Pathos

I just saw the Phantom of the Opera, and I feel inspired. It got me thinking about how to bring PATHOS to your table, how do you amp the emotions and tug on the hearstrings... you can't very well burst into song, so what is the best way to go about it without cringing up the place? I'd like to bring a few feelings to the table, and regarding system... I have a suspicion that WoD is pretty well suited for a few sprinklings of melodrama?

Also, the Phantom should be very easy to identify with for any fa/tg/uy or r9k:er, lol.

>I gave you stuff and no-one will love you as much as me, why won't you love me for my obvious brilliance even though I am fat and disgusting and mostly stare at you from afar

(ok, we've all been there, including me)

Depends, who do you want them feeling sorry for?

Reminder that the Phantom did nothing wrong.

>DON JUAN TRIUMPHANT!

>Reminder that the Phantom did nothing wrong.

Really? The whole "reserve box 5 for me and put a big stash of cash there for me to collect, or else" doesn't come off as some kind of bizarre protection racket to you?

Well... complete sperging out like the loneliest of rk:er at the end was a mistake... he basically had the girl convinced and then

>IF YOU DON'T LOVE ME I'LL MURDER THE SHIT OUT OF YOUR BOYFRIEND IN FRONT OF YOU, REEEE

* r9k:er

The optimal way would be to intertwine emotion through every facet somehow, so that the players actually cared about what happened to their fictitious families/girlfriends/friends and the plot in general... though I guess that's the pipe-dream most GM:s have which will never become real

But user, the movie was bad and Gerard Butler can't sing. You mean the stage production, right?

>so that the players actually cared about what happened to their fictitious families/girlfriends/friends

Use them, don't just leave them as background characters your players never see beyond some words on a character sheet. Encourage them to visit home, engage with their family. Reward them, subtly and in small ways, for interacting with their families.

A tiny bit of XP for family interaction will build a Pavlovian Response in your players. The Roleplayers will view it as a break from the action to develop their character as a person, while the Rollplayers will see it as a XP for nothing.

Then, once they're invested, a family tragedy occurs. Don't go OTT with it, the tragedy needs to be personal, something they care about. Tailor it to the player that you want to evoke emotion from, use knowledge of your players real lives, that way the tragedy will hit harder.

Oh please. Sarah Brightman and Michael Crawfish? No thanks. Butler wasn't amazing but he was fine. The rest of the cast killed it, only a few bad changes. Better soundtrack overall, and some good visuals.

It's difficult to make people care. You need to start early and get people immersed and enforce talking in character and acting in character. No memes or references. It might work better in an online text game since people tend to rp better in those.

Actually, I saw both. They have a show going in Gothenburg in Sweden right now, after I saw it I rewatched the movie after several years.

Good things about the show (and stage-versions)
> Great song performances, much higher quality than the movie since they are actual accomplished singers
> The emotion is better felt when it is more 'raw', live action as it is

Good things about the movie version
>Fucking gorgeous production
>Easier to see details thanks to close-ups and the like
>Easier to follow the story thanks to the visuals and film-format

Overall I think the stage-versions and movie-version complement each other. Watch one for fantastic music, and watch the other to fully comprehend the story.

I'd like to add that I don't think the music in the movie is bad, but it is not quite up to par with a good stage-version with actual singers.

That seems... friendship ending.

>The player is finally invested
>He works up the nerve to roleplay asking the girl to marry him
>She is surprised and says that it was all a misunderstanding
>Chaude shows up and starts laughing
>Hahaha, YOU thought you could get with HER? Hahaha

I mean, that is what it would be if you brought in knowledge of their lives basically. That or family members dying or something

>Hey guess what
>Your fake mother died as well

>That seems... friendship ending.
So, in any media that isn't TTG, do you immediately stop doing whatever it was just because something bad happened to a character you got invested in? No, right?

Then why do it at the tabletop? If you don't have the emotional maturity to handle a pretend person having to deal with a pretend personal tragedy that you identify with, then you should just go back to dungeoncrawling adventures.

Yes but... mirroring their actual life tragedies seems a bit harsh. I guess I could heavily distort it or something.

Wraith the Oblivion
Pathos is a stat

Played right it'll work. Don't obfuscate it too much or they won't identify with it, but at the same time don't make it too obvious.

Think about how other media has manipulated your emotions and apply them to your players.

I spent half an hour comforting a crying kobold last night.

Does that count?

I'd say it does.

Did it cry because you killed its parents?

My GM did that with his (D&D) campaign where the BBEG was a god's jungian shadow which could affect the people through their own respective shadows.

Each player had to think of one such shadow for the PC. The GM handled how they dealt with it, if ignoring, sucessfully integrating it with their ego etc.

It helps a lot that as all players were familiar ones, the GM connected with the players themselves through all this. It was impressive how the characters reflected their players in certain traits they didn't realize themselves. They cared a lot but didn't always realize how or why.

It is vital to stress that the shadow isn't bad per se, just a part of you you don't acknowledge. The most you don't, the stronger it is, possibly becoming a complex. A complex is something between a neurosis and a alternate personality. A certain character did end up posessed by his shadow sometimes.

It was an amazing campaign. My character invoked ghosts to fight dragons, but the toughest "battles" were to convince someone not to commit suicide and to forgive his father. The latter was two hours of solid roleplay tugging at my father's death.