Samurai Champloo

So Adult Swim is broadcasting the first episode of Samurai Champloo again tonight. I like the anime a lot, but mostly I like this as an opening episode. It's an amazing way to begin a campaign. The main characters wander into town already secure in their skills, they seek out danger and cause themselves trouble, the plot throws a little trouble their way to get the protagonists together, but mainly it's the characters driving the action, rather than the action driving them. There are some great fights against the town guards, scions, assorted flunkies, some of which will come back to haunt them in later episodes, and even a fight against the other protagonists. But by the end of the episode they are all thrown together on their MacGuffin of a quest that keeps the disparate personalities together.

This would be a great way to start interactive fiction. Make the players feel like a bad ass by showing them that they are capable of taking on the structures of society and the world, especially if those structures turn out to be corrupt and evil. They players also get to test out each other's abilities by engaging each other in combat.

This would be how I would start my next campaign. I also like it as a guideline for starting a computer game. Get the players into the action, let themselves get into trouble, and once things couldn't get any worse, let them do the most awesome things to extract themselves out of the situation and get going on the main storyline. Rule of cool is a good way to plot out interactive fiction.