Yeah. Totally this. Totally, utterly this. We've all been there, although not for years, fortunately, and this gap you speak of is huge in games, PnP and others.
I understand PnP is fun and fights are not, same for video games, but even more than FPP or TPP, the ability to carefully plan out all your attacks or defenses just smashes all the disbelief-suspension I've been employing up until then. If any.
In PnP, I usually hold up a few fingers and start counting down once something crazy starts, whether it be fighting, important conversation or a serious hack attempt.
Unless the player is Anderson Silva, of course. Or the character. Maybe.
I'm told I run pretty fun games and exciting fight sequences and I really feel that tension is key. Not confusion, so much, although that is going to happen for sure, but the sense of Things Happening Now. To You.
Tension and drive.
It means later, if they survive and/or triumph, they really appreciate the chance to relax and enjoy the rewards.
So with you on the counting down and the tension. In one of the more fast-paced, seat-of-your-pants games I ran, I liked to start combat or time-stressed rounds by turning suddenly to one player and almost bellowing "WHAT DO YOU DO?!??!? QUICKLY! THREE! TWO! ONE!" and if no coherent reply came, I'd turn to my next victim and say "(character name) is standing there, bug eyed and in shock, what do you do? THREE! TWO!" and so on. Actually had a lot of fun through that game, a lot of seat-of-your-pants fun and momentary flashes of genius/stupidity abounded. Also when I look back on it, most everyone froze up in their first firefight, but after that they coped for the most part. How like real life that run was, with the usual notable exceptions