This game's subject matter has been much on my mind lately, and has been a part of my life for many years. But before I say anything else, I want to make one thing abundantly clear:

Personal comments of any nature (including condolences, encouragement, or suggestions of any kind) are not welcomed in any capacity, in public or in private. Just don't do it. You don't know my situation, the specifics of which are not open to discussion.

On the other hand, I'd love to get comments about the game. Specifically, does it do what I set out to do? If you have any knowledge or experience with clinical depression, I'm particularly interested in what you think of the game. Is it too obviously specific to the author's realm of experience? Should I spell out concepts to a greater degree to make them easier to understand? Is this whole post just too much information?

Without further ado, but with a bit of trepidation, here's the game.

* * *

A Role-Playing Game of Clinical Depression

What you need to play:
White dice - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12
Black dice - d4, d6, d8, d10, d12

You suffer from clinical depression, and you're having an episode.

The white die represents you.
The black die represents your debilitating affliction.

At all times, you will use one white die and one black die. The die type for each color may shift up or down as a result of events in the game as well as in the mechanics. Both dice start at d12, unless modifiers prevent a die from being that high, in which case the highest permissible die type is used for that color.

Whenever you want to do anything more strenuous than continuing to breathe in and out, roll dice. Seriously. Roll dice to sit up in bed. Roll dice to walk across a room. Roll dice to not cry. Sometimes it will be appropriate to roll dice to breathe, as well.

Task resolution works like this:
Roll both the black and white dice. If the black die is greater than or equal to the white die, you fail, and your white die is reduced by one die type (to a minimum of d4). If the white die is higher than the black die, you succeed, and your black die is reduced by one die type (to a minimum of d4).

If at any time you roll the maximum value on the white die, increase it by one die type (to a maximum of d12). This cancels out the reduction in die type that results in a failure.

Triggers:
Each character has two or more triggers. A trigger is something that, well, triggers a depressive episode. Whenever a trigger is encountered in play, the black die jumps to d12 (or its maximum allowable level).

Sample Triggers:
The lawn needs mowed. (You don't mow it because you're a bad, irresponsible person.)
You're late for work. (The reason you're late is because you're lazy, and you lack the self-discipline of the average 6th-grader.)
You hear someone laughing. (They're laughing at you.)
Someone calls and leaves a message on your answering machine. (You don't call them back because you're a lousy friend.)
Something good happens to you. (You don't deserve it.)

Modifiers:
If you are in any kind of therapy (counseling, anti-depressants, etc.), your white die cannot go below d6. If you are not in any kind of therapy, your white die cannot go above d10.

Self-medication:
If you use drugs such as alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, heroin, etc. to self-medicate, your black die cannot go above d10.

NPCs:
NPCs have two stats. Both are measured in three levels (High, Medium, Low).

Understanding: This is the degree to which the NPC recognizes that depression is an actual medical condition. Understanding is usually Low.

Sensitivity: This is how the NPC treats you. Sensitivity is usually Medium.

When dealing with an NPC, each Low stat decreases your white die by one die type and increases your black die by one die type. each medium stat increase your black die by one die type. High stats have no effect. These modifiers are not "permanent," but only in effect for rolls when dealing with NPCs. Although changes to dice as a result of rolls are permanent.

How To Play:
A scenario is a single day. The game should be played 1-on-1, with a GM who suffers from or has knowledge of clinical depression and a player who does not. The day starts with the character waking up, and the first thing that the character thinks about is one of his or her triggers. Start rolling. GMs should remember to incorporate the character's triggers several times during the course of play.

Ending the Day:
A day ends (for the purposes of the game) in one of two ways, either in an anxiety attack or in transcendence.

Transcendence:
Whenever it happens that your white die is at its maximum possible die type and your black die is at its minimum possible die type, the day is over for the purposes of play; you can function normally. You may start a new day immediately, resetting the dice to their maximum die types, or you may end the session on this positive note.

Anxiety attacks:
Whenever it happens that your white die is at its minimum possible die type and your black die is at its maximum possible die type, you have an anxiety attack. Your character cannot do anything (except breathe with difficulty and maybe cry) for the next twenty minutes of in-game time. If your character was standing up or walking, he or she slumps to the ground. If your character is driving, or engaging in some other life-threatening activity, he or she stops doing this activity in a moderately safe fashion (at least safe enough not to kill yourself or others). When an anxiety attack occurs, you the player are required to sit still and say nothing for twenty minutes of real time.

After an anxiety attack occurs, just reset the dice and go to the next day, or end the session.

Why?
The point of this game is to make someone viscerally aware of the degree to which clinical depression is a real, serious, debilitating, and potentially life-threatening condition. It attempts to model a depressive episode in a frank and unexaggerated fashion.

I really love the concept here and the dice mechanics fit perfectly. It certainly would give somone a better grasp of clinical depression and I think you've well succeeded in that respect.

The mechanics easily translate to other mental ailments, which might help players experience more than just clinical depression first hand (i.e. insanity, drug addiction, tourettes syndrome.)

Using those examples could provide players with insight to these conditions, while certain examples could also provide a light hearted alternative.

Rules Hack:
The GM need not have suffered clinical depression to run this game, just have had adequate experience with treatment or study of depressed people.

Thoughts:
This is, essentially, more of a theraputic role-playing tool than a role-playing game -- in that it is not so much "fun" as "educational and theraputic." I don't mean this to belittle or dismiss it -- I think that theraputic RP and recreational RP have a lot to learn from each other, and this is a great idea (taking the dice from recreational RP and putting them into theraputic RP to represent the subconscious / uncontrollable aspects of mental illness.) That said, it might be a bit heavy handed, system-wise. It seems to me that people are much more likely to have bad days than good and, at least among the depressed people that I've known, it seems to be more "one good day / one bad day." But that basic idea is sound, and I think that this one make a great training tool for people who professionally deal with depression and depressed people.

I have to agree with Ben and Gwen's comments generally.

On mechanics, I have a couple of slight critiques.

First, I think you need to be more explicit in providing guidance for what sorts of actions require dice rolls. I'm not so sure about rolling for breathing, for example.

On the other hand, there are times when you will need to roll NOT to do something, like NOT self-medicate, NOT avoid people, NOT flee into escapism, NOT daydream, or NOT injure yourself.

It might make sense to balance every action. There's what you are trying to do (which you succeed in attempting if you roll well on the white die), and what you do instead (which happens if you roll high on black). Sometimes, what you do instead is nothing. Sometimes it's negative or harmful in some fashion.

I'm not so sure that self-medicating (with alcohol or anything, really) should keep your black die from getting higher. There have been a number of depressed people I know who are in AA, and Alcohol certainly didn't keep them from being depressed, and ultimately had other negative effects that made things difficult -- I think it's at best a wash, doing no more harm than good. Frequently, though, I think it does more harm than good.

Finally, the worst anxiety/panic attack I had caused me to pass out and lose bladder control. You might not want that much verisimilitude.

I'll just repeat Ben's comment about this being far more appropriate for theraputic/educational purposes and less 'fun' than a traditional RPG.

I certainly wouldn't want to play it, nor would I be interested in running it. Too painful either way. I almost didn't want to read it...

Hi folks,

Somewhere in the posting process I missed including text to the effect that this is definitely more therapeutic/educational than recreational. It seems that comes through clearly in the game itself, and it was intentional. For purposes of this post, I'll call it a teaching game. I've never written a teaching game before, and am not aware of any RPGs that are designed as teaching games. Anybody know of any others?

Gwen:
Thanks for the compliments. As for other mental conditions, I'm afraid I don't have much knowledge of the ones you mention. When I go forward with the project I'll do some research on them; don't know if I'll include them or not, but thanks for the idea.

I'm curious about your ideas for a light-hearted alternative style of play - what did you have in mind?

Ben:
No, the GM doesn't need to actually suffer from depression, and the "knowledge of" wording in that paragraph was intended to convey that. First draft and all that. :) Thanks for the tip.

You refer to "therapeutic RP" as if it were an established, uh, thing. Is RP a technique commonly used in therapy?

As for the heavy-handedness, yes. I wanted to model the bad days, not necessarily every day or even most days. Therefore the mechanics are negatively weighted to produce anxiety attacks. However, note that basically the GM is in charge of when the black die shoots up to d12 by controlling when triggers are encountered. Which is why the GM needs to have some knowledge of how depression works.

Dana:
The "rolling to breathe" comment needs to go, I agree. First draft and all that. More guidelines will be forthcoming, as well as a clearer presentation and such.

I thought about the idea of rolling to avoid harmful behaviors as you suggest, but decided against it. Here's why: It's too easy for people to come to grips with the concept of compulsion, and dismiss it. "Okay, I failed my roll. Now I'm toking up a spliff. How long will that take?" On the other hand, it's waaaaay more in-your-face for people to try to do things, to try to be proactive, and to be categorically denied. "Whaddya mean, I can't pick my car keys up off the dresser?"

On self-medication: that section isn't too explicit. For that matter, neither is the rest of the game. But here's the reason the self-med rule works the way it does: Self-medicating actually does make you feel better, if only for its numbing effect. People live fix to fix. (God help the poor bastard who goes off self-medicating, though.) That's why in the mechanics, self-medicating reduces the black die instead of modifying the white die. It's not really helping you; it's simply decreasing the depression by a small degree.

As for verisimilitude, I don't want that for the anxiety attack mechanics. What I do want is for the player to sit there and do nothing for twenty minutes to emphasize a couple things: (1) Twenty minutes is a long freakin' time. (2) During both the anxiety attack in the game and in real life, you accomplish nothing.

ethan_greer wrote:
You refer to "therapeutic RP" as if it were an established, uh, thing. Is RP a technique commonly used in therapy?

As for the heavy-handedness, yes. I wanted to model the bad days, not necessarily every day or even most days. Therefore the mechanics are negatively weighted to produce anxiety attacks. However, note that basically the GM is in charge of when the black die shoots up to d12 by controlling when triggers are encountered. Which is why the GM needs to have some knowledge of how depression works.

ethan_greer wrote:
I thought about the idea of rolling to avoid harmful behaviors as you suggest, but decided against it. Here's why: It's too easy for people to come to grips with the concept of compulsion, and dismiss it. "Okay, I failed my roll. Now I'm toking up a spliff. How long will that take?" On the other hand, it's waaaaay more in-your-face for people to try to do things, to try to be proactive, and to be categorically denied. "Whaddya mean, I can't pick my car keys up off the dresser?"

ethan_greer wrote:
On self-medication: that section isn't too explicit. For that matter, neither is the rest of the game. But here's the reason the self-med rule works the way it does: Self-medicating actually does make you feel better, if only for its numbing effect. People live fix to fix. (God help the poor bastard who goes off self-medicating, though.) That's why in the mechanics, self-medicating reduces the black die instead of modifying the white die. It's not really helping you; it's simply decreasing the depression by a small degree.

ethan_greer wrote:
As for verisimilitude, I don't want that for the anxiety attack mechanics. What I do want is for the player to sit there and do nothing for twenty minutes to emphasize a couple things: (1) Twenty minutes is a long freakin' time. (2) During both the anxiety attack in the game and in real life, you accomplish nothing.

I like the basic mechanics. It keeps things simple while being (to my experience, fairly accurate). However, i think you're going to have trouble using this in any sort of generation of specific understanding because from what i've read from clinically depressed people anxiety attacks can range in time. Twenty minutes seems to be the low end (i've seen 8+ hours).

Of course in terms of helping people understand clinical depression in a more general sense i must say that this seems to facilitate that...

Thomas

Rules Idea for Self-Medication:

Keep present rules, however, the act of self medication is always a trigger.

yrs--
--Ben

This is interesting. I have to admit, as a past sufferer, I found it kind of amusing. I know that wasn't your intention, but there you are.

I would love to see something that mechanically captures the extremely noxious property of depression that causes the sufferer to retroactively re-evaluate their entire past history in a negative light. Also, I loved having something good happen as a trigger. Hoo boy.

This could get pretty interesting with a bit of resource management, along the lines of a store of hope/positivity/whatever, which can be seriously wiped out by a couple triggers and some tightly looped neurotic thought-habits.

Though, as it stands it's probably perfectly adequate; lots of rules probably would not make for a therapeutic/educational game so much.

--JB

I have experience with psychotherapy, both in sessions and in college courses. I also have cyclothymia, a form of bipolar disorder. In addition, I have a few comments.

NPC Sensitivity--> I'd have the average NPC either have Low Sensitivity or be even lower than Low. People who have not experienced depression often write it off as laziness or sadness. This is not because they are bad people, but because they have never really experienced prolonged bouts of depression and don't understand how it feels.

Self-Medication--> I instantly came to the same conclusion as everyone else in that self-medication does NOT decrease depression. It may seem to the self-medicator that their depression is helped by taking drugs, recreationally or otherwise, but the usual effect is to either make the depression worse directly (In the case of things like sedatives or depressants) or compound them by making their lives more chaotic and hostile. In game terms, this would be represented by the GMT (Game Master Therapist?) either let the player think the black die was at most a d10 but secretly rolling the true numbers behind his GMT screen; or the player would find themselves having to roll much more often than usual. Also, many drugs suffer hangovers that dramatically increase the depression of the person for a longer amount of time than the alleged "benefits" of the drug. This includes both prescribed pharmaceuticals such as Ritalin (often given to bipolars misdiagnosed with ADHD, myself included) and proscribed chemicals (such as cocaine, alcohol, and illegally procured pharmaceuticals). The only pseudo-anitdepressant value of drugs often comes from the addiction to and procurement of said chemical. This will usually only motivate the person enough to get the chemical. So, if they have a job, it might be just to get money for crystal meth. If they leave the house, it might just be to get cigarettes and microwave burritos from the gas station.

Transcendence--> If used as a way to provide an endgame for the player who will likely be exhausted at the end, it is fine as left. If making for a series of sessions or "days" as a means of demonstrating a prolonged depression (sometimes these things last for years), then I feel it is appropriate for a player to be able to make preparations for the next day. That being that they pay their bills and rent, go grocery shopping, make sure their affairs are in order so that tomorrow, they will have fewer hassles to deal with. This is a very realistic assumption, I believe, as many people who suffer from varying psychological disturbances are very familiar with what they will need when an episode occurs (like people in California may stockpile canned goods and bottled water in case of an earthquake).

Finally, I'm glad someone brought up roleplaying in the context of therapy. Despite the vilification of D&D, many contemporary therapies (like Primal Scream... not the band) used the same techniques. The difference was that the psychotherapeutic techniques did not deal with swords, trolls and magic. I can say that I value games mostly because the rules are better structured and make more sense than much of real life. This also brings to mind Reality Therapy, which a social worker friend of mine told me about the other day. This is a confrontational technique that has been successfully used to treat people with autism. The idea is that people get instant tangible responses to their behavior (ie, if you break something of the therapist's, the therapist will break something of yours). As such, it makes perfect sense that a RPG, properly implemented, could actually help someone's mental state, given that the game was fair, well-GM'ed, and the subject matter was kept appropriate. Exactly what is meant by appropriate is difficult to guage, as I never finished my psyche degree.

Failrate:
I agree with what you say about self-medication. But in that last sentence in that paragraph, you wrote

So, if they have a job, it might be just to get money for crystal meth. If they leave the house, it might just be to get cigarettes and microwave burritos from the gas station.

Oh, and I almost forgot:

AnyaTheBlue wrote: So, you have to roll to start watching TV, but then you also have to roll to STOP watching TV?

What if self-medication reduced *both* the white die and the black die? So it would only provide a mechanical benefit if the white die was already at its minimum, but would seem like it was doing something at other times?

Also, it would be a clear detriment if the black die was already at the minimum.

Ethan

Maybe I am reading to much into what you mean by anxiety attack. But in
my experience (Type II biplar disorder and/or Clinical depression with
Dysthmia, depending on the doctor) I don't see the anxiety attack as
being result of depression. More like intense desire to withdraw from or
quit activity, complete loss of motivation to do what you are doing.
Perhaps anxiety attack just comes across as the wrong motivation.

As an additional comment, it seems there would be a darker version of
this problem, if I was to make this game. Basically dealing with suicidal
episodes and fear of ending up in hospital after acting out. WHich is the
cycle I am familiar with. You are beset by the 'pain' of the depression,
uneasiness, difficulty concentrating, restlessness, irritability, listlessness,
lack of affect, etc, etc, even changes in your sense of contrast, perception
of noise levels. In order to alleviate this feeling you act out by doing
various things, any thing to alleviate the hurting , sleeping, drugs, sex,
withdrawing or you eventually fail to cope and start planning a suicide.
But that would be a game more representative of my experience I guess


I like the black die/white die concept.

best

Rob
(Whose black die feels like a d100 most of the time.)

lpsmith:
Welcome to the Forge!

Your suggestion is interesting. I'll definitely keep it in mind as I work on figuring out how I'm going to deal with self-medication. Thanks!

Rob:
Perhaps instead of "anxiety attack" I could change it to just "attack" and leave it more open to interpretation. I'll have to mull it over.

As far as suicide is concerned, I did consider including some mechanics for it. But then I decided I want to keep that word out of the game if at all possible. Reason: "Suicide" is a word that leaps into the mind of the reader and says "bad bad bad!" When that lands in the reader's brain, I see it as an opportunity to stop thinking, because "suicide is bad, and can stem from depression" is basically a truism in this culture. I worry that if I include the word, readers who are not familiar with clinical depression might assume that suicide is the key indicator or logical conclusion of depression, and anything "less" is not particularly significant. Which is of course false.

On the other hand, "Thoughts of death and/or suicide" would make for a dandy trigger.

Thanks to all thus far for your comments.

OK, so the mechanics of this intrigued me, and I wrote a little program to simulate a series of 'day in the lifes' to see what sort of patterns emerged.

One thing that jumped out of the rules is that there is no explicit mechanism for the black die to increase--as written only the white die can ever increase. This means that as soon as the white die wins anything, the black die drops and never recovers, meaning there's no possibility of an anxiety attack (the numbers turn out to be that anxiety attacks happen only 15% of the time.)

Putting in a parallel mechanism for the black die increasing (when it wins and rolled its max), the numbers go to about 50/50 anxiety attack vs. transcendence, as you might expect. Is this a reasonable model for depression? If not, you might want to give one side or the other some advantage.

Another thing that jumped out is what happens when you roll a tie. I had my program just re-roll, but this might make a convenient entrypoint for some other mechanic you want to introduce (like giving ties to the black die, for instance, if you didn't want it to be 50/50). Another thing to consider is what to do if one or both dies roll their maximum during a tie.

The length of a game is pretty widely variable, but tends towards the short. The minimum number of decisions is 4, with the white or black die losing 4 times in a row, which happens almost 30% of the time (15% each for transcendence vs. anxiety attacks). If the initial dice are d10's, the minimum number is 3, and the number of 3- or 4-decision days drops a bit to about 25%. If the initial dice are d8's, the minimum drops to 2, but the number of 2-, 3-, or 4- decision days drops to only 7%.

The maximum number of decisions in my 10,000-game run was 479. Presumably in such a case, the day would end without either result happening, which is probably fine. The average number of decisions before some result was reached was about 30.

It's a perl program which I put up at http://bioc.rice.edu/~lpsmith/IF/depression_game.pl Enjoy!

And thanks for the welcome ;-)

[Edit: some of my numbers were initially off due to counting ties as decisions instead of re-rolls.]

But there is a mechanism for the black die to increase:

"Whenever a trigger is encountered in play, the black die jumps to d12 (or its maximum allowable level)."

Do your numbers include that?

And the triggers are completely arbitrary, which is a great idea. A mechanical determination of triggers wouldn't be as interesting, and probably not as realistic either.

Thomas

Oops, missed that. I suppose I could put in the chance an event is a trigger to vaguely model the system, but we're treading in even more vague territories, here.

Hopefully, the program as written will provide some insight. One thing to note would be that if the trigger is the only thing that ups the die, the events immediately following the trigger are extremely likely to trigger an anxiety attack, but then once the white die has won once, the danger is past. (Well, the danger of triggering an anxiety attack, not the danger of not being able to actually accomplish anything). As such, triggers would be the only thing that could cause anxiety attacks. If you want to model other things causing anxiety attacks, some other model of black-die-raising (like the one for white die raising) is in order.

Cool concept, in case I hadn't mentioned that before.

Well, literally, an unnoticed trigger, just a bout of insomnia or even nothing at all (except for the complex neurochemistry of the brain) can trigger a bout of depression. From a pure game point of view, it seems like it is assumed that at the beginning of the game session, the player "character" is either within, or has just entered, a depressive episode. That is, he might have been just fine a week, a month, a day, an hour ago, but now he is having a prolonged episode combined with *particularly* bad episodes within (described as "attacks"). That said, given the fact that each person could have a laundry list of potential triggers, there really doesn't need to be any other black-die raising mechanic. That black monster will leap up to d12 numerous times throughout the day, and it is only through resisting this depression successfully that the person will be able to max out white or avoid an episode. Truly, just sitting or lying in one position staring at a spot on the ceiling just because you can't roll higher on your white die (despite hunger, thirst, the need to get washed and dressed to go to work) is too damn common.

Hi lpsmith,
Wow, cool. Glad you liked the game enough to tinker with it programatically! :) One thing you missed - tied rolls go to black. Otherwise, though, it's very cool to have the average number of decisions, mins and maxes, etc. Thanks very much.

Those interested in the mechanics of this game might also want to check out Pollies, upon which this game's dice mechanics are based.

I find the amount of objection to self-medication rules kind of interesting.

I'm sure that while it's partly based on fact, the volume and enthusiasm of the objections probably partly stems from the "war on drugs" stigma against drugs one decides to take oneself rather than drugs one's doctor in his infinite wisdom has bestowed upon one.

If self-medication didn't, in some fashion and to some degree, work, then people wouldn't do it. The question is whether the degree to which it works is canceled out by social/legal and medical problems that it causes in the long run.

But this game is not about the long run, it's about the short run.

@ i like the premise. Not crazy about the mechs, but that is just me. Here's what i'd like to add....

@ Poisoned Relief: have a trait that measures current state of mind and the over state of mental health. Negative behaviors such as drugs, careless sex and the like might ameliorate the current state, but at the cost of increasing the permanant mental health problem. Getting drunk might drop your black die tonight, but for the rest of the month (or indefinately) you are going to suffer for it.

@ Fetters: take a look at the fetters in Wraith. Each ghost has *issues* called fetters, things unresolved that keep them from moving to the next level. Resolving those things moves the character to its 'final reward'. It is not enough to say 'you are X depressed' and then work on it. Depression has causes, some neurochemical, genetic, situational or developmental. Maybe this character has an imbalance, this other character's wife just died in some horrid way, and the other character had a fuct childhood. The total depression is the sum of all of those things. Some of these fetters are obvious, some may be unknown to the player. Which makes sense because sometime ppl have no idea why they are depressed. Part of the game can be finding out why. Then comes the next step.

@ Resolution: each issue has some real and useful means of being conquered, or at least held at bay. If the depression is chemical, then the player must seek therapy and a prozac despenser. This might cost some money or getting a job with benefits. Ta daa! A clear mission. "I have to get off my ass and find a job with benefits so i can get happy". If it is a situational cause there are different obsticles to overcome. And so on.

@ Depression is often a matter of not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. So for the player, they must identify what is blocking the light and then remove the obstructions... or light a candle that will eat the oxygen in their personal collapsed cave.

@ You've got something good here, publish it!

This is a wonderful way of expressing clinical depression in terms of game mechanics. I therefore do not recommend that anyone with clinical depression play it. As we know, accurately perceiving the world around you is a symptom of clinical depression; and all we can do is treat the symptoms...

Hi folks, thanks for the praise, thoughts, and suggestions. Those interested can rest assured this is on my pile of potential projects/products that are queueing up with alarming rapidity considering how behind I am on getting my "main" game done. :)

Well, I've mulled now and then over a more general psychoanalytic game - one with multiple GMs and an uncomfortable level of intimacy, to be exact. And as everyone is advertising their psychological problems as recommendations, I probably have to mention my clinically depressed brother and the strong general disposition in the family.

Anyway, now that that's over with, the point. My central question would be if the game is intented to objectivise or subjectivise the experience of clinical depression. You could make it much more disturbing by positing that the general milieu and particulars of the game be lifted from the life of the player, for example. "Your life in depression", as it were. On the other hand, adding a character creation phase (from which the triggers could be derived) is one way of removing the experience and objectivising it.

In any case I feel that there is generally more to be done with the mechanics. A rules light game is of course fine, but the incidious subject matter easily inspires more aspects to simulate. I like the main mechanic, so it's a good start, but I'll throw a couple of points to consider.

Gaining and losing triggers could be done, for example. The game would in a campaign form (more than one day) probably span weeks at most (although nothing would stop the GM from skipping if there was some greater point to be made), so flashbacking might be in order. From my experience the retroactive re-evaluation of your previous life alluded to by someone is quite common, so that could be a source of new triggers in longer term play.

There are some other statistics that might need quantifying, depending on your theory about the inner nature of depression. I would, for example, include dreams instead of / in addition to triggers, as the triggering situations and the logic behind them seem to arise from a perceived failure relating to the idealised self-image. Depends on how deep in to the psychology the game would go.

It seems to me that the driving point behind the modifiers and self-medication is whether you perceive a given solution as delusional (using drugs to lessen the anxiety) or a real help (counseling, anti-depressants). Would it be more appropriate to leave this division for the players? Just name the two categories a little more generally (and maybe add more categories like something that stops the black die from dropping below d6?) and leave it to the GM to decide if some modifier in his understanding of depression belongs to a category (or more than one!). This could be formalised by stating that the player could request evaluation for a given situation, activity etc. and the GM would assign it to a category. As the point of the game is for the depression-experienced GM to teach the young grasshopper, this would free him to impart his own understanding about it, relative to the character played (which could conceivably affect the usefulness of f.ex. counseling!).

To finish, about therapeutic and entertainment roleplaying: I don't personally see any insurmountible barrier between them. I'd say that the difference is more important for those who emphasize the difference between art and entertainment. If your entertainment is art, it probably includes some heavy subjects. Indeed, one could say that art as a taste is all about searching for the ultimate experience. Wallowing in heavy depression sounds quite entertaining to me, for example. If a game like this would help role immersion related to depression, it'd be entirely viable as entertainment for me. I think I'll actually try this one of these days...

I have been lurking in this forum for quite a while but this topic had me interested enough to register and post something.

I have suffered from clinical depression for many years (without realizing it for what it was) so the title of this post atutomatically caught my attention. My problem is that the game seems too reminiscent of this dark period in my life. It's just not something I would play. Maybe it can be therapuetic for some people but it would probably have the opposite effect on me. I'ts not really the problem with having a game focused on psychological problems but that your game is perhaps too upfront. I think it would work if it was a bit more subtle or metaphorical. Bring the setting more into the realm of fantasy while keeping the psychological aspects similar but a bit distant from reality. For example, a game like Wraith is a ghost story about the undead. Standard fantastical setting. What makes it interesting is all the psychological aspects of the game that everyone can relate to in their own way. You have a shadow which is constantly taunting you with your failures and problems and things you missed out in your life. At the same time you have all these attachments still to your life, whether it be friends and family or whatever that keeps you from going over the edge. All of these aspects are of a fantastical rather then direct nature but each player can understand himself/herself better through it. Thats the type of thing that I would like to see in a psychological focused game. I just feel that your game hits too close to home for me.

The game is intended to be very subjective, and played one on one. The player plays himself or herself (more or less; the triggers are added on and will probably be fictional). The GM is a person who has either suffered from clinical depression or has knowledge of clinical depression.

The reason I would play the game (and the reason I designed it) is for those times when someone without knowledge or understanding of depression asks me something like, "but why are you depressed?" or "what's depression like?"

Bluntly, depressed people or people who understand depression don't need to be players, and probably shouldn't be. The game is more a tool for depression sufferers to illustrate to others what depression is like. As such, the ideas for character creation and such don't quite fit - the game needs to have minimal set-up time and needs to be as accessible as possible to the non-gamer, so that it could be initiated almost conversationally to someone who has never played an RPG in their life. The next draft will have guidelines for setup and play.

All that being said, thanks to those who have brought up Wraith. I wouldn't have thought of it, and I see that it could potentially be a valuable idea mine for this game. Are there any other games folks can think of with psychological themes?

Eero, I like your thoughts about self-medication and behavior categories. Good stuff. And if you do try the game out, I'd love to hear about it - start a thread in Actual Play if you're so inclined.

Hi Starlight_Rider, and welcome to the Forge! Does the explanation above address your concerns about the purpose of the game, and its application? I don't want to get too personal, but my take is that you would certainly not want to be a player in the game. Instead, as a GM, you could theoretically use the game to explain depression to friends or family.

Again, thanks to all for your thoughts on the game.

Are there any other games folks can think of with psychological themes?

ethan_greer wrote:
Hi Starlight_Rider, and welcome to the Forge! Does the explanation above address your concerns about the purpose of the game, and its application? I don't want to get too personal, but my take is that you would certainly not want to be a player in the game. Instead, as a GM, you could theoretically use the game to explain depression to friends or family.

Amazing job, ethan. I agree with your decision not to have dice rolls that force characters to do something; I'm not sure exactly how, but they really don't fit in with depression at all.

Besides, while not everyone experiences depression the same way, I would like to state that in my own past experiences, there are absolutely no rolls required not to do anything in real life. Depression doesn't encourage you to do ANYTHING; quite the opposite. "Self-medication" actually requires you to overcome depression in a very short-term sense. Depression isn't like addiction; you don't have to keep from doing anything, you just have to apply effort to do anything except breathe and blink. Except maybe the "roll not to cry" thing; that's something that can just happen without effort.

(Note: Many depressed people get addicted to things, but that's not a result of depression effects on the mind, that's a result of trying to cure it. A bout of depression doesn't make you want to drink unless you're already prone to; rather, an attempt to escape a bout of depression, which is something you have to attempt, rather than resist, causes one to self-medicate. However, self-medication can lead to addiction, which is an unrelated illness which competes with depression's apathy but only in certain areas.)

The problem I see with the game is that people that aren't familiar with depression won't believe you. They've never had to put forth effort to sit up, and they'll think you're exaggerating.

Still, this is a lot better idea than my depression-era hate fantasies about having the ability to curse others with temporary depression episodes so they'd understand.

This is a really impressive idea, Ethan. Thanks for posting it. There was some discussion of this not being "gamelike", but strictly simulation oriented (it's does not seem particularly therepeutic in terms of getting someone to work with their depression--as many people have noted here, if you are suffering from depression, this game would probably hit too close to home to be comfortable)--but that's pretty ephemeral. It's has fairly serious themes, so it is far from frivolous, but games can be educational. It seems like a great way to help folks have an insight into what it's like. Belac does have a point though--non-sufferers might think it mere exaggeration.

A therapeutic version of this game might include more mechanisms for coping techniques, and focus less on the immersion into the experience of depression. I can't think of any specific mechanics this moment, but something that allowed the player more distance from the depression, and that gave strong positive feedback for activities that do help when one is depressed might be a good way for people who are depressed to gain an internal experience of the fact that it is possible to get help/do better.

I think there is a lot of potential in this kind of game. Role-playing is a narrative structure that is uniquely suited to just this purpose: helping folks have a visceral or emotional experience of what it's like to be a person or in a state different from one's usual experience. My entry to the Iron Game Chef-sim tournament was based on that principle: simulating what it would be like to be a human colonist emigrating to an alien planet, trying to assimilate all the new experiences and trying to make sense of completely alien beings, worlds and cultures (I was in large part inspired by Octavia Butler's Lillith trilogy--highly recommended reads). And fate willing, I'll someday finish the games I have in mind to explore slavery, and gender differences.

Good luck with it Ethan. Again, I say thanks, and bravo. :)

--Emily