Suspense in RPGs

[FruitSmack!]

Hey all,

One thing I've been thinking about recently is suspense in role-playing.  In most games I've ran/played in, suspense is a hard, if not impossible thing to accomplish.  Usually, the break down point for suspense is from 2 main things, at least that I see:

1.) The participants see through the suspenseful "situation".

2.) The participants don't get into the mood of it.

The problem I personally see is that suspense (and by that I mean anticipation, really) is very much a gut feeling.  It's hard to feel that for most people, unless it's actually there.  Lets face it, sitting around someone's living room, drinking Coke and eating chips, isn't the most conductive spot for getting that feeling across.  

I think that the first problem comes up in the fact that when we are playing any RPG, there is the need to have coherent information given to us in order to understand the game that is going on.  Granted this info varies from game to game, group to group and player to player, but its something necessary to role-playing.  This "need" for info is, I think, a double-edged sword.  A lot of suspense and anticipation in other media, like books or movies, is reliant upon the fact that the character and/or the audience isn't given all the information and thus, is left hanging in anticipation.

RPGs are a contrast.  The people playing the game take on the role of the characters and the audience at the same time.  If the person that is narrating this information to the other participant with holds too much, there is the potential of breaking down the game, causing confusion; etc.  On the other hand, giving away too much dissolves any kind of suspense that was getting built up in the first place.  

This kind of brings my second observation in, which Ill admit is more anecdotal.  Making someone feel suspense and/or anticipation is a tall order, made even more difficult with the fact that unlike other things, RPG characters, especially in a game that has very loosely defined GM/Player roles.  Even if the participants are 'into" the story and are putting elements of suspense in there, they are only acting it out, not truly getting into the mood of it.  Very rarely are people on the edge of their seats for something *other* then awaiting the outcome of some sort of action.  That is a dime a dozen, what is much harder to accomplish is getting the feeling of dread during a good horror game, or survivability when things get very tough, or even the thrill of the unknown.  That's the kind of suspense I'm looking at.

I hope that made sense.  Like I said, this is something I've been thinking about recently.  I'm not looking for fixes or suggestions for any tangible problem, it's just something I wanted to pose and get some discussion/feedback/flames/new views about.  ;)

[Troy_Costisick]

Greetings!

One thing that I always include in any campaign I run or write is a Twist.  I make sure that the PCs a progressing along and getting comfortable in their situation- then I spring the Twist on them.  Various Twists include- an ally becomes an enemy, an enemy becomes an ally (or has been an ally all along), a mystery relating back to early in the campaign is either deepened or resolved, a key NPC vanishes, magic ceases to work properly or all together in a certain area, an unexpected natural occurrence (such as a storm, earthquake, or disease) alters the environment rapidly.  

From my experience, this has worked for consistently.  What hasn't worked is a linear, step-by-step progression through the campaign.  A campaign should, IMHO, have setbacks and unexplained (though not unjustified) phenomenon.  It should allow the PCs to get comfortable, and then move them out of that comfort zone.  While they are out of the comfort zone, that is when true suspense can be built because the players don't know what to expect next.

The time out of a comfort zone is brief, however.  PCs can quickly adapt and become comfortable in their new situation.  One has to capitalize on the brief moment or two when interest is heightened and the players realize that what they had thought to be true is no longer valid.

At least, that's how I've see it.  Might not work for you tho :)

Peace,

-Troy

[jdagna]

Suspence - for the players - usually comes from a combination of two factors:
1) lack of information.
2) risk to the characters

For example, if you want a suspenseful zombie encounter, don't say "You see 5 zombies.  They're 20 meters away at your 2 o'clock heading into the building"  Instead, say "You see a small group shuffle through the doorway into the dark building ahead on your right.  The wind shifts and you pick up a rotten stench like garbage or dead bodies."

Of course, even better for the suspense will have been the lead-up to the scene.  Players should be aware of danger (perhaps finding dead NPCs) and its presence (by hearing footsteps or the like).

Now there's always a possibility that the players aren't getting into the mood of it.  Maybe they just want to play a different style or maybe there's a communication problem going on.  It will help players get into the mood if they feel like they have something to lose.  Threatening PC death is one option - if you follow through with it and if they get attached to their characters.  Threatening maiming or disease is often better.  Threatening NPCs or significant locations can work if players are willing to get attached to them.

Also, consider playing mood music.  IF you've ever watched a suspenseful movie (espeically in the horror genre) with the sound off, you know that it always comes across as silly.  The music taps into some emotional part of the brain.  Get a soundtrack from a suitable movie and loop it on your CD player at a moderate to low volume.  Some people even adjust the lighting.  For my tastes, this is going a bit far, but your mileage may vary.

[Valamir]

At the risk of overtly pimping my own game, I offer the following:

The game itself is more suspenseful than most role-playing games. Most RPGs aren't suspenseful at all for the GM - he knows what's going to happen. Even in a heavily narrativist game, he has some ideas, and knows the agendas of his antagonists. Players can read this, by the way - people can be obvious. I've often known what was going to happen in a game because I knew what TV shows the GM watched, or movies he liked, or books he read. In Universalis, since everyone contributes, no one has an idea what might happen next. This kicks ass. ---Clinton Nixon

[Alan]

Ralph makes an interesting point.

I've noticed that both in Universalis and in Trollbabe, I'm often on tenterhooks.  In these games, I'm in suspense about whether or not I'll get to evolve the story the way I envision it.  This may be a deeper level of emotional involvement because I, the player, have a creative vision and am not just responding in actor stance.

I think a player feels suspense when they can foresee more than one possible outcome to something that engages them.  Suspense is intensified when the player has personal investment in one of those outcomes.

I think that suspense in an RPG gets really intense when the player is invested in some "meta-game" element - something above the level of the shared fantasy.  For example, a player with narrativist tendencies may have their vision of how things can turn out.  A player with gamist preferences may find thier prestige among the really players at stake.  

But doesn't this leave the simulationist preference out to dry?  Where can a player find that extra engagement in a play style that minimizes the importance of out-of-fantasy concerns?

[contracycle]

IMO the sim angle is essentially one of portrayal, an issue to which I feel insufficient attention is paid.  I often point out that a major distinction between our abilities and those of movies is the use of sound.  I wholly agree with jdagnas suggestions and would point out that the human voice has a tremendous range of, umm, special effects.  All that said, your in-game threat needs to be credible too.

[Ian Charvill]

Suspense, at the root of it, is a fun kind of discomfort.  There's tension, you want it to end, but for a while it's enjoyable.  Among the problems I've had producing it, and possible answers to the problems, are:

Pushing things too far: A Deadlands game.  The PCs are going through a warehouse room by room, looking for the zombies, kicking in the doors.  Purely by chance, they keep picking empty room.  We got some pretty good suspense built up.

The problem came when one of the players couldn't stand it any more and had an emotional ketchup burst.  Everyone cracked up.  Tension over - but we still had the scene to finish.  Not good.

No Myth could be used as a technique to both delay the finding of the Zombie Room and to make sure the tension didn't go on too long.

Actually scaring players: Call of Cthulhu - the haunted house adventure from the back of the book (can't remember the name of it - if it turns out to the "The Haunted House", I reserve the right to look like an idiot).  We were fourteen or fifteen.  One of the players was a part-time D&Der, the other was a first-time gamer, a friend of a friend who I didn't spend much time with cos he spent all of his time bunking off from school and smoking behind the bike sheds.  Both of them reported being "shitted up" (as we'd say at the time) later to a third party.  Neither of them played Cthulhu with me again.

Erm, I guess the solution to this one is: pay attention to your players and make sure everyone's having fun.  Pretty much a no-brainer, but I was young.

I really need to go and do the lunch thing.  I actually intended to write something about the use of No Myth style techniques to produce suspense but then I got side tracked.

later

[simon_hibbs]

There are a few thing I try to bear in mind when I'm creating a scene I want to be suspenseful and exciting.

One is to make sure there is a credible threat, or at least the appearance of a credible threat.

Another is to give the players some kind of visual or graphic representation of the situation, no matter how sketchy, but with plenty of unknowns (e.g. Here are the trees and the road, you can see movement over ehre, but you're not sure exactly where they are).

Limit the characters resources (You're fighting Nazi Werewolves from the Wolfen SS, but only have 2 silver bullets each - from last night's game).

Don't give them too much time to figure out a response - slightly longer than real time to make up for the fact they need to imagine the situation before they can respond, but once you're sure they know the facts as their characetr percieves them, no more mister nice guy - give them a 5 second countdown if that's all the time their character has.

Leave a character at a dramatic moment, then switch to another character's actions, then get back to the first characetr and resolve the situation. Sometimes in conflict with the suggestion above, but as narrator you can't do everything at once.

Finaly, come at them from several different directions at once.

I'm sure there are plenty of other techniques.


Simon Hibbs

[Jonathan Walton]

1) lack of information.
2) risk to the characters

Actually, I was planning on starting a post on this exact subject, but you guys beat me to it.

One idea I had for my upcoming Unknown Armies campaign was to not let the players read any of the combat rules.  As in kill puppies, combat in UA is supposed to be scary, unpredictable, and deadly.  That's kinda hard in a percentile system where players might be tempted to estimate their chances (40%?  50%?).  But if they don't exactly know how combat works, I think they'll be just as scared of it as real people are, so that plays on both the lack of info and risk factors.