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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 7449889" data-attributes="member: 177">It occurs to me that, in general, mechanics may not be the best place to look for creating suspense in RPGs.&nbsp; As soon as you have a player doing math to see uncertainty or danger looming, they're out of the immersive moment, and dong metagame analysis - logical thinking - which isn't what you want when you want suspense, right?&nbsp; You want visceral thinking.I may not have missed it earlier in the thread, but there are immersive approaches as well.&nbsp; Sound and lighting, for example.&nbsp; If you're running a Hunt for Red October scenario, having the room be a bit stuffy... these things may raise suspense.&nbsp; In the construction of your scenario, not having your villain jump out in the open all at once - but giving the PCs hints and glimpses.&nbsp; The gruesome dead body here, the low pitched rumble and ripples in the water glass there, the glimpse of a form mostly obscured (the cinematics of Alien, or some sections of Jurrasic Park, for example) may go a long way in building suspense in a way that is mechanic-agnostic.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 7449889, member: 177"] It occurs to me that, in general, mechanics may not be the best place to look for creating suspense in RPGs. As soon as you have a player [i]doing math[/i] to see uncertainty or danger looming, they're out of the immersive moment, and dong metagame analysis - logical thinking - which isn't what you want when you want suspense, right? You want visceral thinking. I may not have missed it earlier in the thread, but there are immersive approaches as well. Sound and lighting, for example. If you're running a Hunt for Red October scenario, having the room be a bit stuffy... these things may raise suspense. In the construction of your scenario, not having your villain jump out in the open all at once - but giving the PCs hints and glimpses. The gruesome dead body here, the low pitched rumble and ripples in the water glass there, the glimpse of a form mostly obscured (the cinematics of Alien, or some sections of Jurrasic Park, for example) may go a long way in building suspense in a way that is mechanic-agnostic. [/QUOTE]

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