13 Hooks For Your First 13th Age Session

So, you’ve got your shiny new books (plural), rolled up your brand new characters (plural), and you’re ready for adventure (quite possibly plural, depending on how the dice rolls go)! But how to get started? Let us suggest some ways…

1. There’s A Dungeon Full Of Treasure

It’s a classic for a reason. 13^th Age may be crammed full of storytelling tools and player-facing creative prompts and wildness, but it’s still rooted in the fantasy gaming tradition. Ultimately, it’s still great fun to descend into a spooky underground ruin and hit some skeletons in the face. The sooner you get the players rolling initiative, the better.

2. You All Meet In A Tavern

Another perfectly thinkable cliché. Yes, it’s how so many fantasy campaigns started out, but again, it works. Anyone could show up in a tavern, there’s gambling and drinking and a bar brawl to test the combat rules, and no doubt there’s an old greybeard dispensing rumours in the dark corner by the fireplace. Starting with something cliched and predictable invites the players to put their own interesting spin on things, as opposed to sitting back and waiting for the Gamemaster to hand them a carefully crafted artisan plot hook.

3. You All Meet In A…

Ok, we’re tired of taverns. You all meet in a prison cell. A bathhouse. The waiting room of a physician specialising in curses. A confessional. The same noblewoman’s bedroom. A sinking ship. A flying ship. A flying ship that’s about to sink, and by sink we mean crash. A graveyard. A tavern in a dungeon. The queue for the gallows.

4. The Shared Icon

Take a look at the Icon Relationships chosen by the players. If they all (or at least a goodly number of them) share an Icon, then build your first adventure around that Icon. An agent of the Archmage, the Emperor, the Prince of Shadows contacts the heroes and asks them to go on a mission. This not only gives you a plot hook that the players have already signalled they want to pursue (if you pick Archmage as an Iconic relationship, then it’s putting up a flag saying ‘weird magic whimsy and arcane problems? Yes please!’), but also lets the Icon-connected players show off an aspect of their new character (why are you allied with the Archmage ) and lets the unconnected characters add texture (you haven’t considered this before, but why would your barbarian go on a mission for the Archmage?)

5. The Shared Enemy

A shared enemy icon can be even more fun, as it pushes the decision-making onto the players. Instead of handing them a plot hook, let them know that minions of an Icon they all dislike are up to something nearby – and let the players choose how to thwart their enemy’s plans…

6. Pick A City

Each city of the Dragon Empire comes with a built-in theme. Pick a city and think about how its theme might interact with your merry band of new player characters. “One Unique Thing: I was exiled because my father the Duke was framed for an unforgivable crime” plays very differently for a Duke of Horizon compared to a Duke of Forge or Duke of Santa Cora. You can run a whole campaign (or at least, a whole tier) without every setting foot outside your home city.

7. Pick A Spot

For that matter, there are lots of interesting corners of the Dragon Empire. Pick one at random and drop your player characters there. I’ve never thought about running a campaign in (stabs finger randomly at map) the town due north of Concord, between Nomad and the Opals, but it could be fun. You’re on the edge of the Fangs, you’ve got Koru Behemoths, you’re far enough away from the Emperor for the Elf Queen to be the major power, and you’ve got mysterious magic lakes. How might the players’ various One Unique Things interact with all that?

8. One Unique Spotlight

Another approach – don’t think about involving all the players. Just pick the one whose One Unique Thing cries out to be an immediate adventure.  Then ask the other players to narrate how their characters get involved in that adventure…

9. Tiny Dang Bystanders

13^th Age is a game about Big Damn Heroes – so start off with some Tiny Dang Bystanders. Play an opening scene where the players play the guards on the city wall, or the peasants fleeing the dragon, or the nervous soldiers before the battle, or even the 1^st level goblins in the dungeon. Make them feel small… so when the player characters arrive, they feel 10 feet tall right from the start.

10. In Media Res

Start in the middle of an action scene. Not a fight, but ‘ok, the avalanche is rolling towards you, what do you do?’ or ‘the temple is on fire, what do you do?’ or ‘you’re all locked in a tomb and the water level is rising, what do you do?’ You can explain how they got into this delightful mess once they get out…

11. Flashback

Or – open in the middle of an action scene, then freeze after a few rounds and then flash back to more conventional you-all-meet-in-a-tavern opening. Knowing where the story lets the players explore how it gets there without worrying about consequences.

12. Flash Way Back

More ambitiously – start many decades after the campaign finishes. Have the players play scholars discussing the ambiguous accounts of the long-dead heroes, or have them play sculptors working on a monument to their deeds, or courtiers in the palace of the King (who just might be one of the characters). Let the players mention a few mysterious future events that’ll become waypoints in your campaign – then flask back to the heroes’ humble beginnings.

13. A Prophecy

Say aloud: “We gather to play a tale of the 13^th Age. In this campaign…”
then have each player roll once on the table below, and read the result aloud.

D12	Doom!
1	A dragon shall die
2	A city shall fall
3	A gate shall be opened
4	A mountain shall crumble
5	A forest shall burn
6	A crown shall be claimed
7	Terrible words shall be spoken
8	A heart will shatter
9	A star will be forged
10	A whisper will break an army
11	An Icon shall rise
12	An Icon shall perish

Finish it with “and an Age of the world will end.”

What does all that mean? I have no idea, and neither do you – yet. Play and find out!