[Twilight Time] Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games

[Heather Grove]

September 26, 2006: Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games
Volume 7, Issue 2


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Good morning!

Yes, believe it or not, there's another issue within 2 months of the  
last one. A miracle must have occurred, right? Actually, it's that  
we're finally roleplaying semi-regularly again. We spent  yesterday in  
Virginia at a friend's house playing D&D first edition. It's a ton of  
fun! We've even finally picked up D&D 3.5 to catch up with the latest  
stuff, and my husband's starting work on a new campaign. He's also  
playing around with doing some programming work on a few GM tools, for  
which he'd welcome any feedback folks might have; his blog post on the  
issue is at the following URL, and anyone is welcome to leave a  
comment:

http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/thoughts/2006/09/project_proposal.html

Just so you know, you do need a typekey (or is it typepad? I can never  
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In other news, we've done a ton of work on the Cafepress.com store  
since the last issue. If you enjoy mmorpgs at all, or like cats,  
writing, books, etc., you might enjoy some of the designs we have  
available on clothing, mugs, prints, buttons, etc.:

http://www.cafepress.com/burningvoid

Some of them have become surprisingly popular, in particular the "out  
of mana" and "elixir of coffee" designs!

Without further ado, on to the actual article. Have a great day!
Heather

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=========================

Creating Tension in Roleplaying Games

Recently I read and reviewed a fantastic book by Jessica Page Morrell  
called "Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction  
writing":

<a  
href="http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/reviews/2006/09/ 
between_the_lines_master_the_s.html">http://www.burningvoid.com/weblog/ 
reviews/2006/09/between_the_lines_master_the_s.html</a>

One of the (many) things it discussed was how to create and increase  
tension in your fiction, and of course it occurred to me that some of  
these techniques could be adapted to roleplaying games. As always, you  
need to remember that RPGs have different needs than fiction (such as  
the need to allow for and adapt to the free choices of the players and  
characters, and the need to remember that the GM doesn't dictate every  
detail). However, many methods used in creating good novels and stories  
can be mined for ideas when working on roleplaying adventures. I highly  
recommend that book in its entirety to anyone interested in adapting  
fiction methods to gaming, or to anyone interested in writing fiction.  
Here I'm just going to address a few of its tension-building techniques  
in the context of roleplaying.


"Tension is part curiosity, part unease, and part dread." --Jessica  
Page Morrell, "Between the Lines," page 246.

Ms. Morrell submits that tension and suspense are different things.   
Suspense creates tension, but does not equal it. Suspense "is created  
by withholding information and prolonging outcomes." Tension is "a  
sense of disquiet" that "lurks beneath the surface of the story, eating  
at the reader's nerves." It increases when your players don't know the  
outcome of the current scene and want to succeed at their goals. While  
you don't want to make every moment of your game a tense one lest your  
players become worn out or numbed to the effect, a certain amount of  
tension keeps things exciting. It keeps the pace fast. It makes your  
game memorable and makes your players care about the outcome of the  
plot. Tension is something you vary from scene to scene to keep things  
interesting and keep your players and their characters emotionally  
involved with the story.


Openings

Ms. Morrell believes that part of introducing tension into a story is  
introducing a "story question" in the opening scenes. It should  
naturally make your players curious and draw them into wondering how  
the question will be answered or resolved. She also believes that the  
opening needs to threaten the status quo of the protagonist, or, in  
this case, the party of characters.

How do you apply this to an RPG adventure? In many cases game masters  
(GMs) start the adventure before the point at which a savvy writer  
would start a story, taking the time to draw the characters together or  
introduce them to a new location. If you have a pre-existing campaign  
and your players have already been drawn into caring about the world,  
you might not need to immediately start off a new adventure with an  
exciting first scene in order to draw them in. However, you should  
probably construct some sort of event that you think of as the  
"opening" of the new plot that will create the worry, threat, and  
tension that Ms. Morrell speaks of.

If you're starting a  new campaign with new players, or with players  
that you know sometimes have difficulty settling down and concentrating  
on the game, then take advantage of her advice on openings. Either use  
this tension-inducing story opening to throw your party of characters  
together, or use a brief prelude to throw them together (don't allow  
them to dawdle through this--gloss over any boring parts) and then dive  
into the opening scene.

A quick note on story questions: When you come up with a plot for a  
campaign, always find a way to phrase it as a question. "Can the party  
stop the evil wizard from causing these two kingdoms to destroy each  
other in a war?" "Can the party rescue the nobleman's daughter from the  
warlord who kidnapped her?" Then make sure that events and scenes along  
the way cause the players to doubt the answer to this question.


Maintaining Tension

Authors often have difficulty maintaining tension in a story (it's  
something of a truism that the middle book in a trilogy is usually the  
slowest). GMs have a natural advantage in that the use of combat  
encounters tends to create tension all on its own. However, it does  
help to consider how you can maintain the plot-related tension as well.  
Partly you can do this by varying the suspense and tension levels over  
time; contrary to what you might think, maintaining a consistently high  
tension level can often backfire as your players become accustomed to  
it. Including moments of amusement, relaxation, and seeming safety can  
make the rest of your tense scenes all the more effective.

You can also accomplish this partially by relating some of your combats  
to the storyline. Not all "random" encounters need be truly random;  
find a way to work some of them into the plotline.

Make sure that the middle of your story is used to advance and reveal  
aspects of the plot. The player characters (PCs) should continue to  
make discoveries relevant to the story to help them maintain interest  
in its outcome. They should continue to learn more about their  
adversaries and themselves.


Avoiding an Anti-Climax

Tension, of course, is one of the keys to keeping your campaign from  
ending on an anti-climax. The ending should be sufficiently tense to  
make the players feel that the journey has been worth it. The outcome  
of the plot should be in doubt; the PCs should worry over how things  
will work out. This doesn't have to mean earth-shattering final battles  
or epic struggles, as long as the PCs care about what happens and the  
amount of worry and tension is proportional to what has come before it.  
One of Ms. Morrell's guidelines is that the protagonist (PCs) should be  
forced to act in ways that the reader (players) would be afraid to. The  
PCs must make choices or take actions that are difficult or  
frightening; these choices probably have dire personal, emotional, or  
physical consequences.


Because an ongoing campaign tends to include many adventures, you can't  
constantly use the transformation of major player characters as a  
source of tension in the way novelists often do. However, you can still  
take some cues from novelists' techniques. Other characters the PCs  
care about can change and be threatened. If the group of PCs gels well,  
you can threaten and induce transformation in one in order to involve  
all. You can also use small changes and revelations as well as large  
ones, which allows you to use more of them without getting ridiculous.  
Concentrate on making your story questions interesting and worth caring  
about.

Most of these techniques rely on players who are willing to emotionally  
involve themselves (or at least their characters) in the game world.  
Some players just want to relax with a bit of hack-and-slash when they  
play, and they might not be the best folks to try this with. But if you  
have players who are willing to invest a little energy in the world,  
you can use the techniques from "Between the Lines" to repay that  
investment and then some.


For many more examples, techniques, and guidelines regarding creating  
tension in your stories, read Jessica Page Morrell's "Between the  
Lines". It includes an entire chapter on tension that can be adapted to  
roleplaying games, and the rest of the book contains invaluable advice  
as well that GMs of all kinds could use.

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