By Nicolas Logue

April Fools Day, Year of the Beijing Olympics!

Your PCs are the stars of the show. They are the protagonists. The adventure exists for them alone. When a player sits down to dream up their next hero or scoundrel, they may have in their mind’s eye a sweeping cloaked elf huntress, with raven-hair, her left eye tainted crimson by a blood curse leveled on her family five hundred years ago. Another player may envision a gaunt barbarian prince, wielding a greatclub topped with a young dragon’s skull, whose quest to cure his father’s lycanthropy has taken him a thousand leagues from the lion-prowled grasslands of his people. Still another player may conjure to life a grim wizard, tall and imposing with a near constant sneer darkening his face, whose crooked fingers were broken by a rival apprentice years ago whom he now seeks dire vengeance upon.

From wherever they come and whatever grand dreams of power, glory or salvation they harbor in their hearts, these characters are the cast of your adventure: the women, men and gnomes whose stories we gather weekly to tell over a fine repast of cheesy snack foods and chalices of sugary caffeine-laden beverage. Your party is the life-giving sun your adventures revolve around. If your PCs character concepts fall apart in the first few moments of the first session of your “we’re-playing-this-for-the-next-two-years” campaign…well…that eats a bag of poop.

Only the Good Die Young

It’s happened to all of us. We dream up a daring hero, destined for greatness, with a dark past and a star-crossed future…and then we watch them fall on their face and bleed to death before they even get to take the first step of their great journey. We are slaves to the dice, and the mechanics of the game sometimes don’t make the best narrator. Sometimes the daring rogue you created falls off a table in his very first bar fight and has his head stove in by a half-orc’s boot. An ignominious end to a hero whose name we barely knew.

You can just chalk it up to the Dice Gods, laugh it off and tell that PC: “Sorry buddy, whip up a new character.” Or you could retcon the whole encounter, and kill the momentum of the game entirely…or…you could simply plan your PCs first session to make sure their characters live up to the awesome back stories dreamed up by your players in-game, establishing them as the heroes of your story, and getting the players and yourself excited beyond measure to continue telling their tale.

Cue Theme Music...

Prepare one short “intro” scene for each of your PCs and run these first at the inaugural kick-off session of your next glorious masterpiece campaign. Think of the scenes in so many great movies that set up the protagonists of those films and shoot for something similar. This would be the scene in the movie when the character’s badass theme song plays. In fact, if your players generated their characters well before your first session, you may want to take some time to find a little theme music for each of them and play it in the background during their spotlight scene here at the outset. Nothing makes a player feel special more than a little extra work on the GMs part to make their character cool and important to the game.

The Feel Good Encounter

These scenes are not there to challenge your PCs. There will be plenty of time to crush your players hopes and snuff their self-esteem during the rest of the campaign, Give them one chance to really shine before the beatings begin. In their intro scene the PCs should be total rock gods of the multiverse. Allow them to really show off their skills, lay down the law, or just open up a big ole can o’ whoopass on a bad guy who seriously deserves it.

Welcome to the Feel Good Encounter. Personally, I employ one of these suckers as the start of nearly every game session, not just the campaign opener. Or I whip one out if a session is getting boring, or the players are losing some steam in the face of too many implacable foes whose CR far outclasses their ECL.