Do you love high-drama RPGs like Monsterhearts, Pasión de las Pasiones or our own Bite Marks. A lot of the tricks in scripted reality tv can be applied to these games dialling the tension up to eleven!
Let's take a look at my top 9!
1. Say the quiet part out loud - Tell me what your character is thinking and feeling. Especially the secret thoughts that should probably stay in your head. Now I have something to react to.
2. Ask the other characters ‘how do you feel about that?’ - Invite the other players to voice their character’s opinions, feelings and say how something affected them.
3. Opinions - Have them, have lots of them. Preferably about the choices and decisions other characters have made. People in reality tv are never neutral, they always pick sides, they always (loudly!) judge other people's actions. Especially when they have no business doing so.
4. Gossip! - Talk about the things other characters did. Pass judgment on their actions, ask the other characters what they thought about what just happened.
5. Trust first, worry later - Trusting people will always get you into more interesting situations than sitting in the tavern because you were too afraid to follow a stranger into a dungeon. Don’t trust because ‘it will probably be fine’, trust someone and invite the possibility that it won’t be fine.
6. Forgive freely - Give people second chances when they screw up. Give people second chances when they betray you. Give them third and fourth chances. Invite them back into your lives to do it all over again. All of this turns up the dial and keeps the drama wheels turning.
7. Do a face turn, do a heel turn - The surprise of a good guy turning to the dark side or a villain teaming up with the heroes is a great trope. It gives extra twists and turns to all the relationships in play in really interesting and exciting ways. Nothing is clear cut, loyalties shift, relationships change and it is all great drama!
8. Repent - If you’ve made bad decisions, if you were the enemy, if you stole the party treasure and betrayed someone... show up, say you are sorry and beg forgiveness from the other characters.
Ask them to trust you one.more.time.
9. Annison’s Second Law - Secrets in TTRPGs serve one purpose. To be detonated at the most dramatic moment possible. When you have a secret as a player, as a GM you need to be looking out for that moment and then using it for maximum impact.
Tell me if you try some of these in your next game I'd love to hear how it goes!
