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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chethrok" data-source="post: 7068880" data-attributes="member: 6791037">This thread basically encapsulates the core experience I'm trying to create with my players every time I DM. I like all the cool/fun parts of D&D (power gaming, storytelling, interaction, humor, etc.), but the times when D&D has felt the most meaningful to me have been those times when the players and DM have become emotionally invested and feel that shared sense of purpose. For me, the ultimate goal of D&D is to explore the human condition, in a way that is similar to but distinct from the way that various forms of media explore aspects of being human.There have only been a few times when I've really managed to pull off something truly moving. The one I look back at the most was the end of the first act of a 4e campaign I ran in college, where the group was put in a no-win situation and used a destructive magical artifact against the dwarf army trying to take the artifact from them. The dwarves weren't evil, just on the opposite side of a war, and the survivors took the players back to their city to stand trial for war crimes. The players lost their trial, and one player voluntarily took all the blame so the rest of the party would not be hung. His only condition for sacrificing himself was that the party promise to go back and save his home village afterwards, a situation the party had put on hold while pursuing the main story. The party, of course, agreed, and the character was hung for his crimes. Once the party left the dwarf city, they discovered that they had another choice to make - their fallen party member's home was about to be overrun, but the artifact they had tried to secure was simultaneously headed for the front lines and would surely spell defeat for their side. And so, after promising their dead friend to save his home village, they chose to try and save the kingdom instead in a weighty vote. They intervened in the battle just in time to save the day, but the artifact was used to destroy troops from both sides, and the party was left feeling the hollowness of their victory, including what they gave up to achieve it, as well as the cost of the lives they took. A few players teared up, and everyone in the room felt the sense of gravity, regret and bittersweet victory.From this and other moments, I've noticed that there are a few things that have worked to create such emotional moments in games I've played/DMed:- Buildup and Stakes. Players need time to get invested in their characters and the story. It's necessary, but isn't guaranteed to happen simply as a function of time spent playing. The players need to begin to care and invest in their characters and the game world.- Adversity and Consequences. Most of the strongest emotions I've seen at the table have happened in response to situations where a clear solution/victory is not possible, and/or success has an unavoidable cost. This is unfortunate, because my default setting as a DM is to tell stories that are more optimistic and hopeful. However, even on the flip side, a true "win" is only as meaningful as the struggle beforehand, which means there will always be a point where you need to need to put the screws in. Doing so is much easier at lower levels, but still possible at higher levels if the dice take a back seat.- Moral Ambiguity. D&D has a tendency to put players in clear categories: good vs. evil, humans vs. monsters, etc. For true immersion, players need to see the game world as more complicated than right and wrong, and NPCs as more than just obstacles, particularly the ones they are in conflict with. In the above situation, having to roleplay defending themselves against a war crime tribunal and an angry mob of dwarves with lost loved ones created empathy for the enemy. I find that the empathy/degree to which players "inhabit" their characters is less important for emotional involvement than the degree to which they feel for the antagonists and other NPCs.- Player Agency. In the above situation, the player choosing to sacrifice himself did more to up the emotional stakes of the game than anything I could have possibly done. Something like that can't happen unless the players have true agency and the world reacts accordingly.- Dice Take a Back Seat. Tying in with the other points, for consequences, moral ambiguity and player agency to be at the forefront, that means the situations faced by players need to be the kind that can't be resolved with dice rolling or clever application of character abilities. Situations that can be "won" by rolling well create a gamey, success vs. failure mentality that is perfectly normal and awesome, but detrimental to the development of deeper emotional investment. The dice can be involved, just not as the deciding factor in resolving moral ambiguity. - Music helps. I'm not sure how much it helps my players, but I find that playing a musical track (usually instrumental) that evokes the mood of the moment really helps me to turn things up a notch and track with the emotional oomph in a scene. For big scenes, such as beginnings or endings of a campaign, I'll usually find some music that really works for that scene, and script out a narration in time to the music.These are just my observations, and may be more or less helpful coming from the perspective of someone who DMs much more often than he plays. I do think that the whole concept of emotional investment in a D&D game requires both players and a DM capable of having that emotional connection. Not every group I've played with has been right for that, which is okay - everybody has fun differently and all that. As a therapist, I'm probably an outlier in terms of the amount of emotional content I look for in my D&D games.</blockquote>

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