives
• Act 1: Travel from town to dungeon, explore area, plan approach, return to town
• Intermission 1: More Personal Lives
• Act 2: Buy supplies, travel to dungeon, enter dungeon, explore until forced to rest, exit dungeon, return to town
• Intermission 2: More Personal Lives
• Act 3: Buy additional supplies, perform research as necessary, travel to dungeon, complete dungeon, return to town
• Intermission 3: More Personal Lives
• Epilog: Plot Hook for next adventure

In effect, this creates two parallel plot-tracks within the campaign: a soap-opera track and the main “action” track, with the occasional potential crossover between the two. Which might be exactly what you want in your next D&D campaign.

4. Tranquility

Often, when the first act of an adventure consists of one shoe dropping after another, crisis after emergency after disaster after calamity, it can be helpful to contrast this state of affairs with a period of tranquility, “the calm before the storm”, full of molehills that might loom like mountains – until the main plot puts them into perspective.

I last used this approach in a superhero adventure entitled “One Busy Day”. If I were to summarize this plot, it would be as follows:

• Prolog: Tranquility for all PCs, progress in ongoing stories without dramatic development.
• Act 1: To each PC, an emergency.
• Act 2: Each PC’s emergencies grow more dire.
• Act 3: All PCs bar one get on top of their emergencies, in two cases by trading places and solving each other’s situations. The remaining emergency escalates.
• Act 4: Exhausted PCs return from their emergencies only to be drafted into assisting with the one remaining crisis, which again escalates.
• Act 5: PCs finally get on top of the crisis, and return to base.
• Epilog: PCs discover that the mega-crisis was not an accident, it was a distraction…

The contrast between the period of tranquility and the developing series of emergencies in Act 1 makes those emergencies feel even more dire to the PCs. It is quite literally the calm before the storm.

Without it, the increasing litany of disasters can become anticlimactic, whereas the expenditure of a single line of narrative prior to the arrival of an emergency can recapture that feeling of tranquility for the PC about to receive the GM’s plot largess when it has already been established.

5. Ominous Developments

I talked about this approach in the first part of this trilogy of articles. Essentially, it’s an out-of-character scene designed by the GM to do nothing but intimidate the players.

Things can get interesting when there’s no obvious point of connection with the status quo that the players expect to find. They will sometimes start seeing shadows, as the specter of the ominous development that the characters don’t even know about ingrains itself into the players’ thinking.

In politics, this would be what is known as “playing the man, not the ball” – in this case, “playing the player, not the character”.

As a technique, this tends to work better with less experienced and capable players; one of the things you learn through years of playing (and/or GMing) is to set player-knowledge aside and see situations through the lens of character knowledge.

If a GM suspects players of taking advantage of knowledge that their characters don’t have, this can be a way of testing them.

There is only one pitfall that I’m aware of: The last time that I tried this technique, the players went all-out trying to engineer ways for their characters to learn what they already knew. This became an ongoing distraction within the adventure, and all my arguments that their players had no idea that there was any information of importance to be discovered fell on deaf ears.

There can be a temptation to counter this approach by focusing the results of the PCs’ investigations on other (slightly less-ominous) developments. And that could work, if the players didn’t know that there was more to discover. Unfortunately, this often means the GM making things up on the spot without thinking them through; it can be a very quick way to lose control of your campaign.

My preferred counter to this is to include some specific pathway for the PCs to gain the information that the players already have, then allude to that pathway’s existence in my narrative transition from prolog to main adventure.

But there has been at least one occasion when I felt that the players were losing “the big picture” and focusing too much on the “threat of the week”. An Ominous Development led to one of those intensive efforts to turn player knowledge into character knowledge, an attempt that I was able to turn into a recitation of all the other problems that the PCs were ignoring (each of which had gotten at least a little worse due to the lack of attention). This turned what can be a disadvantage into a benefit.

There can be a temptation on the part of the GM to reduce this to a tease, as well, but that does nothing to ameliorate the problems that can result; it simply leaves some information in the GM’s pocket for dissemination when the PCs push the right buttons. Of course, that can be a worthwhile end in and of itself.

6. The First Breadcrumb

Sometimes the first half of solving a mystery is discovering that there is a mystery to be solved. Something strange happens and trying to understand that something leads to the mystery. An excellent example of this is the ST:TNG episode “Clues”.

At other times, the GM can be more straightforward – presenting a mystery and the first breadcrumb of a solution in the prolog. The entire “Cold Case” TV series is built around this pattern.

One of the most obvious and important consequences of this type of beginning is that it clearly aligns player expectations toward a detective story. There’s nothing wrong with stirring in little bits of other things but the driving force of play should be solving that mystery. You can have alternative tones deriving from that straight line (a shootout for unrelated reasons with someone you just want to talk to, or the genre-appropriate equivalent), or you can use snippets of something else as an interlude. Real life is rarely monochromatic, after all.

It may not be necessary for the adventure to follow the trail all the way to a solution, but in every game session that is part of the adventure, tangible progress toward a solution needs to be made or player frustration will exceed any entertainment value. And, if you intend for the plot not to lead all the way to a solution of the mystery, it’s important to defuse that frustration by making it clear in-game that “we can’t go further until…” – i.e. to present some definable condition that needs to be met before the mystery can advance.

This is, and will be taken as, a commitment by the GM that in due course, when the time is right, that condition will be unlocked and the mystery will proceed to a conclusion. I have found that this can, with success, either take place relatively quickly, or after a wait of such length that the players have almost forgotten the unsolved mystery – anything in-between tends to fall flat. I don’t know why, it just does.

I can also advise that it is especially effective for the condition to be satisfied through a plot twist, making this appear to be an unexpected opportunity (no matter how carefully the GM may have planned it).

In terms of plot function, this sort of prolog acts as both a tease for the mystery and the promise of progress in solving it. It can be especially effective when the mystery was presented as a tease at the conclusion of the previous adventure, strengthening the continuity between the two adventures.

The biggest pitfall is this: you are hitching the entertainment value of the adventure to the enjoyability of the mystery. If the mystery is boring, it doesn’t matter how much ‘entertainment’ the GM packs into its solution; the players will still be bored, and the adventure will be an anticlimax. If the mystery is engaging to the players, the procedural steps involved in solving it don’t have to be half as packed with entertainment value to excel in player satisfaction. If anything, in this circumstance, there can be a danger of being perceived to be ‘gilding the lily’ or of the procedural steps being anticlimactic relative to the actual plot development of solving the mystery.

In short, put as much effort as you can into making the mystery intriguing and interesting for the players and let them generate the excitement within the adventure thereby; don’t try and amp it up or puff it up during the process.

At the same time, be aware that there can be two completely different responses on the part of each player and how this can influence the way they play their characters: excitement creates enthusiasm, boredom creates plodding actions without deep thought or engagement. If you can, incorporating optional plot sequences that will boost the interest/satisfaction level of individual players through the course of the plot can be the difference between a snooze-fest and a good time being had by all. But this is a LOT harder than it looks and requires a deeper understanding of the psychology and playing habits of individual players than most GMs can command, even after playing with that player for decades. You have to predict where each player is going to “itch” if they aren’t sufficiently engaged, and prepare a plot development to scratch that itch.

7. An Introduction

There are all sorts of things that can be introduced. A villain, a hero, a comrade, and enemy, a situation, a macguffin – the list is almost endless. The only consistencies are that the characters must not have encountered this person or thing in-game before (they may have heard whispers, rumors, or legends) and the person or object being who or what they are should provide the adventure with its gravitas.

Dupres, the head of the Secret Police and Adviser to the Crown, feared by all, enters the inn, and speaks briefly in hushed tones to the innkeeper, who gestures in your direction. By now, half the patrons have found exits or hiding places. Nodding, he places a gold florin on the counter and makes his way to your table. A moment later, the innkeeper deposits a glass of fresh spiced wine – the good stuff, you expect – in front of both the newcomer and each of you. Whispering in conspiratorial tones, he says “One of our most trusted spies has just returned from a prolonged mission beyond the Nissert Range. He reports that the Orcs of Dunhollow think they have located a piece of the Dread Armor of Warsang in an abandoned Dwarven Mine. I for one don’t wish to find out if the legends concerning that particular artifact are true. On behalf of His Majesty, I wish to hire you to beat the Orcs to the Armor, if it is really there, and make sure that it can never fall into the hands of a hostile force. We have a map…”

This example is a double introduction. It introduces this character, whose position implies that he is NOT to be trifled with, and who forces his way into the PCs circle to introduce the Macguffin. Note that it isn’t necessary for the players to have ever heard of artifact, Warsang, mountain range, Dunhollow, or even Dupres before (though it’s unlikely that a mission of this sensitivity would be entrusted to first-level nobodies) – this is a perfectly serviceable first adventure of a campaign, especially if the PCs are already of reasonable capability (in fact, the GM should have an answer to the question “Why US?” recorded and ready to deliver).

Provided that the credibility of the adventure is not thrown out of inn on its ear by these considerations, there are all sorts of places that the adventure can then go in its’ opening act. If mission prep and acceptance are hand-waved (I advise yes to the first and no to the second), you could start the adventure itself with the players half-way to their objective, as they depart “civilization” and enter the untamed wilderness. Or you could start with a flashback sequence that fills in some of those missing pieces. Or word of the mission may have leaked and the action might start while the PCs are still in the capital.

What cannot be disputed is that the opening sequence of the adventure should be related directly to the introduction in some way. You’ve established some momentum with the prolog, you have to capitalize on it before it wanes.

There are a couple of other things which went unspoken in the prolog but which experienced players should nevertheless have picked up on. First, the characters already know each other, and have established relationships; second, there’s a clear implication that they have established a reputation of some sort; third, they have probably adventured together a number of times; and fourth, given that such a personage could not be absent for very long without it being noteworthy, there is a high probability that they are in the Capital. All of which makes sense if the characters are already mid-to-high level already.

An introduction is a specific form of tease, one that can be complete in and of itself but probably isn’t. You can think of an introduction as a slide in a water-park – the one certainty is that you’re going to get wet, and almost as certain is that you are going to find yourself unable to stop until you get to the bottom of the slide. And that you’re going to look like a wuss if you don’t take advantage of the situation to ride the slide.

I’ve also seen this described as ‘parachuting the characters into the plot’. And that’s where the potential downsides come into play – some players will object to that. Others will just roll with it – experience inclines players toward the latter disposition but does not dispel any predisposition. A huge factor can be past experience with the GM and the level of trust that has built up (if any) between GM and Players – though this sort of “rapid-fire” introduction to a plotline is also common in convention play, from what I’ve been told, and rendered acceptable by the limited and concise gaming ‘window’.

If you are ever unsure as to how much trust and respect you’ve accumulated behind the (possibly metaphoric) GM screen, this type of prolog will give you a very quick (and possibly rude) answer. Most GMs don’t employ it until they are already confident of that answer. However, a GM who pulls an adventure with this type of introduction off can establish ‘table cred’ beyond his experience level – which can be a big ‘if’, as it is possible to do as much damage to one’s reputation if you fall short. “Overconfident” is the mildest complaint that will be leveled at you in that circumstance..

8. A loose end

Many of these prologs could be described generically as an introduction under some circumstances. One of the types for which this is true is the Loose End.

If the players have already detected this loose end, and determined to pull on it to see what unravels, then it isn’t an introduction. If they have not, if the GM uses his prolog to have an NPC tell the players, “I think there’s something you may have overlooked…”, then you could describe it as an introduction, and everything stated above could be at least partially applicable.

Loose ends are inherently supportive and suggestive of a strong continuity. A tendency to forget and ignore them is an indication of a weak continuity and a more episodic approach. If the players insist on looking into any loose threads that they notice, that’s an indication that they want the former; if they tend to get bored more easily when you present a loose end introduction to an adventure, it indicates that they want a looser continuity.

Some GMs (I’m one of them) can’t help but build continuity links and building blocks into their campaigns, whether they are supposed to be there or not, even when making stuff up off the cuff. Players learn of a GM’s predilections in this direction very quickly, and incorporate expectations into their behavior. This can force the GM into a stronger- or weaker-continuity position than they intended – so, to a certain extent, a GM’s reputation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That tells me that “GMs should start as they mean to continue”, lest you become trapped in a style that isn’t your preferred approach. I don’t think that advice is given to beginners often enough. You will learn more by one incident of getting in over your head and getting on top of the situation than you will in a year’s GMing.

Be that as it may, most loose ends are also mysteries, with the mere existence of the loose end being the first breadcrumb – making that advice relevant, too. But there are times when this is not the case – a loose end might be a flunky who got away, or a mole whose presence has been forgotten in the excitement of taking down the KGB (or whatever).

These offer a broader palette to the GM. Instead of hitting the players over the heads with the existence of the loose end, for example, you could present an out-of-continuity plot sequence of the Loose End doing whatever the Loose End does. And then you could segue to a sequence where the PCs (uncommanded by the players) show up to ‘clean up’ their loose end – having one of them say “Thought we had forgotten about you, didn’t you?” before you hand control back to their normal owners.

As a technique, this can be valuable to both GM and Players; it’s another example of the “Light Rail” approach, but far smaller in scope, it gets the players straight into the day’s play in a thrilling way, and it educates them in what you – as a GM – expect from them. The implication is that while you will help them keep their blotters clean if they cooperate with you, you won’t guarantee doing so, every time – so they had better pay attention to the little details, because eventually one might turn around and bite them.

Of course, if the players have made a habit of doing so, a Loose End introduction can be considered to be the GM helping the players stay in character despite the intrusions of real-world interruptions.

The Loose End, in other words, changes character depending on the circumstances under which it is used. That makes it very flexible and useful.

9. Omniscient Alarms

I’ve already discussed this as one of the options the GM has within the “Aftermath” prolog. But there are times when a more straightforward approach is more appropriate to the Omniscient Entity responsible or the circumstances.

There is a tradition that such interventions be relatively allegorical, cloaked in ambiguity and metaphor, and delivered more frequently to those with whom some sort of prior relationship exists. Sometimes, this is because the Deity or Omniscient Being can’t be any more specific; sometimes, it’s because they want to avoid tripping some sort of alarm (especially if they’ve been forbidden to meddle by someone else); sometimes, it’s to prevent premature action on the part of the recipients; sometimes it’s to maintain a mystique or reputation; and sometimes (very rarely) it might be because the Deity has overestimated the comprehension of his target.

On at least one occasion, though, I’ve gotten mileage from delivering a straightforward but short warning to someone with whom the Being has no relationship. This is the cosmic equivalent of “acting casual” while slipping something extra into the outgoing mail – implying that the being is under observation and can’t assist more directly.

Warnings from an ostensible enemy can also create interesting dynamics within an adventure and within a larger campaign.

And all of the above presumes that the warning is accurate. It might not – it could be a mistake, or an over-reaction, or a means of manipulation. Whoever the players think is responsible might know nothing about the warning. Or it might be a deliberate falsehood.

Each of these adds its own distinct character to the unfolding of relevant events within the campaign, if not to the adventure.

Which is the final variable to be discussed here – Omniscient Warnings might not pay off in the current adventure, or even the one after that. This form of prolog can be almost-completely divorced from the main content – the caveat rests on the impact on player thinking.

A word of warning: it’s very easy to overuse this plot mechanic, and it is far more effective when rare. There is also the familiar “why me” or “why us?” question to contemplate – is there truly no-one better qualified to deal with the situation?

I’ve solved the latter problem in several ways in the past. One is the old “we know more than you do” approach; another is the “this might be nothing, but I need someone to look into it…” approach; and still another is “Frankly, you’re expendable.” Sometimes, the answer can be self-evident; at other times, so obscure that it will never be understood. “The swallow’s wing casts shadows in the candle-light” is a perfectly valid answer to the “Why Us” question – however unsatisfying it might be to the players or characters. Often, the trick is to get this answer to the PCs in the “right” way. In the “you’re expendable” circumstance, for example, every priest of the deity issuing the Warning immediately began addressing the PCs as “The Walking Cadavers” or “The Honored Dead” – which really threw the players, who knew full well that their characters weren’t dead yet!

So, that brings me to the end of Part 2 of this article series. Part 3 will detail beginning types 10-18 – in some cases building on the content above – and then close out the series with a couple of general topics that were better addressed after the types were detailed (or because I didn’t think of it while working on part 1!)