Ever gotten 'emotional' over a game event?

[jaded]

I've had a similar moment with one of my characters...

I was playing a human NG cleric/sacred exorcist and we were on the trail of this youg sorceress who was raising an undead army as part a mad plot to see her mother (a hanged witch) resurrected.

We managed to stop the undead army, but due to the seriously bad judgement of the party while my character was elsewhere (she was always teh party's conscience it seemed), the young sorceress became host to a devilspawn. (The party "accidentally" summoned a devil with whom we'd had past run-ins, but they certainly weren't blameless...)

Naturally we followed and tried to to destroy her in a pitched battle on the edge of a canyon. I managed to lure her into a consecrate on the canyon's edge where she experienced a moment of clarity and, tears flowing, begged for blessing. She knelt and recieved the blessing by cutting her hands on my holy blade. Then she kissed my preistess on the cheek and threw herself off the cliff to kill the devilspawn... I could have saved her but I couldn't stop her!!

It was a very bittersweet moment. All credit to my DM

In another, slightly related topic... my best ever "caught up in the moment" -

Same preistess was lowered down into a cavern under a dry well with a human NPC rogue... finally got to the bottom and the DM evoked this wonderful suspense about the empty, dry cavern and the wooden object touching my leg... I whispered to the rogue "Ren, it's dark, I can't see!" and the reply came back "err.. neither can I"

So muttering "I'm gonna regret this" under my breath I cast a daylight and gradually the cavern lit up to reveal a veritable sea of coffins, all closed and still...

Not really emotional, but as a player my heart was pounding and I was actually whispering... it was truly awesome! Reminded me of that scene in aliens where ripley runs blindly into a room, stops and realises she is in a field of eggs...

my apologies... just felt like sharing

.. jaded

 

[Cedric]

I'm on the edge of getting emotional over THAT right now.

Heh, we bandaged wounds, handed out Xp and went out for pizza and beer after that, we definitely needed to unwind some after that game session.

Cedric

 

[caudor]

my apologies... just felt like sharing

.. jaded

Wow, no need for apologies...that was a good read. Your games sound like such a blast! I'm sure your DM deserves much credit. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Numion]

GGGAAARRRRR! Maybe it doesn't seem it, but it was frustrating to have a player try to stop the character progression the DM and I had worked out. Especially a new player at that.

IMO it's always funny when a character doesn't want to be cured of lycantrophy.. I've seen it myself: people getting angry at the groups paladin for curing. One always has to ask wether it's about the power or RPing.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

As a radio personality, I've taken a lot of what I've learned about performance and applied to my game presentation. Principally among these attributes, I feel, is a basic but frequently misunderstood definition of 'entertainment.'

A strong aspect of performance entertainment is the art of generating genuine emotional response in your audience. In our D&D game, where the players tend to build powerful relationships with their characters, this is especially relevant. You see, comedy can be fun, but it requires little emotional investment on the part of the audience (or in this case, participants). Other emotions, particularly grief, sadness, or righteous anger, take a good deal more attachment to the event. Like a good novel or movie, it draws you in and heightens the suspension of disbelief.

My games tend to be a veritable emotional rollercoaster. We've seen events like those described here... I've even seen player characters thrust themselves into certain doom to rescue those they care about. And a character who dies a hero is certainly mourned as a loss... but the player who acts in such a manner certainly feels like he/she has a great deal to be proud of.

After a four-year campaign, it was hard to break away... but I knew that the players needed to get away from those characters. They'd been through a lot, and are very attached. But I have a feeling we'll be picking that campaign up again in a year or two.

To summarize... though the mood of the game should be tightly controlled by the game master so as not to get out of hand... drama can enhance a game in ways that laughs and thrills can never touch. It's worth it.

 

[Sixchan]

The only fictional things I've ever gotten the sad kind of empotional with that I recall are the endings to the Amber Spyglass, and the ending to the Green Mile (which I cried to).

However, I've gotten the Excited, cheering on kind of emotional before. I was cheering for the elves' destruction at the end of the first IR (indstrial revolution), and a very loud "WOO!" spread throughout my house when it finally happened.

So yes, I have gotten emotional, but never that kind of emotional.

 

[GameGuru4]

Never really gotten choked up during a tabletop game, but at LARP? Hoo-boy. This story is from a Vampire LARP and it sums up "getting emotional at a game" for me...

I was playing a female character for about 9 months and there were some striking similarities between the plot things happening to her and things happening to me in real life. The man she loved was killed for unjust reasons (in her mind - hell as the player I knew damn well they were justified) and at the same time the girl I really cared about (probably my best friend) basically stopped talking to me.
For years of game time (months in real-world time) she spends all her effort working on either revenge against those that did it to him, or getting magical help to try and bring him back.
Eventually she gets him back, by having his wraith shoved in another vampire's body by a wraith-lord in the area, but it's taken about 2.5 years of her life to do it. It's then that she (and I, the player, simultaneously...) realizes that she just doesn't care about him like she used to. She's had to withdraw too much from her emotions to deal with his death in the first place.
So she's a follower of Lillith, aka a Bahari. She decides she must do a grieving Bahari ritual so she reseaches one and finds what she thinks is one (turns out she was wrong) so she walks a pentagram 3 times on the floor of the Elysium (gathering of vampires) then slices her arm open to cleanse it of her grief. Then she walks the pentagram 3 more times and does likewise to her right arm. I'm role-playing the living out of this, mouthing passages of the Revelations of the Dark Mother to myself and everything. I actually memorized a couple pages of the book and such to make it totally realistic. Then, with both her arms slit (but not bleeding, she's a vampire...) she walks the pentagram 13 more times. Every time someone gets in her way she screams at them to move and any time someone asks her what she's doing she tells them to leave her alone.
Most people do, but one continues to prod her until she starts to cry as she walks the pentagram, telling him to just leave. She must do this for her own sanity. She won't hurt anyone.
The pentagram makes him leery especially since the city has been attacked by a couple demons recently.
At one point when walking the pentagram her legs grow weak and she falters. I RP this and actually fall as the player, barely catching myself on the handle of a door. I'm working to lift myself up, trying to act like I'm fighting back vomiting and intense pain (physical and emotional). My eyes are closed as she tries to gather her inner strength. Suddenly the player of the prodding character says "hey, dude...hang on a second" - I thought for a second he was talking in-character, but it wasn't his IC voice so I look around and realize the security gaurd for the building is there (we play on-campus) and he needs to lock the doors to the building (that I'm leaning against). The other player says "let the man do his job" in a sort of laughing voice, I say "oh , I'm sorry" and I back off to let him lock the doors and move on. Then the people in the scene with me say "continue breaking down now" and it takes me a good 30 seconds to get back into character that much.
The scene continues, she manages to make it 13 times around, but only just, then she slices cuts into her cheeks and forehead, pukes up a ton of blood, and passes out in the center of the invisible pentagram she was walking.

THAT was emotional. Probably the second-most emotional game moment I've ever had (most emotional is in the continuation below). I was so in-character that I, for a moment at least, had lost contact with the outside world. I think that's just...cool.

So, to continue the story...
It was around that time that I, the player, finally gave up trying to reinstigate a friendship with said girl (another parallel).
Then my character (post-ritual and after stern talking to "do not walk pentagrams in the Elysium" by the Seneschal...) and the man go their separate ways, but she decides a couple weeks later that she's nothing without him or the quest to get him. She has no drive. She needs him, even if she must force herself to love him again.
So she goes to Elysium to look for him. She finds the Seneschal and asks to speak with her alone to see if she knows where he is. She says she doesn't, sees that I'm visibly upset (in-character) and asks what's wrong. Seeing as we're alone, she decides maybe this can be a way to get some direction in her life (unlife? ) if she can't have love or the want of it anymore.
So I and the Seneschal have a very emotional scene where I explain basically the entire love story to her, and I actually started crying in-character a little bit. Considering that I, the player, only cry in the most grievous of circumstances, this was a major step in my ability to roleplay. The character would have cried, and I could FEEL that. The crying was totally natural.

THAT is the most emotional moment in a game ever for me.

And for those interested in the end of the story...
The Seneschal had no advice for me or paths for me to walk. So she went to find her true love and make it work somehow... She goes to find him and on the way feels a GREAT sense of loss for some reason. Later she is near this magical box plot-device thingy that's known to eat demons, and she can feel him inside of it (ST ruling since it was True Love), and she feels her wraith-lord friend in there too. She asks the person with the box (a PC) how they got in there - she counters asking how I know they're in there. I tell her I just know, she asks me how I know, this goes back and forth a few times until I tell her to just open it up and let me take them out. She says opening the box is a bad idea...I tell her to just shut up and do it before I kill her. She does it, and I get sucked into the box, or rather my spirit does leaving my bloody husk of a body to explode behind me. So she died, but at least she got to be with her love and her wraith-lord (probably her best friend). In terrible agony for the rest of time, trapped with billions (yes, literally) of demons. Rather poetic, in all.

Now, this character was a munchkin's dream. I had uber-powers, I was 7th gen (one of the 2 or 3 lowest gens in the chronicle) and all that. I'd been playing the character for 9 months and was deeply attached to her because of the parallels to my own life, and she was just a blast to roleplay. I as the player knew perfectly well that if that box opened it was time to report to character gen, but I made that girl open the box anyway, since it's exactly what she would have done.
I miss that character an awful lot. My two most emotional gaming moments, both with her.

*sigh*

So, long story, I know, but hopefully someone enjoys it.

 

[diaglo]

i get emotional every time i game. i love this game. and love having fun. i can't help but get emotional. i wear my feelings on my sleeve. that's why i try and channel the energy into my character.

 

[nimisgod]

I can remember three such moments though my players are foten more for dramatic speeches than moments of RP experience:

One of those moments was when the party was trying to put the rest the ghosts of two women, both abandoned by the same man. It was a tragic love story that left them to wander the ruins of their home and I believe the players really took that part of the adventure to heart. It took me hours before to synchronize the music and the speech into one whole. You could just feel the emotion in the room. I just couldn't break it...

Another time, a player let a vampire girl feed off of him before he granted her eternal rest. We had a bit of LARPing to heighten the tension too.

Finally (and probbly my best), was when I was playing an NPC who had to endure great pain (and risk death) to guard one particular holy place.

I had identified with the pain and frustration so well that I actually felt nauseous and pained by the end of the character's speech.

I'm not sure if the players noticed, but that point was the pinnacle of the RP experience.

Good times...

 

[Arnwyn]

As a DM, I've never been emotional, really. I've always been a detached third party, describing the events around them. I suppose it's because I know what's going on and the NPCs motivations, etc, so I rarely get to surprise myself. The times I do surprise myself, I haven't really gotten emotional. But, then again, I'm not an emotional person *at all*.

Now, my players, on the other hand, have gotten somewhat emotional at times. When a very long-term NPC (multiple years of real time) who was betrothed to one of the PCs died in a dragon attack, the group was very morose for the rest of the session.

As well, there was a time when the PCs were trying to liberate a long-despairing region (who had all but given up) taken over by slavers. When the PCs were ambushed by a nasty group of slavers and suddenly the young boy who the PCs befriended in the nearby town came over the hill with a rag-tag bunch of armed villagers - well, there was standing up and cheering all around.

Now *that* makes all the hard work by a DM worth it.