History Main / EasingIntoTheAdventure

* ''KingdomHearts'': Starts on Sora's peaceful island.
** More aggravating is Roxas' ''three-hour tutorial'' in KingdomHearts2.

* ''{{Mother 3}}'' gives you a feel for your family, all the civilians, and the peaceful, wonderful community... making it far more dramatic and emotional when the plot kicks in

** ''ChronoCross'' does something similar. After your mom tells you good morning, you are told you overslept and your {{Tsundere}} girlfriend forces you to kill baby komodo dragons before you are warped to the alternate world and wind up [[NiceJobBreakingItHero breaking everything you touch]] while being [[UnwittingPawn manipulated]] by [[ThirtyGambitPileup several entities]].

* Heavily averted in Final Fantasy III, where you start out in a dungeon, and can't even save until you defeat the boss. The remake makes things ''harder'', because you only have 1 party member instead of 4. When you finally kill the boss and leave the dungeon, you're ''still'' easing into the adventure (you don't start the adventure proper until you recruit three more characters, defeat the Djinn and unlock the job system, which takes about an hour or so).

* The first minute or two of "Rose" in ''DoctorWho'' is like this, but the other post-2005 companion introduction episodes more or less involve the Doctor straight away.

Notably, if the peaceful hometown [[DoomedHometown survives the hero's Call]], there will be a JerkJock that the hero will return to face and handily beat, as well as a girl he wanted to woo who he now either [[ChildhoodMarriagePromise marries]], or spurns in favor of [[OfficialCouple the girl he met on the voyage]].

* In almost every ShinMegamiTensei game, you usually get a bit of gameplay where you can just walk through the city, talk to friends and characters and just generally have a good time. Except that even ''that'' hints up on being a CrapsaccharineWorld, and [[Understatement then things go bad]].

* In almost every ShinMegamiTensei game, you usually get a bit of gameplay where you can just walk through the city, talk to friends and NPCs and just generally have a good time. Except that even ''that'' hints up on being a CrapsaccharineWorld, and [[Understatement then things go bad]].

Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, there are those who [[JumpedAtTheCall Jump At The Call]] and those who [[RefusalOfTheCall Refuse The Call]]. Whether reluctant or adventurous, stories with these heroes can start EasingIntoTheAdventure by introducing the hero well before they get their [[WithThisHerring wooden sword]] and very first FetchQuest in their peaceful hometown; with a young Bob doing chores, playing with friends, having a heart to heart promise with Alice, fighting and losing to the JerkJock who teases them. The usual.

* In ''StarWars: ANewHope'', while the first scenes after the opening crawl are of stormtroopers and Darth Vader storming the Tantive IV, taking Leia prisoner, the droids jettisoning and wandering and being caught by Jawas, Luke's first scenes are of him complaining, then shutting up and obediently doing his chores, being kind to the droids and seeing the holo of Leia, establishing his desire to go to the Academy but only when his uncle allows it, and staring at the binary sunset while beautiful music swells. Only then does he get the Call and go in search of the runaway R2 and also Old Ben. Deleted but apparently still-canon scenes set during the Tantive IV events show him trying to show his friends at Tosche Station the space battle and being mocked, and meeting an old friend who'd gone to the Academy and is planning on joining the Rebel Alliance (Biggs, who's actually in the final film, and a bit more in the special edition, hence why Luke is so sad when Biggs dies).

** Let's not forget spending ''six whole days'' of towning around with Roxas, ho-boy!

* Every ''[=~Pokémon~=]'' game ever made does this. Notably in ''Gold'' and ''Silver'', you're on an errand and initially have a Pokémon as protection rather than ToBeAMaster.

* Heavily averted in Final Fantasy III, where you start out in a dungeon, and can't even save until you defeat the boss. (Though this isn't true in the remake, where you need to leave the dungeon and find your companions before you can't beat the Land Turtle.)

** Likewise The ''NeverwinterNights2'' tutorial starts you out in the harvest festival.

** Well, to some degree. By the time you meet most of the townspeople, [[spoiler the village is engulfed in flames]] and you have to start fighting enemies.

* In ''[=~Assassin's Creed~=] II'', Ezio's adventure starts with him getting in a minor scuffle with his family's rivals, doing errands for his parents, racing his older brother around Florence, finding eagle feathers, and having sex with a random girl.

* The Origin stories in ''DragonAge''. Of course things [[ItGotWorse get worse]] pretty quickly in each of them, leading your PC to be recruited into the Grey Wardens. Subverted in the Mage Origin story. The first thing you have to do in the game is survive The Harrowing; the final test to determine whether an apprentice has the discipline to be a true mage. Failure usually leads to DemonicPossession followed by Death By Templar. The demon your PC faces also happens to be [[spoiler:one of the most powerful demons of the Fade, a Pride Demon. Fortunately it doesn't try to possess you by force.]]

* ''[[{{Film/Alien}} Alien]]'' opens with the heroes awaking from hypersleep, making coffee, tending to the cat and so forth. Eventually, of course, it [[GoneHorriblyWrong goes horribly, horribly awry.]]
* In ''ANewHope'', while the first scenes after the opening crawl are of stormtroopers and Darth Vader storming the Tantive IV, taking Leia prisoner, the droids jettisoning and wandering and being caught by Jawas, Luke's first scenes are of him complaining, then shutting up and obediently doing his chores, being kind to the droids and seeing the holo of Leia, establishing his desire to go to the Academy but only when his uncle allows it, and staring at the binary sunset while beautiful music swells. Only then does he get the Call and go in search of the runaway R2 and also Old Ben. Deleted but apparently still-canon scenes set during the Tantive IV events show him trying to show his friends at Tosche Station the space battle and being mocked, and meeting an old friend who'd gone to the Academy and is planning on joining the Rebel Alliance (Biggs whose actually in the final film, and a bit more in the special edition, hence why Luke is so sad when Biggs dies).

** Most of McKinley's novels follow the same template, so one way or another, the misfit heroine gets dragged into the magical world against her will.

* RobertJordan admitted to writing an {{homage}} to Tolkien as the beginning of the first book of the ''WheelOfTime'' series.

* In {{Morrowind}}, the game starts with the player getting off a prison ship and talking to various people in an Census office in a small swamp town. Even after the player is released into the WideOpenSandbox, the main quest begins with lots of talking, reading, and fetch quests.
* A few ''LegendOfZelda'' games have done stuff like this, most notably ''Twilight Princess'', which started out by making you close up the barn and help out a few villagers.

** Likewise ''{{Fable}} 2'' starts with the street urchin protagonist helping his/her sister do good/bad deeds in Bowerstone's Old Town to earn money to buy a magic music box. Unlike the original game, however, actions taken here actually have consequences later in the game. Don't get used to it.

** In ''Grandia II'', the main character, Ryudo, has already left home and has the life of a Geo-Hound (read: mercenary). The lead female, Elena, however, has this experience before going off to save the world. Funnily enough, though, Ryudo does return to his village, filling us in on in motivations and shutting up the local JerkJock.
* ''{{Fallout}} 3'' goes above and beyond here: it starts with your BIRTH.

* BaldursGate does let you walk around your hometown a bit (and killing rats, ordinary rats)
* NeverwinterNights begins with the player waking up in an academy for RPG adventurers, and eventually graduating the same day, until [[spoiler: the place is suddenly attacked by assassins.]]
** Likewise The NeverwinterNights2 tutorial starts you out in the harvest festival.
* In a way, {{Portal}} is like this. When it first starts everything seems like some normal series of puzzles you have to complete with no real story behind it.

* Completely averted in LegendOfDragoon. After a brief exposition, we meet our main character. Being chased by a Dragon (In a world where there are only 7). After that, you find your hometown is burned to the ground and your childhood friend kidnapped. Then you break into an imperial prison.
* In {{Assassins Creed II}}, Ezio's adventure starts with him getting in a minor scuffle with his family's rivals, doing errands for his parents, racing his older brother around Florence, finding eagle feathers, and having sex with a random girl.
** While just before that Desmond was escaping a giant building and bashing security guards in an overal atmosphere of panic and haste. Assassin's Creed is complicated.

* The Origin stories in ''DragonAge''. Of course things [[ItGotWorse get worse]] pretty quickly in each of them, leading your PC to be recruited into the Grey Wardens. Subverted in the Mage Origin story. The first thing you have to do in the game is survive The Harrowing; the final test to determine whether an apprentice has the discipline to be a true mage. Failure usually leads to DemonicPossession followed by Death By Templar. The demon your PC faces also happens to be [[spoiler: one of the most powerful demons of the Fade, a Pride Demon. Fortunately it doesn't try to possess you by force.]]

* Mother3 gives you a feel for your family, all the civlians, and the peaceful, wonderful community... making it far more dramatic and emotinal when the plot kicks in

* In ANewHope, while the first scenes after the opening crawl are of stormtroopers and Darth Vader storming the Tantive IV, taking Leia prisoner, the droids jettisoning and wandering and being caught by Jawas, Luke's first scenes are of him complaining, then shutting up and obediently doing his chores, being kind to the droids and seeing the holo of Leia, establishing his desire to go to the Academy but only when his uncle allows it, and staring at the binary sunset while beautiful music swells. Only then does he get the Call and go in search of the runaway R2 and also Old Ben. Deleted but apparently still-canon scenes set during the Tantive IV events show him trying to show his friends at Tosche Station the space battle and being mocked, and meeting an old friend who'd gone to the Academy and is planning on joining the Rebel Alliance (Biggs whose actually in the final film, and a bit more in the special edition, hence why Luke is so sad when Biggs dies).

* Every ''[=Pokémon=]'' game ever made does this. Notably in ''Gold'' and ''Silver'', you're on an errand and initially have a Pokémon as protection rather than ToBeAMaster.

* Most of the ''{{Megaman Battle Network}}'' games start out with Lan and MegaMan either a) performing an errand on the net or b) just playing there. This helps you get use to the way the net is set up.

* Strongly averted in most of the ElderScrolls games.
** Arena and Daggerfall both avert this is much as possible. They each start you off in a dungeon that an inexperienced player may very well get lost and/or die in.
** Oblivion starts you off as a prisoner in the Imperial Dungeons. Less than a few minutes into the game, you're broken out of jail by the Emperor himself, and you are escorting him through a series of secret tunnels while on the run from assassins.
** Morrowind, however, doesn't avert this trope. The game starts with the player getting off a prison ship and talking to various people in an Census office in a small swamp town. Even after the player is released into the WideOpenSandbox, the main quest begins with lots of talking, reading, and fetch quests.

*''KingdomHearts'': Kairi and Riku are one of each, respectively. Sora straddles the line, being content where he is, but not minding getting out to see the world.

* ''AnimalCrossing'': All easing, no adventure.
* ''ChronoTrigger'' even starts off with a lovely little tune called "Town Life."

*Likewise The NeverwinterNights2 tutorial starts you out in the harvest festival.