Befor the Shoot-Out

[Attu]

I've recently seen some Western-movies and I'm very impressed by the starting scene of "Once Upon a Time in the West" (or in a newer movie like "3:10 to Yuma"). In the first case I like the idea of waiting for the shoot-out and in the second the waiting for the inescapable shoot-out. But how can you realize this tension in your gaming-sessions? Especially without boring your players to death.

For those who don't know the films:
Once Upon a Time in the West: 3 guys are waiting at a train station for a man. You only see them waiting. You hear a windmill squeaking, a fly buzzing and so one. After 5 minutes or so a train arrives and only a single man gets out of the train. After some talking there's your shoot-out and the 3 guys are dead.
In my case the 3 guys are my players and hopefully not dead.

3:10 to Yuma: The protagonist is waiting in a hotel with a prisoner and has to fight his way through the city to the trainstation. The problem is that the gang of the prisoner waits outside. He is out-manned and out-gunned. And even if he surrenders he will be shot. And it is 2 o'clock.
In my case my players are in the same situation.

So the question is: How can you re-enact such scenes? I can't create tension by saying "Okay, after 5 minutes of waiting the train arrives." or "Okay, one hour later you'll have to go to the trainstation. Fetch your dice!"

[Blain]

The only thing I can really think of at the top of my head is to have them think the walls are coming down around them. Maybe the bad guys are coming in to make a rescue attempt, and they can roll Perception or Search to notice them. Maybe the bad guys are setting up a trap, and they can try and get as much information by sneaking out.

Hope that helps.
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Jedi don't die. They're just metaphysically inconvenienced.

[Grimace]

What you're actually talking about is simply "building tension". That rests solely upon the GM and how well he's described the situation and setting. The only way to force the tension and the butterflies in the stomach feeling for the players is to give enough description about "what's coming" or "what's waiting for them" to make them think and worry about whether their PC will survive the situation.

If you simply try to tell them, "You're waiting and the feeling on anxiety is chewing at your belly", you can get the point across, but you're not going to make the players FEEL the way you want them to. Instead you have to be the little voice in their head, describing things to them and making them think about it. Consider what would make YOU anxious before the shooting, and then describe some of those things.

Realize that this is something that take a lot of practice to be able to pull off successfully time and again. It's like trying to inject real "horror" into a horror setting game. When you can make the players jump in fright at your descriptions, then you have a chance of making them sweat in worry before a shootout.

[Gry Sarth]

I think if you want to build the tension towards a certain scene, you have to give the players little glimpses of what's to come, so they know the s*** is about to hit the fan, they know how badly the s*** smells, but so far all they can do is wait. If there's an enemy they are about to face, have one of its barely-alive victims pop up and describe how evil/powerful the enemy is, showing the players that they are doomed. If you have force-users, a little hazy vision of chaos and destruction, always helps.
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"He's Gry Sarth, of course he has the stats for them."

[PsiberDragon]

[Lor-Pbk]

Here's A trick I have used to build tension.

Throw in extra elements for the players to be concerned with during the fight.

Establish a deadline. tell the players they are running short on time. Have thier comlink beep with a message from a trusted npc warning.
Example: As the heroes close for the final fight with the Villian, one of their comlinks beeps. It's the starport controller they paid extra to watch over their ship. "I'm just calling to let y'all know I'm gonna be closing the hanger soon due to a storm brewing. So if you all wanna leave anytime soon you better get back here quick." effectively letting the group know they are running short on time to make their escape from the planet.

Then they notice ( Easy PER. check) the the wind picking up. A sign of the impending storm approaching their location. [ also you can use the weather as an additional hazard during the fight. wet surfaces can trip players making movement more difficult. As well as wind can effect the battle. Or in the case of a really unlucky roll on the wild dice I might even have lightening strike the battle, or a player, ouch!

Then there's always the fun of bystanders getting in the way. Or screaming as a distraction. And/or a 3rd party of combatants adding to the fight.

Inconclusion: as far as extra tension I guess I just like to make the players have a lot to worry about; Shortened time to make their escape, inclement weather effects to make them take extra actions and other factors all add to the tension of a fight.

Think about all the extra tension that was going on on the fight between Mace Windu and the Emperor. They were in an enclosed space ( the office ) Mace was potentially jepordizing the fate of the government. then the window got smashed, (Mace and Pallpatine were deffinately making movement rolls or DEX check to keep from falling out.) Then when Anakin entered Mace had to have a moral argument with him while holding Palpatine at bay... That was a pretty tense moment.

Or think about Luke and Vader's fight in ESB. First Luke was in an unfamiliar room that Vader had set up as a trap. Then they were in some sort of small room with lots nice boxes and junk Vader could hurl at him. Then they ended up out on ( What the F*** was that) some sort of balcony with harsh winds and huge "antenna". Tell me they were making movement checks to prevent falling. And during all this, Luke was really there to save his friends, which you know in the back of his mind he knew that Han was in the hands of a Bounty hunter and Leia and the others were running for their lives as Imperials were Invading the city. Ugh " hello stress... Hi my name is Luke It's nice to meet ya. "

These are just some examples of High tension situations you can draw from to help ya.

[FightingCorsair]

There's nothing like dumping every rule on a player to make them twist.

I tend to glaze over movement if the players are dealing with the reasonably even surface of a ship's corridor. But when that corridor is moving because the ship is breaking apart from the explosions...

Weather is a great equalizer. Though not as big an issue in SW, I've seen what even a small amount of wind can do to the flight path of my arrows.

Beyond the Supernatural from Palladium Books had a wonderful section on how to inject tension and horror into a scene. Basically it came down to describing not only what the players see but what they heard and smelled. Also describing without telling. Don't say they smell the blood, tell them what blood smells like so they can make their own conclusions.

Try listening to some old radio dramas. The mind is a powerful tool and will come up with some scary stuff if left to fill in the blanks.

[Rerun941]

All are great suggestions.

If you are using miniatures/figures, have the bad guy duck behind buildings and then remove their piece from the table and keep track of the bad guy's locating behind the screen. One classic western movie cliche is having the baddies duck around the back or head up to the roof. Have the PCs do a Per/search check nearly every round with the bad guys popping up around every corner.
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Han - "How're we doin'?"
Luke - "Same as always."
Han - "That bad, huh?"

[AWAD]

This is where the cut scenes and GM screen are great.

Role some dice, make expressions, then cut to an Imperial Shuttle full of Storm Troopers.

Then ask them their Perception, Hide or Knowledge skills and you roll. Show no emotions or very exaggerated ones.

Have them roll something in the open, then cut scene again.

Roll one more time behind the screen, and then say you notice something.

Of course you have to give some feel and description like time is at a crawl, no one is on the streets, a single Bantha lets out a howl as you do these various things.

If done right they blast the first thing they see and screw it all up.

AWAD

[enderandrew]

Good narration will build tension leading up to the sequence. However, if you want to make the shoot-out itself tense, then only give players 10 seconds to declare their actions, or move on.
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Nihilism makes me smile.