GREAT Hooks to Start a Scenario

[Naked Samurai]

In White Dwarf #63 there is a modern day adventure called "Draw the Blinds on Yesterday" (that is modern = 1980s). I'm not sold on the scenario as a whole, but it has a truly kick-ass scenario starter.

Flight 1742 left Athens and disappeared [en route to London]. At first a communications failure was suspected, then it was assumed that the aircraft had crashed without warning. The plane was given up as lost. Now it has reappeared after three weeks, with the Captain apparently unaware of the passage of time...

The investigators are all on board, and the trick is determining what happened to those three weeks, and where everyone went. As a one-off, or a campaign starter, this is just peerless, a way to instill not only instant suspense and mystery (have I changed? who else was on board? what does Greece have to do with this?), but also role-playing opportunity (what would it be like to have vanished from job and loved ones?), but also perhaps the most key thing of all -- a brilliant way of roping disparate characters together.

Too many CoC scenarios fall into the rut of "someone old/rich/you know contacts you to do some quest/search a house/open a box/deliver something." What are some of the greatest, most useful, most ingenious scenario or campaign starts you've ever seen?

[Mr. Bill]

"The Plantation," from Mansions of Madness, has unique opening that breaks away from the ol' "Letter from kindly old Uncle Fishygills!" trope. The investigators are driving down the street in Arkham (or wherever), when a small, barefoot black boy darts into the road in front of them and is hit by their car. He's mostly okay but superficially injured, so while waiting around for the ambulance or maybe bringing him to a doctor themselves, the investigators get a chance to hear his story: He's come mostly on foot from the North Carolina plantation on which his family sharecrops, his sister is in danger and he needs to find Professor Albert Gist, brother of the planation owner. Most tantalizingly, little Joe is certain Gist lives in town because he, uh, just sorta knows... even though he doesn't even know what town he's in.

In the same book, "Mr. Corbitt" has a pretty classic start: one of the investigators has the others over to his (very nice) house for dinner. They notice his kindly neighbor across the road struggling with a bundled-up tarp... when a child-sized arm falls from the bundle. The neighbor hurriedly picks it up and goes inside, darting his eyes around to see if anyone noticed, and the party is left with a thread you couldn't possibly pass up.

[Justin F]

One hook I liked was:

While reading a copy of a mythos tome, you notice that the backpaper of the cover is loose. On examination you can see that there is something in there: a photograph of a temple of Cthulhu and a map of the Congo, showing it's location.

Unfortunately that was the only thing I liked about the scenario.

[synthboy]

There was a short scenario in the 3rd edition that may also be in the Cthulhu Companion (don't have my copy to hand so can't check) that has a bus tour out of Arkham breaking down and some rumness occurring. I've always thought it'd be a great start for a campaign as you have a great reason to bring characters from very diverse backgrounds together and really you could take it absolutely anywhere.

I also like "A Love In Need" from "Secrets". It starts with the investigators driving through hicksville late at night when they have a car accident which of course gets them involved in some rumness. What I like about it is that you could spring this on unsuspecting players during what they think will be a mundane journey to continue with an existing scenario.

[LoneKharnivore]

a short scenario in the 3rd edition that may also be in the Cthulhu Companion

Nope

"A Love In Need" from "Secrets"

Which one?

[Lost Sojourner]

I also like "A Love In Need" from "Secrets". It starts with the investigators driving through hicksville late at night when they have a car accident which of course gets them involved in some rumness. What I like about it is that you could spring this on unsuspecting players during what they think will be a mundane journey to continue with an existing scenario.

In a more pulpy game I've ran, my players were fleeing a warehouse full of cultists that made two of them them go a bit mad. One, a bootlegger (and the only player with anything higher than base in drive), suffered a bit of alcoholism and decided that this was the perfect time to take a sip. Another, suffering from hallucinations, cried, "LOOK OUT!" and after a failed drive skill check and a few pasted luck rolls, they were stranded in the middle of nowhere near a mysterious woods....

[Brunomac]

For me it seems kind of a big, ackward way to start a CoC campaign. Whether modern or classic era, I could see a village or even an entire population of a town vanishing for a period, but a plane is just kind of clunky for this genre IMO. It's like you obviously have to assume it's magic or aliens. I might do that for a fantasy or sci fi thing, but not CoC. A byakhee crashing a penthouse NYE party in Times Square is about the most epic thing I have started a campaign with. I like to take time buiding up to big stuff like that, like most of a campaign.

[Naked Samurai]

Not sure why a plane vanishing for a period of time is unthinkable, yet a large vanishing population is not. But anyway, a more subtle effect could be generated by shortening the time frame, and have the plane fall off radar contact only for several hours, landing several hours later with no extra fuel vanished. It would hit the 'news of the weird' for a day but most everybody would shrug it off.

And... Call of Cthulhu is basically sci-fi.

[Malik]

For me it seems kind of a big, ackward way to start a CoC campaign. Whether modern or classic era, I could see a village or even an entire population of a town vanishing for a period, but a plane is just kind of clunky for this genre IMO. It's like you obviously have to assume it's magic or aliens. I might do that for a fantasy or sci fi thing, but not CoC. A byakhee crashing a penthouse NYE party in Times Square is about the most epic thing I have started a campaign with. I like to take time buiding up to big stuff like that, like most of a campaign.

Obviously YMMV, but I've got to say other than right at the end the begining is the perfect place for a set-piece as it can provide ample motivation and buy-in for the investigators (and their players). Many starts to scenarios just don't strike me as the sort of thing that would get an actual person involved, whereas if you drag them in directly they don't have much of a choice. Otherwise I find the player spends a lot of time in the mindset of 'why haven't I walked away yet?'.

[Brunomac]

Not sure why a plane vanishing for a period of time is unthinkable, yet a large vanishing population is not.

And... Call of Cthulhu is basically sci-fi.

Because a town of people could have gone to an underground location, gone to a secluded vale, or even just to the other side of a mountain. WHY they go where they go is part of the mystery, but professor types could offer easy explanations as I laid out above so that it doesn't have to be assumed some great power was involved. A plane missing is...a plane missing. Not as mobile or as easily concealed as a large group of people. Anyway, just saying I like my Cthulhu campaigns, at least at the start, to be a little more subtle. YMMV.

As for CoC being sci fi, well, it really depends on how much you inject in the way of non-Mythos supernatural, such as vampires of skeletons rising from the grave. I like to mix in elements of both. Either way, I think it is against the basic philosophy of CoC to think too heavily in terms of any kind of hard Sci Fi. And really, it really depends on individual taste and point of view as to whether any of HP's stuff is true sci fi. Again, YMMV.

I guess maybe I'm also not agreeing about the thought the idea of the missing plane is somehow a "peerless plot hook." It's just that I don't think it is somehow especially clever, as the idea of a missing plane has been the plot of several movies in the 70's and 80's (big time period for Bermuda Triangle based stuff, and also Close Encounters, etc), X-Files episodes, etc. Now that I think of it, a fairly cliched hook really. But hey, have fun with it if it floats your boat.