Ideal RPG opening scene

[Pavlos]

Alright... as random as it may seem I want to know what your perfect RPG opening act is. I got into a discussion today with two of my friends about this and I was wondering what you thought!

 

I will cite an example of our discussion. NWN... an absolutely brilliant game that completely and utterly fails to sell itself in its opening scene. (You wake up in a room... that is it and what is worse is that the prologue is impossibly shallow, annoying and oh so many other adjectives of that sort.)

 

I would like to know what you think!

[Darth InSidious]

You wake up on a bunk on a ship...To find out it's under attack, and then go and rescue some spoilt young girl who thinks she's the centre of the universe just because she's a Jedi

[Hallucination]

Well it starts out in a bar, and your character is sitting at a table. Then the door opens, and a rabbi, a priest and a midget walk in....

 

I don't pay too much attention to the intros, so I can't really answer that.

[CountVerilucus]

i usually catch on the movies where something violent and dramatic happens at the start. and then it says something like "10 years later...". For example Xmen 1, where the kid (who turns out to be magneto i think) is in a Nazi concentration camp.

[DarthSaboteur]

I'd say something that really opens your eyes instead of some dreadfully boring opening cutscene. I think KotOR got it right when BioWare wrote down what would happen on the Endar Spire.

[Alkonium]

After character creation, your character appears in a lush, green, peaceful place, with little or no knowledge of the adversary, life is basically great, but soon, things turn sour, and the tutorial area is destroyed by the enemy. Now that is a beginning for an RPG.

[Darth333]

I don't have any specific scenario here but I think the scene should give some room to imagination and not too much background info: I like to be able to decide whether my pc was good or bad in the past, what is his/her background, etc and shape my PC to my liking.

[The Source]

^^^^^^^^^^^^

I love that idea!

[Lantzen]

I like the Fable opening scene, that you start as a kid. Or you wake up in a morgue with no memories and the first npc you talk to is a floating skull:)

[REDJOHNNYMIKE]

You wake up, realize your insane, and decide "I THINK I LIKE IT!!!!!":thmbup1:

 

I kinda like it when a story starts with the main character dying, but not giving much of a clue as to where or when it's happening, so you know it's inevitable. Kinda ups the tension a little bit.