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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 2179048" data-attributes="member: 2205">I've received such good information in the past, that I'm inclined to start one of these every two weeks before a session now!   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> For once, I'm not as concerned about what to do as I am about how to do it, though.  Here's the sitch...I'm playing a d20 fantasy game that's a bit far removed from D&D itself -- it's more like d20 Cthulhu with some swashbuckling thrown in.  The world itself is a bit Dark Sun, and a bit Edgar Rice Burroughs vision of Mars (Barsoom) seen through a Lovecraftian lens.  The PCs had been involved in a number of plots and intrigues in a fairly large city called Razina, but the last few sessions, have been on a journey out of town to investigate an ancient ruin of some kind that was discovered in a rambling fever-dream of one character after he had read a Necronomicon-like book.  They've so far gone to the smaller town of Treçenze, and spent a session there, and now have found a guide that will take them to the hills above Bartomeu's Bluff, a small mining town near the ruins they seek.  Bartomeu's Bluff itself is a town with a problem; it's very much like Lovecraft's Innsmouth; backwater rednecks that belong to a depraved cult that will gradually turn them all into aberrations of some kind.The game isn't heroic fantasy; it's dark fantasy bordering on horror, and I don't intend for them to "solve" the problem of Bartomeu's Bluff; if they can get out of town in one piece, they'll be doing good.Here's the problem, though.  The last few sessions, the tension level has ratcheted down somwhat.  This trip out to the desert almost seems like a vacation for them.  They've had combats, but the combats have dragged and felt more like chess games than the high-octane, high tension affairs we had earlier.  The best combat we had was right before Christmas; it was a fast-paced affair in a steambath, with folks leaping off balconies, breaking valves on the pipes so that hot steam sprayed in the face of opponents, hurling hot rocks at each other, bursting through rice-paper walls to surprised opponents, etc., but it went so well partly because I had planned for it carefully with plenty of opportunity to bring out that kind of frenetic, swashbuckly action.So, I'm not sure what to do about tonight to bring back the tension.  But here's a few ideas:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">First off, I'm thinking about instituting a rule that sorta correlates how long you sit there thinking about what to do with in-game consequences -- i.e., if you wait too long, the opponents get a free attack of opportunity on you, or you even lose your place in the initiative order.  Two of my three players have actually said they think this would be great, so I'll almost certainly do this.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Need to have some really overwhelming, nasty encounters.  Folks that can really give'em a good kicking, and force Sanity checks to boot.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I'm also thinking about having a Corey Reid style <a href="http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4278&SRC=Adamant" target="_blank">Hot Pursuit</a>, although my concern is there that nobody knows those rules except me, and even then, not comfortably.  Although if I reread the rules and then simply interpret what the players want to do within the rules, I can probably pull it off.</li> </ul>Any suggestions?  I'm afraid my campaign, which I know my players enjoy for the setting and the pure weirdness of it all, is stalling somewhat on the dramatic tension and edge of your seat suspense areas, and I want to get it back on track.</blockquote>

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