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Negative emotions and their role in RP
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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.
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@KarmaBum Not really! Bittersweet or melancholy, as long as the ending is happy. Otherwise nope.
as previously stated, good day.
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@farfalla Meanwhile I will put on heart-wrenching movies and scream at the screen “MAKE ME CRY”
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@farfalla Innnnnteresting. Like @Roz, I love me a tear-jerker.
@GF said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
I often have to access those emotions in some way to be able to portray them.
I have the most fun playing things way outside my RL wheel-house, which translates to my best characters. I am not a 30-year-old male drug addict with commitment issues and a car full of shotguns. But it’s my favorite thing to play.
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I don’t mind feeling negative feelings as a result of good RP prompting said feelings as with any other kind of art.
I do mind when those feelings become oppressive or without payoff. I prefer levity, but constant jollity without its opposite is just boring, the same with constant angst without any light.
What I hate most of all is feeling helpless. Any RP that consistently removes my agency can fuck right the hell off.
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@KarmaBum That’s really more of a circumstance than an emotion, though.
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Ooh, I just thought of another sort of analogy.
I like deeply negative emotional RP the same way I like political RP.
It can’t be the only thing going on, I only like it when I get to participate in deciding the outcome (good or bad), and most people I know are terrible at it.
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@Roz I don’t know how to explain in a way that doesn’t make me sound like one of those “well I’m an empath” people, but I really internalize any emotions I feel from media. At the end of a sad movie/book/whatever, I’ll still be sad after it’s over. So it isn’t cathartic, it just makes me feel bad. Also I cry at literally everything, so I can watch something that’s joyful or lovey and still bawl if I need to get some crying out. I cried for the last 20 minutes straight of Everything Everywhere All At Once.
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@farfalla said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
@Roz I don’t know how to explain in a way that doesn’t make me sound like one of those “well I’m an empath” people, but I really internalize any emotions I feel from media.
Call yourself a method actor? It still sounds kind of pretentious, but possibly less pretentious.
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@GF said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
@farfalla said in Negative emotions and their role in RP:
@Roz I don’t know how to explain in a way that doesn’t make me sound like one of those “well I’m an empath” people, but I really internalize any emotions I feel from media.
Call yourself a method actor? It still sounds kind of pretentious, but possibly less pretentious.
Oh my god, I’d rather hear someone call themselves an empath than a method actor
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@Roz Eh, to each her own.
