I love combat. I love magic duels, chaotic tavern brawls, dragons roaring from the sky while the players scramble for cover. There’s a thrill in the crash of dice, the rush of tactics, the immediacy of it all.
But you know what sticks with players longer than the fight?
The silence before it.
Suspense is the slow blade. It’s not about surprise, it’s about anticipation. That creeping sense that something is wrong, but no one’s named it yet. It’s the moment when the music fades. When the torch flickers once and then goes out. When the NPC who always answers the door… doesn’t.
As a DM, building suspense is one of the most powerful tools I have. And unlike combat, there’s no initiative roll for it. It lives in pacing, description, rhythm. It lives in what I choose not to say.
I’ll lower my voice a bit. I’ll describe something small. Too small. I’ll pause more often. I’ll ask, “Are you sure you want to do that?” even if I’m not planning anything. Yet.
Suspense is a collaboration between the DM and the players. I give them the shadow, they give it teeth. The more room I leave, the more their imaginations fill in the gaps. And usually, what they come up with is far worse than what I had planned. As I mentioned already, often it is best to let the players’ own imaginations fill in the gaps.
But here’s the trick: suspense isn’t just for horror games. It’s not just ghosts and witches and the slow creak of a basement door. Suspense works anywhere there’s uncertainty. Fantasy thrives on it.
- The crypt that hasn’t been opened in centuries.
- The noble court, where one wrong word will get you exiled or executed.
- The ancient artifact that hums when no one is looking.
- The character’s dream that ends with a name they’ve never heard… and the next day, an NPC says it.
Suspense turns every room into a question. Every choice into a forked path. Every moment into a heartbeat you feel at the table.
In my Occult D&D projects, I lean hard into this. I want the players to hesitate. To ask, “Wait… is that normal?” I want the moment before they open the book, before they cast the spell, before they step through the arch. Because once they do? That’s when the reveal comes. That’s when the real danger starts. But the suspense is what makes that moment matter.
There has not been enough danger in finding an old spell book in current games. It’s a spellbook. In Occult D&D, it's an ancient grimoire that belongs to an ancient witch queen, then passed down to a corrupt warlock who talked to spiders and learned their secrets. Is that human skin it is bound in? Why does it feel a little too warm to the touch? Did the book flinch when it was touched?
You can run a game without suspense. Plenty of people do. But once you start using it, once you learn how to play the table like an instrument, quiet, careful, patient, you’ll find your players remember those moments just as clearly as the big battles.
Maybe more.
Questions
How. Enthusiastic. Person. Ok...How enthusiastic am I to game in person? Hey, it's what I live for!
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