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Suspense in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7447648" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>OK, I feel bad about that, I'm going to /try/ to be serious, now...</p><p></p><p> Incremental ones, I suppose. One giant drama-suck in many games is a skill system that goes no further than single-check pass/fail. Similarly, for a combat challenge, 'Nova's or death-spirals can blow or drain your encounter's suspense... </p><p></p><p><em>...sorry, I slipped there for a moment...</em></p><p></p><p>I know those have some game-theory jargon meaning, and I'm just going to proceed, in defiance of all my past experience with game-theory jargon, as if they were the intuitive meanings implied by the words (you can skip linking the 10000-word Ron Edwards Dissertation on why 'stakes' are only tangentially alluding to something you stand to lose, and actually have to do with whether Zebras are red with black stripes, or white with red stripes). </p><p>::deep breath::<em> ...serious, Tony, serious...</em></p><p></p><p>So, if you don't have buy-in, if the players don't care about the goal, then they're not going to 'pay' much to achieve it, so your suspense is DoA. </p><p></p><p>And, to build suspense, the stakes should presumably be raised as you step through your incremental challenge structure. </p><p></p><p>Given that, you need to establish the Goal or Victory condition, first, and assure the players are committed to it. Best way may well be to let them define the Goal. You can tweak the conditions that will achieve it from what they expect, perhaps, but letting them set it, and be able to achieve it, would be good. No Gotchyas, no Deus Ex Machinas.</p><p></p><p>They should come up with "first we need to..." if they don't, you should provide it. If they come up with several things, great. As they get to work, making checks or expending resources or whatever, each failure reveals/causes a complication that costs resources up-front, or needs to be dealt with in ways that may expend resources (standard resources for the game, or situational ones like time or survival-days or favors or credibility or whatever).</p><p></p><p>The players should be able to see the goal, and see that they're getting closer to it, even if the PC cannot 'in the fiction,' too. ( One GM I know uses "cut scenes" effectively - things that are happening or have happened long ago elsewhere in the setting that inform what we're doing, even though out characters know nothing about it, at the time it's revealed to the players. That can build suspense, too, FWIW.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 7447648, member: 996"] OK, I feel bad about that, I'm going to /try/ to be serious, now... Incremental ones, I suppose. One giant drama-suck in many games is a skill system that goes no further than single-check pass/fail. Similarly, for a combat challenge, 'Nova's or death-spirals can blow or drain your encounter's suspense... [i]...sorry, I slipped there for a moment...[/i] I know those have some game-theory jargon meaning, and I'm just going to proceed, in defiance of all my past experience with game-theory jargon, as if they were the intuitive meanings implied by the words (you can skip linking the 10000-word Ron Edwards Dissertation on why 'stakes' are only tangentially alluding to something you stand to lose, and actually have to do with whether Zebras are red with black stripes, or white with red stripes). ::deep breath::[i] ...serious, Tony, serious...[/i] So, if you don't have buy-in, if the players don't care about the goal, then they're not going to 'pay' much to achieve it, so your suspense is DoA. And, to build suspense, the stakes should presumably be raised as you step through your incremental challenge structure. Given that, you need to establish the Goal or Victory condition, first, and assure the players are committed to it. Best way may well be to let them define the Goal. You can tweak the conditions that will achieve it from what they expect, perhaps, but letting them set it, and be able to achieve it, would be good. No Gotchyas, no Deus Ex Machinas. They should come up with "first we need to..." if they don't, you should provide it. If they come up with several things, great. As they get to work, making checks or expending resources or whatever, each failure reveals/causes a complication that costs resources up-front, or needs to be dealt with in ways that may expend resources (standard resources for the game, or situational ones like time or survival-days or favors or credibility or whatever). The players should be able to see the goal, and see that they're getting closer to it, even if the PC cannot 'in the fiction,' too. ( One GM I know uses "cut scenes" effectively - things that are happening or have happened long ago elsewhere in the setting that inform what we're doing, even though out characters know nothing about it, at the time it's revealed to the players. That can build suspense, too, FWIW.) [/QUOTE]
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