Bawylie
A very OK person
Eyup
Suspense in RPGs
Eyup
I don't know Cortex+ well, added to which this is a tricky question because many games wouldn't be very satisfying with this type of 'Train with Yoda / Han is Frozen' action resolution.
But I think it's correct to identify it with a troupe or faction-based play, where the PCs can and do act reasonably independently while driving towards a common faction goal.
So it doesn't really work for, say Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World, certainly the way I run them - where the PCs are independent, but working within their own spheres of influence and self-motivated towards their own (often conflicting) ends.
However, it's viable in a superhero set-up as you describe, with doom pools escalating between independently acting parts of the faction. I can see that same technique working where you've got teams on their own but trying to co-ordinate. A couple of PCs trying to infiltrate a base and take the shields down while a couple more lead the ground troops in to attack.
It's also notable that it's an explicit downtime option in Blades in the Dark, which again is a clear 'faction' game.
From p148 (Incarceration): When one of your crew members, friends, contacts, or a framed enemy is convicted and incarcerated for crimes associated with your crew your wanted level is reduced by 1 and you clear your heat.
darkbard
Legend
So foreshadowing, essentially. But then doesn't this run up against the problem of railroading? Telegraphing too far in advance presupposes certain PC actions in response to the stimuli.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
For those of us with regular groups, it’s not that hard to predict how they will react to certain stimuli. But you still give them the choice and, if they do the unusual, you go with it. That avoids the railroading enough.
GrahamWills
Hero
This would be my feeling also. Suspense requires two things; one is the knowledge or expectation that something is going to occur, and the second is uncertainty over the outcome. As discussed in the thread, the uncertainty can be about what happens (does the bomb go off or not?) or about how it happens (we know the bomb is deactivated, but the flash forward scene was set in a hospital)
I would suggest that it is extremely hard for to play a character acting under suspense without the player being under suspense. Harder than playing an angry, lustful, drunk, aggressive, sad, lonely, tired or upset character. So I would suggest that the GM’s best line of attack is to make the player feel suspense.
As mentioned above, frequently, uncertainty over the survival of a character is suspenseful for a player. It’s easy to do; most systems have ways to kill things in ways that can be signaled in advance:
- Seeing deadly traps lying around
- Rumors of a powerful monster in the area
- Villain swearing to kill you
- Helpfully scared NPCs telling stories of doom
The mechanics of the suspense resolution aren’t really relevant, so long as there is uncertainty. If a player had a D&D 3.5E focused trap specialist character, for example, you might not be able to scare them with the first item. There is no suspense because by the rules of the game, he is certain to defeat the obstacle. But in general, most games can kill characters in a variety of ways, and so predicting them is a way to build suspense.
Mechanics aren’t really an issue, though, once you get through the gate of knowing that the outcome is uncertain. The GMs goal is to make players uncertain and to make them care.
Right now, almost certaintly, someone is being operated on in hospital, and you don’t know if they will live or die. That isn’t suspenseful because you don’t know them and so don’t have any buy-in. If, however, they were your partner, it becomes the most suspenseful moment of your life. Similarly, as a GM, you need the players to buy in to suspense. Again, character death is one such way — and explains why cheap resurrection makes the GM’s job harder in this respect. But there are other ways.
Here is where the player comes in. If you have a character who the player has not given much of a background to, and who plays really just for social fun, then you may be restricted to suspense over their character’s life and loot. But most people have somewhat deeper characters and you can look at how to create suspense using the things that the player has identified as important to their character. A threat to things their characters love is the next easiest way to generate suspense: the classic ‘villain holds your partner hostage’ is a classic for a reason — it works! Nearly all the time you expect them to be rescued, but how? At what cost? Will you be forced to reveal your secret identity?
A lot of horror games stress character background, and building relationships, sources of stability, inter-character connections, and so on. I think it is for this reason. It’s hard to generate suspense over Fighter Bob #7. Even if I kill them, the player is likely to shrug and roll up Fighter Bob #8. Roberto, secretly the lover of known villain Eric the Bloody, who adores his saintly sister and has a prized collection of antique glass angels, is crying out for suspense.
Honestly, he is. Anyone who’s backstory involves a collection of glass anything might just as well send the GM a note saying “please threaten these with destruction”. As a GM you are morally bound to have him learn, in the middle of an important combat, that the new maid he has hired is short-sighted and clumsy ... and she is due to clean the collection in only 15 minutes!
Ask your players for backstories that highlight what they hold valuable. Then threaten it.
The above examples are of a short-term threat; many suspenseful moments are resolved in a scene, or in a session. Maybe even in a single exchange and roll (is this monster resistant to magic?). I do want to call out the Clock System used by the Apocalypse Engine as a simple, but highly effective way to generate long term suspense. Although the base idea is non-mechanical (there are a set of looming threats that get worse over time) the mechanics associated with it and the visual and emotive feel of a clock heading to midnight, make it an outstanding tool for generating suspense. I’m not a fan of the whole moves system, so the base engine isn’t for me, but I’m stealing this implementation of long-term suspense for future games!
Suspense is found when a player cares about the unknown in the future; players should make sure they care about things, and then the GM can create uncertainty. Will Fighter Bob #12 survive? How much of Roberto’s collection will remain unbroken if he stays at the ball long enough to save the life of the King?
There may be other ways to generate suspense, and I’d love to hear them, but for me, threatening something a character loves is the go-to plan. So make your player’s characters love more, and opportunities will abound!
The atmospherics I'm talking about don't give detailed prophecy that falls apart if the PCs don't act a certain way. Plus, we aren't talking about doing it an hour in advance. By the time the atmospherics apply, they are in the relevant scene - and a tense scene is a tense scene, no matter how the PCs choose to deal with the issues at hand.
Aldarc
Legend
Isn't that Luke essentially did with "the Force"?
He only got the message from the Force once The folks on Bespin were already in danger. In game terms, he's already failed several times, and the assets required to doom Han to carbonite were already created, even if they hadn't come into play. I'm saying that in a game, a player would know about the assets *earlier*, and would have punked out on Yoda, or stopped his training, or found some way to not fail so much, so as not to set up his fellows for such trouble.
Some players are selfish enough to plow forward for their own narrative and mechanical benefit, at the cost of the rest of the party, but not many. The problem, then, with some mechanical setups of suspense is that the players have some measure of control, and can de-escalate. That is an entirely rational thing to do, but it also does not help set up a suspenseful game.
Caliburn101
Explorer
The Babe example is too simplistic.
Not knowing the costs isn't the only way in which suspense can be built up, and one only has to look at Game of Thrones to see that sometimes certainties can turn out to be fleeting and ultimately end in utter failure and death, and the story is all the better for it.
Likewise, if the players think they will always win, because you fudge it so that they do, then your game will not be as suspenseful as it could or in my opinion should be.
There are rules for death, rules for resurrection, and rules for the failure of resurrection for a reason. Characters should die on occasion and not come back.
Campaigns without that risk hanging over the players are ultimately far duller and less satisfying than ones with it.
Not knowing the costs isn't the only way in which suspense can be built up, and one only has to look at Game of Thrones to see that sometimes certainties can turn out to be fleeting and ultimately end in utter failure and death, and the story is all the better for it.
Likewise, if the players think they will always win, because you fudge it so that they do, then your game will not be as suspenseful as it could or in my opinion should be.
There are rules for death, rules for resurrection, and rules for the failure of resurrection for a reason. Characters should die on occasion and not come back.
Campaigns without that risk hanging over the players are ultimately far duller and less satisfying than ones with it.
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