Good ways to start an RP

[Ragenaut]

I'd like this thread to work as a guide to help properly start RPs. I'll leave this open for anyone who wants to ask if their RP has a good start, and to let those more experienced critique these beginnings to improve them in their storytelling quality, or if all else fails, suggest a different way to begin your RP so that it starts off on the right foot.

Now, here's my beginning, please critique it, and tell me how to better improve it.

Our adventurers don't know each other yet, the only thing they have in common is that they're in the same train, which is acting as a simple vessel for our adventurers to eventually leave and continue what activities they were performing before.

Suddenly, a dragon attacks the train, and begins its assault by ripping a compartment off of its rails, and throwing it off to the side like it was nothing. After a tense scene of the adventurers evading claws and fire, and running from compartment to compartment, the train is eventually entirely derailed. The dragon observes the train, and once the dragon is satisfied, it flies off to its nest, unaware of the adventurers who survived and hid.

Now our adventurers are out in the middle of nowhere, and have no choice but to band together, and brave the wilderness in their search for civilization. This is how my RP starts.

I felt that since my RP is a mix of a Western and High Fantasy, starting it off with a dragon attacking a massive steam train would help set the mood, and starting them off in the wilderness would give me the most possibilities to set up any possible conflicts in the future. Please critique this, and thanks in advance.

 

[Naggrahn]

I very much enjoy the start to that quite interesting rp. It really sets the mood for readers to prepare for a good ol' adventure to begin. I will make one comment though. One thing that I really love to see in an rp is when the situation arises but it is left open for those that you will be rping with. It is really enticing when you get to read from the perspective of the other adventurers joining the story as well as getting to understand their expertise. For example, what skills did they use to manage surviving a dragon attack while on a moving train?

There should be a good reason as to how they kept themselves fully intact in order to start their new adventure. Even if it was only pure luck, I would want to know just how they didn't end up like the poor unlucky passengers that were aboard the train with them during the attack.

I hope that I was able to successfully share my opinion. Everyone has their way of rping after all.