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Negative emotions and their role in RP
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I think that storytellers wanting to invoke emotional responses in general is a good thing. I think that players reacting emotionally to a story is a sign of investment, which is an indication of good storytelling! Like in the way we cry at sad parts of books and movies; it means the story moved us, and that is a wonderful and incredible thing.
I was going to say that I don’t think storytellers should really be specifically aiming at player emotions as much as aiming for telling a good story, which will have the natural byproduct of inspiring emotional response, and I do largely think that’s where I land. But also sometimes I know storytellers do put in stuff for players they know particularly well because they know that player will particularly enjoy it, and I think that can be fun. I can remember a few times in my younger days where I GMed some stories that were definitely designed to be tragic in nature; one of them, on an X-Men themed game, was about a mutant whose body produced a chemical that inhibited people’s long-term memory, which meant that people couldn’t remember him if they met him in-person, which is a horribly isolating thing. And I definitely went in looking forward to the player reaction when the reveal finally happened. (It was approached as a sort of ‘haunted mansion’ thing, like stuff was happening and people couldn’t figure out what, etc.) So I guess that was, at least in part, me specifically aiming for an emotional response from the players.
But there are some negative emotions on your list that I am hard-pressed to see a purpose in inspiring from your players. Stuff like jealousy, disappointment, anger – I’m not sure why you would ever want your players to feel those particular feelings in the course of a story, I guess. I may have to mull over more what that line is for me, though. What I’d think of as a GOOD negative emotional response, versus a BAD one.
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@Roz said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
But there are some negative emotions on your list that I am hard-pressed to see a purpose in inspiring from your players. Stuff like jealousy, disappointment, anger – I’m not sure why you would ever want your players to feel those particular feelings in the course of a story, I guess. I may have to mull over more what that line is for me, though. What I’d think of as a GOOD negative emotional response, versus a BAD one.
This. I’ve played on some pretty dodgy mu*s with bad reputations assigned to players, admin and storytellers with varying degrees of fairness and even in Haven I’ve had stories that ended up with disappointment or anger that still managed to be satisfying stories.
But.
Upon reflection, the emotional labor flogged out of me to get to those points isn’t something I went into those games looking to expend, and in hindsight, I truly believe the angst of arriving at those conclusions is something that’s made it harder for me to invest in games since, even when I know for a FACT said new games will be lighter, more fun, and demand less negativity out of me the PLAYER in order to gain satisfactory stories.
I agree with the idea of ‘negative emotional content’ being something necessary to achieve some sort of IC conflict and OOC investment, but I still resent having participated in a social construct that was so unrelentingly negative that it drove (drives) people crazy OOCly for the ‘sin’ of caring about their PCs and stories.I think this is something that both ingrains and accelerates the toxicity we’re always grumbling about that seems endemic to all OOC mu*ing communities.
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So, this is actually a really great question.
I feel as though there’s space for most of these things when all parties are cool with it, and it leads them to what they consider to be a fun experience - I think the inherent difficulty with some of the harder hits of negative emotions are when the plotrunner goes off script for what topics the player has signed off on. I don’t think there are many people (note that this allows the possibility for some), who would close themself off to any and all negative experiences in a story. But some topics are outside of scope, and that’s where things tend to run awry.
I could use a few different examples from my MU* history, here.
- Pain
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Redwall MUCK - My character has been shot in the shoulder on the dirt road with an arrow by a ne’er-do-well and needs someone to tend to his/her wounds for the next day until it heals because this is a game for kids.
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World of Darkness (Werewolf) - Skin has been flayed off of my character’s entire arm in graphic detail with some sort of silver implement. Everything hurts, and will for weeks. Character is probably bleeding all over the place as things slowly regenerate.
In both of these situations, we are portraying discomfort that is acceptable to the theme and expectations of the topic. Both players are likely happy with the outcome, as it’s generating RP. The difference is tone and severity with which these emotions were evoked, as there was a well-understood theme to know these things were possible to happen.
- Disappointment
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D&D - After a painstaking dungeon crawl, where your characters have barely scraped by and sacrificed multiple pieces of armor to keep the party alive, your character reaches the final treasure coffer, only to discover that they’re not the first ones to be here. Everything was for nothing - except for that one little scrap of paper, in a language you don’t know how to read… a mocking communicae from the one who now has that treasure. Regrouping is needed. Characters and players may be frustrated, but it may make the pay-off that much better when the treasure turns out to be totally bad-ass next session.
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Evangelion - Your character spends an incredible amount of time fine-tuning and working on their mech’s capabilities and their synchronization, only to have the big bad end up being far more overwhelming than they ever could have imagined. Not only do they barely make it out of the battle with their life, but dozens of city blocks have been leveled, and there’s carnage everywhere. Everyone is looking to your character for answers about why they were unable to protect the city at best, and why they actively made the problem worse, at best. And the mech? It’s beyond saving.
Again, these are both squarely within the strike zone for their themes, right? They’re temporary negative emotions that impact the character, and to some extent the player, because very few people like to fail at great cost, despite it leading to a wonderful potential for the next scene to be even better.
Where things start to go really off the rails are where you get negative emotions in places you didn’t expect or have a reason to expect.
- Anger
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A Song of Ice and Fire - Your character is every bit as capable as a male swordsman, but is routinely overlooked because your character is female. Your family refuses to bring you on any dangerous missions because you might get hurt. This makes them absolutely furious every time, but the player knew and accepted this when they rolled this character, and maybe they find this to be a realistic challenge they want to overcome. ASOIAF is perfect for this, thematically.
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Arx - Your character is every bit as capable as a male swordsman, but is routinely overlooked because your character is female. Your family refuses to bring you on any dangerous missions because you might get hurt. This would infuriate the character, surely, but would also piss off the player because this wasn’t the rules under which they consented to experience the game world.
But I’m not trying to say that all of these are just about thematic drift, mostly just that it’s about knowing what your playerbase wants to experience, has agreed to experience, or has outright consented to experience.
I’m not going to do a deep dive into TS, but things like jealousy subplots and their resulting feelings of anger and betrayal are acceptable if the players agreed to it. And with the caveat that if they’re not having fun with that plot, it gets dropped immediately, because consent is king.
So, that’s a lot of rambling to get around to the point of saying: It really just depends on your audience and their expectations. It’s easier in settings where you know what’s on the table at all (theme), or what your characters expect (this takes time to learn boundaries, and preferably out-and-out consent), but there is absolutely room in RP and storytelling for characters to experience all of the emotions listed in their proper agreed-upon locales.
Players? I mean, generally, no one really wants to actively make a player feel emotions as keenly as their characters, and there’s going to be some inevitable misfires even when all things are understood. This is where keeping an open mind, door, and dialogue are all important skills.
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@IoleRae said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
Should storytellers ever aim for the player emotions (because compelling story?), rather than the character’s? What would that look like?
I thought this was one of the most interesting parts of your post, because I was instantly like ‘yes, totally, MAKE PEOPLE FEEL THINGS. WEH FOR ME!!!’ and then I looked up at your post, as the list of “bad” feelings:
Discomfort, jealousy, disappointment, anger, confusion, hurt, pain, sadness.
And then I was like you know what? No, actually!
Roz is right: I think it’s absolutely a sign of investment and good storytelling when people feel. There was a point in the grand cycle of RP opinions when I think we as a community used to look down on that a lot – character bleed, etc. But I’ve very much moved away from that opinion.
Mostly.
Because while I’m likely to enjoy being SAD about something, I’m not actually going to enjoy being uncomfortable, jealous, disappointed, angry, confused, and hurt about something. (I love making my characters feel all these things, that said. I am a stereotype of character suffering.)
It’s interesting to me that it is such a stark split. There’s catharsis in the sadness, maybe, and not the rest. I’m not sure. I’m poking the thought.
she/they
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What about like… anger tho. Like, that feel when you really hate a npc villain and then you get to publicly destroy him. I feel like there is good rage and bad rage. The difference between oh. Ohhhhh FUCK THAT MOTHERFUCKER and oh fuck me I guess.
let it be a challenge to you
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@sao Doesn’t really seem like the same feel, exactly. It’s like – frustration-anger vs outrage-anger. I bet there’s an emotion wheel for this.
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I want negative emotions. They drive //so much// drama and passion. There are things that I won’t play out with people unless everyone is ENTIRELY ON BOARD (like jealousy, because all too often it seems to come from OOC issues and bleeeeeds over into IC in very unfun ways), but honestly? I want IC drama. I want some failure, I want my character to be able to be hurt, angry, unproductive, and sometimes just WRONG without it becoming an OOC issue.
I want IC screaming matches and broken hearts and murderous obsessions. I just don’t want people getting OOC angry, heartbroken, or obsessed. I don’t want ALL tragedy and failure, but SOME is what makes some of the greatest excitement and enjoyment for me.
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When it comes to story, and the PC, I personally really enjoy exploring all of those. And when I have a ST or RP partners that really roll with a deep dive into all sorts of emotions (or at least planting the seeds of them to explore in other ways), that’s one of the things that makes me the happiest.
However, I think the difficulty comes in that it’s so easy to get wrapped up in one’s own enjoyment and not be sensitive and respectful to where others are. Even folks that have regularly played out that stuff. My current PC is one that has a lot of darkness in him (though also lots of comic relief which I am fortunate to have opportunity to draw out too, a lot). It’s on me to make sure that anyone I am getting into deeper RP with (more than how do you do/fine thank you) knows and feels safe enough to tell me if I need to roll it back if things take that turn towards negative emotions (I am NOT someone who thinks only negative emotion provoking stuff is “deep”.) It’s important for me to read the room or try to, and maybe if people aren’t responding well to back it up and apologize. It’s important for me to tell people straight up that I don’t know (or even if they do) that I’m happy to dial it back. It’s important to try and juggle all of those because a lot of people even when asked won’t feel okay about saying so or they’ll worry that I’ll be disappointed. I know all too well how easy it is to worry and internalize anything that might make me worry about whether people might still want to RP with me in the future. And to add another layer of complexity it is important to learn who just doesn’t want any kind of ooc communication about that stuff and respect that too.
I think there is only so much you can do as a ST or external person to mitigate /player/ negative emotions and it’s highly situational. Players get jealous/angry/sad about a lot of things. If they see a bbpost about someone else’s activity, when theirs didn’t get one. If they waited months and months for a response and it wasn’t how they envisioned. If they finally get to go on a plot scene that is truly in their element and utilizes their skillset–and then publically they fail every roll using those skills. (Most people can roll with the punches and are happy to fail and have fun with some failing! But what if it happened literally for EVERY important roll in a scene, and maybe over several scenes, and people noticed? Sometimes honestly that’s not so fun especially if someone doesn’t get a chance to participate much. I think it’s only human to feel bummed. We’ve all seen how even folks who get to do a lot of things often feel like they’re isolated and left out. If the ST in a scene seems to gloss over their poses or they get ignored a few times by others. The list goes on and on. I don’t think we should look down on folks for feeling what they feel. Though that doesn’t give anyone a pass for acting out or blowing up or venting in front of everyone to spread their discomfort and hurt. I think most people honestly do let it go or just grumble to a friend and let it pass.
So I think it’s messy. I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule (other than maybe, try to be polite and respectful as you oocly communicate to folks). I think that’s why it’s anxiety provoking. But at the same time for me personally it’s very rewarding, exploring those darker/less pleasant themes and emotions. It’s worth some awkwardness in checking in OOCly if that is desired, and trying to be careful in presentation with working in many opportunites for people to signal that they’re done even if it’s not direct.
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@Pyrephox said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
There are things that I won’t play out with people unless everyone is ENTIRELY ON BOARD (like jealousy, because all too often it seems to come from OOC issues and bleeeeeds over into IC in very unfun ways), but honestly? I want IC drama. I want some failure, I want my character to be able to be hurt, angry, unproductive, and sometimes just WRONG without it becoming an OOC issue.
Pretty much this.
I want to be emotionally invested in stories.
I don’t want to be emotionally invested against players.
I need to like the player whose PC I hate, and I hope that goes both ways. If I don’t like the player/ST, I will never feel comfortable enough to let them make me feel uncomfortable things.
I want my ST to go for the gut. But I need to trust them enough to leave that sensitive underbelly exposed so they can rip it out.
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@Tez said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
@sao Doesn’t really seem like the same feel, exactly. It’s like – frustration-anger vs outrage-anger. I bet there’s an emotion wheel for this.
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@Tez said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
There’s catharsis in the sadness, maybe, and not the rest. I’m not sure. I’m poking the thought.
This is the exact sentence I came here to write, but I promised myself I’d read the whole thread before I got there.
I’m trying to untangle why SADNESS over fictional things is cathartic in a way other negative emotions aren’t.
I do like other negative IC emotions - which generally I feel in real life as something more approaching glee - as long as they feel like they’re leading story to an interesting place and not an unfun one.
This is part of why I personally tend to prefer PvE. It’s a lot easier to have a knock down drag out and then slowly find your way back to a working relationship when you have that ‘vE’ to pull your characters back together. I tend to get a lot more anxious about ‘bad’ emotions when I don’t have a clear path forward in a relationship I enjoy. This doesn’t have to be ‘everything stays status quo’, but it’s nice if it’s at least ‘I can keep RPing with this person in a way that’s telling new stories’.
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@Tat said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
I’m trying to untangle why SADNESS over fictional things is cathartic in a way other negative emotions aren’t.
For me, I think it’s because sadness in the real world is discouraged. Sadness is weakness, sadness is defeatism, sadness is rude because it burdens others to try to help you.* Sadness at a movie or a song, though? Those are allowed. There’s a cultural loophole for them. You are permitted to express sadness in those situations, and I personally use them as an excuse to bleed off sadness about unrelated things. No one will accuse you of being sad about a forbidden topic if you’ve got Schindler’s List playing while you have a good cry.
*usually without listening to you or trying to understand what makes you sad, but never mind
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I think on an OOC level, I appreciate the cathartic negative emotions in bursts, but there needs to be a buffer between them to help me be able to stay engaged. In long-term RP, especially group RP, I’m more likely to accept something that errs on the side of the lighthearted than on the dark and emotional, because aiming for sad RP can turn into an absolute arms race,
Someone connected to my broad RP circle went through a real spiral around trying to evoke emotions in the players around them, and it ultimately ended up burning out them and their rp partners until they quit. First their character was suffering from a family illness. Then the illness was actually a poison used by their secret half-sibling, then the secret half-sibling killed them. Then it turned out that their half-sibling was being used as a pawn by their traitorous uncle… and so on, and so on. When they finally quit it was with a post about their character having gone dramatically missing, presumed dead.
Every time a new plot thread developed in this whole thing people would start drawing back, because it became more and more apparent that the player was using these plots to try and get a sympathetic response from people, and was pushing harder each time to try and get more. If there hadn’t been that constant push, if there was some more time to breathe between each plot, maybe it would have been better recieved. As it was, once they were gone, people felt it easier to retcon that character out entirely, just because they didn’t want to RP about the grief that their characters would ICly be going through, because of the OOC burnout.
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@spiriferida I feel emotionally drained just reading this.
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@spiriferida Balance is hugely important, yeah. If a character’s life is an unending spiral of misery, that’s…not a lot of fun for me.
But I think the biggest thing in your example is that it was a…very self-centered way of ‘invoking emotions’. Designed to make everyone else feel the same, sympathetic way about one PC without any consideration for how that fit into those other PCs/players plans for their characters or, you know, desire to spotlight their own struggles/triumphs/drama.
I think ‘reading the room’ is pretty important when you’re working with negative emotions, and asking yourself “am I giving other people space to have fun, have their own reactions, and center some things on themselves despite this being an intensely emotional plot, etc” should be where you’re starting.
And, honestly? Recognize and be okay with the fact that if your character is invoking negative emotions, they might not be the ones you were anticipating. People might not feel sorrow or sadness for your PC. They might be irritated or judgemental instead - even if their players aren’t. They might have their OWN SHIT they’re dealing with. Your PC might accidentally trip over their PC’s baggage, and now they’re the one screaming and throwing things.
If you want to play on the strong emotions side of things, I think it’s important that you’re okay with a) sharing spotlight and b) rolling with the fact that you don’t control other PCs.
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This is such a good thread. Everyone has already said almost everything I would’ve contributed.
The one thing that was briefly mentioned that I wanted to bring up is OOC check-ins. I find it so positive to ask someone OOC how they’re doing when there are heavy emotions or a conflict IC. Many times where I’ve felt like someone is or isn’t having a good time, checking in with them has helped improve a scene by knowing where they are emotionally.
Sometimes it’s difficult for someone to speak up about something that isn’t working out. That’s why I advocate for taking small periodic breaks to re-confirm that everything’s ok, and to change course if not.
Everyone’s feelings are valid, whether they say, “I’m having a ball, please continue!” or, “I’m not feeling this, can we stop here?” or anything else.
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@Tez said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
There was a point in the grand cycle of RP opinions when I think we as a community used to look down on that a lot – character bleed, etc. But I’ve very much moved away from that opinion.
Mostly.
Very much agree with this. A specific type of OOC bleed is still a problem, but generally feeling something in response to what your characters feel is like … the point. Why would anyone be telling stories they had no emotions about.
That said, I almost never want to feel negative emotions in RP, including angst/sadness. It’s not fun for me to feel those things and if I want to feel awful I can just alt-tab over to the news.
Very, very rarely I will go for plots that are melancholy or heartbreaking for the character but not about something awful and even then I usually move on pretty quickly. Otherwise, I’m here to experience some fleeting moments of joy.
as previously stated, good day.
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Totally valid.
By contrast:
Bury me in angst and pain so the news headlines don’t look as painful. Bury me in unhappiness so that the joy I wrest from adversity’s clutches feels truly earned.
I blame World of Darkness for making me this way.
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@farfalla said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
That said, I almost never want to feel negative emotions in RP, including angst/sadness. It’s not fun for me to feel those things and if I want to feel awful I can just alt-tab over to the news.
Made me curious about other habits. Do you watch sad movies/shows or listen to sad songs?
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@KarmaBum I’m not farfalla, but I try to limit negative emotions in my RP because the kind of RPer I am, I often have to access those emotions in some way to be able to portray them.
