Tension Dice

[MaxAstro]

I have for a while now used the lovely Tension Dice system - described here: Angry GM: The Tension Pool (https://theangrygm.com/making-things-complicated/)* - to keep my players reasonably on-task and determine when random encounters happen.

I'm wondering if anyone else has experience using Tension Dice with Fantasy Grounds, and if you have come up with any clever or dramatic ways of representing the Tension Pool? I'd really like something that can sit there constantly reminding my players of its existence in the back of their minds, but I'm not sure how to do that with my limited knowledge of the program.

*If you don't feel like wading through that article, the tl;dr is: Pool of dice that increases when the players waste time. When the players do something reckless and dangerous, or when the pool reaches six dice, it gets rolled. If any die comes up a 1, Something Bad Happens (TM), like a random encounter. Then the pool resets.

[Griogre]

I'm not familiar with that article, but you could put a small image up next to their names and get some dice looking counters and just keep adding the dice counter to the graphic to show the pool is growing.

[Coffers]

I do like this idea, thanks MaxAstro for linking the article.

[vvZODvv]

Thanks for the article. This sounds pretty cool to keep the players on their toes.

There are two ways I can think of to represent the Tension Pool. First, is simple. A public Note that each player can pin to their screen. You keep it updated with how many dice are in the pool. Something easy like Tension = 3.

A little more effort could be the same thing but with an image of the number of dice in the pool. So you would have 6 images, a GM Story Entry that has all six pinned to it, and share the appropriate image with the players. So if you are at Tension level 3, you have the image with 3 d6s shared.

[OGvarus]

I use Tension Dice in my game as well. I think it works so great. It actually gives players a consequence to continually trying to role perception checks or keep trying to pick locks.. When they act loud and reckless.

Anyway. I haven't found a super awesome way to represent tension dice yet either. Thus far I type in chat "tension dice 1/6" or whatever number they are at. So far the act of typing that in chat seems to be enough to spur them on or realize tension is rising. But I would agree that it would be great to find a visual representation of this.

[GavinRuneblade]

Thanks for the article. This sounds pretty cool to keep the players on their toes.

There are two ways I can think of to represent the Tension Pool. First, is simple. A public Note that each player can pin to their screen. You keep it updated with how many dice are in the pool. Something easy like Tension = 3.

A little more effort could be the same thing but with an image of the number of dice in the pool. So you would have 6 images, a GM Story Entry that has all six pinned to it, and share the appropriate image with the players. So if you are at Tension level 3, you have the image with 3 d6s shared.

The thing with sharing one of up to six images is players might not know which is current. I'd use an image of a dice tray and drop tokens of a die into it. That way it is one stable image and you can control how many. Also if a player accidentally closes it, they can reopen it themselves and will see the correct current number of dice.

The note you edit works good too because of the same theory.

[vvZODvv]

The thing with sharing one of up to six images is players might not know which is current. I'd use an image of a dice tray and drop tokens of a die into it. That way it is one stable image and you can control how many. Also if a player accidentally closes it, they can reopen it themselves and will see the correct current number of dice.

The note you edit works good too because of the same theory.

My thought on the images was to make only one image shared at a time, but it is too fiddly compared to your token idea. That's awesome.

Another thought OP: in the article the author likes to make use of the visual of the dice (which we are discussing) but also the sound of them clattering as he adds one. That's a perfect excuse to add a dramatic cue from Syrinscape to your gameplay!

[MaxAstro]

Oh, GavinRuneblade, that's super clever! That should work perfectly for what I'm looking for, thanks.