Depression, Schemas and Emotion Moodles

[Ontogenesis]

There's a book by Stephen King called 'Misery', where the main character is held hostage by an obsessed fan in order to write another book of her favourite series. There's a scene (leg amputation aside) where she flies into a rage after he writes a dead character back to life by changing the circumstances already written. She's angry because she considers this 'cheating'. I mention this in terms of this suggestion because I think moodles that state 'depressed' is cheating - depression is a diagnostic label that covers huge range of somatic (physical), emotional, interpersonal and cognitive experiences. These experiences should be shown, otherwise the label is meaningless.

 

I propose:

> Include emotion moodle

> Depression that is represented by in-game effects and not just a moodle

> Schemas - rolled at the beginning that determine characters sensivities

 

1) Emotion Moodle

 

Moodles currently show physical symptoms (hunger, temperature, pain, tiredness).

I think it would be useful to include a semi permanent emotion moodle that expresses the characters current feeling. This would provide information on their state. E.g. content, sad, anger, happy, joy, frustration, surprise, love, anxiety etc.

This would particularly come into play within any mental health system introduced into the game, where affective components are generally what defines the experience (even schizophrenia).

 

2) Depression

 

Symptoms (in game effects):

 

- Low mood or sadness occuring frequently and for long periods

- Irritability - quick to anger when interacting with NPCs

- Increased, or decreased appetite

- Increased, or decreased sleep

- Disturbed sleep - difficulty falling asleep or waking in the night

- Tiredness regardless of sleep

- Lack of energy and low motivation - Slower movement, decreased holding weight, fatigue much faster

- Difficulty concentrating - reading skill books is much slower, crafting is much slower

- Memory problems - less xp from performing tasks

 

There are multiple cognitive symptoms (e.g. the 'cognitive triad' or low self esteem) that currently can't really be portrayed. I thought about proposing a 'thoughts' moodle to give the topic the character was thinking about, but it may be too much work to include (would be very interesting though!).

 

Severity:

 

Depression should be a continuum from mild, to moderate, to severe. The above symptoms effects should increase appropriately. Severe depression is crippling, and the PC should suffer appropriately.

 

Causes:

 

See the schemas section. Other could include trauma, upheaval (e.g. losing a long term safe house) or long term deprivation of other needs (e.g. food, water, safety, social etc.). Depression does not fall from the sky, so should never occur randomly, but should always been in context of the characters world.

 

Considerations:

 

- Social support - evidence shows support acts as a buffer against negative events. Those in groups with close relationships have reduced chance of developing depression, and/or it passes more quickly

- Behaviour - currently the game has boredom. Although this is sort of related: depression tends to lead to self-isolation and withdrawal from activites, and thus from any rewarding engagement with the environment. The lack of activities can lead to, or at least maintain depression.

- Suicide - control taken away from the player I consider false difficulty and comes under my 'cheating' category. Suicide should come from the frustration of the player not being able to deal with a depressed charater, and thus reflecting the important element of hopelessness about the future.

- Relapse - the biggest factor that predicts relapse is the number of relapses in the past. The more times someone has been depressed, the more likely they'll get depressed (can explain this if anyone wants further info).

 

Recovering:

 

The most obvious treatments include:

 

- Time (no treatment) - called spontaneous remission, one article states about a quarter of people will recover from depression without any treatment after approximately three months, this goes up to about half in a about a year. Of course this means it can take much longer without.

- Antidepressants - different strengths depending on depth of depression. Risk of side effects. Only treats current episode of depression.

- Self help books - slow recover, but increased protection against future depressive episodes.

- Psychological therapy - if an NPC in the group is trained. Faster recover, good protection against future depressive episodes. Variable effects depending on person.

 

3) Schemas

 

Schemas is a psychological term to describe our knowledge structures. Young developed it into it's own type of therapy (which is brilliant by the way). It describes how our early experiences developed patterns we tend to repeat when we're older, especially in relationships. In the sense in could be used in PZ, is that it could determine how each character is more sensitive to different events, i.e. what makes one character depressed, doesn't necessarily make another. These would be invinsible but used behind the scenes for calcualtions for emotions and onset of depression. Some good ones are:

 

- Loss - losses through death or abandonment are particulary stressful

- Rejection - percieved rejection from groups or their members leads to stress

- Isolation - being alone too long leads to stress

- Separate in a group - part of a group, but not really fitting in leads to feelings of alienation

- Mistrust/Abuse - being robbed or used by other people is particulary hurtful

- Subjugation - being under an authoratarian leader leads to resentful and internalised anger

- Shame - performing acts that the character is shameful of leads later to depression

- Unrelenting Standards - being not the best at something leads to stress

- Entitlement - not being given what they want leads to resentment

 

These could be rolled on each character creation to determine their makeup. Random may mean mean they are more vunerable to a few things, or none of them.

[Burianu]

I really like your thinking here and fully support it. +1  

[DoctahWong]

Like the idea, have my +1.

 

 

Also, wasn't there a film adaption of that book?

[GoldenBullet]

Just got done finishing a zombie book by Stephen King called "Cell", sadly it wasn't even close to being good, he should stick with horror and stay away from zombies lol.

 

Anyway on topic, your right about depression but I don't think that this would fit into the game well. Seriously you just wrote out an entire essay about a single moodle. Having so many complex formula's and mechanics for a single bad trait woudl not be good for the game. There is a such thing as over-complexity.

 

The depressed state of the mind is no more special than all the others. Meaning unless the developers plan on making every single personality/ state of feeling moodle super complex, this goes above and beyond sense. It would be like making a single weapon take into account the speed your running at, the angle you hit the opponent, direction of the wind, ect; while making all the other weapons just have flat damage based on the amount of charge time -______-.

[nasKo]

Just got done finishing a zombie book by Stephen King called "Cell", sadly it wasn't even close to being good, he should stick with horror and stay away from zombies lol.

 

Anyway on topic, your right about depression but I don't think that this would fit into the game well. Seriously you just wrote out an entire essay about a single moodle. Having so many complex formula's and mechanics for a single bad trait woudl not be good for the game. There is a such thing as over-complexity.

 

The depressed state of the mind is no more special than all the others. Meaning unless the developers plan on making every single personality/ state of feeling moodle super complex, this goes above and beyond sense. It would be like making a single weapon take into account the speed your running at, the angle you hit the opponent, direction of the wind, ect; while making all the other weapons just have flat damage based on the amount of charge time -______-.

But depression being a single moodle or "trait", how you called it, is exactly what Onto does not want.

He is suggesting a complete new system for depression instead of it being a simple moodle.

 

I find depressions a bit more "special" than being bored, cold or drunk and who's to say that the game won't offer more complex systems to "moodles", maybe not just indicating them with a simple icon, at some point?

[Daec]

maybe i just confused the "rolled on every character creation" part. Cause "rolled" implies the factor of randomness to me.

i like your ide but you'd have to be able to set the mindset of your character while creation to avoid your character to force you into a playstyle you don't want.

 

i.e. if i'm totally conviced that avoidance and would be my only way to survive. i should be able to set my characters mindset to that so that he won't get depressed from beeing alone but maybe even feel safe while he's alone. And he'd need a relative long time with someone he likes and trust to feel safe around or with him then.

 

though GoldenBullet's post sounds like he would like to put a "finished" sticker on PZ an we're done (no offensive meaning here) he's kind of right that the system is a little complex. On the other hand, we don't really know if the devs don't even plan to make "mental health" a really vital and complex part of the game, wich would mean that your system might fit and every mental state has to have a similar complexity. wich woulnd't be bad since mental health is complex. But then other systems (i.e. the whole medical system) should reach a similar complexity level....wich makes you question if the whole game wouldn't get to complex and to much micromanagment. BUT...your whole system would basically apply as a basis for every mental state depending wich schema is in what exact state...cause if not depressed you have to be in another mental state.

 

small example for my avoidance character:

His only friend died, he got robbed several times in the past weeks and, since he beleives in avoidance, he lives isolated.

Schemas:

Loss: the loss on it's own would in that case be enough for a (mild) depression since it took so long to build trust.

Abuse: The constant abuse of robbery add in to the loss

Isolation: On it's own wouldn't lead to depression since his mindset of avoidance would play against it but would maybe give a constant malus on mental health

Insanity!

 

of course this needs to be fleshed out more.

you'd have to have w whole new window in character creation, similar to the traits, dealing only with mindset and mental status

[Suomiboi]

Edit: was ment as an answer to GoldenBullet ^ I have to disagree. I think a mental state which is the most important in zombie related story telling is depression. Therefore I think it should be covered extensively and not in a "just another moodle" kind of way.

As Onto said the devs are already planning a mental health system so I would think other states of mind will be covered with that. Also there're not that many buffs or differences in being happy or just sad as to how you actually function irl. If there are any other states that you can think of that would be as heavy on a person, with as much complexity then I think it would be worth while to add the same level of complexity to those.

I personally think this would add a lot of depth to the gameplay.

[Viceroy]

I like it, more character complexity and mood/morale feedback is always great. Wholly in favour. Especially if it is possible to select your characters 'coping' mechanisms. Like one character would overeat, another would stop eating, one would talk to himself, others would seek artistic release. It can really be a fun mechanic especially for RP.

[GoldenBullet]

Well i don't have a problem with a mental health system, im saying that if it's a mental health system it needs to include all states of mind and not just be 90% depression. Meaning you should get bonuses for being in a good state of mind and not just reductions for being in a bad one. I think a more feasible way would just to add a hidden mental health meter to the game that acts like a health bar.

 

Certain actions could reduce it such as having one of your npc allies killed, burning your safehouse down, ect. While other actions could increase it such as being around other people, having a nice house, ect.

 

Also I think schema's need to be redone. Schema's are ways you view certain systems of the world and society, they are not solely personality disorders for example. A person could have a schema that all people good, causing them to have an easier time to create and maintain relationships. Basically these would just be like "brooding/anger" traits.

[Suomiboi]

The thing is there aren't many good buffs irl associated with being happy for example. You don't run any faster, tire slower etc. Maybe you could have small buff on carry weight, learning and short time sprinting, but that's basically all the benefits from extremely good motivation.

You don't necessarily take notice when you're happy, but you certainly notice all the things missing when you're not. This is why positive buffs aren't that important in games as they don't correspond to real life either.

I agree that I'd rather pick the personality type as a trait such as the brooding etc. I don't think there is necessarily a need to hide these as schemas.

[Sieben]

The thing is there aren't many good buffs irl associated with being happy for example. You don't run any faster, tire slower etc. Maybe you could have small buff on carry weight, learning and short time sprinting, but that's basically all the benefits from extremely good motivation.

You don't necessarily take notice when you're happy, but you certainly notice all the things missing when you're not. This is why positive buffs aren't that important in games as they don't correspond to real life either.

I agree that I'd rather pick the personality type as a trait such as the brooding etc. I don't think there is necessarily a need to hide these as schemas.

 

There could be a "Motivated" ,"Encourage" or "Moralized" moodle . Sounds better than "Happy".

 

Edit: "Inspired" and "Ambition". Conditions where humans brings up highest performance.

Edited March 19, 2014 by Sieben

[Ontogenesis]

In reply to the above, I hope you don't mind if I summarise the points as I understand them so I can respond:

 

1) Too complex of a system for a single problem, with the inclusion of others it would be too much

 

Agreed. However, I consider depression and anxiety to be transdiagnostic, that is, no matter the 'diagnosis', these still feature frequently. I actually believe it would be a mistake to include any more than those two disorders. Personality disorders would be oversimplifed to interpersonal problems, and thus just be irritating. With bipolar disorder it would be difficult to represent manic/hypomanic states with them either being greatly beneficial or taking control from the player. Schizophrenia and it's variants you... could probably do, though the player would quickly realise, although there are ways of countering this. In all though, if you were going to do one or two, and do them right, it'd be depression and anxiety.

 

2) 'Rolling' schemas might interfer with desired play style

 

True. Like any sandbox game, it would be good to either set them yourself, or have the option to randomise (and be unknown). However, it would spice things up if they were rolled for the NPCs in the game. You would have to learn what NPCs are sensitive to what, and how to manage them more easily, without them exploding, being offended, getting depressed, or leaving the group (through repeated abuse). You could use the last one to deliberately press buttons if you wanted to provoke someone for whatever reason, although have to hide it from other group members or be kicked out yourself.

 

3) Benefits for being happy/good state of mind

 

Also agreed. I tend to think of happiness as the result of: the absense of something negative, and the presence of something positive. Some people aren't depressed, but they're not especially happy. Keeping up morale, a solid group, well fed, supplied, protected, good relationships, would all lead to a sense of wellbeing. Performance increases for people in good moods (I remember one study where doctors were better at spotting lung cancer, depending if they were in a good mood or not).

 

4) Inclusion of positive/adapative schemas

 

A good idea, I only focused on the maladaptive schemas above, i.e. the ones that lead to problematic patterns (not necessarily personaality disorders though) in a way to provide variability for what leads to depression by person. The system would bode well to include other useful ones too. Although the assumption is that not having maladaptive schemas means you have adaptive ones.

 

Good discussion points here:)

Also, sorry about the second essay