Happily, I recently finished my much–maligned Song of Ice and Fire campaign. For all its faults, the game did end in an appropriate fashion and was notable for being the first time I made a player cry (in a good way). It was a manly weeping – in the context of the game – and was heartfelt at the table. Frankly, these are the moments I live for as a player and as a GM: emotional involvement at the table. It’s one thing to take on a role, quite another to identify with it to an extent to exhibit an emotional response.
The how’s and the why’s of the story that led to this aren’t really important. Instead I’m going to focus on the methods I used to build to his climatic moment, one that would achieve maximum emotional impact.
The first part required exercising a degree of narrative control. Now, to some readers this is verboten and I can understand that POV. But even within the context of using narrative control of the events affecting the characters, you can still solicit input from said player. It’s a bit like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” model where there are inputs and choices, but the narration of the GM drives the scene.
Secondly is the use of the age-old tool of “show, don’t tell.” Well, within the context of RPGs the evocative descriptions that we provide as GMs is how we “show” what happens in our worlds. This is likely a tool that you all lean on frequently so no surprise that you see it here.
What may surprise you is using this tool by inverting it. Internally I call it “mirroring:” showing what is happening to one player by bouncing the narration off of another. Where you narrate an outcome to one player that directly affects another.
Now this is dangerous territory as we’re messing with character agency and it’s not something I would recommend doing often. It works best in short, dramatic, spurts. There’s no taking players aside, having private conversations, or anything like that. It’s all open, at the table, and the other players are witnessing the events through the mirror of the other player.
Ultimately all this reached a head where, using the technique reversed with the other player, they learned of the untimely death of a fellow PC. The technique underscored (in my opinion) the harshness of the setting and the reality of the decisions that were made to this point. And this is what ultimately led to the heartfelt, in-character response, and the shedding of tears.
Was it a perfect campaign? No, not by any stretch. But it did end well and in part because of the closure provided and the trust given by the players involved.
Have you caused an emotional response at your gaming table? Share with us below how you did it!
As someone who still considers herself a newbie-ish GM, I kinda get the general ideas of what you’re saying, but without examples, it’s hard to wrap my head around how to really work it in the best way.
I imagine that this type of thing also depends on the players involved. In my group, there are players that love this type of narrative involvement, but there’s another who almost fights against being told anything about his character and that character’s place in the world.
My character was the one who died (one of my favorite endings to any campaign I’ve ever played — it was totally what he wanted), so the example from my POV went like this.
After I’d made it clear I’d be sacrificing myself with or without anyone’s blessing, the moment arrived. I threw myself on my figurative sword to save our house and went away with an agent of our liege lord.
Don narrated the start of the courtroom scene, and I narrated that I was not only going to confess my guilt (accurately) but embellish it to really twist the knife and ensure that all of their hatred was directed at me, not at the house. Then Don switched back to the castle where the other two PCs were awaiting news of the “trial.”
The word came to the other two PCs that I’d been executed and my head was hanging on a spike on the city walls — that was the flip Don’s talking about. We faded out before the trial finished, time passed, and then we found out that yes, I’d been killed.
I hope I’m explaining it well, but if not I’m sure Don will be able to explain it better.
I think that this style of narration is used in a lot of Fantasy novels near the climax. Especially when it’s a part where a group had split and are now getting back together, so they explain how the actions that each had made on their on journey is now effecting one another. Notability Dragon Lance and Wheel of Time, but I’m sure many others and non-fantasy do the same.
(these are the parts where I nearly tear up when I read them, just in the pure emotion that can be felt from the scene)
It’s a tricky thing to nail down. How to elicit that kind of deep emotional reaction from a player…
First, the all-purpose maxim “Know Thy Player” certainly applies. Unfortunately unless you’re already good friends the only way to “[know]” him/her is by trial and error – and even people you know well in the real world will surprise you at the table. Which leads to my second point, it will take some time.
For a player to identify with his character that much or care about other PCs or NPCs to that degree, they’ll have to grow with them for a good long while. It’s not the kind of thing that springs up over night. If you want them to care about an NPC give them a reason to care. Show them time and time again how the NPC is brave or caring or endearingly foolhardy or kind or whatever. That way, when the villain villainously slays him/her or the horrible regime systematically destroys his/her family business resulting in suicide, it’ll have the emotional punch your looking for. If you want them to care about the other PCs, it’s not gonna happen until they’ve been through hell together. It takes time and repeated exposure to establish these kind of feelings. There’s a reason no one ever cried over Red-Shirt Ensign Ricky.
My wife’s cried in a games I’ve ran over the death of her character and from having to break off an engagement with and NPC. I’ve also had a player scream in character “I have no Father!” in actual anger during a game. The first was after more than a year of playing the same character, the second about six months, and the third about two months. You’ve got to take the time to make something worthwhile if you want anyone to care when it’s gone.
Telim cried, when Sigil almost died.
As the crier of these manly tears, I can vouch for the effectiveness of the technique. And I’d also like to compliment Don a fair bit since this ending was also not according to plan, but the result of one of those wild player turns you would have never expected (In this case, someone drawing a line in the sand and making a stand for honor in the Game of Thrones universe, typically the prelude to a very messy death for all involved).
There are factors that you can only encourage but not demand as a GM, to be sure. You can’t create the kind of investment in the character necessary, but you can reward and elaborate on the small character moments that your players give you. You can pick up NPCs that were never meant to be important and spin new plots from them, getting the players invested in the world and their friends. You can repeatedly set up these systems to have consequences, good and bad, that create a drive to succeed at the table.
And when that emotional moment comes, you can hit it with everything you’ve got. The entire session was a roller-coaster of hope, despair, and change. Being the final episode, we also knew that this was the one in which all things would be settled. By turning the spotlight on me and my characters reaction instead of Martin playing through his character’s death, I was surprised and had to think, in that instant, of how the character would be feeling. I saw the future the character had worked toward go up in smoke, replaced with a new one that, for better or worse, was frighteningly different. What kind of person would he be, in this new future? He’d taken a stand for his honor and his allies, and his family had gained significantly for it. Yet, it cost him his closest confidant. A character who didn’t agree with the plan but, nonetheless, committed to it with everything that he had.
In a few more seconds, just long enough enough to describe the execution scene to Martin, I’d have been able to arrange myself. I would have planned out the character response, and described the devastation he felt as an outside observer. But I didn’t have those seconds. I had to be the character, and the character was desperately holding back tears. And so was I.
They say the movies you remember are the ones that make you feel. I’d say the same thing applies for games, and the mirroring delivered an unexpected punch that ensured it would certainly be one to remember. And who could ask for more than that from their gaming?
My most awesome GM moment: I know the player is mostly fascinated by the side stories that occur along with the main plotlines: the ‘human interest’ stories. So, we’re doing Ars Magica. One of the many things magic absolutely positively cannot do in that system is raise the dead.
Of course people in the world do not know this. This woman comes to the chantry to beg for her husband’s life. He cut himself by accident, the wound festered, and he died from it. Something utterly preventable in our time, but a death sentence back in the middle ages. The player, her PC knowing this inability, tries to comfort the woman. She professes her love for her husband, and the PC tries to get her to name the thing she loved best about him.
The woman turns up her tear-stained face and says ‘Does a miser love one coin above all the others?’.
That brought the player to tears and we had to break while she composed herself. She loved the session 🙂