How to add suspense to my game? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How to add suspense to my game?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
igotsmeakabob
Aug 25, 2010 15:39:18 So I'm relatively new to GMing, and I've run my game for two sessions now (Eberron using Pathfinder core rules and Eberron sourcebooks).

The first session started with the players on a Lightning Rail bound for Sharn, where they were attacked and had to wrest control of the train back from their would-be assassins.
The second game had them descend into lower Dura to investigate the source of their attackers, where they found a bar with a similar symbol (found on the assassins) and they eventually interrogated the man in charge and forced him to set up a meeting with his contact.

Now I'm sure it's in large part the descriptions rather than the actual happenings, but can you guys give me some tips to add suspense to my game? I figure it's one way to make my games more memorable and fun for the players.

Thanks!
#2
m4kitsu
Aug 28, 2010 12:20:28 Well, are the PCs (and more importantly, the players) new to Sharn? If so, then you have a gold mine if information to pull from.

If the contact is in the lower portions of the city, play up the dank nature of Sharn's lower levels. Constant rain (actually condensation runoff from higher places in the city -known to locals as "tower spit") and fog, too-warm thanks to the heat of the Cogs below the city... the PCs head toward the meet through dirty, dark streets, other people only shapes in the darkness and shadow, not all of them shaped like humans. A pack of kobolds with glittering eyes stare at them from under deeply hooded cloaks as they huddle on a corner. A Harpy's song echoes down from above as something large and horned lumbers past them in the fog, carrying something that may or may not be a body.

It's tense, quiet, and the PCs are the interlopers here -Sharn may be a human-controlled city, but this far from the spires it's survival of the most ruthless. Something far too large slithers down a street at the edge of their vision, and an old beggar woman on the corner panhandles with a hissing voice and a scaled hand reaching out from beneath her tattered robe. On another corner sits another beggar, but sharp-eyed PCs spot the glimmer of a well-maintained blade beneath his rags, and he watches them from under the beat up brim of a wide hat with cool, detached eyes.

They approach the meeting place -it might've been a temple once, but it's been repurposed a dozen times over maybe hundreds of years. It's a crumbling reminder of a much earlier time, slowly disintegrating under the oppressive weight of the city above, making the PCs always feel like they need to duck their heads to avoid striking them on the roof. Despite it's age, dim light glows from within.

Flanking the shattered doors are a pair of minotaur statues, but one of them shifts its weight almost imperceptibly into a more ready stance as the bodyguard watches the PCs approach. Behind them, something catlike with too many legs blurs and fades away as it tails the group...

The lower levels of the city are just as dangerous (if not more) than the deepest jungles of Khorvaire. Play up how alien the population is, and how incredibly old the city is -Sharn is an ancient place, riddled with long-forgotten passages and construction, the foundations of the city's great towers honeycombed with buildings and warrens and sewers that the PCs will never learn to find or navigate reliably. Most of the city's "monstrous" population lives here as laborers or ne'er-do-wells, either trying to make a living in the Cogs below or lending their (sometimes prodigious) strength to Daask or House Tarkanan or any of a dozen other crime syndicates that control the bottom of the city. Gangs are a matter of survival, and the only friendly face you're like to see is the one in the mirror.

Sharn is wonderful for this sort of thing, since nearly any environment imaginable is present there, with a special focus on a kind of deep inner-city slum that you ordinarily don't get in a fantasy setting.
#3
igotsmeakabob
Aug 31, 2010 9:58:51 Thanks for the tips, though for now they're done with the lower city. Next week they'll be heading to Morgrave U. and then on to a ruin at an as-of-yet undecided location in Khorvaire.
#4
Gurv
Sep 01, 2010 0:31:18 M4kitsu is right on about descriptions. Good description, using all five senses, makes any game better. Suspense is added by describing something that the characters are unsure about.

Now a more mechanics-based tip. As you do all that describing, have them roll Awareness checks. For no real reason. Give high rollers even more unsettling details. Roll dice behind your DM screen and ask them what their Will defenses are. Ask who has various Knowledge skills when they pass odd creatures or surroundings.

Keep them guessing about what they don't know. Its what you don't tell them that raises suspense. Just don't overdo it, or they'll become paralyzed by paranoia.
#5
Alas
Sep 06, 2010 7:04:33 For me, gaming suspense is generally one of two kinds:

1) I think I know what's going to happen, but I'm not sure when. For example, when the party heads into the dragon's lair, we know the dragon is going to hit us-- the tension is in the timing of the strike. Geography and setting can play a big role in this kind of suspense, because the players will be looking for blind spots, safe points, and escape routes.

2) I think I know when something is imminent, but I'm not sure what. In an adventure we just played last night set in a little Eldeen village, we knew that outlying farms had been attacked and burned down leaving no witnesses. The chain of attacks had been steadily approaching the village night after night. So, we were ready for the lookouts' signal arrows, but we had NO idea what was going to come out of the forest at us until it was already initiative time. The key to this kind of suspense is ambiguous clues: impossible tracks, mysterious symbols, the juxtaposition of apparently incongruous elements.

I have a big fondness for the second kind, myself.
#6
auspex7
Sep 08, 2010 18:14:15 'Tension' is definitely a great idea to latch onto when you're trying to generate suspense.

One of the things I like to do with Eberron games is to weave a web around the players, with multiple motivators, catalysts, antagonists, etc becoming intertwined in some way.

Here's a simple example:

The party is retained by a member of an Aundarian noble house to cross into Thrane, and attempt to retrieve certain relics from one of their old holdings. This 'holding' was a safehouse hidden away in a remote area, and the relics in question include journals written by a now deceased member of the family.

Unbeknownst to all but a few members of the house, those journals also reveal that the author and a few of his closest family members and advisors were traitors, and helped facilitate the taking of large areas of land by Thrane. Naturally, one of the family members who is in-the-know has put himself in position to be the party's liason, and is actually working against them...

Suddenly, you have national interests from two sources, and conflicting interests from within one family, etc.

When this type of situation is presented, it becomes easy for players to be surprised/shocked by crazy things that happen, and as they start to figure some pieces out, the "who can we trust?" issue presents itself.
#7
Drumheller
Jan 18, 2011 21:33:27
I'm at the beginning of a Eberron game, the party is en route to Sharn after recovering artifacts from the Demon Wastes and a messy encounter with the Emerald Claw.

Still working on getting the vibe of the setting and this thread to be helpful, thank you.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 igotsmeakabob Aug 25, 2010 15:39:18	So I'm relatively new to GMing, and I've run my game for two sessions now (Eberron using Pathfinder core rules and Eberron sourcebooks). The first session started with the players on a Lightning Rail bound for Sharn, where they were attacked and had to wrest control of the train back from their would-be assassins. The second game had them descend into lower Dura to investigate the source of their attackers, where they found a bar with a similar symbol (found on the assassins) and they eventually interrogated the man in charge and forced him to set up a meeting with his contact. Now I'm sure it's in large part the descriptions rather than the actual happenings, but can you guys give me some tips to add suspense to my game? I figure it's one way to make my games more memorable and fun for the players. Thanks!
#2 m4kitsu Aug 28, 2010 12:20:28	Well, are the PCs (and more importantly, the players) new to Sharn? If so, then you have a gold mine if information to pull from. If the contact is in the lower portions of the city, play up the dank nature of Sharn's lower levels. Constant rain (actually condensation runoff from higher places in the city -known to locals as "tower spit") and fog, too-warm thanks to the heat of the Cogs below the city... the PCs head toward the meet through dirty, dark streets, other people only shapes in the darkness and shadow, not all of them shaped like humans. A pack of kobolds with glittering eyes stare at them from under deeply hooded cloaks as they huddle on a corner. A Harpy's song echoes down from above as something large and horned lumbers past them in the fog, carrying something that may or may not be a body. It's tense, quiet, and the PCs are the interlopers here -Sharn may be a human-controlled city, but this far from the spires it's survival of the most ruthless. Something far too large slithers down a street at the edge of their vision, and an old beggar woman on the corner panhandles with a hissing voice and a scaled hand reaching out from beneath her tattered robe. On another corner sits another beggar, but sharp-eyed PCs spot the glimmer of a well-maintained blade beneath his rags, and he watches them from under the beat up brim of a wide hat with cool, detached eyes. They approach the meeting place -it might've been a temple once, but it's been repurposed a dozen times over maybe hundreds of years. It's a crumbling reminder of a much earlier time, slowly disintegrating under the oppressive weight of the city above, making the PCs always feel like they need to duck their heads to avoid striking them on the roof. Despite it's age, dim light glows from within. Flanking the shattered doors are a pair of minotaur statues, but one of them shifts its weight almost imperceptibly into a more ready stance as the bodyguard watches the PCs approach. Behind them, something catlike with too many legs blurs and fades away as it tails the group... The lower levels of the city are just as dangerous (if not more) than the deepest jungles of Khorvaire. Play up how alien the population is, and how incredibly old the city is -Sharn is an ancient place, riddled with long-forgotten passages and construction, the foundations of the city's great towers honeycombed with buildings and warrens and sewers that the PCs will never learn to find or navigate reliably. Most of the city's "monstrous" population lives here as laborers or ne'er-do-wells, either trying to make a living in the Cogs below or lending their (sometimes prodigious) strength to Daask or House Tarkanan or any of a dozen other crime syndicates that control the bottom of the city. Gangs are a matter of survival, and the only friendly face you're like to see is the one in the mirror. Sharn is wonderful for this sort of thing, since nearly any environment imaginable is present there, with a special focus on a kind of deep inner-city slum that you ordinarily don't get in a fantasy setting.
#3 igotsmeakabob Aug 31, 2010 9:58:51	Thanks for the tips, though for now they're done with the lower city. Next week they'll be heading to Morgrave U. and then on to a ruin at an as-of-yet undecided location in Khorvaire.
#4 Gurv Sep 01, 2010 0:31:18	M4kitsu is right on about descriptions. Good description, using all five senses, makes any game better. Suspense is added by describing something that the characters are unsure about. Now a more mechanics-based tip. As you do all that describing, have them roll Awareness checks. For no real reason. Give high rollers even more unsettling details. Roll dice behind your DM screen and ask them what their Will defenses are. Ask who has various Knowledge skills when they pass odd creatures or surroundings. Keep them guessing about what they don't know. Its what you don't tell them that raises suspense. Just don't overdo it, or they'll become paralyzed by paranoia.
#5 Alas Sep 06, 2010 7:04:33	For me, gaming suspense is generally one of two kinds: 1) I think I know what's going to happen, but I'm not sure when. For example, when the party heads into the dragon's lair, we know the dragon is going to hit us-- the tension is in the timing of the strike. Geography and setting can play a big role in this kind of suspense, because the players will be looking for blind spots, safe points, and escape routes. 2) I think I know when something is imminent, but I'm not sure what. In an adventure we just played last night set in a little Eldeen village, we knew that outlying farms had been attacked and burned down leaving no witnesses. The chain of attacks had been steadily approaching the village night after night. So, we were ready for the lookouts' signal arrows, but we had NO idea what was going to come out of the forest at us until it was already initiative time. The key to this kind of suspense is ambiguous clues: impossible tracks, mysterious symbols, the juxtaposition of apparently incongruous elements. I have a big fondness for the second kind, myself.
#6 auspex7 Sep 08, 2010 18:14:15	'Tension' is definitely a great idea to latch onto when you're trying to generate suspense. One of the things I like to do with Eberron games is to weave a web around the players, with multiple motivators, catalysts, antagonists, etc becoming intertwined in some way. Here's a simple example: The party is retained by a member of an Aundarian noble house to cross into Thrane, and attempt to retrieve certain relics from one of their old holdings. This 'holding' was a safehouse hidden away in a remote area, and the relics in question include journals written by a now deceased member of the family. Unbeknownst to all but a few members of the house, those journals also reveal that the author and a few of his closest family members and advisors were traitors, and helped facilitate the taking of large areas of land by Thrane. Naturally, one of the family members who is in-the-know has put himself in position to be the party's liason, and is actually working against them... Suddenly, you have national interests from two sources, and conflicting interests from within one family, etc. When this type of situation is presented, it becomes easy for players to be surprised/shocked by crazy things that happen, and as they start to figure some pieces out, the "who can we trust?" issue presents itself.
#7 Drumheller Jan 18, 2011 21:33:27	I'm at the beginning of a Eberron game, the party is en route to Sharn after recovering artifacts from the Demon Wastes and a messy encounter with the Emerald Claw. Still working on getting the vibe of the setting and this thread to be helpful, thank you.