GM hamfistedly "subverts" tropes

>It only works if it works

You start in a dungeon, or you would but dungeons don't really exist in real life.

You're in the middle of battle in part of the war, but they just killed the enemy lord so the war just ended.

My last adventuring group used earth magic to build bathhouses everywhere they stopped.

>"You start in a dark cave, you don't know where you are. You're scared and crying, suddenly a crack of light appears and you feel yourself moving towards the light. You are pulled from the cavern into the light, giants surround you and look at you with curious eyes."
>"roll for initiative"

is it a subversion if I start the game with "you are all holding eggs. You are all running. Behind you, something very big is screaming."?

Sadly, this news doesn't reach the lines for a few weeks and you all died due to infection from your wounds.

Your party starts on a quest that they perceive to be in their best interest, until the GM reminds you that your party follows a religion which disavows the concept of interest so they just do nothing instead

I don't think starting in media res is really subversion

Only if they big screaming thing isn't telling them to eat all the eggs.

>Alright...so where do we start then?

At one point I LOVED running a campaign where adventurers would wake up on a deserted island in the stomach of an incomprehensibly massive creature and they'd have to go from internal island to island, between seas of stomach acid, scrounging resources, magical reagents, treasures, equipment, meeting lost and hopeless peoples to help, and whatever else this land-sized beast ate to make their escape.

But Vore is a fetish now, so I don't really feel comfortable doing that no more.
Which is a shame cause it's a really fun and bizarre adventure.

Just do it.

>GM masterfully subverts tropes
>"You end defeating the evil lich overlord, tell me how you did it."

You are part of one of two armies that are staring each other down. News arrives, telling that the king died while on the shitter. Civil war is over, your side lost, you are not getting paid.

>Implying you are allowed to wear armor outside.

This is a privilege for noble characters.

>the king died while on the shitter
Did he shit gold?

Well, I think OP's example describes it pretty well. You start at the entrance of a tavern that you can't get in.

I dont get how such petty things bother so many of you that you need to start a thread about it.

Toliet Viking

The King had insisted that last night's roast included peanuts even though he was allergic to them.

>Not starting with "so, where do we see you guys and what are you doing?"
>Not delegating lion's share of content creation to the group
I bet you play d&d

if he was a "muh realism" fag you should have informed him that everyone, nobles included smelled like shit during the equivalent real life timeframe your typical fantasy game depicts.

Of course if magic can solve anything there's no reason why people wouldn't be much cleaner

>you are not getting paid.
Sounds like a good reason to start a new rebellion.

>not starting with "so what senses do you posess and what do they tell you, and what kinds of actions do you feel you can perform of your own volition?"
I bet you play according to some rulebook.

He should know that Charles 2’s party guests were crapping in the halls.

Most people were toddlers in the medical ages.

You're in the castle and the Grand Duke of not!Moscow wants your appanage.

I liked Torment’s start

>>Not starting with "so, where do we see you guys and what are you doing?"
>not starting with "So where do you see yourself in five years?"

This could actually be a good start. It gives a plausible reason why there'd be heavily armed exceptional people in one place, it establishes a scenario pretty well and foreshadows a possible future antagonist (the winning side) and it gives an impetus as to why the party would need to find work in the first place.

>implying

>NEET smite!

You all begin in Duke's dungeon, taken there for questioning for alleged subversive activities at the tavern. Mayhaps you called Duke's mother a whore, or mentioned killing a deer in his forest, or not-so-subtly suggested that he is not, in fact, a kind and generous man who rules the land with honor and admiration of the people. Regardless, someone snitched and you are here in the cell, waiting for the interrogator.

You start at a tavern, but it's still under construction.

Its a freak blizzard in a mediterranean climate. So instead you start in the holding area (aka prison) and you're all freezing your asses off. You're all slave fodder and your owners left you to seek a warm fire. The guards are all huddled in the distance around a small fire, not paying attention. When you make your escape into the hills the sky suddenly clears and you're greeted in the blinding snow by a witch. "Where's Darrell?" she asks. You don't know who that is. She threatens to curse you all and makes an example of one of you. You have to go back and help her lover Darrell escape captivity as well. She glamors herself as a guard who had captured you and forces you back toward the city.

I don't see how the king dying would mean the civil war was over, unless he named the leader of the rebels as his successor for some reason.

You all start in a giger hellscape.

Are you man enough to survive?

>You all start in view of your destination. Each of you have your own reasons for taking this job, whether you wish to share them or not is your own decision.

Bam, done. Skip the setup and throw them right into the adventure. This method is especially effective if you have a player who's the sort retard that makes a lone wolf or is otherwise disruptive at party formation.

>You all begin in Duke's dungeon
You all begin in the Duke's bedchamber..

...the Duke is dead, there's a bloody dagger on the bed, and you hear the guards rushing to the doors. Did you kill him and what are you doing next?

You all start by watching the skeleton king do pic related. As he disappears he laughs and says “you fools are now trapped in this dimension, ha ha ha”

Outside you hear horsehoofs and singing, “what kind of dimension is this” you ponder.

You all begin on your respective parents' houses and never leave them because you are autistic manchildren.

yeah but when does the game start?

The game is already over, it has been over for years.

You can go to the House of MacDonald to acquire a repeatable quest.

I begin to try cooking the chunks of the strange bio-organic walls.
Does the smell emitted seem edible?

Do nothing.
>Guards rush in, "Damn, looks like the Duke's fetishes finally caught up with him. You've all got the waiver, right?"
Hand it to him.
>"We'll compensate you for the cost of the goat and baked goods in a few days. [Player 4] will see you out."

Yes, I did, but I don't know what that dagger has to do with anything since I poisoned the Duke. Anyway, there's no time to think, I hope my own drug acts soon enough and puts me into a lethargic state so that my accomplice, the priest, can revive me and get me out of town.

...

>watching some youtube thing
>ok so tell me what your characters are doing today
>everyone is doing something different apart from each other
>ok so you're all sitting at a table in the tavern...

What sort of tavern has the resources to actually enforce a "no weapons" policy? Wouldn't the armed dude laugh in the bartender face or punch him if he gets too annoying?
Also does he keep your weapons while you are inside or are you forbiden from entry if you are armed? Seems like a pretty shit idea if you want travelers and adventurers to go there.

>You start in front on an hotel, on an island in the pacific. The ex-wrestler owner comes to greet you.

>what sort of tavern
One that has automated turrets, or one that has vetted customers who ARE allowed to wield weapons.

I don't think I am at a high enough level to go to the Abyss

>What sort of tavern has the resources to actually enforce a "no weapons" policy?

Any bartender that can't protect his bar from a two-copper adventurer is no bartender.

>What sort of tavern has the resources to actually enforce a "no weapons" policy?
One that doesn't exist in an ancap "utopia" and pays taxes.

So Fish and Chips gets to wield a weapon and I don't? Well fuck you, I'm sure I can find another tavern to meet random strangers with whom I will be forced to go on adventures.

that's fine, fish and chips eats like six times the amount you do.

That's where mob justice comes into place. Everyone accepts that a tavern may be a rowdy place at times, and there could be a fight or two. But if someone starts swinging a sword or brandishing a dagger, they're getting knocked out by chair and thrown into pig's pen naked overnight.

>and thrown into pig's pen naked overnight.
and that is if they are feeling lenient.

>You start in a cave
>You've been kidnapped by a dragon
>Roll stats for the princess who saves you

Elena a cute. CUTE!

>The Princess declares she'll fight for her own hand
>A mysterious black knight shows up for the tournament
>Accidentally killed in a joust
>Whoops it's the Princess, what now?

I doubt a tavern that bans "heavily armored weirdos" has the kind of clients that would stand up to protect the bartender or even have a chance against said heavily armored weirdos.
If anything, the tavern filled with heavily armed weirdos is more likely to have that kind of thing since those guys would want to protect the place they meet at and have the tools and skills to fuck up any troublemaker.

Badly formulated premise will do that. It has to be a loaded question "where do we see you" implies that we see group together, or you can even add "You are together, where do we see you" if they aren't exactly bright, like those youtube players apparently were. Or add together part after they misunderstood.
Actually, "everyone is doing something different apart from each other" is fine to for a short character flavor introduction, when they are done, ask where do they meet and what do they think they do.
Digressing to GM scene framing is the wrong choice if you were going to delegate it in the first place.

Sounds like some femdom fetish shit.

>The Princess declares she'll fight for her own hand
What the fuck was her point? What if she won the tournament? Would she marry herself? And what now that she's dead? Will the one who won get to marry her corpse?

Shit like this is why I'm a republican.

>You start in a tavern
>There's a lot of yelling from the staff

The princess is just fighting for her right to be a selifsh cunts who bring an end to her bloodline and throws the country into civil war.

They'll probably just punish whoever killed her even though it was an accident, then they'll give you the next sibling in line

What makes you think that?

Oh, just a hunch.
Gentle femdom is god-tier

>winner of the tournament gets next silbing in line
>"that's a boy"
>"not anymore, enjoy your princess"

Most femdomfags love shoehorning their shitty fetish into everything.

It's the law of the land, and the custom of the land. You are hospitable, and those who partake of your hospitality are bound by laws more ancient than man not to raise arms against you. Those who do are labeled oathbreakers, and reviled across the lands, run out of cities and outright killed sometimes. The gods themselves twist their appearances, and an average person can tell if they're facing an oathbreaker unless they take much effort to disguise themselves.

Anyhow, a tavern is going to be full of locals who likely spent their entire lives in that location. Even if they aren't going to put up much of a fight, they're going to be somewhat more united than people on the street in megacities today.

>being this insecure
lol

>>"that's a boy"

Those are some some weird hyperspecific setting based excuses you're coming up with to justify why those taverns aren't going out of business.

Ask me how I know you're American.

He's making sense?

Ask me how I know you're a cuck.

Only a good guy with a broadsword can stop a bad guy with a broadsword xD

How is that relevant?

Nope, I'm a spic and if you think I'm trying to turn this into some hidden gun control discussion then you are wrong.
I'm just saying that forbidding travelers from entering your tavern with weapons when you live in your average medieval fantasy setting is pretty dumb and you would probably run out of business as soon as some other less stupid dude opens a tavern that allows that shit.

Heavily armored weirdos traveling and stopping at taverns is already a hyperspecific setting based thing, amigo.

If you travel with armor and weapons, most of it is in a cart and you leave your squire to guard it.

Yeah, it's so hyperspecific that it exists in almost every fictional setting :^)

Underrated.

now now, only the ones designed specifically to break realism to allow for better gameplay.

I dislike the meme posting.

Pretty much. There's a reason peasants are little different from cattle. If you're not middle or upper class with the resources to purchase and carry your own arms and armour, along with having been trained in their use, you might as well prostrate yourself to whatever fate anyone dictates to you.

There's a reason peasant levies and shit like that is more of a myth than something common, and when they did exist they usually got slaughtered. They're shit and should stick to non-violent things.

In that case, the tavern functions exactly as well as any other merchant "in almost every fictional setting". They don't, because economy isn't simulated.

Enjoy that Greatsword for 50gp.