Inherent Tension

Expanded from my dice.camp thread:

Besides the cultural reasons, the fact that violence is employed in games has to do with the fact that it carries with it inherent tension, which is how I'm thinking about design a lot these days. Inherent tension means the very nature of the action your character takes carries with it significant and immediately recognizable risks.

A move that lets you research the lore of the world or location or person is useful for the player and the world, but it is not dramatic. This doesn't mean that the lore of the world is meaningless and ungameable, just that it is not going to drive the game forward on it's own. If, however, you need to speed-read an ancient scrolls to find the magic word that will stop the arcane death traps closing in on you, that carries with it inherent tension.

I've been moving in the post-apocalyptic design-space for this reason - it carries with it inherent tension. How do I survive? Any character need to answer that question, and thus part of "why is my character engaging in this world" is already answered. Anything in the game-world that can then be engaged with is then filtered through this inherent tension - dungeons contain various things needed for them to survive and thrive in a harsh environment, the mutated fish are eating all the algae needed to feed the nearby underwater domed city.

You'll notice that inherent tension usually means that the character succeeds, or they die. But that's not necessarily always the case - if you can't recover the food from the abandoned supermarket, you must find it elsewhere and take on more risk. In Eye of Poseidon, becoming unable to deal with the conflicts in the crew means there is a mutiny and players lose control of their immediate environment. Failing to subvert the tyrannical warlord means a thousand years of oppression.

This way of thinking helps your gaming become more driven and eventful, and means that the players are going to care about what happens. If your game, GMing style or even playing seems uneventful and dull, think about the various tensions that you can fill your design or sessions with.

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