Fantasy Hero Cut Scene!

[Jkeown]

So tomorrow ends a year-long arc in which the Player Character, Olokai, attempts to reclaim the throne of Kythros from both the False King and Ysarnai, a foul lich (and worshipper of the minor death god, Narghast) who was once a usurper king, 2300 years ago. I thought, since this is the Final Battle, it deserved a flowery, over-written intro and a bit of voice acting.

 

In the scene, the sneaky Navigator Gwaihir reveals that he's been pulling strings, including stealing the child of Ysarnai's brother (the rightful King from so long ago) and raising him in the future, to await Ysarnai's return. The Players, at Gwaihir's hidden urging, assembled a force of Noble Wolves, Frost Giants, Orcs and the army of Kythros to fight the final confrontation. The wizard Kos only knows that he has a time travel adventure in his future, not that he is the one who will actually steal his friend as a baby and deliver him to a foster family some 30 past. (got that? cause I'm not sure that I do)

 

Gwaihir has not been "on screen" in probably 33 years, since I stopped playing him as my own character. I've just mentioned him every few years.  

 

Do any of you do this sort of thing? What would you do if your GM suddenly started spouting this nonsense?

 

[A Prologue of Sorts]

Gwaihir: Foul Usurper, quit this exploit, for you have aroused the Wrath of the North – It is the might of ages. 

Ysarnai:  Gwaihir, my old friend, you alone need not fear my anger, for your own will doom you for this day. You are undone. You have broken your own most sacred law in defiance of my inheritance. You have brought troops to battle – something forbidden to Navigators. I leave you to them and take my crown.

[Ysarnai turns from Gwaihir to face the False King. Gwaihir blips to a position face-to-skull with the lich.]

Gwaihir: My fellows I shall face anon, for they busy themselves with threats far greater than thou. As for thee, here stands Olokai, the True Wyvern King, lost prince of a lost throne, orphaned son of a murdered father, child of frost, torn from his age by my trusted agent. Gathered to his side are the mighty, the hosts of Kythros, and a secret army 23 centuries in its terrible mustering.  His ties to the land and the throne are strong. They will survive the likes of you.

[Looks to Kos]

Hearing this, if you yet covet his throne, quake in your unhallowed greed and vile ambition. For the time of the Wolf-Brother has come. The Rensai, cursed by you, howl in his name. All of the North stirs to his ire and your doom. The assembled Lords of the Winter Throne gather to view your demise. Depart this place, and take these foul puppets with you!

Ysarnai: Be still, Wind Lord, I know no fear - Let us see what you mastered whilst I slept. I shall clear the board of you and your pawns. Olokai, dread nephew, your own ambition is cut off this day, Gwaihir will see you dead, your throne and his grand plan melt away like the snows of spring. The names of Ysarnai and Narghast shall be lifted hereafter!

[segment 12]

[Cantriped]

What would you do if your GM suddenly started spouting this nonsense?

I think I would tilt my head sideways and go "aarrou?"

It is probably just a lack of context and backstory; I want to understand what is going on in this scene, but you lost me. Hopefully your players will not likewise be vexed by your old-timey phrasing. 

[TheDarkness]

I would say that the pacing needs a little. Each of them are giving a little speech and then the other, a little speech. It's not really a back and forth, though that's hard to do by yourself.

 

There needs to be a sort of call and response BETWEEN the speeches. Something one says that the other responds to, maybe even one interrupts the other. Otherwise, one might ask, why are these bitter enemies giving each other so much time to finish every speech?

 

Just my thoughts.

[Jkeown]

I think I would tilt my head sideways and go "aarrou?"

It is probably just a lack of context and backstory; I want to understand what is going on in this scene, but you lost me. Hopefully your players will not likewise be vexed by your old-timey phrasing. 

You make a fine point.

[Jkeown]

I would say that the pacing needs a little. Each of them are giving a little speech and then the other, a little speech. It's not really a back and forth, though that's hard to do by yourself.

 

There needs to be a sort of call and response BETWEEN the speeches. Something one says that the other responds to, maybe even one interrupts the other. Otherwise, one might ask, why are these bitter enemies giving each other so much time to finish every speech?

 

Just my thoughts.

They knew each other long ago... but aside from that... maybe just drama... and my need to command the table for a minute.

[DShomshak]

Well, I occasionally narrate flashbacks of scenes from a character's past (based on background the player gave me), as I did for Anunit, one of the PCs in my Avant Guard Champions campaign. (You can read it in my "Millennium Universe" thread over on the Champions forum, if it hasn't slid too far back yet. It was the only PC "origin story" done in play, as the start to the first adventure. Everything after Anunit comes back with Doctor Future was actual play.)

 

I also narrated a flashback of a PC's Visitation in my Scion campaign. If you don't know what Scion is, it's effectively Percy Jackson: The RPG, from White Wolf. The Visitation is when latter-day children of the Gods meets their parents, or representatives thereof, and learn what they are, which activates their supernatural heritage and powers. I hopes to include such flashbacks for all the PCs but never got around to it. But here's how the flashback for Gus Sobeck, child of the Egyptian god Sobek, happened:

-----------------

Flashback: Gus Sobeck’s Visitation

      The scene is the previous summer. Gus visits his great-grandfather in the nursing home. His great-grandfather had always been old to him, but only in the last year had he become frail. Nobody in the family wants to talk about it, but they know that Gotthelf Sobeck will die within days. Now, old Gotthelf wants a private word with the great-grandson whom he taught never to accept failure.

      Gotthelf has a final present for Gus: a souvenir from his Afrika Korps days. The burnished wooden box holds a crocodile tooth on a fine chain. “It has brought the family luck,” Great-Grandpa says with a peculiar smile. “May it serve you well. I repay a debt in giving it to you. And I hope the debt is at last now paid in full.”

      Gotthelf also gives Gus a ticket to the Underground Seattle tour. “It is worth seeing. I would not like to think you missed it.” He smiles and shrugs. “Indulge the foolish worries of an old man.” Gus is quite sure his great-grandfather never had a foolish moment in his life: He knows something is up. Gotthelf sends Gus on his way, but asks him to send the pretty redhead nurse in to fluff his pillow. At 92, he’s still not too old at least to look…

      Gus takes the tour the next day. It’s sort of interesting, walking under the downtown sidewalks and seeing the old subcellars, though not especially so. Perhaps his inattention causes Gus to stray from the tour. He finds himself alone in a damp tunnel with only the faintest light from a distant bit of glass set in the tunnel ceiling. Only, there are two other small lights ahead. Gus hears the scratch and rustle of something big moving. The lights come closer. They are eyes, the eyes of a crocodile that is much larger than any that Gus has seen in the zoo… and its claws are adorned with gold.

      Hello, son, the crocodile says. It’s time you knew something important about your family.

------------

But I always try to keep flashbacks and any other episodes of narration and NPC exposition as brief as possible, or give opportunities for PCs to interact with the NPCs.

 

Dean Shomshak     

[MordeanGrey]

I've always started my games with "cutscenes" to set the stage and tie the characters together as the game begins. In the mid-90s I ran several Fantasy HERO games set in the Planescape AD&D setting. One of the games featured characters who were thrown together by chance as fodder for the endless Blood War being fought between the devils and demons of the planes.

 

Here is the opening for that game...

******************

 

Out of the Blood War … into the Cage

 

The Blood War rages on. For centuries on end, driven by racial hatred and a desire to obtain gateways to prime worlds that are ripe for the picking, countless fiends have clashed on battlefields across the Planes.

 

For whatever reasons, throngs of hapless planars and primes find themselves thrust into the war. Thousands of mercenaries, slaves, religious zealots, prisoners, and the just “unlucky” are slaughtered without remorse or regret almost daily. You were no different. A contract with the devils isn’t something that is easily broken except by death. Along the way, you have come to rely on a quickly shrinking group of “friends” for lack of a better word. Perhaps “partners in pain” comes closer, but no matter. The constant fear and destruction beat your spirit down — lower with each battle, until you came into the presence of a cleric of the dark gods, a Proxy who called himself Harm. His dark charisma attracted you to his side, while his carefully crafted words convinced you to join his cause, and receive the mark of his lord, a Baatorian Power know as Valfor.

 

Today started no differently. Your small band of survivors was herded through yet another portal along with an undersized legion of devils and conscripts. Your destination was Oinos, a dusty, colorless battlefield in the Grey Wastes. The battle plan was simple, surprise the Tanari guarding the iron fortress of Gauron, destroy them, and seize the fortress. It was simple in planning, however, but not in practice. The Baatorian generals failed to see that the Tanari were well prepared to defend the fortress. The demons held several legions in reserve until the Baatezu reached the iron walls, and then swept in with their hordes to crush the devils between the hammer of their legions, and the anvil of the fortress.

 

In the midst of the chaos of battle, your small group was driven closer and closer to the walls of the fortress, suffering enormous casualties, and dwindling rapidly. Then, like a surreal, ghostly image, a pale human figure appeared, walking calmly through the wild action of the combat, seemingly unaffected by the chaos around him, and protected from the steel and iron weapons that lashed out at him. His zombie-like gaze swept across your small group, coming to rest at last on Harm. In a deep, strong voice that sounded cleanly through the din of battle and the screams of the wounded, the figure spoke, “Follow me if you wish to live.”

 

With that, the apparition turned and led you and your exhausted and wounded comrades directly to a broad expanse of the iron wall at the base of the fortress. The gaunt figure raised its arms and spoke unintelligible words that crackled with power in the ancient tongue of the Nureti sorcerers. As it spoke, the body seemed to shrivel in on itself, and its hair visibly turned from black to gray. Wrinkles appeared on its face, and the eyes sunk further back into the sockets as it aged rapidly in front of you. At last, after diminishing to the hunched form of an old man, the emaciated corpse staggered forward and pressed its hands against the wall. A deep, reddish glow emanated briefly from deep inside the figures chest. The reddish light flared to a bright glow and the walking corpse lurched forward again, its limbs spasming weakly. The final words escaped through its parched mouth and swollen tongue, “Heed the Rule of Three,” as it collapsed into and through the wall that now seemed translucent in an arc around the figure.

 

Around you, the sounds of battle returned full force. You glanced behind you to see the giant, white, chitinous form of a Gelugon bounding toward you across the battlefield. Its great, clawed feet trampling the bodies of fallen fiends, as it slashed wildly with a large spear, clearing a path through the combat in great, gleaming arcs of death.

 

“Deserters and cowards suffer eternally…your contracts WILL be fulfilled!” it screeched.

 

The Gelugon’s words echoed endlessly though your head as confusion turned to fear and a mad dash ensued as you and your companions bolted through the newly opened portal. The sounds of the battle faded once again as reality shifted and lurched around you, overwhelming your senses and filling your stomach with bile. The sensation was short-lived, as you stumbled into each other — tripping, sliding, and falling into shallow, foul smelling puddles in a narrow, debris-filled alley. One wall is made of wet stone bricks, the other is obscured by a thick tangle of dark vines with small, triangular leaves. A pathetic figure looks up, startled from its drunken stupor by the racket of your arrival. Over the buzzing of a swarm of flies also disturbed by your appearance, the figure speaks thickly slurred words, “Welcome…to Sigil…it’s bleedin’ ugly, but the Cage is home.” With that, the figure coughs and heaves violently, and passes out against the wall.

 

It seems you have arrived at your destination. 

[NuSoardGraphite]

I thought everyone did that.

[knasser2]

So tomorrow ends a year-long arc in which the Player Character, Olokai, attempts to reclaim the throne of Kythros from both the False King and Ysarnai, a foul lich (and worshipper of the minor death god, Narghast) who was once a usurper king, 2300 years ago. I thought, since this is the Final Battle, it deserved a flowery, over-written intro and a bit of voice acting.

 

In the scene, the sneaky Navigator Gwaihir reveals that he's been pulling strings, including stealing the child of Ysarnai's brother (the rightful King from so long ago) and raising him in the future, to await Ysarnai's return. The Players, at Gwaihir's hidden urging, assembled a force of Noble Wolves, Frost Giants, Orcs and the army of Kythros to fight the final confrontation. The wizard Kos only knows that he has a time travel adventure in his future, not that he is the one who will actually steal his friend as a baby and deliver him to a foster family some 30 past. (got that? cause I'm not sure that I do)

 

Gwaihir has not been "on screen" in probably 33 years, since I stopped playing him as my own character. I've just mentioned him every few years.  

 

Do any of you do this sort of thing? What would you do if your GM suddenly started spouting this nonsense?

 

[A Prologue of Sorts]

Gwaihir: Foul Usurper, quit this exploit, for you have aroused the Wrath of the North – It is the might of ages. 

Ysarnai:  Gwaihir, my old friend, you alone need not fear my anger, for your own will doom you for this day. You are undone. You have broken your own most sacred law in defiance of my inheritance. You have brought troops to battle – something forbidden to Navigators. I leave you to them and take my crown.

[Ysarnai turns from Gwaihir to face the False King. Gwaihir blips to a position face-to-skull with the lich.]

Gwaihir: My fellows I shall face anon, for they busy themselves with threats far greater than thou. As for thee, here stands Olokai, the True Wyvern King, lost prince of a lost throne, orphaned son of a murdered father, child of frost, torn from his age by my trusted agent. Gathered to his side are the mighty, the hosts of Kythros, and a secret army 23 centuries in its terrible mustering.  His ties to the land and the throne are strong. They will survive the likes of you.

[Looks to Kos]

Hearing this, if you yet covet his throne, quake in your unhallowed greed and vile ambition. For the time of the Wolf-Brother has come. The Rensai, cursed by you, howl in his name. All of the North stirs to his ire and your doom. The assembled Lords of the Winter Throne gather to view your demise. Depart this place, and take these foul puppets with you!

Ysarnai: Be still, Wind Lord, I know no fear - Let us see what you mastered whilst I slept. I shall clear the board of you and your pawns. Olokai, dread nephew, your own ambition is cut off this day, Gwaihir will see you dead, your throne and his grand plan melt away like the snows of spring. The names of Ysarnai and Narghast shall be lifted hereafter!

[segment 12]

 

 

Depends on the game, genre, etc. For my Star Wars game I actually begin most sessions with an intro vignette which may involve the characters or more often is just a "meanwhile, in Gotham...". Sometimes it fleshes out a little bit about a character they have met, sometimes it's things that are taking place elsewhere at the same time as the adventure. I started doing it because I had a LOT of world-building needed and would struggle to convey it all in the adventure itself. So I used it both for entertainment, but also to build up the knowledge that the player's characters would actually have. I didn't read them out, though. I did them as one-side hand-outs at the start of a session whilst people are getting settled and as a way to bring people into the game.

 

I have done things that are voice-based, however. Recently an NPC the party are travelling with told them a myth of his people and that was all done in-character with me reading out the story. I kept it short-ish, about three minutes. It was an experiment but it seemed to go well and certainly enriched the setting which is what my goal is. I also once asked on a forum for people to read a few lines for me and post them and I then took those lines and mixed them together with some special effects and radio interference to make the last received transmission of a ship being lost to the warp in a WH40K Dark Heresy game. That was fun. I played it when they got hold of the transmission for a "My god, it's full of stars..." style mystery. (That's a reference to the movie "2010" if you haven't seen it, where a main character endlessly replays David Bowman's last words trying to make sense of them).