I posted before about how flavourless the opening of my piratey, 17th Century West Marches games have been. In that post I theorized ways to fix this. In this post: more formulated thoughts on the matter.

What am I trying to accomplish here?

Characters are the heart of a role-playing game. If you want a game that's entirely procedures, go play a board game! ^{(This might be controversial)} So, let's front-load the game with some character interaction to get the players in that mindset. Let's establish some tradition that starts every session: the Setting-Out Ritual.
However, I also don't want to kill the momentum of the adventure! The point of the West Marches format is to go out into the world, not linger in town. So whatever happens at the start of the adventure should be compact and resistant to overstaying its welcome.

Let's start with flavour

Whatever specific details I settle on, I want the setting-out ritual to be exciting. It should charge the session with energy, and help set the tone for the game I'm running. This is asking a bit much of my narrative skills, but in an ideal world it should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up (this almost certainly won't happen, but it's good to aim high).
So, what IS the tone I'm trying to set for the game I'm running? Well, my game is meant to evoke a musketeers / pirate vibe and takes place in a thick jungle with a troubled, occult history. The PCs are societal outcasts, but the town they live in has its own order. It's an impoverished, 17th Century mountain jungle town. When I close my eyes I'm picturing oil lamps flickering in pre-dawn gloom, stacks of paper mouldering with perpetual damp, buckled boots splattered with mud, and flocks of tropical birds raising riot in the distance. The smell of farm animals mixing with freshly oiled weapons and armour.
I want to remind my players of the elements that make this world what it is, both through the actions of the townsfolk and through their characters' five senses.
I also want this setting-out ritual to evoke a feeling of mysticism or magic. Almost cult-like, but not quite. The Snarl is full of magic and weirdness and I want to remind my players of that as they pass over the threshold of this place, out of safety and into danger. The NPCs in the town should acknowledge that the players are leaving the "normal" world behind and venturing into dangerous territory! It should almost feel funerary in a way. This may well be the last time anyone ever sees them!

Some Ideas

I wrote down a bunch of ideas in my notebook. They read like so:

How to make setting out feel special and neat? Set the tone somehow.
Ideas:

• Make it feel portentous, mystical!
• Add a routine of some kind
• You're making the characters a promise of a type of experience
• Could they be entering a pact?
• Perhaps some random event always occurs?
• The townsfolk talk to them?
• Must they declare their intentions?
• A tarot reading or something?
• Last Will and Testament?

I like some of these ideas. Some recurring themes I keep circling around are that there should be NPCs engaging with the players before they leave, and the party has the opportunity to declare a few things in character and as a group. There's also a few mystical elements: pacts, tarot, etc.

I've chewed on this stuff for a bit and here is what I will try. It's a first draft and open to adjustment.

Setting-Out Procedure Mk. 1

Unless stated otherwise, all parties set out from Coal Town (the "safe town") at dawn on a clear morning (we assume this both because it helps with time tracking and — more importantly — because it makes sense in the fiction).

A smattering of townsfolk will gather at the edge of town in the cool blue light, pausing their morning chores to bear witness to the proceedings. A rumpled looking woman in black will stump over to the gate and turn to face the crowd, her face painted orange by firelight. Someone likely coughs into the impatience silence while she peels apart a handful of documents.

She first asks who is setting out and what name they want committed to the record.
This gives all the outlaws on the lam to act suitably cagey and give fake names.

Next she asks where the group is headed. She will go on to say that this isn't necessary to record, but if the group dies, their remains might be recoverable by another group, but only if they know where to look.
This asks the group to come to a consensus on something immediately.

Her last order of business is to ask for any adjustments to the characters' Last Wills and Testaments (someone from the crowd shouts "Willies and testicles!" and someone else goes "Har!"). This is to be marked down in her mouldering stack of papers for future reference. It doesn't have to be any more elaborate than "Sam gets my stuff" but if anyone wants to provide a more elaborate document for their own enjoyment, they are welcome to do so.
This reminds the players that they are entering into mortal peril, but also that the death of a character isn't the end of that character's influence!

At this point the sun rises in the gap between the mountains and a rooster crows, so she refers everyone to Francesco who will read your tea leaves if you so desire. Francesco does not have any tea, but he will swirl some leaves around in the bottom of a big bucket and read your fortune that way. I have a list of 52 portentous symbols. Anyone who partakes (a free service since there's no guarantee it'll be relevant) gets advantage once during the session on a roll related to that symbol.

Invite the characters to discuss a rumour

On my big map of the Snarl there is a ~6km path that pretty much never has anything in it. It's just a long, winding path down out of the mountains.
I previously decided to reduce the number of rolls the players need to make while traveling. There's a very good chance the characters will not encounter anything for most of the first day. This leaves a several-hour-long slice of travel time at the very outset of the game that would be perfect for chatting.
Part of my prep for each session will be to figure out what the townsfolk of Coal Town have been gossiping about lately. As they leave town, invite the players to have their characters discuss that topic. I will try to select something that's not related to the session at hand, just to keep remind them of some other things going on in the setting. It's not at all mandatory, but if they choose to engage, it's another place for the players to get into the roleplaying.

Discussion