I'm getting back into EP and working on starting a campaign. There are lots of little details I'm having to relearn, but one thing's hit me as especially odd.
In the Mind Hack section, it mentions that the disorder(s) you receive due to levels of the Psi trait can be removed as normal by psychotherapy. Looking at the rules on that, I see that it's usually not going to be a very easy role, and does take 40 hours of therapy, but that seems to be it. A few weeks of therapy with a skilled therapist should handle most cases for any async that wants to deal with their disorders. Am I missing a rule there?
The problem here is as much world consistency as anything else. If it's even relatively easy to deal with these, why does every async have one when they start? Obviously you can decide the disorder is part of your character and you plan to keep it, but that shouldn't be everyone's answer. It just seems odd to force a disadvantage that can be removed during downtime.
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Psi and therapy
Mon, 2012-07-30 13:58
#1
Pandion
Psi and therapy
Mon, 2012-07-30 14:42
#2
Decivre
First off, there is one key
First off, there is one key thing you should know about mental therapy:
You must acknowledge you have a problem before it can be treated.
That might not seem so profound, but it's essential to understanding the difficulties of mental therapy. And this is true for nearly any mental illness. If you are a megalomaniac, the first step to treating it is to self-acknowledge that you aren't as powerful as you think you are, you aren't as special as you think you are, and that you need help for your delusions of grandeur. I don't know if you've ever met a megalomaniac (I have), but that's not nearly as easy as you might think it sounds.
The same is true for addicts, obsessive compulsives, and virtually all mental disorders. Until they acknowledge that their disorder is an issue, it can never be fixed or treated. You might be able to give them medicine to mask the problem, but you'd still have to convince them they need to take that medicine. Unless you forcibly do so.
So the biggest difficulty is a roleplaying one. You aren't just portraying someone who isn't completely right in the head. You are probably portraying someone who doesn't think there's anything wrong with them, or isn't willing to acknowledge it.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
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Mon, 2012-07-30 15:28
#3
CodeBreaker
I can melt someone’s brain
I can melt someone’s brain with my mind, I am smarter and more intuitive than ever before, I can 'see the Matrix'. Why would I want to get this treated? I don't think I am the next stage in human evolution. I [i]am[/i] the next step. Actually, I am the next leap.
—
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Mon, 2012-07-30 15:46
#4
Pandion
That's a perfectly sensible
That's a perfectly sensible character concept, but it's limiting as well. Obviously some people in this world get treated for disorders. There are rules for it, and certainly people in the real world do seek therapy sometimes.
I suppose what's bothering me here is that there isn't any good reason why all player asyncs need to be resistant to therapy. Many would be, yes, but if keeping your disorder is vital, than why is there not only rule support for getting rid of it, but not even a note mentioning that it works better if you don't quickly try to get rid of it? It's obviously not tied in with the powers directly, since you can have it healed without losing access to those.
If it comes down to the fact that there's nothing actually preventing asyncs from getting psychotherapy to completely remove their disorders, and that players will just always be in the admittedly fairly common group that don't wish to or haven't been able to, then that answers my initial question, it just seems like an odd way for them to have set that up.
Tue, 2012-07-31 05:34
#5
Arenamontanus
When I saw the thread title,
When I saw the thread title, I misunderstood it and started thinking of an async giving therapy. Which at once seems to be a great idea (many sleights would really help) and a very, very bad idea (someone with *issues* and possibly The Virus interacting straight with your mind).
Which of course immediately suggests an interesting adventure: the hunt for a really successful psychiatrist who just happens to be async and slowly but very subtly warps the minds of everybody he touches.
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Tue, 2012-07-31 07:14
#6
Decivre
Pandion wrote:That's a
The keyword there is [i]sometimes[/i]. Mental disorders are the least understood, hardest to treat and most difficult to diagnose of any health problems. And most statistics regarding mental health are pretty dismal; read up on the estimates regarding how many US soldiers have PTSD, versus how many are actually in treatment for it. The numbers aren't very good.
Yes there is. You're asking how mental disorders are a disadvantage if I don't portray a person with actual mental disorders. Of course they aren't going to be a disadvantage then, the mental disorder trait tends to be rather weak in the context of no roleplay. But a character who is portrayed as having a mental disorder is not going to have so simple a time as going in for therapy whenever one crops up. Many people take [i]years[/i] to acknowledge they have a problem that needs treating in the first place.
Why? Even when you take psi out of the equation, the mental disorder trait is pretty broken without roleplay as a factor. I could take 5 disorders, get 50 free points for my character, and treat them rather quickly at the beginning of play (in accelerated space, no less). Bam, instant points. No fuss, just bonuses.
But then that makes for terrible play, does it not?
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Tue, 2012-07-31 07:16
#7
Decivre
Arenamontanus wrote:When I
Actually, my character is a fairly good therapist. And it fits in line with his megalomania; he's the messiah of minds, ready to heal the wounds of all those around him.
Just don't tell him he has a problem. He can break your brain just as easily as he can fix it.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Tue, 2012-07-31 13:25
#8
Re-Laborat
Decivre wrote:Why? Even when
I have had a player try to pull this. I quite simply stated that the mental disorders as purchased in chargen were long-term gradually-built-up effects the character had suffered, as opposed to something new (during play) which they recognized as a recent change/problem due to trauma. As such, they would have to play them and be stuck with them until they could 'buy them off' with points as well as having them treated in game.
Wed, 2012-08-01 16:54
#9
Pandion
Decivre wrote:The keyword
I'm not sure what point you're going for here. Your facts are correct in the modern day. They don't have much to do with character concept though. Are you trying to convince me that many people wouldn't have looked for therapy? I understand that. I have no problem coming up with a concept that involves a character who never received therapy. In fact, the async in my game that started this line of thought is doing that. One of my players is in grad school to become a psycotherapist, so we're fairly aware of the state of mental care currently. This problem is taken care of in the game I'm running, I'm just thinking about it in Eclipse Phase in general.
My actual topic is potential character concepts though, and the current design limiting asyncs in a weird way. Let's look at at your soldier example, since I think the facts there are sound. If someone came to me wanting to play a soldier with PTSD, that would makes sense, and be fine. It would be easy to come up with reasons they were never treated for it. On the other hand, if someone came to me with a soldier who had suffered from PTSD, but after it caused his marriage to break up he went into therapy and had it treated, I'd say that was fine too. The fact that that's a less common situation doesn't mean no one's allowed to play it. So why do they make it so you can only play an async who hasn't successfully received treatment?
I'm not asking that. In fact, the point is that it's not a disadvantage. It's attached to a positive trait. Actual negative traits work just fine, but in this case they're sticking one onto a positive trait, then giving no penalty for removing it. There's no rules or in world reason someone can't get rid of it. I'm also not sure why you bring up disorders cropping up. A disorder in Eclipse Phase can be dealt with permanantly through successful therapy. A level 1 async will have one disorder. Once that's gone, it's gone, and new ones will only crop up when something causes them, just like everyone else. They also imply that it is fairly standard to seek out psychological help after running into exsurgent horrors, so going in for therapy after trauma is not that strange.
The comment about it taking years is also odd for several reasons. First, this is still about character concepts and options. I character could have gotten Watts-Macleod and an associated disorder years ago. The one mentioned during the Firewall exchange in the Mind Hacks chapter aquired it during the Fall, for example. Also, every bit of description about how people feel after developing psi involves their mind feeling strange or foreign afterward. Being exposed to something possibly Titan-based that causes your mind to feel weird is very different from naturally having or developing a disorder. At the very least, the person could use their Muse, as they're all half-way decent pyschotherapists, and always present.
There may be a disconnect between us due to how you're viewing other negative traits. They don't work that way. By the rules, if you et rid of a negative trait in play, you do have to pay back the cost in Rez Points. This deals with this possibility pretty well, and allows the player to later decide that it makes sense for their character to be treated if they want, without worrying about balance issues.
There's a second point here too, which is that someone taking a disorder as a negative trait is deciding they want to take that disorder. Someone taking Psi as a trait may mostly be planning to take it to play an async, and then get the disorders shoved on them. If they were permanent, or if treating them got rid of the Psi ability, then this would make sense, but neither is true.
At this point, if anyone wanted to play an async who'd been treated for their disorders, I'd probably just treat the disorders like any other negative trait, and have them pay them off if they wanted. Just keep them separate from the usual trait limits and everything is fine.
Wed, 2012-08-01 17:35
#10
Decivre
Pandion wrote:I'm not sure
I would allow the example you gave as well, but I probably wouldn't allow it within the context of purchasing the disorder trait. A soldier who used to have PTSD, as portrayed in Eclipse Phase, would not get points for a disorder he used to have.
As for asyncs, you have to remember that they haven't existed very long. The longest any person has had psi abilities, in the context of the setting, is 10 years… and they'd have to have gotten those abilities in the midst of the Fall. So I'm not sure many psychologists and psychiatrists have fully grasped how to treat Watts-Macleod induced mental disorders by this time.
But if you wished to portray a character who had already treated their mental issues relatively early, I'd say make them removable by CP purchase… the same price as acquiring the disorder. You might even count this removal as a positive trait, reducing the number of positive traits the character can get otherwise.
Mental disorders are negative traits, purchaseable at creation for 10 CP (-10? Are they really purchaseable if you're the one getting paid?) a piece. In effect, each level of psi gives you an automatic 10-point negative trait that you receive no points for.
So everything I said was valid. If disorders are easily treated in your games, then it's no problem for players to get 50 free CP by taking 5 mental disorders, and getting them quickly treated at the start of play.
The Fall did not happen a long time prior to the start of the setting. It was a single decade away. Many people live far longer than that with untreated problems, never acknowledging that they have one. My dad has PTSD he acquired from Vietnam to this day. A good friend of mine was suffering from survival guilt from the time he was 10 until he finally saw a therapist at the age of 30.
So I personally find it unlikely that many asyncs have come to grips with their problems, and are seeking treatment. It becomes even more unlikely when you think about the fact that most of them are flying under the radar, afraid of being caught by an organization like Cognite.
Not in every case. Rez points are only a cost when the character has to work off the trait through some effort, and there are no other means within the game rules to do so. So for example, if I take the No Cortical Stack trait, I can get rid of it by simply getting a cortical stack implanted, and not have to pay Rez. On the other hand, if I want to work off Combat Paralysis, it will likely require the expenditure of Rez (there is no method in the game mechanics to work off Combat Paralysis otherwise). In the case of mental disorders, there is an already-established means of getting them corrected, through the use of mental therapy.
If you require Rez for those mental disorders, then all mental disorders should require Rez to work off; the trait is essentially just a means of starting play with them.
I disagree. Someone who decides to play an async takes all that it entails. They are portraying a person who has been touched by the Exsurgent virus… so they are planning to play someone with psi abilities and a degree of madness. You don't decide to play an uplift if you want to be a character that doesn't have to deal with uplift discrimination, or having animal instincts. You don't play an anarchist if your character loves capitalism and can't stand the idea of democratic decision-making amongst a community. It's part and parcel to the character concept.
Even for asyncs that have already had their mental illnesses treated, I would personally find it odd for them to be portrayed as non-eccentric, completely normal people with no personality quirks and unusual behavior. Asyncs are beings who have had a small glimpse into the minds of the ETI, and are gradually gaining small pieces of their mindset in the form of sleights… you just can't stay "normal" in the process.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
Wed, 2012-08-01 18:27
#11
Pandion
Decivre wrote:Not in every
I can see a way to read that passage that way, but I don't think that's what it means. Someone who slowly overcomes their disorder through hard work has to pay 10 rez points, while someone who has their muse treat it doesn't? Both require in character justification and effort, it's just that one is easier. I don't see any reason at all that it would work that way, and the text only vaguely backs it up. It would be nice if it was more clear, but I just can't imagine what the point of dividing it that way would be. If you do want to go with that though, then consider me using a house rule that says that getting rid of any negative trait in play requires rez points to be spent.
You're adding something that's not there. See, this would also deal with my concern. If it said something along the lines of: "Psychotherapists have not yet uncovered how egos are affected by the Watts-Macleod strain, and while they have identified mental states that are similar to known disorders, attempts to treat them in the normal fashion have often failed or had undesirable results." That would be a sensible part of the setting, but it's not there. The only mention of treating the disorders caused by becoming an async says: "This disorder may be treated over time, according to normal rules (see Mental Healing and Psychotherapy)". Therapy works just fine, it's stated that it does. There's no penalty or anything of the sort. Not to mention, many psychiatrists won't even be aware they're treating an async. Many don't realize they have psi powers right away, so would just go for normal therapy, and others would keep quiet about that part.
You mentioned years, and I brought up that in many cases they have had up to ten years. I know how long it's been, and if you want to change it to decades, that's fine, no one has had that long. I'm still not sure why you keep focusing on specific examples and how likely something is. How likely is it that someone's a world-class neurosurgeon? Extremely low, but no one's going to find it that odd if a player character is. It's a notable fact about them, and it's very unusual in world, but they can certainly do it.
I think we also just view the Eclipse Phase setting and its advances in psychotherapy differently. I look at it and see that they can treat a severe disorder, with a high degree of success, in two days. We have nothing like that now. They clearly understand the brain far better than we do, which isn't surprising considering all the research they've had to do to create a society where people can just transfer their minds around they way they do. We're looking at a setting where everyone is smarter and more connected, and where everyone carries a personal therapist around inside their head. If you believe that mental health patterns will be the same in a society like that, that's fine, but it's not worth arguing over. There's no correct answer there and our views are too far apart.
You can play all sorts of uplift ideas. Any concept that reasonably follows from being born an uplift is going to be fine. Are you a normal uplift with the usual discrimination and conflicting instincts? Are you trying to pass as human, keep your origins hidden from the public? Have you embraced your animal side more completely? Have you tried getting psychosurgery to remove those unwanted animal instincts and become more "human"? All are valid as character concepts. All can lead to problems and interesting interactions.
And yet, playing an async who thought it might be good to have his muse check over his mental health after he suddenly started feeling like he'd becoming another person isn't valid. Or, if someone has Psi level 2, and only really likes the idea of roleplaying one of the disorders, they're stuck too. Yes, they can, by the rules, remove the other disorder in play, but then why were they forced to take it at all? I don't expect any async to end up normal. They went through a strange experience and their mind works differently. There's an inherent shift in who they are, but the disorders are just an extra symptom of that. They can never go back to who they were, but they can get closer if it's important to them.
Anyway, I'm not sure this discussion is going to go anywhere. I wanted to actually just discuss this with people, but it's somehow moved into a strange argument with lots of points that are tangential to what I'm saying. I still don't feel like the actual core of this, the thing I was curious about, has even really been touched on. Unless the next responses move toward that, I'll just step away from this.
Wed, 2012-08-01 19:56
#12
Geonis
My thoughts.
Honestly, I think the main point of disagreement is this line in the original post.
Most of the following posts are trying to say it isn't easy and giving examples. I happen to share their view point on this issue, but won't go further into it.
Now, as I see it, a reason why the trait would reasonable have the disorders, even if curing them were easy, is two fold.
First, the disorders were apart of the asyncs past at some point. The character has/had a disorder because he is an async. Even if treated, it is not removed from his past and is important to make note of.
Secondly, traits are not solely for character creation, as they can be acquired through normal game play. This would maintain why it would be listed, since becoming an async in-game also comes with acquiring a disorder.
Now, wither or not you allow them to have been 'treated' prior to game play is your groups/GMs call. I might let them buy it off with CP , as the disorder is one of the many negatives that come with being a async that offset its low CP cost.
Wed, 2012-08-01 20:31
#13
Pandion
The CP buy-off is what I
The CP buy-off is what I think makes most sense. It isn't actually happening, because the player decided to stick with the two disorders anyway, but that's going to be my general policy should it come up. I do think you're right that that's what's been the focus of the discussion and what led things off of my question.
Thank you for pointing that out, I think I have all I really need from this thread now. It was a bit more important before the player decided to just keep the disorders anyway :)
Wed, 2012-08-01 20:55
#14
Decivre
Pandion wrote:I can see a way
No. Mental disorders, according to the game mechanics, don't [i]require[/i] Rez points to have treated. You can simply get mental therapy, make the required rolls, and recover. This is true whether you get them at creation or later in the game. Now you can theoretically rule that removing mental disorders costs Rez to do, but then it is unfair for those players who received their mental disorders at creation as opposed to those who get them later. You are basically saying "your mental disorder should cost you experience, while that guy's shouldn't". If you want it to cost points to remove a mental disorder, so be it; but I don't think you should make an exception for someone else. Either all mental disorders cost points to remove (regardless of whether you receive them right away or later), or none of them should so long as you do the therapy.
My argument is that mental disorders are a roleplaying handicap, and one that is intended to be played out. Simply going to your local therapist and working out your problems everytime they crop up doesn't really sound well roleplayed. Disorders are intended to be serious, personality-changing and life-altering shifts in thought. They aren't suppose to be wiped away with ease like wounds (that's what traumas are for).
Again, I'm not saying that you can't treat asyncs, or that there is a penalty. I'm saying, as I've said before, that mental disorders are an extremely serious thing, and may take years for people to come to grips with let alone get treated. Mental disorders are roleplaying flaws, and ones that lose their impact if they aren't roleplayed at all. Yes, you can have your async get treated for their problems. Sure, I suppose you could do it right away, and have an instantly mentally stable async. But it's just as conceivable as creating a character, purchasing 5 mental disorders for 50 free points, and starting the game with "I have mental problems and therefore put myself through therapy! All better!!!" The whole concept loses all gravity when you do that.
Mind technologies are still a pioneer field in 10 AF. While I certainly agree that they know significantly more than us, this is a relative concept. We live far longer than our predecessors, but none of us even touch the concept of immortality yet. Human behavior and disorder treatment may have come a long way, but as I said before this isn't the biggest hurdle to getting a disorder treated. It's getting the disorder acknowledged.
Most people who have disorders either don't know, don't want to know, or don't want to admit that those disorders exist. To do so is a profound thing, a shocking revelation about who you are. It is no small feat for a person to come to terms with their inner demons, face their nightmares, and confess that their traumatic experiences have left them scarred. Many people face this today. Mental disorders go underreported due to economic and social issues. Many people either can't afford it, or are too ashamed of the fact that they have a problem that needs treating. Furthermore, there's a social stigma that exists for people who have mental disorders; the mentally ill often have the highest unemployment and homelessness rates worldwide.
The transhuman revolution and shift to a reputation economy probably didn't help this any in Eclipse Phase, as your mental state is the only state that you really can't change easily. Bodies can be swapped, organs can be replaced, but your mind is your own, and it is the one thing that your reputation is inexorably tied to.
And actually, the core book says the following about treating mental disorders:
So you've got an uplift who, in fear of discrimination, hides from it in a human guise? How is that portraying an uplift while trying to skip over the rampant discrimination that the concept provides? If anything, that fits perfectly… it even draws parallels to the stories of closeted homosexuals over the years who had to hide who they were from the world for fear of persecution. Or atheists.
Or an uplift that disdains his animalistic tendencies, and struggles to be more like the humans that created him? That's a great concept. One I would love to see roleplayed. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this sort of thing:
"I'm playing an octopus."
"This game takes place in the Jovian Republic."
"Okay."
"There's a lot of discrimination against uplifts there."
"I don't want that. Everyone loves my octopus. I don't want my octopus to have to deal with hate."
(屮ಠ益ಠ)屮
Discrimination against uplifts is a setting concept, and part of the flavor of the game. It wouldn't feel the same if you just took it out wholecloth. In that same vein, the idea of asyncs being touched by madness is a key element of the concept. Without it, the async does little to pay homage to the Cthulhu-esque horror that inspired it and the game as a whole. Asyncs without madness are like the Fall without TITANs… what's the fun in that?
Look, every playgroup can play the game as they see fit. If you want asyncs that are completely mentally stable, then so be it. If you want AGI living well in the Jovian Republic, a Planetary Consortium that's full-blown communist, Argonauts that worship technology while killing outsiders for heresy, or a public Firewall then go for it. I have a campaign set in 30 AF where the human race has largely integrated alien technologies that break our modern understanding of the laws of physics, so I can't judge you for how you want to play the game.
But I don't know if there is a good answer for this. You are working under an assumption that disorders are easily treated and quickly solved, for which the game wasn't really built around. It's tough to say how you can handle psi in that context. Perhaps if you raise the CP price by 5 per level, then the concept will be built largely around the powers. Otherwise, no clue.
Spoiler: Highlight to view
In truth, mind editing is not an easy, safe, and error-proof process—it is difficult, dangerous, and often flawed. Neuroscience may be light years ahead of where it was a century ago, but there are many aspects of the brain and neural functions that continue to confound and elude even the brightest experts and AIs. Technologies like nanoneural mapping, uploading, digital mind emulation, and artificial intelligence are also comparatively in their infancy, being mere decades old. Though transhumanity has a handle on how to make these processes work, it does not always fully understand the underlying mechanisms.
Spoiler: Highlight to view
Gamemaster and players are encouraged to roleplay a character’s suffering and relief from traumas and disorders. Each is an experience that makes a profound impact on a character’s personality and psyche. The process of treatment may also change them, so in the end they may be a transformed from the person they once were. Even if treated, the scars are likely to remain for some time to come. According to some opinions, disorders are never truly eradicated, they are just eased into submission … where they may linger beneath the surface, waiting for some trauma to come along.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age.
[url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]