Heartless – Page 12
Play in the world of Crystal Heart!
One of the things I most like doing as a GM is trailing emotional leads. That is, giving a new reason to care, just as the previous reason is resolved.
Here, for example, the players are tense about what their supervisor is going to decide to do with them after they lost two Crystals. This is resolved completely and in a satisfactory manner (in panel 5), when she says she consideres their actions justified and that there will be no negative repercussions. However, instead of allowing the players a full emotional release, Nadav keeps them emotionally engaged: moments before the resolve, he throws a new lead as a half-mumbled thought that he knows will catch their attention, keeping them on the subject of the mystery castle but activating different ’emotional buttons’.
They’re no longer worried or tense, now they are curious and perhaps even suspicious. The important thing is, they remain continuously engaged.
And then, before they have time to fully investigate, it’s time to have someone killed. Writers – butchering people for distraction since the dawn of writing.
