RPGaDAY2025 - Day 28 - Suspense - Giant Spiders and Webscapes

A super-suspenseful mechanic from the Webworld RPG

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2025/08/28/rpgaday2025-day-28-suspense-giant-spiders-and-webscapes/

#RPGaDAY2025, #Ttrpg, #Webworld

RPGaDAY2025 – Day 28 – Suspense – Giant Spiders and Webscapes

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Day 28 – Suspense

The best RPG mechanic I’ve ever seen for generating suspense is the concept of Webscapes from the RPG Webworld .

Webworld is a small RPG about a post-apocalyptic world overrun by giant spiders. I posted a mini-review and character sheet for it a while back.

Webscapes

Most of the environments in the setting are covered in the webbing of the giant spiders. Interfering with or even touching the webs will alert one of the gargantuan spiders. If the characters tarry too long or cause a commotion, a spider might arrive and attack the players.

To model this danger in the game, each location has a Webscape. A Webscape is a number. The higher the number, the more webs, and the more dangerous the location is.

When players arrive in a location, the GM will roll a number of d8 dice equal to the Webscape. The GM then records those Webscape numbers.

Whenever the players do something in Webworld, they roll a pool of D8s. If any of the numbers rolled are one of the Webscape numbers, the spiders will be alerted.

The arrival of the spiders is tracked with a Arachnid Proximity(AP) number. It starts out at zero, but for every Webscape number rolled, it increases by one. When the AP hits 5, the spiders arrive, and the players start dying.

Here’s why this rule builds suspense:

• Every roll, even if successful, has a chance to make things worse.
• Players get to decide how much effort (number of dice) they want to roll, but more dice equals more danger, so they’re always faced with a hazardous choice.
• It keeps players paranoid, afraid to do anything, except flee.

I’ve run Webworld, and this mechanic has kept the players on the edge of their seat every time. It’s Alfred Hitchcock in a D8 roll.

I could easily see porting a version of this mechanic into other games. It’d make a hell of a Quiet Place adaptation.

#RPG #RPGaDAY2025 #ttrpg #Webworld

@thoughtpunks
Picked up a zine game last year called Webworld. It's a post-apocalypse world overrun with giant spiders.

The cool mechanic are Webscapes. Each environment is given a Webscape – basically a number of D8s. When the players enter a area, the GM rolls those dice and records the numbers rolled.

Every time a player makes a roll, if a die comes up with one of the Webscape numbers, the player has disturbed a web, alerting a spider. This will eventually draw a spider closer.

It's a simple, elegant mechanic that really sets the tone. No matter where you go, and what you do, you have to worry about spiders. There's a low-level dread over every action.
#TTRPG #Webworld

#ttrpg #5and5

Last five RPGs:

#SavageWorlds (Player - Space: 1889 setting)
#Riverbend (GM)
#Traveller (GM Traveller: 1700 - Colonial America setting)
#Webworld (GM)
#DoubleZero (GM)

Planning to play:
#WhenTheMoonHangsLow
#MercenariesSpiesAndPrivateEyes
#DarkCrystal
#Kult
#Stormbringer