Pressure

I have recently come to the conclusion that of have a fulfilling game, there needs to be pressure. It's relates to what EGG wrote in the ADD DMG, that strict time record need to be kept for a campaign to function properly. But I think it goes a bit further then that. There need to be a reason for time record to be kept.

In the first episode of my SCP game, the players had to find a sentient cat that could control people. If they took too much time, the cat would enact his plan, which would extend his control over the entire town, about 3000 people. But the players never pursued any information that would allow them to know what the cat was planning, and therefor didn't know there was a time limit. Later, the agents accidently burned down a missing person/drug dealer's house, and that brought them to the attention of another group interested in the same cat. That other group brought in reinforcement, and promptly blew up one of the agents cars.

I noticed a huge difference in how they played and how they approached challenges after they knew that someone was after them. They were much more careful, and each decision had a cost associatied to it which made them realize that their choice mattered.

Once that happened, the game was much improved I found. So it's not enough to put pressure on the players, they need to know that it's there. The players being hunted by something works quite well, because there is a large unknown to it. You don't know when and how they will catch up to you. Do you spend time trying to find who they are and risk them catching you unaware, do you stick to the plan and get it done as quickly as possible but risk missing important stuff that could have been useful later on?

Pressure is what forces players to make interesting decisions. Idealy, there should be two sources of pressure at least, one that you are hunting, and one that hunts you. Do you deal with threat B and risk threat A getting away? Or do you go straight for threat A and hope threat B doesn't get to you first.

In my upcomming game, the sources of pressure will be much more clear. They will find a timer early on. They won't know exactly what it is counting down to, but they will probably assume it's not something good. So they will be hunting for that. As for what will be hunting them? Giant spiders. Because this is horror damnit and tarantulas the size of minivans are creepy. Also, I fully expect them to piss off the natives, which means more people after them. Fun times ahead.