Hot Start, Running The Game #93

End the slow burn; Time for a Hot Start!
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Let's Start in a Tavern, Running The Game #46
• Let's Start In A Taver...
Pitching Your Campaign, Running The Game #51
• Pitching Your Campaign...
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[@zeebashew]

I co-DMed a prison break in roll20 with FOV turned on. The other DM controlled the guard routes and had vision limited to the "fov cones" on each guard. We let the players know the general timing and gaps in advance (they'd been planning this for awhile) and they still barely made it out. It was a super fun set piece but it could have easily gone absolutely terribly.

[@FishoD]

Wild Zee appears. You’re an inspiration man.

[@calar8]

Your video on that campaign was my first thought when he talked about the prison break opening. Sounded really fun.

[@bathtubmafia2042]

Yeah, easier with roll20 than with TOTM because it operates more like a stealth game and less like a complicated escape room.

[@michael.valenti]

@@calar8 do you know which video, I'd like to check it out!

[@calar8]

@@michael.valenti kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZyrkqN9a9CLi8k

[@DrLipkin]

Cold start: "You start in a tavern." Hot start: "You start in a tavern. It's on fire."

[@michaelshaw1782]

That was my first ever session of DnD! The 4E path Scales of War starts with a Goblin raid on the village with a Troll throwing barrels of oil at the Inn.

[@frigginsepone446]

This is Fine!

[@simonematteosantini8211]

This was precisely the beginning of our shared-universe campaign! Worked so well we are 250+ episodes and counting

[@mirthfulArtist]

Literally how I started DMing my first campaign. XD

[@Strilar667]

I've been struggling with how to start my new campaign. This is just what I needed

[@withinfinite5104]

Matt's Voice says he's running DND, but his hair says he's leading the Rohirrim.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Yes!

[@MrValanthe]

When you've got D&D at 5, but Gondor is calling for aid at 9.

[@pronounsinmybio]

@@MrValanthe im all over the floor rn, lmao

[@jackielinde7568]

Matt reminds me of our much beloved, and very hairy, Uncle Lenny the Lycanthrope.

[@KanuckStreams]

RIDE NOW! TO WRATH AND RUIN!

[@UncleGus007]

Haha, who would start their PCs with amnesia, hahaha, in a prison, hahahahahaha, with no gear, hahahahahahahaahah **quietly slides campaign notes into bin**

[@DunantheDefender]

If this discussion were being held in person: MC: "no gear and amnesia, I have no idea why this is so popu-" Like, 4 million people simultaneously: "Elder Scrolls. It's Elder Scrolls."

[@andrewlance3898]

"Hey, you, you're finally awake."

[@kwilatek]

I'm pretty sure I've seen this trope before Elder Scrolls.

[@DunantheDefender]

@@kwilatek oh, I get that its *origin* isn't with Elder Scrolls, merely its popularity.

[@Fedorchik1536]

@@kwilatek Well, Skyrim was not the first Elder Scrolls game that did this xD Also, I do remember some plots that started in prison or with amnesia, but i don't remember any of them starting both in prison and with amnesia. Besides every Elder Scrolls game.

[@mknecht01]

Planescape: Torment

[@DoctorGrossly]

“I read all of them” he says... well read this! Matt... you’re great thanks so much for ya know... stuff and things!

[@Kay_McKay]

Literally the hottest start I've ever been in was in a free-fall situation. We were thrown out of an airship run by Bad Guys, the mage was tied and gagged and we were approaching the ground rapidly. Saved at the last minute by steering towards and pulling off the mage's gag so he could feather fall us to safety. After that we commandeered an airship to get our revenge on the Bad Guys over several months. We killed the Big Bad by dropping him out of his own airship.

[@bathtubmafia2042]

Write that down Gary, WRITE THAT DOWN!

[@anthony_hw]

That is fantastic!

[@SamuelElPesado]

Sounds like your DM played Torment Tides of Numenara :P

[@harbingergaming8622]

Pot twist, your next campaign starts with you getting thrown out of your own airship. You are now last campaigns BBEG

[@Kay_McKay]

@@harbingergaming8622 I wouldn't be mad about that, but it does have some recursive elements to it. I wouldn't be mad about that.

[@MrMisterkrazy]

Some time I want to start a game with "Everybody ready to start? Cool! Roll for initiative."

[@oz_jones]

Do it!

[@metaldracolich2485]

I once started a game with everyone rolling a con save to determine initiative order. They were on a boat and were poisoned, the ship wrecked and they all woke up on the beach being eaten by giant crabs.

[@mikeg8564]

Did this today

[@jimyoung9262]

A lot of fun

[@CptnJaymz]

"I don't take orders from dead men!" - Judge Easily the most epic one-liner from a PC I have ever heard.

[@nestoraquino-serrano7058]

"You all grew up with the glorious fantasy and adventure of being war heroes - the drama and romance of a soldier come home. All of that has been washed away as you sit in the trench splattered in the gore, gib, and bone splinters of your Captain, who was just hit directly by a cannonball as he gave his rousing speech to inspire you to go over. Shell-shocked, you look at one another looking for any affirmation as to whether or not to continue over the edge. What do you do?"

[@skullsquad900]

Holy fuck...I love it! *Though, I would've had him Torched by a Dragon, Eaten alive by some Nightmare from the Nine Hells or Explode into Kyuss worms!

[@Lunartic128]

I cast Fireball.

[@luketfer]

So essentially World War 1 soldiers experience then....oof...

[@alastairbutcher6744]

Now that's what I call a field promotion!

[@Hermaniac8]

"Let me know in the comments below. *I read all of them*" Matt, my dude, that cannot be healthy.

[@FacilityD20]

It defiantly not easy haha

[@ishikkayabas1314]

I was inspired by how you started the Chain of Acheron for how I started my current campaign. I conspired with one of the players after he built his actual character to instead play an NPC antagonist. He played this 5th level rogue masquerading amongst the party of 1st level PCs until the end of the first quest, when he flipped the switch and betrayed the party, taking them all out singlehandedly and stealing the powerful magic item at the end of the dungeon. Then his real character, a Cleric who had learned of this treacherous plot, arrived and awakened the group from their unconsciousness some hours later. The twist was SUPER effective, and really motivated the group afterwards for how much they hated this guy. Best start ever!

[@yanivrubin4166]

AWESOMEEEE

[@canadianshinxeh6103]

"Don't do a prison break" *immediately inspires me to want to run a prison break*

[@KanuckStreams]

I started my current campaign with a "prison break". I didn't go with the amnesia and no character sheet thing. My players were all imprisoned in a traveling carnival, as part of the "freak show" (they were all non-human characters like tabaxi or even a dryad and a faun).

[@r31n0ut]

I started my star wars campaign with a prison break. They were in the brig of a star destroyer and I had pirates attack the star destroyer with ion torpedoes to create chaos and allow the players to break out. I also provided them with quite a few npcs to help them, but they left most of them in their cells.

[@QuinciEx]

@@r31n0ut Kotor start - nice!

[@r31n0ut]

@@QuinciEx ... I honestly had not made that connection :')

[@rustage]

My pirate themed D&D series starts with a shipwreck, gives an immediate goal of finding a new ship and throws them straight into the action

[@samsampier7147]

Sounds fun. My favorite module of Pathfinder, "Souls for Smuggler's Shiv" starts the same way. Steaming jungles and intrigue; wish the rest of the AP was exciting.

[@nateshandy2070]

50 Fathoms starts that way too, one of the earliest, and still best, plot point campaigns for Savage Worlds. Had a blast with it myself, would run it again in a heartbeat.

[@Sheriffdann]

My current campaign is going to steal some of your rap battles for the Half-Orc PC to challenge the leader of the Orc horde to a Rap duel to the death. Love your work mate.

[@foxpopulii380]

I really enjoyed the way you ran yours. Inspired me to do a short One Piece campaign of my own. Great job, Rustage and players!

[@zacharyharwell351]

Oh snap, I didn't know Rustage was a DnD fan; That pirate series you mentioned reminds me of my current campaign I run; I interrupted the party meeting each other and talking with a kraken fight at level 1 (it was more of a challenge if they could hurt the tentacles reaching onto the ship fast enough to make the kraken think it wasn't worth it and leave)

[@AnthonyPaoliMasakiSays]

Oh you read ALL the comments? Well then... I hope you're well in these trying times, you wonderful person. Keep on keeping on!

[@mrTwisby]

"I feel confident something in this video has sparked an idea in your head, even if it has nothing to do with any of these examples." Oh, Matt, if you only knew. Next session will have the potential to be amazing.

[@MercifulNeptune]

So the Hot Start video jumped out of the blue...as a hot start in and of itself? Hell yeah!

[@SkyTheBlessed]

Considering the fact that the video being uploaded is binary, I dare say every video just jumps of the blue. It's either uploaded or not. Sorry in advance for being a tad bit cunty, it runs in the family. Hope you understand. Best regards.

[@MercifulNeptune]

@@SkyTheBlessed I was thinking of Matt's previous two videos when I made the comment, since he livestreamed the process of producing them on his Twitch channel. There was no mention of this being in the works and since he and the team have had their noses to the grindstone writing Kingdoms and Warfare, I figured we wouldn't be getting any new videos for a while. This was a nice surprise! (just like a horde of angry lizardfolk in a dungeon, eh?)

[@jennmorton3155]

"You wake up in prison. What do you do?" "I wrote Lawful Good on my sheet, so I guess I ask for a lawyer." Also the craziest hot start I've seen is that everyone starts in the tavern, then monsters burst in.

[@Arkandos42]

To me that is the most common hot start by far.

[@Fenizrael]

Orcs attack!

[@MrCthulhu404]

Goblins burst into the tavern screaming, "The village blacksmith has kidnapped our chieftan!"

[@andrewlance3898]

Imagine you try to start a D&D campaign with a prison break, and then the paladin turns it into A Few Good Men

[@howtodrink]

These are some fantastic ideas I intend to pilfer from liberally! One anecdote if i may, I ran the "Prison Break Start" pretty recently, my Qhoum Campaign opened with that setup, but not exactly the way you have it. I had the players make their characters, any which way they wanted to make them, and I told them to come up with a reason they might have been sold into slavery or otherwise imprisoned. The game began with them being shackled into a chain gang of twenty in a salt mine supervised by trustees. As soon as the trustees were out of earshot the players were informed by elder "We're breaking out, today, don't make us kill you (I didn't have to worry too much about the players opting to remain copper-mine slaves so I figured this was a safe bit of rail-roading)". The escape was already planed for them, there were a few key decision points the players had control over- do we rob the guards or don't we?, do we escape deeper into the mine or do we flee to the surface? etc. Overall it worked reasonably well, and I'd do it again better, knowing what I know now.

[@garthenar]

I'm taking that. You'll be happy to know I'm using real world alcohols from the region I'm basing my world space on. In this case Rakia, Pelin, and Mastica from SE Europe. Hope the channel is going well.

[@menotu7997]

Wow, didn't expect to find you here. Love how many familiar faces I'm seeing in these comments.

[@LukeStrife]

The problem I find with giving people free reign to explain how they were imprisoned, is that people keep saying that the reason they were arrested is that they were framed. It's rather awkward when somewhere between half and three quarters of your party have supposedly been framed for crimes they didn't commit, when the original premise was set up to allow them to explore darker characters. I guess maybe I've been thinking about it the wrong way, now that I've typed it out I find myself wondering why I didn't just embrace it, and turned it into some kind of bigger conspiracy that was causing these undue arrests. Oh well, you live and you learn, there is always the next time.

[@davidharshman7645]

As clever as the idea is...there are definitely players that would object to the idea of playing a slave, no matter how temporary. So, for the people intending to borrow the idea, don't forget to check with your players regarding what they are and aren't okay with first.

[@blarg4699]

I’ve been watching you and Matt totally separate from each other for a while now. Cool to see this little crossover event

[@AButtonProductions]

The Amnesia Prison Break thing: It's Elder Scrolls. It's 100% Elder Scrolls.

[@claudiawatson4631]

Or Portal

[@kevinbarnard355]

It's also the LITERAL plot of a Paizo Adventure Path, Strange Aeon. The PCs are in an asylum, with no memory or knowledge of their character features. It rubs a LOT of players the wrong way as it deprives you of a lot of agency.

[@plastictouch6796]

Yep

[@janfransdevries8032]

Hey you. You're finally awake.

[@visnoga5054]

Was scrolling down because I was sure I'd find this comment.

[@TheDamborg]

The campaign I'm running now starts the "standard" way: 1st lvl Players meet in a tavern at midsummer, having been hired to go into a dungeon and get a relic. However, when they remove the relic, everything goes black, and they wake up in a snowy field with no memory of how they got there. One is missing a finger, one has a letter informing him that he owes a favour to a crime boss, and one has the last surviving page of his otherwise blood-soaked journal, with a date on it a year and a half later than the day they met at the tavern. Now the only clues they have is a map with a marked city half-way across the continent.

[@Neushaer]

This is amazing!

[@harmweerts]

The hangover part 4

[@simonecummings9157]

@@harmweerts I was thinking Dude Where's My Car but make it D&D.

[@TheDamborg]

@@simonecummings9157 Less comical, but I see what you mean haha. But yeah, it worked really well, because it skipped the whole "Why do these people stay together after the first mission"-thing, since they knew they'd already stuck together. They just didn't remember how or why. The whole first act of the campaign was then just the player's slowly piecing together what they had been doing for a year and a half, with plenty of surprises lurking. For instance, the finger one character was missing was specifically his Ring-finger... You guess where that led...

[@simonecummings9157]

@@TheDamborg haha cool! I'm totally happy that you shared this set up. The premise is amazing, I would love to be a player in this campaign!

[@SDTCG]

My favorite start is to start on the day of a festival. I do actually start it in a tavern, just so I have an excuse for all the characters are in the same room, but the first line of NPC dialogue is the barkeep telling them that he's closing down for the festival. They're welcome to come back to rent a room tonight, but everyone is going to be in the town square for the festival. There's fun stuff to do, people to meet, drinking, arm wrestling, axe throwing, etc. Then something terrible happens. Once a hag stole a baby, another time a necromancer riding a zombie blue dragon attacked. I scale the crisis to match the party's level.

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

Mine started in the antechamber of a gladiator pit. The grate lifted up and it was initiative. Later they escaped, but they all had their memories; they regained most of their gear, and they had an NPC helping them.

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

I should give credit, the NPC died helping them escape (and was intended to die), having taken inspiration from the first session of the Chain.

[@sabinamcdaniel7412]

Stealing this. Thanks!

[@bonyeezy7980]

I recently started a campaign with a bunch of good friends and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier with how a session went. We started out on a smuggling ship going to some newly discovered islands in search of adventure. All the PCs booked themselves individually, so they have most of the voyage to get to know each other before a giant sea monster attacked their ship and they were all made unconscious by the creature’s sinister wail. That’s where we ended the session and everyone was hooked. They all played along so well with the running start too, so huge credit to all of them. The classic start in a tavern is great, but a hot drop right into the story gives you a lot of momentum and some good pressure for character moments.

[@Nethingispossible145]

Always happy to see a new 'Running The Game' video. Thanks Matt!

[@CaptainShack]

In my very first campaign we did a "Hot Start" that was designed as a tutorial for myself as GM and for the players. Having them start aboard a ship in cells they meet one of the early big bads whos judging them for there value. Few hints of player backgrounds.. "Shes the one the imps will pay a great deal for.. the rest can go to the Zygerrians". Having the ship come under attack offered the players a chance to escape while introducing a third party, the ship setting allowed me to make challenges that we're easy to plan for. The escape pod at the end required rolls.. on good rolls they went in the direction they wanted as they hurled towards the planet. On poor ones.. a random direction chosen by the dice. This worked great and allowed for some fantastic moments. Of course it was Star Wars but something similar could be done in D&D I have no doubt.

[@Scortch-lo3xy]

ah captain, how are you today?

[@ivocorte1580]

The imprisoned start is great as a tutorial session. First time we played with my group i DMed something similar. They started in cells in the hearth of a bandit's den in a small system of caves. They were captured on the road after taking a caravan escort job and yada yada.

[@DanielRFlores]

I love it when my favorite youtubers collide

[@upsidely]

Pretty sure you played Divinity Original Sin 2 😂

[@timscarrott8919]

That is a majestic mane! One day, a great Noble may well turn up in my Campaign Setting. Lord Colville.

[@hairyheartsmith8513]

Ha! That's a fun idea. Working on a setting now and that sounds like a great way to name and remember the personalities of the local regents.

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

I named a legal firm in a story I wrote "Skorkowsky, Colville and Budz" after the three DND KZbin creators I watch.

[@cadmiumv]

I'm currently involved in a game of 3.5 where my dm sat us all down, explained that we were hired as guards on a caravan headed for the country's capital city and immediately said "roll for initiative". The caravan we were on had been attacked by werewolves and it was essentially up to us to stop the attack. Honestly that was one of the best first sessions I've ever played.

[@draumafikill4888]

God I love that hair!

[@Calebgoblin]

#thingsyoucantsayinlivestream

[@connorhennessey1316]

Them Covid-Covile-Cuts!

[@gmscott9319]

Adding a comment to help with the algorithm.

[@eric.is.online]

reply for the same reason

[@SilasDM]

Ditto

[@Eshir92]

Same

[@michaelsnyder9047]

Sure

[@eclipset.9683]

Yup

[@MonarchsFactory]

Look at us, spoilt for videos! I've been dwelling a lot on campaign openers recently, this was very idea inducing.

[@anthony_hw]

My best campaign start was an impromptu Hot Start campaign when two players were gone from the main campaign for a couple of weeks. I went into D&D Beyond and created five "sniper" PCs as part of recon in force group for a rich elf running a small island. The four players quickly negotiated which PCs they would take, and they tossed the extra out. Even the cleric was a crossbowman with stealth. My on-the-fly adventure was simple. The elf had about an hour's notice that pirates were going to land and do a smash and grab, and she directed the PCs to harras any pirates landing on the north shore to buy time and prevent a flanking maneuver. Well, "harras" turned out to be "wholesale slaughter" as the snipers picked off this CR +10 group one-by-one using every medieval gorilla tactic in the book. The players loved it. This is the only campaign I've run where the players avoid stand-up-fights at all costs. They will spend HOURS planning and sneaking here and there, capturing the occasional prisoner for interrogation and, in general, are sneaky little bastards. Indeed, their motto is, "Stand up fights are for bitches!" The elf has started to use them in an um, (cough) political capacity.

[@matteorunchi6754]

My favorite hot start is the one I used for my second ever campaign as a DM. The party starts as they are about to be hanged. They are adventurers, they already completed their first mission in a solo session zero I ran with each of them. They went to party afterwards, and met a person who offered them a drink. After that, they don't remember anything. The officer of the city guard is telling them that they confessed the omicide of a lieutenant of the guard and they have been sentence to death. They have to escape the hanging, make the city guard loose their tracks and work together as strangers to retrive their equipment and clear their names. Best start I've ever run. And the only time I've seen a wizard look for material components in a Pathfinder 1e game.

[@IICubeII]

My most recent "hot start" was opening on the PC's small town being raided by gnolls, and them being captured. While being transported, in the same wagon with them, was a thief who unlocked their bindings and bought them some time to escape. Bit of a cutsene, but they had total freedom afterwards. Campaign just passed it's four month mark and going strong!

[@custardpanda6209]

I’m glad that the MCDM store exists as there’s some way to repay you for the immeasurable guidance and help you’ve given us all across the years! Maybe this comment will help repay too! Gotta love the KZbin algorithm.

[@joemucchiello4542]

0:51. DM: "You're falling." Players: "What?" DM: "You're falling. What do you do?"

[@arcade-eyes3682]

I love it, I'm using this, gets your mind flowing with questions, an immediate transition from the mundane world to the fantasy world

[@joemucchiello4542]

@@arcade-eyes3682 I can't claim credit for it. It was in 1e AD&D module EX1: Dungeonland, based on Alice in Wonderland. The module literally starts with the PCs falling. My comment above sought to evoke this classic.

[@arcade-eyes3682]

@@joemucchiello4542 I appreciate the reference Joe, thanks

[@zidahya]

Scream for help, I guess?

[@Wimikk]

Posting a video 10 minutes after I wake up? Thanks for giving my *day* a “Hot Start”

[@benjaminjane93]

One of my favorite starts of a campaign I've done was the "Commoner" prologue I did for one game that probably was the most fun and unique ways I've started a campaign. Each player were playing a homebrew Commoner class and they lived in ye olde typical village. Each Commoner had their own talents, the mechanics of the class sort of made the fact that you were a High Elf important because you could cast a cantrip. It shifted the priority of how the players approached their characters making class secondary and their Race and Backgrounds more prevalent. Suddenly positioning became much more important. The Dwarf could use heavy armor so he got a piece of chainmail and a shield and suddenly he was the tank. A Wild Boar was taken as seriously as a threat as a Dragon. And as they grew in power they grew more into the role of the heroes they would eventually become when they came face to face with a Bandit incursion. Probably my favorite way to start a campaign nowadays.

[@umbra7512]

I've only played four different games of D&D, two of which I have been a DM for, one of which still going, and it is this most recent game that had the most exciting start. The players were part of a regiment called the Vanguard, a unit of drafted peasants, farmers, prisoners and glory-seekers sent out into unexplored wilderness to strike at the heart of the orcs my campaign's kingdom had been at war with. The orcs were expected to be licking their wounds and too weak to offer much resistance, but the forest was too dangerous and unknown to risk sending the best soldiers to die. The players had a plan to sneak in from an abandoned mineshaft and blow the walls of the keep open with scrolls of shatter. It worked great, and soon the whole stronghold was swarming with soldiers and littered with dead orcs. But the orcs had a last ditch effort in mind, and had rigged the whole stronghold as some sort of ritual ground, transforming the remaining orcs and reanimating the dead orcs as Tanarukk (big, scary demon orcs). What was a decisive victory turned into a slaughter and chase that the party narrowly escaped from, now stranded a week into the wilderness with minimal supplies. Really set the scene for my game and only made the party's return and revenge even more sweet!

[@SnoConeWars]

My proudest start to a mini adventure that I've done is that the players all awake buried alive in shallow graves. It's a horror, survival-centric adventure, and the few times I've run it, it's been a blast.

[@TriMarkC]

That could easily be used as a murder mystery start, too… with their own “murder” to solve. Why them? What clues? Will they have their own equipment, only ceremonial equipment, or were they stripped - that’s a clue, too. Interesting!

[@zionich]

My last one shot I started the players returning from slaying a dragon with random loot from the dragon. They get back to their keep, the guards are not there, and the portcullis open.

[@ianwhippie2533]

One of my friends ran a game where we started on a prison ship on our way to this prison island, and he'd prepared a murder mystery for us to solve on the ship. Buuut we instead tried to start a prison riot to cover an attempt to steal back our weapons, and what followed was one of the wildest, most chaotic sessions I've ever played that ended with the ship on fire and under attack by kua-toa, while the prisoners scrambled for one life boat and the guards scrambled for the other. I still feel kinda bad for trampling the dm's plan (it wasn't just me who started the riot, I'm not *that guy*, the whole party was in on the plan), but it also seemed to be the most logical outcome. We were prisoners of a theocratic police state that did not want to be on this prison ship, and cared more about getting off it than the fact that one of the guards we didn't like was killed. Major props to that dm though, he just took it in stride and rolled with the punches in a way that was still organized and narritively compelling and he was straight up improving it. One of the most memorable campaign openers in a long while.

[@bluecarrotrm]

The best hot start that I ever ran was actually my first campaign. I was introducing a lot of my family to tabletop RPGs. As it happens, it was a Prison Break. The party woke up in a bunch of cells, divided up, and each of them remembered having been ambushed as they were walking through the forest. None of them had their equipment but they all still have their bodies and abilities. One of them cast of Grease on the bars and that let some of them slipped through. In another cell, one of them was just strong and was able to break the wooden bar so they could Escape. As soon as they got out of their cells and got their equipment from a box in the corner of the room I had a pack of kobold come down the stairs to them. The party quickly realized they had been captured the used as sacrifices and food for these Cobalt. They had a blast fighting their way out of a Cobalt Temple, making sure to avoid the traps and dealing with Darkness. It was a great way for the party to feel Unified how to build camaraderie so that they could work as a team and it gave them ways to show their strengths and weaknesses

[@WormFrizzer]

One of my favorite sessions was when I Dm'd a WFRP (Warhammer Fantasy Role Play) game where they characters wake up in cells in a dungeon along with some Npcs, famished and dirty, and are brought to a feast in a gothic castle. They are then greeted by a pair of aristocratic vampires who gently explain than they're welcome to dine but the true dinner starts later, where as you already expect they are the main course. They have a few minutes to prepare and when the first horn is sound, the castle gates open and they may run though the dark Sylvanian forests as fast and far as they wish, but when the second horn is blown, the vampires begin their hunt. Was very fun to run and watch the players faces when they heard the hounds barking or female maniacal laughter and other ghoulish pressure setting sounds. Very fun.

[@SamuelElPesado]

My first time DMing I ran a prison break intro. The party had all been captured by wannabe slavers. I went into it with no idea how they would escape, and I think maybe that was the best approach for a first time DM. I figured they would come up with something better than any escape plan I'd ever concoct on my own, and if it sounded plausible I could just try to find a way to make it work. They ended up using a charm spell to get the guard to be less vigilant and used some wire they found to pick the locks of their cells. They were pretty clever.

[@JC34258]

I started a shadowrun game with the PC's, who _didn't_ know each other, stuck in classic people-tubes and being experimented on at the bottom of a secret underground lab, in an Aztechnology Z-Zone, in Tenochtitlan. It was epic. They started out quite a bit more powerful than normal characters, since they _needed_ that to survive that campaign introduction. Eventually they managed to track down the Aztech executive who's secret project that lab was and killed him. That was kind of the end of the campaign, four years later.

[@derrickbowen7251]

My very first campaign began with the players bound in a covered wagon traveling north. The players, mostly new to the game, saw that they were in a line of horse drawn wagons traveling through night. The characters were bound, alone with an NPC to give them some information about their capture. If they spoke too loudly, men walking outside would tell them to shut up. Suddenly, a rumbling could be felt by the players as a sinkhole opened outside, swallowing several carts, including the players. They fell into the earth below, leaving many questions about why they had been taken captive. The players arose in a cave with one goal, escape and figure out where they were. I started running games in March of this year after taking in a lot of your content. Thank you so so so so so very much.

[@andrewlance3898]

I did a prison break in a FATE campaign I ran called Pirates of the Aether (custom setting - airship pirates a la Skies of Arcadia). The characters broke free on a prison transport, which justified the more lax security. Then, they released the other prisoners and assembled a crew out of them, and I allowed each player to name and describe one notable NPC who joined the crew. Then they fought through the guards, concluding in a duel with the commanding officer who went on to become a recurring antagonist, and then the players grabbed an impounded ship the prison transport was towing and escaped as the transport went down in flames to begin their career as pirates

[@aspenryder5091]

I absolutely LOVE the "Great Escape" idea! I was going say something along the lines of "I wish I could come up with great ideas like that," but I think I just need to run with my own ideas, stop hesitating. And if they do suck, I'll learn.

[@karlbuenger7105]

I would love to try out something similar to the exploding-collar-suicide-mission-get-out-of-jail-free type of start because that seems very fun. Also the prison escape is really nice and the added 'X' NPC that tells the party of hidden weapons and booby traps is so creative and awesome! Thanks for the inspiration.

[@SuperMorganius]

If you don't already know what the collar mission is inspired by, look up Suicide Squad. It's the exact premise of that comic series. DC villains get exploding collars put around them and have to go on government black ops missions in exchange for reduced sentences or amnesty.

[@ernestasbogdanov2088]

The best start I had for campaign was having Session 0.5. There were 6 players, 2 groups of 3 which were somehow related to each other. I was in a group of Goliaths that due to some circumstances left their tribe to explore the world. The other group were The Academics - noble, book smart characters. So Savages and Intellectuals. So each group had their own start of a short 2 hour adventure which ended with both parties meeting. There also was an NPC that joined the party of Intellectuals and once the NPC saw us - she started crying for help - tension! Best campaign start I ever had as a player. After that as a DM I try to create unique starting events on how the players meet while complementing their own created backstories. It gives more immersion and stronger relationship between the characters, so they have motivation to help each other and go on quests together.

[@BobTheArchmage]

My most recent hot start was for Tomb of Annihilation. The PCs were coming to Chult using an airship (the one already presented as having wrecked in the adventure), but the airship was being attacked by those flying dinosaur people. After having the airship crash into the jungle, the PCs had to rally the survivors of the wreckage and lead them back to civilization.

[@greysonjones5429]

In my current campaign I started my players off on a train, sitting in the same compartment, and then had them notice bandits boarding the train, and I had this awesome combat on top of and through the train cars. It was really a blast

[@joshuacurrey4722]

Matt I have two things to say: 1. At a college campus I interact with so many people playing planing and running D&D, but a problem that I see come up in many of the failed games is that of creating the world backwards. These new DMs have passions for large scale world building, myths and gods, but they do not enable their players to interact with the most developed and interesting parts of their worlds. In addition most of these games start at level 3. I think that a talk on the NEED for mechanics to speak to and through as much of the game as possible is needed. Heck, I would make a video if I had the means. 2. Going off the backwards world building, good ideas of the players should be given more weight. I once changed an entire encounter because one player thought an NPC might have been a doppelgänger. Stories bend to the authors’ ideas. There are many authors at one table; it is the DMs job to seek to engage with other ideas to give them weight through manifestation or dramatic subversion.

[@scottkpetersen]

I write in support of point #2: far too few DMS, IMO, take advantage of the creative input from their players. Not only do I frequently change encounters, puzzles, treasures, or entire campaigns based upon my players' speculation at the table as to what they think or hope might happen (sometime towards what they are thinking, sometimes the opposite of what they're thinking, but often in a random direction just based on something that strikes me in response to their speculation), I encourage my players to contribute ideas to me outside of the game, not only from the obvious, like their characters' backgrounds, but anything they think would be cool. In college, I had a player, Dave, who never seemed to want to DM but he was a font of ideas and would bring me drawing, maps, or pages and pages of worldbuilding materials for organizations, NPCs, encounters, etc. I would often tweak or twist them to suit my purposes but he would always get a kick out of it when I used his stuff. I remember one time that he gave me an old DEFENDERS comic book along with a write up of how he imagined one of the characters from the comic might be used as an NPC villain in our campaign. Not only did I use her as an NPC villain, I decided that she would make a better "big bad" than what I had planned. When you say DMs should steal from everywhere in order to create their campaign, they should absolutely steal from their players as well.

[@gregoryb6494]

In regards to point 2 In my last campaign I ran I told the players off the bat that this would be a silly, lighthearted campaign. The enemies would be comically over-the-top, the allies would be somewhat insane, and the world would be kinda crazy, and asked the players to play along. I wrote a vague story outline and just kinda ran with whatever the PCs came up with. I kept it somewhat on track in terms of creating an overarching story and continuity, but the players came up with 90% of the story for me - and they seemed to really like how often their theories were right (not always, to be clear). The game was always supposed to be kinda silly, so I didn't mind throwing away a lot of my own ideas to allow the players more control. In a more serious game I wouldn't quite take it as far, but it was really clear to me that players have a lot of fun when you go along with their silly ideas. That was one of the more fun games I've run, and all my players spoke glowingly of the experience. This represents the furthest extreme of that idea, but it honestly worked surprisingly well.

[@scottkpetersen]

@@gregoryb6494 I think that sounds awesome. I tend to be the one at the table who tries to reign in the sillier things that my players try to do but occasionally, I just say, screw it, let's see where this goes. Sometimes it's a disaster, but more often than not, it turns out pretty well. I think it depends on your table. If you have players you know and trust, it's okay to give them some rope sometimes.

[@Exsulator2]

I realized one day; all the cool stuff in my campagn setting happened hundreds of years ago… why am I prepping cool stuff players can’t experience again?

[@BurritoInTheMist]

One of my favorite hot opens was mid-Orbital Drop for LANCER. Effectively narrating the high-octane rumbling and groaning and chaos of atmospheric entry, with going through a small montage of each of the characters - giving them a small showcase reel of what they do, how their characters get to look cool in little 'snapshots', and handing over control of the PCs just as they first laid eyes on each other; haggared, winded, and with the southern wall breaking down as combat began. They ran immediately to properly regroup, but the entire time the enemies were on their tail as they helped each other escape, giving them and the small unit of foot soldiers with them covering fire as the siege of the city began in full swing.

[@aurag1760]

A great way to start a campaign in media res that I read in a book was basically : "It's raining outside. You are all running. Who's carrying the body ?" Did it once for a one-shot, it works really well.

[@TriMarkC]

LOL, loved that - “Who’s carrying the body?”

[@turnipslop3822]

I just started my first ever campaign from a crazy one-shot that my players wanted me to turn into a campaign. Trying to make everything that I just wontonly threw into the one shot make some kind of sense has been a crazy but entertaining experience. Anyway, long story short now there is a cult of ancient lizard people reawakened from slumber that have opened a time-portal to the past from which dinosaurs are invading post-conquista fantasy Mexico... I'm very proud of it 😅 Would never have been able to pull it off without the great guidance from Matt!

[@Blaze8t88]

Ran a pirate game off the cuff where the PC's woke up, together with the rest of the crew, chained in a row to the deck of a ship, the ship was listing and sinking. They could see that a fight had taken place and that they had probably fought and lost, but had no memory of the fight. Pirates had taken over the ship and theirs was bobbing beside it. Apparently before their memory was wiped they had agreed to join the pirates. If they refused now, they would go down with the ship. The players only needed to know their characters race and what they looked like. Skills and memories would return (read filled in) as they became part of the crew and the workings of the pirate life. The game rules were lite enough to allow this.

[@thomaskempton9187]

When I was getting into D&D, I had started my own campaign because my group's DM was going across the country for school, so naturally they wouldn't be available to DM. Now my she started my group in a Tavern, so naturally, I thought I needed to be different and had my party start off as "criminals" exiled from the Evil Empire to a wild continent. While I made some mistakes while DM'ing that campaign, starting the campaign like that is something I never regretted.

[@mufasa4794]

This video came at a perfect time for me! I had been planning a Hot Start campaign for my friends as part of a homebrew I've created. I'm running it as a multiple timeline type game and I'll try to elaborate.. I've had the party make a level 1 and a level 13 version of their characters. The intro will be an opening of their level 13 characters running through a burning city to confront demons and ending in a narrated battle with a Demon Lord. It'll be told as though its uncertain what happened in the finale with a "flash of light" type cutaway to an old sage telling their story to their future children. This is to show that their actions have lasting consequences, as many NPC's I introduce to the Sage may vanish if they die in the past. Once the narrative is set, they will begin as their level 1 selves, fighting off an encroaching Undead presence. They will be part of an emergency militia and given farming tools to defend a few buildings as they begin to tell their tale. Occasionally if I feel like they stagnate or I over/under tune an encounter, I can have the narrator chime in with, "As I recall..." and potentially give my newer players hints. Some of your narrative ideas will come in a lot of handy, and I thank you for every bit of knowledge you've given me!

[@davidharshman7645]

For a while, I was starting most of my games with the equivalent of "you're all traveling on the same road at the same time to the same place for your own reasons" and the first encounter was always the caravan of travelers either being attacked or coming across a group of innocent NPCs being attacked by minions of the big bad. (Or maybe just a danger created as a side effect of the big bad's efforts.) I always figured that it gave my players an easy encounter to get used to the new mechanics of a new character, it gave my players an opportunity to see how their characters might work together, and it gave them at least foreshadowing of the dangers to come in a way that they personally experienced and were affected by.

[@Archangel7794]

The Topaz Championship from L5R. The GM allowed our scorpion to rig the championship so our Kakita won the highest honor. Our Kakita and the scorpion faced off in the final duel and bc of the Roll and Keep system, when the Scorpion rightly beat the Kakita on the roll, but kept the dice to roll 1 under the TN, he ensured the Kakita took the championship and ensures the Kakita knew it. With the Kakita's appointment to emerald magistrate, he requested the Scorpion as his personal yojimbo. That was the best two sessions I've ever played in an RPG to date, and the start of the best campaign I ever took part in.

[@NateDynamite]

My group just began Tomb of Annihilation on Halloween night. I ran an intro dungeon called Cellar of Death as my "hot start" where they were a part of an attack on a Lich who had info on the death curse. I had a PC play a character that has been previously resurrected so many times he lost count and was actively dying from the curse through the dungeon so the party could see the effects if they don't stop it. That character gave his life at the end, after they had milked the Lich for all the info they could, he charged her and they both burned in radiant light. That was my "Captain". I can never thank you enough for all the help and the inspiration you've provided since I began DMing. Keep being awesome!

[@Fatespinner]

The hottest start: You start in the middle of the Endless Battlefield of Avernus. Jokes aside, I once had a campaign start with the group fleeing a town being burned by the BBEG's private army.

[@flaredrake2093]

I’m running my second ever prison break, and the first one I did went over well with my PCs. I think everything you’ve said about prison breaks is so true. PCs can handle not having gear, but give them clear path to escape and find their stuff. Then put challenges in between them and their goals. Don’t try and counter every thing they might come up with, write what you think the prison came up with as counter measures and leave it at that.

[@GroverAaron]

While listening to your ideas, it inspired one for me. I want to write a starting script where everyone is in a jail cell, presumably each player is next to each other. Then, before the game, send each player a “mad lib” style sheet, and populate the script with what the players sent back... this would add some humor, make them improvise a little with the funny choices of the other players, and escape together.

[@Lvl1Replay]

The best DM I've ever played under had a brilliant start to help everyone introduce the flavour of their characters, we were on board a boat heading to Waterdeep trying to sneak an artifact into the city. A mist rolls in while we're still at sea and the boat is attacked by pirates - classic! BUT there was no roll for initiative, instead we go around the table and each person simply describes what their character does to aid the combat, and it just happened, each player got temporary narrative control and it made for a sweet way to describe and flavour your character, and it made it so combat didn't clog the introduction phase.

[@ken.droid-the-unique]

Jiminy Christmas! Matt's on the KZbins! Uh... That's all I got for the comment section. (Submitted to the KZbin algorithm as a sacrifice for the glory of this channel)

[@Genesis8934]

Matt: "Out of the Abyss is a good one to steal from" Me: Great, now I'm gonna go buy that module... :P

[@Shalakor]

Not really, the tips he gave are as much as you really need to steal from it.

[@mickeysmagic89]

I started one of my favorite campaigns I started them at a crime scene in a brothel. One of the characters worked at the brothel and found the body, two of them worked for the dead man’s employer seeking the goods he was supposed to deliver, and the fourth was a member of the local thieves’ guild which holds the monopoly on the drug that the dead man had overdosed on. The “bad guy” was just a thief who would take marks to the brothel, get them drunk/high, then rob them. This guy just happened to OD, so he robbed him and ran. They tracked the thief down and the map that he had stolen from the dead man. Which led to a whole other adventure

[@TriMarkC]

Cool! Gave them all different “factions” & perspectives to start from!

[@michaelczaiczynski3604]

The hottest start I remember was when we started a new campaign of first level characters. We were all members or a traveling “circus”. It started with us finished packing up our “train” of wagons that was magically moved by our ringmaster/leader and moving on to the next town. In the middle of the first night while we were all sleeping, a werewolf began tearing through our train attacking everyone. As characters who were vaguely familiar with each other because of the size of this circus train, we were forced to fight it off and scare it away. Then, upon investing the damage, we found our leader dead and several other NPC subordinates of his missing, but seemingly injured because of the torn up rooms and blood everywhere, but several magical artifacts that we knew the ringmaster used for the circus and train missing. It was up to us to figure out what we were going to do next, and track the monster down.

[@davidresnick]

I think my favorite hot start that I ran, was also from fourth edition, each of the players would eventually be leaving from the town to go explore the dungeon. But before they met each other or the town, I ran each of them in a one on one mini adventure basically just a skirmish or two to get used to their abilities and get to feel awesome, a drow heretic warlock Who worships Corellon Running to the surface fleeing a Drider, and a squad of four other drow. An Eladrin sword mage, the first in 100 years to step from the Feywild, Comes upon hobgoblin slavers and fight them from the treetops before pouncing upon them teleporting and cutting them all down. And the dwarven barbarian prince having been gifted his family’s famous orc slaying axe and sent out into the world to prove himself a warrior cleaves through an army of orcs (mostly minions so he can show off area attacks easily) in a scene very inspired by the end of The Fellowship of the Ring movie. After I had ran each of these individual mini adventure/fights that also contained skill challenges, We found a time for the first game with everyone there And the three players paths each lead them to converge on the local settlement where they along with help from the town militia repelled the dark elf pursuers and welcomed their three new heroes PS This was also a great way to introduce players to fourth edition, and is amongst the reasons I will never understand all the hate and complaints I have heard about fourth. I agree with you on a lot of things Matt, and having really enjoyed fourth edition is one of them. neither I nor anyone I ever played it with seemed to have any bad experience with it 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@phatman9762]

I accidentally did this exact thing when I started Hoard of the Dragon Queen after my players finished Lost Mine of Phandelver.

[@raenkord7881]

I mean technically lost mine is a hot start, your players have been on the road for at least a few days before the first part of the adventure even starts.

[@phatman9762]

@@raenkord7881 I guess that's true.

[@servo9421]

The "hot start" as demonstrated brilliantly by The Chain very much inspired the start to my current longest-ever running campaign. In fact, now nearly two years later, I'm three days away from the finale of the action set up in the very first minutes of the campaign. Thanks for all the inspiration that you've given me and everyone else along the way - I would have never done it had you not shown me that it was possible!

[@danielschraven5900]

I know I'm commenting on a 3yr old video, but I hope someone sees this. I DM for a party of three other people and went with the 'hot start' for our first session. This is a party of all bards, a band called "The Fireballs". The session took place in this grand keep's ballroom during the afterparty of one of the gigs they played at. The lord of the keep got up to give a toast, or a speech or some such, and as the room drank their wine for the toast, all the NPCs started dropping like flies; poisoned a la Game of Thrones. Assailants, disguised as servants began entering the room, rounding up the NPCs and the players had to escape. It was a very very fun session and the players loved it.

[@starsixseven9259]

I usually put my players on the precipice of danger. They're in a situation that's already happening, and their next actions will determine how the night will play out. The last time I did this, I put them in the brigg, and someone can get the key. And it actually worked! I didn't do any of that no character sheet or supplies either, so they were super engaged, right up to the point that they dueled the captain for control of the ship

[@azuraben5128]

My best hot start was this: You are all prisoners for one reason or another, roll initiative, the airship that is transporting you is crashing

[@KalonOrdona2]

"I like it. Simple. Easy to remember."

[@matthewjoy475]

I've been writing an adventure for Starfinder that is basically this. Except replace airship with "space station" and crashing with "rapidly decaying orbit."

[@SoccerThrall]

I’m a first-time DM and I literally did a prison break for my first try. I’m glad to say I did not do an Elder Scrolls opening where my PC’s were amnesiacs. Instead they all had a background where they committed a crime and were “on the run from the law.” They thought they were outside the law but instead I dropped them in a prison. From there, I introduced an NPC that asked for their help in an escape plan he had laid out but just needed more hands. Now they’re all out and each has a hidden backstory the others are eager to learn about as to why they were in prison. So far it’s doing a great job of sparking role-play as they travel around and uncover more about each other. Thanks for your ideas, I might steal a few!

[@MrBaconwing]

best start to a campaign I ever played in was a pathfinder module called wrath of the righteous. you start off as strangers at a festival and demons attacks, which causes a tunnel to collapse beneath the players and they end up buried beneath the city in its catacombs along with a dieing silver dragon that was defending the town. you basically instantly start inside a dungeon that you dont really know how to get out of other than to start moving forward and hope the road ahead eventually connects with the surface rather than the underdark. it was an interesting and unique way to bring a group of strangers together so the players didnt need to try and come up with a reason to know each other, and could allow them to build bonds in game while they tried to reach the surface to see if the town survived the demon attack.

[@medix311]

Love so much that we’re seeing regular videos again. Thanks so much Matt! We love your enthusiasm and earnestness!

[@gushauser4221]

One of my favorite campaign openers started in a town known as "The Red Keep" It was originally a military outpost that eventually grew into a trading hub as the empire expanded. I told them all the immense amount of trade that goes on here, and that they are each here for their own reasons, giving them some examples of possible reasons, but allowing them to make their own. Then I told them they were all standing in the streets and square, and the entire city was on fire. What do you do?

[@andrewholaway4113]

My first ever D&D campaign started with a hot start. We woke up lying down on a boat that was floating down a river. As we came to our feet, we saw a chest in the middle of our circle of bodies with a glowing orb within it (we grabbed it). Then we noticed the boat picking up speed just as arrows began slamming into the boat (and our bodies). As we took cover as much as possible from the archers standing on the shore about 75 feet from us, we also noticed a stone bridge ahead of us, and a few hundred feet beyond that, the river fell off into a waterfall. Our blood was pumping! It was an absolutely fantastic start to the campaign that came crashing down immediately after the combat was over: we had amnesia, apparently caused by trying to grab the glowing orb before the campaign started, and the bard that we conversed with following combat (he had helped us in battle) took the orb after convincing us that he was a Captain of the army of the nation we were all from (again, amnesia, so we had no idea). We spent the next 5 sessions wandering around, taking up what turned out to be side quests because we had no idea where the main storyline was trying to lead us. The bard didn't contact us to help out, didn't send us to our handler, just disappeared in the middle of the night in the very first session. Turns out, he was a liar and that orb came back to bite us. The bard screwed us over like 6 sessions later and we became exiles. I see what the DM was trying to do, but the amnesia side of things made it feel incredibly unfair, and we didn't get enough information to deduce that we were getting played by the bard. I ended up quitting that game after a while because I lost interest, and then the whole game kinda fell apart. I think if he had skipped the amnesia aspect and instead had an honest handler intervene (or even a false handler that was either immediately obviously not our real handler, or who convinced us he was legit only to have the real handler come in to lay down the law), that campaign could have been off to a great start. We needed a linear path to get us to the "real" storylines, and a bit of hand-holding as we navigated the awkwardness of character introductions and learning the lay of the land in this 100% homebrew world.

[@Jessie_Helms]

My first ever campaign was Rime of the Frostmaiden. I set the starting town as Caer Konig cause it’s the furthest town. They MUST go through Caer Denival before they go anywhere else if they’re sticking to roads, and then they have to choose between Bryn Shander and Easthaven for the most part. It’s starting quest also involves what I made my campaign’s “act 1 bad guys.” Goliath walks into town and is startled by the Dragonborn Speaker- who’s definitely sober- climbing out of a snow bank. He guides him to the Inn, where a Half-Orc is warming himself by the fire, still recovering from his caravan being slaughtered by Owlbears on the supply run to town. The Speaker asks the stranger Goliath if he’d help him solve some thefts, as he can trust this stranger to not be responsible given how long it’s been going on. He also asks the half-orc if he’s interested since he’s got nothing else to do, given his boss got eaten. Before they can answer, an elf grasps both their shoulders from behind and says they’ll be glad to help! As they prepare to leave, the Dwarf who’s been watching this go down decides he’d like to see what’s gonna happen. They go to the expeditions outpost where a human Druid is tending to the sled dogs, and decides to follow the party if for no reason other than making sure the dog’s safe and getting some adventure. They follow the tracks, and…. It was a bit messy in execution, but even now that I have 15 sessions under my belt I think it was a good start.

[@andrewshandle]

The "Group Patron" stuff in the new book is designed to make this sort of start a lot easier. I'm curious to read how they've sorted it out.

[@jtjames79]

You've all gathered at a local inn, the inn is on fire, because of the bar fight, roll initiative.

[@Calumba1904]

My favourite start to a campaign was when I ran a game set in a magic school and started with all the players in detention. The whole first session was like The Breakfast Club with magic and it meant all the characters bonded before they set foot in a dungeon.

[@Haiddon]

my favorite start to a campaign that I've been a part of, the players failed to defend their town from an aarakocra raid, and then a ransom note shows up. so the players have to start by trekking to a meeting place to either buy back or rescue their captured families.

[@LutesDice]

The Birthright story gave me chills. Thank you for these marvelous ideas. I'm totally stealing all of them!

[@TheBoyFromNorfolk]

Hot start deception: it seems like you are starting in a tavern, then as soon as the energy flags, giants attack the town. Great for getting a one shot moving. Never tried it for a longer campaign. Hot Start Failure: I started at the end of a duel with one of my players being the victorious winner of a pirate ship. I failed to get player buyin. They asked for a pirate game, I gave them an age of sail game, in which they were pirates. These are not the same. They weren’t interested in managing a crew or a ship, or planning piracy, they wanted a pirates of the Caribbean ride and the game collapsed. Most successful hot start? Actually Lost Mines of Phandelver, letting the players establish roughly who they are and how they know gundren out of character, and then starting with them bantering on the cart until then come across the remains of the goblin ambush. From the moment the realised that “Uncle Gundren” was the likely victim of the attack, they rushed to his rescue, ignoring every side quest. Matt, if you read this, I turned it into a podcast inspired by your Campaign Diaries. I wanted to say, thanks for all you do.

[@alexkennedy1587]

I've always started my campaigns in a tavern, as has my father before me. My last one, however, the local wizard got drunk, was very mad at the tavern owner, barged in and started the place on fire. We started the campaign by rolling initiative.

[@minelegend6557]

I did a sort of hot start when I did a campaign based on the Fallout New Vegas Dead Money DLC. Each party member was individually searching for this lost resort full of a wizard's magical items. I played through how each member was captured and brought to the resort by the BBEG for his grand scheme to take it all for himself.

[@antonmarcello5049]

Matt your videoes are a bright point of my day. Thank you for that!

[@MrCheese1338]

Oh man, I haven't been keeping up with your channel for a while, love the hair. Good video too.

[@simondavy3214]

I started running Neverland with my kids (age 4-17). They each created 2 characters. We started on a boat getting shipwrecked. Half the players got lost, and now the players want to explore Neverland to find what happened to their other lost boys. Worked great!

[@Tanthros]

The first really sucessful game of D&D I ran (one where my players told me they had a blast) opened with the PC's having been shanghaied by pirates. Chained to oars and forced to row for their captors the PC start when a battle takes most of the guards away from the hold where they are kept, giving them their opportunity for freedom. Using invisablity the players tricked the remaining guard into gettting too close and jumped him. The PCS then convinced their fellow prisoners to revolt and led them above deck and won a three way battle between them and two seperate groups of pirates. I've run this hot start for three differnt groups of players entirely new to D&D and everytime the PC'S come up with creative ways to trick the guards using the features they were excited about in character creation. I ran that game after being inspired by one of Matt's first running the game videos around four years ago to get my friends together to play D&D. Just wanted to thank you for that push which has created a lot of joy in my life and in others.

[@wanderingshade8383]

Oh man, I've been waiting for this one!

[@rafaelj.riosalmodovar2008]

I love these videos. Even though I have never been a DM and I have only played a one-shot back in the 3.5 days. I never played again because I could never find a group... I hear about playing online, but I don't even know where to look.

[@MrLoneBacon]

If you use reddit try r/lfg as people are organizing games there all the time or maybe try finding a public dnd discord, those are the ways i find games

[@davidharshman7645]

In addition to what MrLoneBacon is suggesting, you can also find Play-By-Post games at www.rpol.net, where there is always a new game of some system or another starting and looking for new players.

[@jakobjoelsson6414]

check out roll20.net. It's a platform for online play with a great matchmaking systems for all kinds of games. I found a 4 year game, and friends for life on there.

[@Raphir]

All of the answers people already gave here are great, first of all! But also, don't forget to ask around with friends and people you like if they would be willing to try it out, too. Even though nowadays the stigma around RPGs has greatly diminished, it is also not a hobby people will advertise their interest in openly in most situations, and there are undoubtedly still folks out there who would enjoy it but never heard of it. So there may well be people in your life who would like to play with you, but need someone else to take the first step!

[@benkimball9388]

I love hot starts. I think the favorite one that I've done was for a 7th Sea campaign many years ago. We open, as we often do, with something blowing up. The characters are asleep when huge explosions wake them and cannonballs splinter through the walls of the galleon on which they've booked passage, missing them by inches. (Cue Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.) As the galleon on which they've booked passage from Avalon to the continent begins to sink, the heroes must band together and rally the other NPCs on the ship to fight, board, and capture the enemy pirate ship before they're all sent to the bottom. Upon succeeding, they must decide what to do with their new ship -- will they take up a life of piracy themselves?

[@Kittykattarina]

Started my favourite campaign in an arena with no explanation as to why they were there. just right to the action. Afterward learning they were competing for a spot in a guild and then came up with why each of them wanted to join.

[@dennydravis8758]

Awesome, I was just trying to articulate this to my friend the other day. I couldn't marshall all of my thoughts on it, and it's nice to be able to hear a more coherent version, especially from a designer's point of view.