I run a game of Spycraft 2.0, with a conspiracy setting. The PCs are (or rather were) agents essentially of the Illuminati, but were cut loose after the Conspiracy collasped in on itself. So in one of their latest adventures, they found themselves in an underwater resort, surrounded by zombies brought to life by an overzealous medical researcher trying to improve donor organ survival. The triggerman kept firing off as many bullets as he could at these zombies, often when they were engaged in melee combat with other characters, and by the end of it, he'd actually managed to shoot the thief of the party a couple times.
So the party is on edge, partly with themselves, and they're looking for a way off. And our thief errors a search check (sort of like a blend of D&D spot and search checks, but they're made in secret so the players don't know if they were successful or not). So I use this as an excuse to play off his paranoia and have him think he spots movement out of the corner of his eye. This causes the entire party to panic and start having me roll search checks for them as fast as they possibly can (roughly once every six seconds, game-time). By the law of averages, they start failing these like crazy, and they don't believe the ones that they succeed. ("You don't see anything, the room seems to be completely empty.") They get their minisub refuelled and the docking clamps unlocked, but by this time, they're convinced that they're being stalked by some sort of madman who is going to steal the sub and leave them here. They're sprinting through the halls of this resort, shooting and throwing knives at shadows. The thief actually critically hit a potted plant with a throwing knife, and it was only due to my manipulating their fears that kept him from going to see what it was that he hit. The funniest part though was the hitman, who, along with the assassin, was guarding the minisub. He actually tried to intimidate the darkness, Galstaff-style. So I'm rolling dice for no reason, just to keep him from guessing that there's nothing there. Then he fails a notice check (also like D&D spot, only it's a passive skill rather than an active one), and I have him note the ventilation kick on and blow air on the back of his neck. He starts shouting for everybody to run to the sub, thinking that it's a negative pressure differential and the whole place is about to fill with ocean. That one failed check turned a fairly boring session into a tension filled rush that existed only in my players' heads. If only I could do that more often.
|