With the new rewording of The Sorrowful Man in the latest FAQ, "…Then, that character's
controller must either pay you 1 gold or kill that character.", since there is no "choose" and the target is the opponent, does that mean The Sorrowful Man can be played in response to The Red Viper being played and TRV dying if my opponent has no gold left?

Sorrowful Man can be brought out of Shadows in response to an "immune to character abilities" entering play. However, it cannot kill that character. The character dying is a direct effect, applied to the character, of the character ability. Therefore, the immune card ignores the attempt to kill it, targeted or not. So the controller must pay he gold if they can. If they can't, there is no effect (beyond coming out of Shadows, of course).

mathlete said:

I suppose it was inevitable that this question would arise. If you apply the logic of the Meera Reed ruling, the answer should be "No."

Sorrowful Man's Response: text is templated similarly to Meera's:

"House Targaryen only. Deadly.
Response: After an opponent's character enters play, kneel 2 influence to bring Sorrowful Man out of Shadows and into play . Then, that character's controller must either pay you 1 gold or kill that character."

So, going by the Meera ruling, since the Sorrowful Man is fully in play when you reach the word "Then…" the kill effect is a character ability and TRV should be immune to it.

But, I hear someone saying, the effect is not targeting TRV; his controller has to make a choice, and that's the thing that actually kills TRV. I don't see how it matters. The kill effect arises from a character (and could be forced now if TRV's controller has no gold). So, if your opponent plays TRV, you can kneel the influence to bring TSM out of Shadows, but his kill effect will fizzle. So it'd be a waste unless you really, really need another character on the board.

This all assumes FFG maintains a consistent approach to the First-It's-A-Shadows-Card-Then-It's-A-Character-All-During-The-Same-Effect ruling. Which is, of course, a moderately large 'if.'

The big point is that immunity doesn't only prevent "choosing". It also prevents untargeted effect from affecting the card.

Just 1 more reason TRV rocks!