GMing high-tension, low-roll moments

[Mojomoe]

I've got a question for my fellow GMs.

My gaming group (longstanding, 15 years) is a very tactically-minded lot. That is to say, they focus very heavily on planning their actions and reactions to events - usually combat - very logically, and tend to want to "get on with" what happens in-between shooting and dodging (the shooting and dodging itself is engaging and fun, though ). What this means then, is that it's very difficult to build tension with said group if it doesn't involve direct dice rolling - they sort of go "yeah, uh-huh..." until they have dice to roll.

So, rewatching A New Hope last night, I started to wonder how I would GM some of the scenes, most notably the Garbage Masher and the Trench Run. Both of which involve a slow-moving environmental climax ("almost... There!"), with low per-round dice involvement, but which still last a goodly amount of time (on the order of minutes, so multiple rounds of things happening, but no rolling.)

How would other GMs out there run a thing like that - impending doom, with building musical accompaniment, but without anything for the players to "do?" How would you keep that engaging, when it's clear your either going to kill the players, or you're not? Is that possible in the RPG?

[shootingwomprats]

Toss in some things where they have to make rolls. For example: climbing/jumping roll or die. Dexterity roll or die. Overwhelming odds, toss them in a prison cell, make them escape. Ship takes damage and cannot fight back until repaired. Interpersonal interactions that MUST be done to complete mission. Just some ideas.
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[Ankhanu]

Something you could do is add in a psychological effect... use Willpower rolls periodically to see if the characters can keep a cool head; as they fail, impose negative modifiers as they start to get worked up and/or panicked. Getting psyched out will mess with their careful planning.

Might up the stakes a bit for them...

Could also use socially informed details as story points... Oh, you didn't hear that the Hutt needed that silver Sullustan ring, and you sold it? The Hutt's not very pleased with you...
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[Ankhanu]

Something you could do is add in a psychological effect... use Willpower rolls periodically to see if the characters can keep a cool head; as they fail, impose negative modifiers as they start to get worked up and/or panicked. Getting psyched out will mess with their careful planning.

Might up the stakes a bit for them...

Could also use socially informed details as story points... Oh, you didn't hear that the Hutt needed that silver Sullustan ring, and you sold it? The Hutt's not very pleased with you...
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[garhkal]

I like that psychological aspect.. Also gives a reason for having willpower.
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[thedemonapostle]

to put it simply:

“No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.”

sometimes its gonna have to play out like a good book. theres no music, no fancy lighting, nothing but words. look up some military scifi books and take a look at how it done there.
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[atgxtg]

What you have is the time bomb situation. As a GM you don't want to blow the PCs up, but you want them to think that it could happen.

The way to play such encounters, IMO, is to provide some sort of "countdown timer" that can be used to build tension. Note that the timer doesn't actually have to be a timer or actually countdown. It simply has to be some method of showing that the situation is getting worse in a way that is obvious and measurable. For instance, reducing the distance between the walls, or increasing the difficulty to do something due to increasing difficulty of the task.

The idea really isn't to make things so difficult that the PCs eventually fail, but to make it seem like things are getting tougher. Therefore, any tricks the GM can pull that makes the situation look worse than it actually is can help here.

For instance, let's say you have an adventure where the bad guys have placed a bomb on board the PCs ship. Now if the PCs don't know about it you have a poor scene. The ship just goes boom and the PCs get caught unawares. Not good. It's okay to rack up the drama if you do it to NPCs, but not something you should do to the PCs.

The way to make it a good scene is to let the PCs find out about the bomb, but not know where it is, and let them do so when it is too late for them to just avoid getting on the ship. Like say two or three hours after entering hyperspace. Let the group know that they have a deadline of some sort (and you can present a "fuzzy" deadline so they don't know exactly how long they have, and so you can fudge things a little if things go badly), and then start with the search rolls to find the bomb, and other rolls to defuse or remove it. The tension comes from the players knowing that time is running out. You can increase the difficulty of the search rolls until they find it, and even put a LED readout on the bomb when they do find it so they can see the clock ticking down.

If you do something like that, any situation can be made more dramatic.

[garhkal]

A lot of that though depends on their skill levels..
Someone say with 8-10D search, is going to find most anything you hide on a ship, especially if they pop a FP for it. Where as a standard pc 4-6d search, will have issues finding that bomb.
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[lurker]

[DougRed4]

Some great ideas already, and I agree. You simply narrate things for the PCs, up the tension in whatever way you can (music, props, sound effects, etc.) and have them make progressively more difficult rolls.

If I were narrating the Trash Compactor scene, for instance, I concur that some climbing rolls ("Get on top!") would work, as would some Willpower (to avoid panicking, as Threepio was doing).

The Trench Run would be harder, but even it could be done, I think.
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[Ral_Brelt]

I ran a d20 Aliens cross-over for some friends awhile back. I had them chasing their tails for 15 or so minutes where every time they entered an area, or heard a noise on a derelict ship, they were rolling spot and listen like crazy. I did a fabricated drop in in the galley, where one player wouldn't give it up and had him eventually spot a severed hand on a plate riding around the conveyor.

I bring this up cause if used properly, even the illusion of a situation can ramp up the intensity. That ship had 2 fights on it...one was a solo drone that they got to on the 3rd night of 6 hour sessions...and it scared the podo out of them...the second was the nock down drag out fight with a young queen and her hive guardians in a hanger bay.

[atgxtg]

[garhkal]

With force points, taking time and combining skills, even beginning characters can get up to that 10d area..
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[atgxtg]

[Mojomoe]

I'm seeing really good responses here.

First off, I hadn't thought to use Willpower - I don't think I've checked that skill once in my entire D6 career . That's a really good one.

What I'm hearing is very telling. The general responses are, find something for them to roll. Willpower, Search, Stamina, etc. As that reflects my original question, it looks like there isn't an easy way to build that type of tension without having them roll - this game just isn't designed for that sort of thing, which is a totally valid answer. I was curious if anyone out there was having lots of success with non-rolling solutions, so I think that answers that.

To focus on the Trench Run for a moment, what would you say would be a good way to run that one? Take Gold Leader for instance. I suppose one way the "almost there!" scene could have played out would be multiple rounds of Gold Leader rolling his (whatever - Starfighter Gunnery?) skill to get a target lock, or rolling to keep the XWing flying straight to make his target lock acquire faster, while Vader and the TIEs were rolling Starfighter Piloting each round to close the distance, and then their Starfighter Gunnery to acquire targets.

Does that sound about right? Each round the TIEs would get a little closer, and Gold Leader would have a little more of a target lock.