#RPGaDay2025 - Day 28 - Suspense

I won't drag this out, Day 28 for #RPGaDay2025 is "Suspense" 

As the GM, with my own knowledge block, what I consider suspenseful might be completely different than what my player's think, so I asked my players for examples in my current or previous games.  

The Star Wars d6 game stood out.

Just like all Star Wars fiction, this one involved a social media maven hiring the crew to hunt a werewolf. 

You know, normal stuff.

And one of the appropriate scrolls...

We're Hunting a What?

After a bout of administrative Nirvanna,

Exotic Animal Broker Ne'vets Aharo has 

Cleared his messages, renewed contracts,

And hired a Quarren  whaladon hunter 

To fill out the crew of the Pretio.

With the growing rebellion interfering

With the livelihoods of many, 

Ne'vets is seriously considering an offer 

From a near-juvenile social elitist 

To hunt creatures of myth, legend, 

And bedtime stories... if the price is right....

Even with limited communication models, I sense there can be system-wide social influencers on developed worlds, possibly even Imperial subsidized, to placate the masses.  

Amber Kitzen was one of those folks, actively seeking out Ne'vets and the crew of the Pretio to find...  a werewolf???   

Of course, there was an arrangement to record everything while they were on planet... and even the least tech savvy of the group knew there would be heavy editing...

There was vetting, references, even a professional ethics discussion on if capturing a werewolf follows Imperial kidnapping or poaching laws.   The group's bounty hunter, Duk'k, assumed all responsibilities under the guise of private contract. 

They acquired the equipment, arrived on the planet and .... covered the R2 unit in meat to lure this alleged creature out.  There were hints of tracks.... and claws that convince everyone else that poking their heads in caves was not the best course of action.  

Ne'vets was assuming they were just dealing with some primitive/barbarian Shistavanen, but credits were credits, so the party was split up, some in a high position to observed the meat-flavored droid, and others monitoring back on the ship, in case things went bad.  

First off, tensions ran high as a single figure ran in from the wastes, grabbed some meat (space Salisbury steaks from the frozen ration packs) off the droid and ran into the caves.  

Against their nature part of the ground crew went into the caves and discovered... a human.

As the ground crew made this discovery... the ship crew noticed lifeforms moving into position.  Two dozen... moving fast.  The ground crew in the cave were not getting the pleas from the ship on their comms. 

The human explained he was Cousin Rancor, and influencer like Amber.  In fact, his team had been hired by Amber for the same exact mission, 44 days ago.  Out of 20+ staff and vid crew he brought, he was only one left that hadn't been eaten by "Werewolves... lots of werewolves"  

From one of the issues of JTAS

That part of the team was now closer to the ship, but emerging from the caves, the folks from the ship were quite distraught. 

"Switch to the back-up channel..."

*Switches*

"CAN YOU HEAR ME, THEY ALL LEFT, WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!  HELP! HELP! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK.  THERE'S DOZENS OF THEM.  WHY ISN'T ANYONE RESPONDING.  IT'S JUST ME AND THE MEDICAL DROID."

Sensors on the ship picked up more than two dozen lifeforms moving quickly to the astromech droid, still draped with meat. Why wasn't the ship taking off to rescue them?  

Because the pilot was standing next to the droid screaming in panic in the comms, and the back-up pilot was taking off with his jet pack to rescue them.    

The Twi'lek on board, Evus pulled on the controls on the ship, crashed through a dune, and headed toward the ambush sight. 

They finally arrived to find the R2 unit hovering, held pack from more than hovering due to a thin woman in a TIE fighter pilot helmet holding onto the droid for dear life. 

The "werewolves" were foul black bipeds with fangs and claws, trying to climb on top of one another to reach the droid.  Evus was far better at the ships gunnery, decimating the pack and sending them off before finally rescuing everyone.  

Despite everyone back on the ship, Sid, the ship's pilot was badly wounded and the tension continued as the medical fought to save her.

Even if his name was Dr P3PP3R.

That scene in particular is what everyone mentioned, and to be honest, if the campaign had a moment to jump the shark, searching for werewolves probably did it.  

Although they somewhat forgot the rest of the story.  

• Sid lived.
• They acquired a corpse of a werewolf, that did NOT revert to real form upon death.  They threw the corpse in the cargo hold and headed for their reward.  
• Some Blue Azure Rabbits they had acquired for a client had escaped their cages many moons ago.  They were still IN the ship, wrecking havoc. (Yes I gleefully stole this from the original Campaign podcast).
• The rabbits got into the cargo hold, ate a portion of the werewolf corpse (who knows what space bunnies eat?)
• Rabbits got transformed into xenomorph adjacent rabbits.  More tension as they hunt them down.  

• Finally they unleashed the Werewolf "infection" on the world of Ubrikka, through an recently infected Cousin Rancor.  
• We're playing 3-4 BBY, but the Empire might need to move up operation of the Death Star, if "nuking from orbit" does not work.