Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 147 - Tension and Corruption

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

Today is a mini-listener mailbag episode addressing two major aspects of horror games, tension at the table and corruption in your game world.  Please listen in as Jeremy discusses two questions from listeners like you.   #DMTips #DnD #DungeonsandDragons #Pathfinder   Resources: 3D Crafts and Curios on Facebook:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/3DCraftsAndCurios  3D Crafts and Curios on Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/3dcraftscurios/  Fairy Tower we are giving away:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/1146552166/fairy-dice-tower-fates-end-tabletop?click_key=39401705e45a55583044da45f50f127cf7c5c466%3A1146552166&click_sum=ca4d715d&ga_search_query=fairy&ref=shop_items_search_2&frs=1&sts=1   Tension Pool - https://theangrygm.com/definitive-tension-pool/ Crit Academy - https://www.youtube.com/c/CritAcademy/videos John Fourr on Building Tension - https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rptn/6-more-exciting-ways-to-create-tension/ Trajectory of Fear by Ash Law - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzBGv7T2YMphdjlZNFVKa1pQZjg/view?resourcekey=0-kJSbTSzALd8aKnHMv8pKQg

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. Any situation where the PCs want to know more, but can't for whatever reason. Players want to know everything going on in the world, and sometimes, you know what? They don't get to know everything they want to know. Thank you so much for tuning into the Taking20 Podcast. This week, episode 147, all about corruption and tension. I'd like to thank this week's sponsor, Emuse.

Emuse are tired of getting kicked out of groups when they get too big. I guess they have to accept the fact that sometimes they're ostrich-sized. If you like the podcast, please help me spread the word with your gaming friends, social media, or use a giant space laser

to carve information about the podcast onto the surface of the moon. Okay, maybe not the last one. It sounds really freaking expensive. Still, I'd love to get the word out about the podcast, and I would love your help doing it. Listeners, I have some great news. Brenton Galbraith from 3D Crafts and Curios is once again sponsored a giveaway, this time for episode 150. He has graciously offered the Fairy Tower Dice Tower to give away, and I cannot thank him enough. Head over to etsy.com slash shop slash 3D Crafts and Curios, all one word, or just search for 3D Crafts and Curios

in your search engine of choice. To enter the win this beautiful dice tower, all you need to do is send me a screenshot of your liking or following his page on Facebook or Instagram. You can DM it to me on that platform or send it to me at contest at taking20podcast.com and you'll be entered to win. Deadline is November 19th, 2022, so send those in by then for a chance to win. Guys, this is a win-win. The holidays are right around the corner, and all I'm saying is that a 3D-printed dice tower, mug, DM screen, or dice jail would make your gaming loved ones very, very happy when they open it. And while you're shopping for them, buy a little something for

yourself. I have the Shipwreck dice tower and pulled it out at my local game store a few weeks ago, and people were oohing and aahing over it. I kind of had to say, Hey, hey, hey, we're gaming here. Stop lusting after my dice tower. Go buy your own. So head over to 3D Crafts and Curios to support Brenton's shop. Not only will you be helping him, you'll be helping me as well. Check out the links in the resources for the episode

to find direct links to the 3D Crafts and Curios Instagram and Facebook pages. Finally, for announcements, please like, rate, and subscribe to the podcast. Every rating helps promote visibility for the podcast and increases the likelihood that someone who would enjoy it can find it. Plus, if the podcast takes off, it'll decrease the likelihood that I'll have to become a gigolo for lonely women who like cuddly guys with, I don't know, half their hair not quite grown back yet. That market is so niche and it's so hard to make money at it, women who like cuddly guys with, I don't know, half their hair not quite grown back yet.

That market is so niche and it's so hard to make money at it, so for the sake of the universe at large and for the sake of me being able to eat meals, please like, rate, review, and subscribe. In the past few weeks, I've received a couple of questions that were related to horror topics, so since I haven't done a listener episode question in a while, I thought I'd take a few minutes to answer these two questions, and thank you Charles and Alexander for sending them in. Now Charles from Indiana emailed and asked, I'm running a 5e game where a land is slowly becoming corrupted. How can I use corruption of the land to affect the PCs? Great question, Charles. Thank you so much for listening. I'm assuming the corruption is affecting the land, the plants, the animals, and the people.

This corruption changes what it touches in some way. Let's take a simple view, and it makes things more, I don't know, feral and evil. So the corruption wipes away the inhibitions of those who are infected and makes them more inclined to indulge their primal sides, whether that's fighting, fucking, whatever. As an aside, Charles, if that's not what you meant by corruption, please let me know. Now, if you want to have corruption in your game, the first piece of advice I would give you is that you should not in any way ever take away player agency. One of the things that makes tabletop RPGs

so great is player choice and consequence. The characters are presented with a problem or an obstacle, and they can choose the way they overcome that obstacle. Combat, social graces, guile, wit, skill, by standing up and whirling their private parts in a circle and making everyone call them helicopter, whatever they decide to do to solve the problem. If you give the PCs an affliction that demands they take certain actions, you are taking away a part of that player agency,

and you are limiting their possible choices. There's nothing wrong with telling the players what is going on with their character. The infection is making them feel angry, abandoned, scared about what's next, libidinous, they hear voices telling them to do things, whatever in-game effects are, but the player should decide how their character

would react to this information. You can easily make this a role-playing moment where the player can have their character go along with the voices or fight them, maybe with a wisdom saving throw or something similar. But one way I encourage this behavior is by imposing mild end game concrete bonuses and penalties for these urges. So what do I mean about these in-game penalties and bonuses? What you do is you have mechanical benefits for going along with the corruption and possibly penalties for ignoring it. For example, years and years ago, the characters for the group I was DMing

went into a druid grotto and tendrils of an evil god had begun to corrupt the soil. And while they were there, it whispered to the characters, encouraging them to kill and maim and destroy. Once every 24 hours that the PCs didn't attack or destroy something, I had them make a will save. Success, and they're fine, no change. Failure meant they started taking a cumulative minus one penalty to all mental activities, like skill checks, recall knowledge, will saves, and I think a cumulative minus one penalty to all mental activities, like skill checks, recall knowledge, will saves, and I think a cumulative minus one half penalty to physical activities, like attack rolls, strength checks, and so forth, until they spent the night outside the area or committed an act of violence. Eventually, the players figured this out and began destroying

buildings every few days, and more encounters were solved with combat than not. I didn't require the players to treat their characters a certain way or have their characters behave a certain way. I used game mechanics to encourage that behavior. Now, the players were smart, and there were multiple areas that they had to clear, multiple grottos, if you will. What they started doing is they started aerial scouting these new areas for corruption, finding the source of it, and then making a beeline for those generators, minimizing the amount of time they spent in this corrupted grotto. Another thing you can do to show how corruption affects the PCs is show the effects of the corruption on others. Have them come across these poor souls who are in the advanced stages of whatever the

hell this corruption is. If it's mental and it frays nerves over time, maybe they're wild-eyed and frantic, jumpy, and reactionary. Or if the corruption has a soporific effect, they're calm, mellow, uncaring. Dude, even in the face of their own potential demise, man. But if the corruption is physical, like a disease, have the PCs come across someone who's in the face of their own potential demise, man. But if the corruption is physical, like a disease, have the PCs come across someone who's in the advanced stages with mushroom-like growths on their exposed skin, in pain, desperate, and possibly even dying. Now, it stands to reason that if there's part of the land that is corrupt,

I assume there either are or are rumors of areas that aren't corrupted. Have the characters encounter refugees fleeing the corruption, showing them it's getting worse the closer they are to the source. You could have the corruption affect the PCs by making formerly safe spaces suddenly not. I remember I had an aha moment the very first time I played a computer game called Faster Than Light, or FTL. In this game, by the way, you're a single spaceship that you are constantly on the run from a huge fleet that will damage and even destroy you if they catch up to you. You're constantly on the run, and once the enemy fleet occupies an area, you can't safely enter it. Based on that one idea,

I made a one-shot involving a cursed insect plague that was consuming parts of the town the PCs were in. The area covered by the plague grew slowly every day, and the town was mapped out to show what buildings, resources, and people would no longer be available once the plague reached that part of town. The characters had to make hard decisions about what services, contacts, people, buildings, etc. to enter and use because they didn't have time to do everything. Essentially, the home base, if you will, would be overrun, so the characters had to constantly be on the move to stay ahead of this growing, flesh-consuming insect swarm. One of the players

had a great idea of using the sewers to move around, and I had to improvise that the sewers are overrun two days after the area above it. I mean, it was very clever. I hadn't thought about it when I was prepping. The players had a great time, and I think it'd make for an interesting adventure if I ever took the time to flesh out this insect flesh-eating swarm. You know, flesh out was probably not the best choice of words there.

So that's one thing you can do. The corruption gradually expands to render safe areas suddenly very unsafe. Do this in a clearly communicated manner so the players aren't surprised when the danger expands. Another thing you can do to show the effects of corruption is you make the monsters gradually tougher. Have this corruption make monsters, baddies, creatures that the characters fight have have more hit points or higher armor class or have status effects built into them. They have abilities and other changes that just make the creatures tougher to destroy. Finally, for this question, if you insist on affecting the PCs, I would only have a gradual penalty that slowly grows over time

and maybe only to certain roles, kind of like what I did with the corruption earlier. Charles, thank you so much for the question. Please let me know if you need additional information or if I misunderstood the question that you asked. Now, the second question I want to get to is from Alexander from Quebec. He states that I mentioned building tension in previous horror episodes and asked if I could explain how I do that and give an example. Great question, Alexander, and I wish my students would ask high-quality questions when the college classes that I teach, but that's neither here nor there. While it's not what you asked, I want to take a step back from your question and talk about what causes tension for players at a table. Really, it's only a few things that can ratchet

up tension at a table, or they're almost universal keys for doing so. And even then, only when the players buy into the tense atmosphere. Okay, first thing you can do to raise tension is risk of actual loss, like a loss of character life. In a high-level game where spells to bring people back from the dead are commonplace, death is at most an inconvenience. It still costs resources to bring characters back to life, and we all hate forking over our high-level, hard-earned loot. But here's something to consider. What if the services or spells that the party need aren't available at all? In 5e, for example, unless the party has a high-level caster,

having a resurrection spell cast I think takes a 13th level cleric or bard. You're going to pay them for those services, plus the resurrection spell costs a diamond worth a thousand gold pieces. Per the player's handbook, there's no set rate for spellcasting services, and depending on your world, 13th level spellcasters may be ridiculously expensive or nearly impossible to find in the first place. If you want to build tension about character death, consider making those spells unavailable or considerably expensive

to use. Suddenly that barbarian may think an extra second before charging headlong into a throng of baddies. The wizard may zealously protect their small hit point pool, and retreat suddenly becomes a viable option for most parties. Besides loss of character life, for example, another type of loss is the loss of something important to the characters. And what do I mean by something important? The classic answer is an NPC. Some NPC that the PCs have taken a shine to for whatever reason. That goblin bartender who always wants to buy scrolls at slightly higher rates. The halfling fighter ex-pirate who curses like a sailor, but once she befriends you, she will defend you to her dying day. The half-orc stablehand with the wacky voice who

sounds a little like Yoda with a chest cold. An NPC that regularly hands out quests or is a good source of information. Or maybe an NPC from one of the character backstories helps to drive that character's arc forward. Those are great examples of loss that could potentially build tension for the party and players. But besides the loss of a person, and yes, those things do hurt,

it also could be the loss of things. Loot, items, and so forth. Imagine how the PCs will react when the dragon's breath turns the coins in the dragon pile into a four-ton slag of metal that will take a long time to chip away and collect and bring back to town. Or the reaction they would have when the staff of Endless Night rolls off the edge of the cliff and into the ocean below, making it difficult, expensive, or even impossible to retreat.

below, making it difficult, expensive, or even impossible to retreat. It sounds petty, but the loss of something that could be a valuable piece of your adventuring party really builds tension, and in my experience, really valuable items really crank up the tension around the table when there's a risk of losing them. Let's move on to the second thing that ratchets out tension, lack of information. Any situation where the PCs want to know more, but can't for whatever reason. There's a lot of potential examples here. Players want to know everything going on in the world, and sometimes, you know what? They don't get to know everything they want to know.

At its heart, it plays into the fear that comes from uncertainty, not knowing that you're doing the right thing. Only give your players the information their characters would have, and that does crank up the tension. For example, areas with limited visibility. Fog, darkness, mist, even areas where sight lines are just broken, like fights in areas where laundry is hanging out in lines. Short sight lines reduce the radius that they can see, and that heightens this claustrophobic feeling that something may be out there watching or hiding or ready to pounce

when their guard's down. Another lack of information that could strike the PCs would be discover that they've been deceived. Having an ally turn their back on or a quest giver that suddenly won't pay the PCs, it kind of cranks up the tension to a new level at the PC, much less to determine that they have been lied to by an agent of the big bad. Another aspect of lack of information could be a confusing situation where it's not easy to separate friend from foe. Like a fight in a crowd where the PCs are jostled from behind and sides and it's hard to know whether they should go in blade first or take that extra half second to do a friend-foe designation. That delay could get them killed, but you also don't want to take the life of an innocent.

If you want to see a great example of this, by the way, the movie Gladiator and that very first hectic battle in the forest, at least one time, the protagonist nearly stabs an ally. It's a great example of kind of the confusion that mass fights can cause. Another way it may not be easy to separate friend from foe would be a fight with shape changers. Creatures that can change their face and their body to look like the enemies or even the PCs. Is that actually your NPC cleric Bohannon? Or is that something pretending to be Bohannon who will claw out your spleen given half the chance? That ratchets up tension around the table.

Another thing that ratchets up tension is things that cannot be explained. This is where you can bring horror to the table. Mysteries that haven't been solved, deaths that can't be explained, powers that are seemingly beyond understanding, noises from empty rooms, the crying of a child when you know you're nowhere near any other human beings. Those types of things can really crank up the tension, and this is where you can use sound effects to your benefit here. Another thing that cranks up tension are hints that the baddie may be extremely powerful.

The PCs are hiding in a room and they hear something beating against the door. Then suddenly it stops. The PCs wait a couple of hours and they open the door. And there are claw marks in the door an inch and a half deep. What the heck could have caused that? Another way you can show that the baddie is extremely powerful is have the PCs come upon a battle where some sort of prepared opponents that the PCs knew were out there get just straight murked by the bad guy and their agents. I mean, they were prepared and they

were ready and they were pretty strong and it looks like the bad guy tore through them like tissue paper. That can crank up the tension and make your players say, what are we actually fighting here? Destruction of something the PCs thought was strong or impregnable. They return to the prison that's supposed to house the worst of the worst, and they discover every guard dead, every prisoner escaped, and a couple of the guard towers turn to rubble. Oh shit, that prison was magically treated. Who did all this? And this is going to be bad, isn't it? Now, if you're really evil, like me, occasionally ask the players to roll a d20 for their characters and don't tell them why. It could be a perception check, saving throw, skill check, initiative, or it could mean nothing at all. Okay, hey everybody, I need you to roll me a d20. Why? Well, there are

reasons. Just roll it and tell me what you got. The tension immediately cranks up around the table. What's going on? I don't know. Now, when I do this for the groups that I DM, they immediately start metagaming. At least all the groups that I've been DMing do. They start checking for traps everywhere, doing mimic checks, and generally being ridiculously cautious. I just chuckle and keep the adventure moving, never telling them why I occasionally ask them to roll. There might be a reason. Maybe they're being stalked by a baddie, or maybe they missed a piece of treasure or a

secret door, and you just don't tell them, and they kind of move on. But in my experience, by about the fourth untyped roll I have them make, maybe a couple hours into the adventure, they're usually frothing at the mouth to know what's going on, and they are really, really nervous. I listened to a short by Crit Academy, links in the resources by the way, that suggested rolling certain checks like death saving throws should be made behind the DM screen. Their theory is that you create tension for characters by creating tension for the players because they don't know if they're passing or failing these death saving throws. Hey, Crit Academy is the channel. Go check them out. I've got a link down in the resources for the

episode. Third way you can drive tension is when the PCs have a lack of resources, like a limited amount of time. Giving the characters five days of potential actions but only two days to accomplish what they need to, the tension immediately comes from the knowledge that they can't do it all and will need to make hard decisions about what they do and what they abandon. The artifact can be countered with a casting of a particular spell, but the characters only have one scroll and there are three potential cities to save. Which one do you do?

Fourth way you can build tension and speeding up a little bit is putting the PCs someplace unfamiliar. Take away the map. Make the team feel like they're going in circles. Make them confused so that they aren't sure whether they're going the right direction. Fifth way, and the last way I'm going to mention because we're running out of time, is you can build tension with something called the tension die or tension pool. I'm including a link in the resources to one of my favorite DM blogs called the Angry GM, RPG advice with an attitude. The tension pool is a set of dice, I like D6s, that you put in full view of everyone at the table. When they do something time consuming, you add a die to the pool. During exploration, investigation, other slow-paced parts

of the game, whenever a player commits to a reckless or lengthy action, roll all the dice in the tension pool. And if any of your tension dice show a 1, some complication has arisen. Now, what's a complication? It's any unexpected development that makes the character's lives more difficult. A guard patrol comes by, or a wandering monster happens to notice the PCs. An unseen trap goes off. The room behind the locked door contains sleeping gnolls. A thunderstorm rolls in, producing visibility and making it possible for your characters to get struck by lightning. Anything your evil little DM mind can devise.

The Angry GM's blog contains a ton more information and more that I could possibly cover even in 20 minutes about this concept. I encourage you to give it a read. In short, to quote the Angry GM, the tension pool adds a sense of rising tension to your game. It also increases players' awareness of the passage of in-game time, and it adds a sense of weight to the time-wasting and reckless actions. Alexander, by the way, I have one last tip. Tension needs to be bled off every now and

then. You can't just build and build and build and build and build the tension because the tension loses its impact. Tension should be built, then released. Built, and then released. Built higher, then released. At this point, I'm going to quote one of the best treatises I've ever read on the subject of RPG tension. It's called The Trajectory of Fear by Ash Law. I'll put a link to this nine-page document in the episode description. Seriously, it's only nine pages, and it is packed with information about the topic. In it, Ash states, and it is packed with information about the topic.

In it, Ash states, Overdue dread, and the game becomes a monster of the week show. Overdue terror, and the game becomes a farcical pastiche. Overdue horror, and the game becomes just a bloody mess of gore. Please go read that document. It doesn't take long, and it's amazing. In today's brief mailbag episode, I talked about using corruption to show how the world is changing around the players, but cautioned against using it to take away player agency. I also talked about what causes tension to build, use the risk of loss, lack of information,

limited PC resources, and unfamiliar surroundings, and if you'd like it, the tension pool of dice at your table to drive up tension in your game. I'd be willing to bet you and your players will have fun doing it. I love answering questions like this. Do you have a topic that you'd like to see covered in an episode? I would love to hear what you'd like to hear. Message me on social media or send it to feedback at taking20podcast.com. Get me those screenshots of you liking and following 3D Crafts and Curios on Facebook and Instagram to enter to win that beautiful dice tower. Tune in next week when we'll close out Horror Month with a monster episode

about monsters whose scary potential are underutilized, the Fae. But before I go, I once again want to thank this week's sponsor, Emuse. I received an angry note from these large birds that they didn't like the joke at the beginning of the episode. I guess they just weren't... ...emused. This has been episode 147, all about tension and corruption. My name is Jeremy Shelley, and I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production.

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