#RPGaDAY – August 28, 2025 (SUSPENSE)

 

#RPGaDAY – August 28, 2025 (SUSPENSE)

Suspense – I think suspense is a hard thing to create in most TTRPGs.  It is a cousin to horror and intensity, but is a little harder to generate. I have heard about games being played by candlelight or with appropriate mood music playing, but I think those things come with inherent complications.  Maybe I am just old (which I am) but trying to read the results on most dice would be tricky by candlelight, not to mention the inherent danger of playing a pen and paper heavy game around open flames and music needs to be in the background, loud enough to elicit the intended response, without making it hard to hear what everyone is saying and interfering with the game play.

I do think you can crank up the suspense and intensity of your games, by keeping things interesting, dangerous, and moving for the players. I now pretty much make all important rolls out in the open, in front of the players. This tends to keep the players paying attention and watching my dice rolls, for which I use oversized and highly visible dice and highlights both attacks and damage rolls, not to mention saving throws versus game affecting spells. The players know I am not fudging any dice rolls, which is another controversial topic either for or against them. I try to tell them what I need to roll or higher, so they eagerly await the roll of the dice.

Unique situations and environments can help keep things interesting and exciting.  I think most players have fought Carrion Crawlers before, which are large tentacle faced centipede type creatures that can paralyze their prey.  It can be hard to pit single monsters against a party of 4-5 characters; however multiple monsters can then sometimes overwhelm the party. I had the group fighting only 1 Carrion Crawler type creature, but it could walk on the ceiling and could emerge from large tunnel holes it had created to attack the group from above, usually targeting a creature off by themselves or even last in line in the group.  At one point, it had emerged from above and paralyzed one character and was dragging them up into their tunnel on the ceiling. In a truly heroic moment, one character ended up misty stepping up to the tunnel opening in the ceiling to strike the monster and get him to drop his captured prey, all the while trying to keep both themselves and their companion from falling 30’ back to the ground.  They ended up chasing the monster through the cramped tunnels, trying to fight it in the dark at disadvantage for the tight spaces.  

 

Then to top it off, they thought there was only one monster, but it turned out to be a male and a female, with a young one, and a bunch of laid eggs. It was a real surprise when the second one popped out and attacked the party while they were trying to contend with the other one. This was during my Grimdark campaign, so the characters had fewer hit points and resources.