For most of last year, the first fifteen minutes of every session at my table went to snacks, memes and someone's new dice. Fun, but when I finally said "okay, so, last time…", half the group had forgotten where their characters were.
So I started a small ritual. Lights down, one image on the screen, ten seconds of sound, then I read a short paragraph. That's it. It takes under a minute, and it gets everyone in the room, or on the call, into the same place. Here's how I build one.
What a scene opener is for
One place. One mood. One thing happening.
That's the whole job. It isn't a recap and it isn't a cutscene. Keep the read-aloud text to 30–70 words, and write it in third person about the world ("the bridge sways"), never about the characters ("you step onto the bridge"). The moment you move their characters for them, you've stolen the first move.
Here's one I used last month:
Rain has turned the road to the old mill into a brown stream. The waterwheel still turns, though nobody has worked here in years, and every few turns it lets out a long iron groan. Somewhere inside, a lamp is lit. Its light moves from window to window, slowly, as if someone is looking for something.
Fifty-eight words. Then: "What do you do?"
Let the art do the art's job
If the players can see the location art, don't describe what's already in it. They can see the mill. They can see the rain.
Spend your words on what the picture can't give:
- Sound: the groan of the wheel.
- Smell: wet stone, old flour, lamp oil.
- The one detail that's a hook: the light moving from window to window.
Ways to add motion and sound
You don't need video for this. Start with what's already at your table:
- An ambient track at low volume. Rain, wind, a tavern. Low enough that you can talk over it.
- A slow scroll across the map in your VTT while you read, ending on the location.
- A few seconds of moving art. For a big location I sometimes make a few seconds of motion from one piece of location art on Videoify: the art goes in as the opening frame, and I ask for one thing to move, like a slow push toward the gate with fog drifting, with ambient sound on. It's billed per second (2 credits a second at 480P), so I test five seconds at 480P first. I only use art I made or have the right to use, never a published module's illustrations.
- A candle and the lights down, for an in-person game. Cheapest special effect there is.
One moving thing is enough. Fog, or water, or a flickering light. Not all three.
Keeping it short
Ten seconds of image and sound. Then the boxed text. Then "what do you do?" and stop talking.
Read the text aloud once before the session, at the speed you'll actually read it. Slower than you think, with a pause before the last line. If you stumble, rewrite the sentence. If it runs past an exhale or two, cut it. Players will remember the mood far longer than any detail you squeezed in.
One more thing: don't make an opener for every scene. I do one per session, at the very start. If every room gets a dramatic reveal, none of them feel special, and you'll spend your prep time editing instead of writing the adventure.
What changed at my table
The snack-and-meme time didn't vanish, and I don't want it to. But now there's a clear line where the game starts. I dim the lights, the art comes up, and people go quiet on their own.
Last session, before I'd even finished reading, our rogue said, "I'm checking which window the light is in." That's exactly what an opener is for. Not a show, just a door, and the players walk through it themselves.