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Thyatira3902
2007-11-09, 11:44 PM
So... here's the deal. I'm playing in a campaign soon and I'm trying to come up with something to do. I've played a lot of different types, and i decided i couldn't just pick one. I was reading about some kind of chaos knight or something where at a high lvl they may become schizo or something. So that started this idea of a guy with multiple personalities.

I'm making a human/half elf (dm restriction) Gestalted something or other. I'm trying to come up with some different personalities... one base one and then 4-5 other personalities. the thing is, is that they all have different styles in how they fight, what party members they like, how they act, favorite weapons, and even how they dress. every morning i'd roll the dice and depending on the number, i pick that mind set. sometimes before a big encounter, or under a lot of stress, the other personalities would come out.

So what I'm lookin for is a sensible set up in terms of classes. This guy's gonna be the comedic relief i'm sure, but he's gotta be able to do just about everything. not necessarily well for most of the personalities, but definitely do it. so.. he might be fighting with a long sword just fine, and the next day think he's some kind of lock pick, the next one a cleric trying to turn undead, and the last casting spells or pretending like he's got bardic knowledge.

I'm thinking that fighter 1-20/sorcerer 1-20 wouldn't be that bad a combination and just doing all around stuff. enough hit points to keep him going, and enough versatility that he can do just about anything.

I have just about all the books... i don't like psionics, and i haven't gotten into tomes yet, but i need help.

Any and all suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

The_Snark
2007-11-09, 11:52 PM
Well... a factotum or chameleon is the obvious choice, given their ability to imitate the class features and abilities of other classes.

In fact, it's gestalt, so you could be a factotum and a chameleon at the same time. I reccomend a binder 10/chameleon 10//factotum 20. Binder provides more versatility, but requires an odd dash of flavor (and yet MORE things sharing your head), so you could scrap it for pretty much any other base class you felt like.

It's the easy way out, but it works.

String
2007-11-09, 11:59 PM
I would suggest duskblade as one side of the progression, so that you can choose between melee and arcane easily. the other half...maybe cleric? Or rogue, for the lockpicking part? It would get rid of the divine power, but if you wanted to, you could just alternate tween the two.

Fishy
2007-11-10, 12:01 AM
MPD is not the same thing as schizophrenia, and is really easy to RP in a terrible and annoying fashion- so be careful. THat said, here are some things.

Might be worth it to go for Bardic Knack variant Bard, taking the Jack of All Trades feat: You'd lose your Bardic Knowledge, in exchange for Bard Level/2 virtual ranks in every skill, ever.

The Chameleon (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20041210b&page=1) PrC lets you essentially be a different character each day. Also of note, in a Gestalt game, you advance your other class's BaB and saves, and then add the Aptitude Focus on top of that, which is nice.

Also consider being a preparation-based spellcaster rather than a Sorc: That way, you have a broader spell list which can thematically change with each persona.

The Extinguisher
2007-11-10, 12:08 AM
It can get hard.

I had an evil blackguard in an evil party with MPD, who served as the primary antagonist of the party.

malusmalus
2007-11-10, 01:14 AM
If you're just looking for classes/skills/number crunching, skip this reply entirely. But for psychology, read on.

Multiple Personality Disorder (or as it's known today, Dissociative Identity Disorder) is a pretty complex brain glitch. The emergence of split personalities, or "alters," is accompanied by broad gaps of missing time in the main personality's memory. People with dissociative disorders of all stripes find the experience of losing time unnerving at best and debilitating at worst. And while dissociation is the strongest trait of the disorder, there's a whole laundry-list of disorders that frequently accompany it, among them depression, severe anxiety, an unpredictable array of phobias, self-mutilation, and suicide. These are all understandable behaviors, considering a person with DID is, to a greater or lesser extent, aware that their life is not in their own control. This also means that their functioning is widely variable, from highly effective to essentially useless. An unstable, paranoid wreck does not a good party member make.

Given all of this, I'm not sure I understand your rationale for playing DID off as "comic relief." It's akin to playing a shell-shocked war veteran and trying to pass it off as humorous: "Ha! He dove to the ground because a car backfired! Sometimes he stares at nothing for 10 or 20 seconds at a time while shivering! HILARIOUS!" Nobody in their right mind would do that. I'm not sure why you're attempting this.

Doresain
2007-11-10, 01:20 AM
Given all of this, I'm not sure I understand your rationale for playing DID off as "comic relief." It's akin to playing a shell-shocked war veteran and trying to pass it off as humorous: "Ha! He dove to the ground because a car backfired! Sometimes he stares at nothing for 10 or 20 seconds at a time while shivering! HILARIOUS!" Nobody in their right mind would do that. I'm not sure why you're attempting this.

because society as of today can laugh at this so long as they or someone they personally know doesnt have it

malusmalus
2007-11-10, 01:25 AM
because society as of today can laugh at this so long as they or someone they personally know doesnt have it

I've never lost a limb, nor has anyone I personally know. I still don't find amputation funny. :smallbiggrin:

Doresain
2007-11-10, 01:27 AM
I've never lost a limb, nor has anyone I personally know. I still don't find amputation funny. :smallbiggrin:

i guess i should have added "most of society"

The_Cardinal
2007-11-10, 01:28 AM
If you're just looking for classes/skills/number crunching, skip this reply entirely. But for psychology, read on.

Multiple Personality Disorder (or as it's known today, Dissociative Identity Disorder) is a pretty complex brain glitch. The emergence of split personalities, or "alters," is accompanied by broad gaps of missing time in the main personality's memory. People with dissociative disorders of all stripes find the experience of losing time unnerving at best and debilitating at worst. And while dissociation is the strongest trait of the disorder, there's a whole laundry-list of disorders that frequently accompany it, among them depression, severe anxiety, an unpredictable array of phobias, self-mutilation, and suicide. These are all understandable behaviors, considering a person with DID is, to a greater or lesser extent, aware that their life is not in their own control. This also means that their functioning is widely variable, from highly effective to essentially useless. An unstable, paranoid wreck does not a good party member make.

Given all of this, I'm not sure I understand your rationale for playing DID off as "comic relief." It's akin to playing a shell-shocked war veteran and trying to pass it off as humorous: "Ha! He dove to the ground because a car backfired! Sometimes he stares at nothing for 10 or 20 seconds at a time while shivering! HILARIOUS!" Nobody in their right mind would do that. I'm not sure why you're attempting this.

Because its been done humorously before in movies, I presume. For example, Me, Myself and Irene.

Having unstable characters can be fun and interesting. Personally I can't stand role-playing with someone who has a "crazy" character, but a devious, paranoid character can be interesting. I created a slow-witted, pesimistic dwarf warrior once who, although powerful, earnestly believed he was doomed. He would spout off such gems as "We're hopelessly outnumbered..." when fighting a small band of goblins, and "I don't like our chances..." when confronted with the mere mention of an adventure. He always looked like he was ready to cry. He lived a long, miserable life before retiring (the gaming group broke up).

JaxGaret
2007-11-10, 01:28 AM
Surprised no one mentioned this - make use of the Schism (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/schism.htm) power.

You can incorporate that power into your character via a custom item, graft, flaw, etc.

Work it out with your DM.

malusmalus
2007-11-10, 01:49 AM
The_Cardinal: Oh, I'm all for the use of brain glitches. I realize I probably sounded pretty stern up there, but it wasn't my intent to say 'HOW DARE YOU INCORPORATE MENTAL ILLNESS RAR EET YOU.' (I'm not one to talk, my husband's current character is a barbarian whose rages are triggered my some latent PTSD-ness.) And your dwarf sounds pretty great, actually -- well-used personality differences can really make a memorable character that stands out in the context of a story. Take the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, for example. What would they be without depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and a bit of control-freakishness? :smalltongue: My intention was more to point out how ill-suited someone with a really big brain malfunction is to a D&D campaign. I doubt someone with DID could've become an adventurer in the first place, never mind the frankly bleak life expectancy for an explorer who, on the off chance he still values his own life, is frequently disoriented and distressed.

I'll admit, I found the use (and blatant misrepresentation) of a crippling mental disorder for comic relief crass. I realize that Hollywood really plays up a lot of the supposedly comedic aspects of MPD/DID. But Hollywood also leads me to believe that I can jump through plate glass and incur only a few small scratches, and you'd better believe if my character gets thrown through a saloon window my DM's going to have me rolling for damage.

enderrocksonall
2007-11-10, 01:59 AM
I've never lost a limb, nor has anyone I personally know. I still don't find amputation funny. :smallbiggrin:

I'd be willing to bet you laughed at a john bobbit joke once!!!

herrhauptmann
2007-11-10, 02:20 AM
I ran a 2nd Ed campaign a while back, DM let one guy play a giant of some variety.
Player picked 1 aspect of alignment, Law, Neutral, Chaos, Good, Evil. Then each day rolled randomly to determine which he'd be.
If he chose law, he would be LG, LN, or LE
Evil: LE, NE, CE
Neutral: NG, TN, NE
Chaos, CG,CN,CE

The_Cardinal
2007-11-10, 02:49 AM
The_Cardinal: Oh, I'm all for the use of brain glitches. I realize I probably sounded pretty stern up there...

Actually I'm mostly in agreement with you. Although I've never met a person with Multiple Personality Disorder (genuine sufferers are extremely rare), I have met, and been friends with, people who are horribly tormented by schizophrenia, and so on.

And I work in a casino, which means I'm surrounded by the clinically insane on a daily basis...

I can actually easily imagine someone with mental illness being wrapped up in a life of adventure, perhaps they are outcasts or hermits, perhaps not. I'm sure a lot of real life adventurers and explorer were a little, or a lot, crazy.

To be frank though, I think having a multiple-personality character is too corny, and probably too difficult to play properly. If I were to do this, I'd have a Popeye like character who flips out or changes only under very specific circumstances. Maybe he only casts spells when he believes he's inhabited by an ancient, eldrich deity, or goes berserk when he screams into the air "By the power of Greyskull!"

pondshadow
2007-11-10, 07:46 AM
while I don't think MPD is funny it would be interesting in a campaign. For example, have a blighter and a druid personality. It wouldn't be funny, but it would make for a interesting campaign. Or, you could have something like twin peaks and have the NE serial killer hide in the mind of a innocent NG NPC. Just don't do it to be funny

The_Cardinal
2007-11-10, 07:52 AM
Just don't do it to be funny

Why not? Just because its never been funny before doesn't mean it won't be funny this time.

Delta Nu Delta
2007-11-10, 08:06 AM
Humor is almost always based upon something cruel/offensive/crass. We all simply have different thresholds for what we find funny or offensive, and in different contexts some things that may be offensive otherwise can be quite funny.

Right now I'm playing a wizard with a generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder. It's fantastic fun, and I don't feel it's disrespectful. As a matter of fact, I think it's the most realistic part about our game. If we want to delve into the psychology of a typical adventurer, it would absurd to think that mental illness was not more prevalent. The amount of danger, death, and crippling anxiety they would face on a daily basis dwarfs (gnomes?) anything most of us will ever have to deal with.

That said, I think you could play someone with DID, but it might be tough. I'd recommend going with only a few personalities. It's my understanding that multiple personalities often emerge in periods of extreme and prolonged stress (child abuse) as a method to cope with whatever is going on. This would actually make a great deal of sense in an adventure world.

And Factotum/Binder/Chameleon sounds like a good bet for the crunchy stuff.

enderrocksonall
2007-11-10, 11:31 AM
And Factotum/Binder/Chameleon sounds like a good bet for the crunchy stuff.

Not to sound like a idiot, but can you tell where those classes are from?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-10, 11:44 AM
Dungeonscape, Tome of Magic, and Races of Destiny.


Hmmmmm....interesting. Playing a character with DID could be pretty memorable and astounding, but I'd only try it if I had the skill to pull multiple personas off. All in all, though difficult, it's a good idea, since it adds to the humanity of the character.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 11:50 AM
OK, you guys need to lighten up. I'm schizotypal myself, and I don't see how it couldn't be entertaining to have a party member in the group who is totally bonkers. There's such a thing as being able to laugh at life, and, believe it or not, most people with debilitating mental illnesses are quite able to do that too.

Some of the most fun campaigns I've been in, have included somewhat less than stable/flawed party members.

However, I would also like to point out that multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia are NOT the same thing at all.

Daracaex
2007-11-10, 12:05 PM
You should see if you can talk your DM into letting you play a Changeling from Eberron. You could have a different person physically for each personality, and only one actually recognize that he/she's a Changeling.:smallbiggrin:

And you don't have to play it like a real person with DID. Just treat it like you repeatedly switch characters every once in a while and none of them realize they are multiple personalities of the same person and don't care about the missing time periods.

Logic Cannon
2007-11-10, 12:14 PM
And you don't have to play it like a real person with DID. Just treat it like you repeatedly switch characters every once in a while and none of them realize they are multiple personalities of the same person and don't care about the missing time periods.

Yeah, because if I randomly lost time while engaging in unknown activities of a completely separate nature from my core personality, Lord knows I wouldn't care about those missing time periods at all.

Edit: and this idea that we should "lighten up" or "Hollywood-ize" an extremely debilitating and frightening disorder and find it great fun to play in a roleplaying game strikes me as really sub-human. Some earlier posters were saying how the post-traumatic stress disorder example would actually be funny. WHAT. Seriously, what. These are severe disorders that drive people to all kinds of extreme and self-damaging behavior and give them little control over their own lives, and this would be fun to play or funny to watch? I don't have any problems with people roleplaying out lesser disorders in-game (depression, anxiety-attacks, panic, paranoia, etc.), but the major disorders are either played faithfully (in which case your character is extremely uncontrollable, disoriented, and frightening to most other people he meets) or "funny," in which case it's pretty much underlining the fact that you don't research what you're playing at best and that you're a loathsome human being at worst.

Grey Watcher
2007-11-10, 12:16 PM
I'd do DID/MPD differently, from a mechanics perspective. Rather than have classes that are consistent across personalities, each personality would actually have it's own classes, at their own levels. Race and physical stats (Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution) are common accross all personalities, but classes, skills, feats, and alignment are each unique to each personality. For example, let's say your character has his primary personality, and three alters. Let's lable the A, B, C, and D. (Let's also assume that this game is non-gestalt, to simplify the example a little bit.)

A might be a CG Bard 8.
B might be a LE Rogue 5/Assassin 1
C might be a LG Paladin 4
D might be a NN Commoner 1

This, combined with whatever mechanic you and your DM come up with to resolve which personality is ascendant at a given time, gets more at the idea of multiple personalities. The various talents aren't available to all, and not all are equally well-equipped to deal with the world, because, in no small part, not all of them get equal "screen time". Now, to make a DID/MPD character more viable, it'd probably make more sense to use all PC classes and keep them all the same level, but I still feel like actually giving each alter it's own character sheet rings more true than using a class like Chameleon to simulate.

Then again, Chameleon is less bookkeeping....

malusmalus
2007-11-10, 12:19 PM
If we want to delve into the psychology of a typical adventurer, it would absurd to think that mental illness was not more prevalent. The amount of danger, death, and crippling anxiety they would face on a daily basis dwarfs (gnomes?) anything most of us will ever have to deal with.

I agree completely! Adventurers probably start off with a proportionally larger number of crazies than the population as a whole, and have a higher rate of subsequent disorders incurred on-the-job (as does any group who does things along the order of risking their lives for money).

I'm not crusading against mental illness, or the idea that mental illness can be funny. By all means, play crazies. Bring me your narcissists, your manic-depressives, your paranoiacs whispering inappropriately. But if you're going to choose a disorder that is genuinely crippling (agoraphobia, full-blown paranoid schizophrenia, dementia, etc.), at least have the good grace to play it like it is.

Here's an idea of how to get the same sort of character with a different diagnosis: have a fellow who's on the narcissistic side of delusional. He's convinced that he's the incarnation of a soul that, in each life, has been some epic hero -- although each hero seems to have been of a different sort (and perhaps nobody has ever heard of these heroes, though that doesn't seem to daunt him too much). Depending on the circumstance (or whim -- who knows. he's an acknowledged nutter.), he'll change "personalities," acting in-character as one of his legendary past lives. Bam. Same effect that you're looking for, without all the negative side-effects of actual DID.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 01:10 PM
Edit: and this idea that we should "lighten up" or "Hollywood-ize" an extremely debilitating and frightening disorder and find it great fun to play in a roleplaying game strikes me as really sub-human. (...) in which case it's pretty much underlining the fact that you don't research what you're playing at best and that you're a loathsome human being at worst.

OK. Several points.

MAYBE for some of us, it's actually easier to roleplay a person with a personality disorder than someone who has no problems in life? Oh noes! I've played characters with different versions of my own illness! It was both interesting and fun! Horrible! I guess I either didn't research my own disorder or must be a loathsome human being, my bad. The same applies to the people I've played with.
Did it ever occur to you that for some people, this has even helped them come to a greater understanding of both themselves and the friends they've played with? Lightening up does NOT equal "hollywood-izing", and there are several ways to roleplay mental illness in games. Even really nasty illness.

In all seriousness, really, get over yourself. I'm not trying to flame you, but sweeping generalizations and insults like the ones you just made in the above quoted post are completely unfounded and ridiculous.

JaxGaret
2007-11-10, 01:15 PM
Deleted. Deleted.

Xuincherguixe
2007-11-10, 01:18 PM
I like playing characters that have a few screws loose. But then it could hardly be saying that I'm reaching very far... well they're often humorous characters, I'm not trying to play them up as "comedy relief". It's that combination of silly and serious at the same time.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 01:33 PM
I like playing characters that have a few screws loose. But then it could hardly be saying that I'm reaching very far... well they're often humorous characters, I'm not trying to play them up as "comedy relief". It's that combination of silly and serious at the same time.

well, yeah, without the serious aspect, would it really be funny (or fun) for more than half a minute?

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-10, 01:37 PM
Aye. Rp's are not RP's if your char can't make a joke, fall in love, have a sibling, or the like. Though, once in a while, a cursed Bikini of Disguise is fun.

Delta Nu Delta
2007-11-10, 01:53 PM
Edit: and this idea that we should "lighten up" or "Hollywood-ize" an extremely debilitating and frightening disorder and find it great fun to play in a roleplaying game strikes me as really sub-human.

Like I mentioned earlier, almost all humor (barring puns) is mocking something. We all set the bar at different areas in different situations. While you may find it legitimately offensive, I think we can assume there are situations in which it wouldn't be.


Some earlier posters were saying how the post-traumatic stress disorder example would actually be funny. WHAT. Seriously, what. These are severe disorders that drive people to all kinds of extreme and self-damaging behavior and give them little control over their own lives, and this would be fun to play or funny to watch? I don't have any problems with people roleplaying out lesser disorders in-game (depression, anxiety-attacks, panic, paranoia, etc.), but the major disorders are either played faithfully (in which case your character is extremely uncontrollable, disoriented, and frightening to most other people he meets) or "funny," in which case it's pretty much underlining the fact that you don't research what you're playing at best and that you're a loathsome human being at worst.

I do understand your objection. I think what you're reacting to is if the player plays this character in a mocking "haha-look-at-the-freak" sort of way. He/She may be doing that.

But some of those "lesser" disorders you mentioned are plenty crippling. People routinely do horrible things to themselves and other on account of them. What's more, they're much, much, much more common than DID. I'm sure you're aware that depression is a major disorder. It's perfectly possible to play these things in just as tasteless a fashion. However, humor can be a beautiful tool that allows us to laugh off what we might otherwise cry at, or to look at the lighter side of some of our darkness. It could also be away to examine something we're nervous about, and this allows us to broach a subject while keeping it at arms length for the time being. It can also go too far and keeps us from facing up to reality, or serve to push people away. But why don't we let different people set their own bar?

Solo
2007-11-10, 01:54 PM
Yeah, because if I randomly lost time while engaging in unknown activities of a completely separate nature from my core personality, Lord knows I wouldn't care about those missing time periods at all.

Edit: and this idea that we should "lighten up" or "Hollywood-ize" an extremely debilitating and frightening disorder and find it great fun to play in a roleplaying game strikes me as really sub-human. Some earlier posters were saying how the post-traumatic stress disorder example would actually be funny. WHAT. Seriously, what. These are severe disorders that drive people to all kinds of extreme and self-damaging behavior and give them little control over their own lives, and this would be fun to play or funny to watch? I don't have any problems with people roleplaying out lesser disorders in-game (depression, anxiety-attacks, panic, paranoia, etc.), but the major disorders are either played faithfully (in which case your character is extremely uncontrollable, disoriented, and frightening to most other people he meets) or "funny," in which case it's pretty much underlining the fact that you don't research what you're playing at best and that you're a loathsome human being at worst.

Looks like someone rolled a one.

Logic Cannon
2007-11-10, 01:59 PM
OK. Several points.

MAYBE for some of us, it's actually easier to roleplay a person with a personality disorder than someone who has no problems in life? Oh noes! I've played characters with different versions of my own illness! It was both interesting and fun! Horrible! I guess I either didn't research my own disorder or must be a loathsome human being, my bad. The same applies to the people I've played with.
Did it ever occur to you that for some people, this has even helped them come to a greater understanding of both themselves and the friends they've played with? Lightening up does NOT equal "hollywood-izing", and there are several ways to roleplay mental illness in games. Even really nasty illness.

In all seriousness, really, get over yourself. I'm not trying to flame you, but sweeping generalizations and insults like the ones you just made in the above quoted post are completely unfounded and ridiculous.

Right, but see here's the thing - I don't trust you. It's extremely possible and popular for people on the internet to self-diagnose themselves with all kinds of disorders to explain away their social awkwardness. In fact, the majority who come out and claim to have some kind of mental problem (Asperger's Syndrome being the new big fad) have never actually been diagnosed with any kind of problem. So considering your general attitude, I'm slotting you in with the "self-diagnosed self-righteous socially awkward nerds." Congratulations on your acceptance.

And people seem to keep overlooking that serious mental disorders like disassociative identity disorder are EXTREMELY DEBILITATING AND FRIGHTENING for everyone involved, especially for people who suffer from them. Characterizing them as "fun" and "enlightening" and "a way for people to better understand themselves" is just wrong. You seem to think that your (likely self-diagnosed) disorder is on the chopping block here. It is not. Lesser disorders are not life-shatteringly horrible. DID is.

Playing a character with DID as though they're some kind of unpredictable wacky funster is just flat-out incorrect. It's even worse than someone playing a "wacky funster" drunkard, when in reality alcoholism is a debilitating problem that seriously damages the lives of everyone who loves and cares for the alcoholic, most notably the life of the alcoholic themselves. Claiming that I'm somehow "taking the fun out of D&D" and that I'm being "too serious" is like claiming that because I find it extremely offensive when people dress in blackface and act out racial stereotypes, I'm a big jerk. You're actively promoting a complete misunderstanding of a horribly severe mental disorder that ruins lives on the premise that "it's fun(ny)."


Looks like someone rolled a one.
Yes, you. Now creep back under the bridge you crawled out from under.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-11-10, 02:05 PM
Well, well, well. And the flames of hell burn brightly.


You DO know that not everyone with DID is a homicidal maniac/nice guy, right? That the chance of you being absolutely wacky when your other personalities take over is veeeeeeery low?


Evidently not. You also seem to know nothing of how optimism and lightheartedness can make this kind of diseases much less of a pain. Of how imagining a setting in which you can overcome the disease and become a better person leads to peace and self-enlightenment.


So, I propose we wash our hands of logic cannon.


And, BTW, can't you heal mental diseases with a Heal spell?

Logic Cannon
2007-11-10, 02:10 PM
Well then I might suggest you wash your hands of the DID wikipedia article, which I suspect none of you have actually read. This idea that "well in my magical land of sugar and gum drops, DID can be handled by people who are pure of spirit and full of love" is just wrong. Especially considering that it is COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to completely naturally overcome DID (outside of fantasy solutions).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disassociative_identity_disorder#Symptoms
Enjoy.

Edit: to clarify on that it's impossible to naturally completely overcome DID, it is possible to connect all of the personalities into one whole in some cases. However, symptoms of the disorder will usually remain in lesser forms. These people must still be watched over carefully to ensure they don't backslide. DID can be lessened, but it's impossible to completely remove all aspects of this disorder from someone.

Further, at what point did I indicate that DID sufferers are homicidal maniacs? They're not (although they can be in some rare cases). They're extremely confused, disoriented, tormented people who aren't "fun" or "funny" in the least.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 03:20 PM
here's an example of one of my previous characters in a non-dnd game:

he was a psionic, shaolin-type sword-fighting monk with paranoid delusions and a severe fear of losing his mental prowess and discipline due to aging and possible dementia.
He reacted badly when confronted with anything that would remind him of life's inherent finite nature, especially extremely old people and the undead (that were generally very rare in this campaign world).
He also possessed immense will power, and had devised his own techniques for prolonging his lifespan and fortifying his immense intellect through meditation and discipline.

Unfortunately (and unknown to me when i created him), the BBEG of the campaign was a lich of epic proportions whose undead horde was laying waste to most of the campaign world's version of southern europe.

His initial reaction to being assaulted undead the first time in his life was going berzerk with psionic attacks until he realized they had no minds to affect.
He then sat down and stared while the rest of the party struggled to kill off the foes.

Later in the game, after encountering and killing several sentient undead with his psionic weapon, and learning that some of the more powerful undead could infect the living through touch alone, he suddenly started doubting the people arounding him, including the party. Or rather, he saw everyone as being tainted by decay and corruption, a corruption that in his mind had become manifested in the air and was speaking directly to him. As this "revelation" dawned on him, he started screaming over and over - in the middle of a very busy dining hall - and finally ran away and locked himself in a closet, refusing to leave for two days - until the other warrior in the now slightly embarrassed party broke the door open and knocked the monk out.

A few weeks later, he had another paranoid delusional attack as "Corruption" visited his mind once again - and drove his blade right into the back of the party's commanding officer, who died instantly. Incidentally, the commander had been replaced by a doppleganger a few weeks earlier and was actually leading them into an impossible ambush that was supposed to be a major plot point.

As the doppelganger's corpse morphed into its true form, the monk was convinced it was turning into some strange type of undead and kept stabbing it repeatedly and yelling at it.

Our DM hadn't actually thought I'd ruin the ambush, so he was like "damnit, why didn't you stab someone else??". Hilarity ensued as my reply was simply "he had his back towards me?". The rest of the team made sure not to have their backs exposed to me for very long afterwards :P

His delusional mind actually also ended the campaign a lot sooner than it was supposed to. See, the monk had spent most of the campaign fighting his made up "corruption" entity, and had eventually started equalling "corruption" with the lich, thinking he could destroy mental decay by destroying the lich. As a matter of inconvenience to me, but also an increase in fun-factor, the DM decided that my character would also equate any "powerful undead" with "lich" and subsequently "corruption".
So during what wasn't actually supposed to be the final battle, but an open siege against the fortress the party was defending, the monk spots a large, dark, armourclad figure on a hellish looking black horse behind the oncoming horde of undead. I myself figure "oh it's some undead warlord type character, better have my monk go ape**** on him and think it's the lich", and try to hit the creep with an all-out remote psionic attack, while yelling various crap about destroying death and whatnot.
It turns out that this particular undead army was actually led by the lich himself, and once again, the DM hadn't figured I'd go and do something like that instead of, say, defending against the hordes scaling the fortress walls.

It turned out the lich was actually weak against psionic attacks, as he only knew magic, and so he was hit pretty hard by my attack and fell off his horse.
It also pissed him off really badly, and teleported my monk right next to him out on the field and proceeded to beat the crap out of him in the next round, almost killing him outright. The rest of my party were like :smalleek: and pretty sure my character was going to die. I was pretty sure my character was going to die too, so I (still not having realised the lich was weak to psionic attacks) just figured "ok, might as well just stab him in the head with my psionic weapon and die next round as it will fail horribly and not do anything at all".
And umm... with that, I killed the lich by stabbing him in the head with my psionic weapon, and ended the campaign when we were only 80% through.


We laughed a lot during that campaign.

Delta Nu Delta
2007-11-10, 03:36 PM
Hi LogicCannon,

You almost completely glossed over my more diplomatic response, I'm not sure you'll pay any attention to this one.:smallfrown:

But, since it seems acceptable to RP some mental illness and not others, what is the threshold for what's okay? Which mental illnesses are off limits and why? Furthermore, what other topics would you consider taboo in your games if they weren't portrayed realistically? Why is playing DID wrong worse than playing alcoholism wrong?

More to the point, why is okay to horrendously misconstrue the terrible effects of violence in a fantasy combat setting? Why aren't you more upset about people who treat violence in an entirely unrealistic and cavalier way? This is vastly more common place than people missing the mark with mental illness.

And just to clarify, I believe depression is an extremely serious mental illness. Extented bouts of clinical depression (not dysthimia) are severely debilitating for the sufferer and for people in their lives.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 03:38 PM
Right, but see here's the thing - I don't trust you.

??
What does trusting me have to do with anything? This is ridiculous! I'm not sure if I should even be responding to this. Because you don't know who I am, my opinion is automatically invalid and you can just insult me?

Look, I don't participate on these boards to defend myself or whatever. You don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are, but there's no reason for either of us to be arrogant and hostile.
I do not make inflammatory statements about your person and your personality, and you know, the internet could be a much nicer place to debate if everyone kept the same level of civility. Please.

That's all.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 03:54 PM
They're extremely confused, disoriented, tormented people who aren't "fun" or "funny" in the least.

I had a friend with DID who was plenty of fun. She was also a lot of other things, which is why I'm not friends with her anymore, but we definitely had a lot of fun together.
She also used humour as a way of dealing with her problems, and could see humour in a lot of messed up things. Granted, it was really odd when she sometimes shifted into her other personalities. I found out that the best way to react to that was to kind of... shift with her. I'm not sure how else to describe it. Just not show that you're irked, and just act as though nothing happened. It was important to be aware of how you respond differently in conversations depending on which personality you're talking to - she'd notice if you were still responding to the personality she had shifted to in the same way as the one she was before.

And you're absolute right, as it is, that's not funny in the least. But she, having a great sense of irony, was really excellent at poking fun at it herself and didn't mind jokes about it at all.

Logic Cannon
2007-11-10, 04:26 PM
Hi LogicCannon,

You almost completely glossed over my more diplomatic response, I'm not sure you'll pay any attention to this one.:smallfrown:

But, since it seems acceptable to RP some mental illness and not others, what is the threshold for what's okay? Which mental illnesses are off limits and why? Furthermore, what other topics would you consider taboo in your games? Why is playing DID wrong worse than playing alcoholism wrong?

More to the point, why is okay to horrendously misconstrue the terrible effects of violence in a fantasy combat setting? Why aren't you more upset about people who treat violence in an entirely unrealistic and cavalier way? This is vastly more common place than people missing the mark with mental illness.

And just to clarify, I believe depression is an extremely serious mental illness. Extented bouts of clinical depression (not dysthimia) are severely debilitating for the sufferer and for people in their lives.

Depression manifests in many levels of severity. Extreme depression is debilitating, while mild depression is a routine drag on the person it affects. It really depends on how bad somebody has it (i.e. how badly their brain chemistry is off the norm) to determine how serious of an illness it is. It's usually just lumped into one group heading of "depression," which isn't entirely fair. As I'm sure some of you well know (and many of my personal friends know), depression can be a very serious mental problem, sometimes manifesting in suicidal behavior.

What I'm saying is that DID is a severe mental disorder. There are others, but we are only talking about DID here. Mild depression, mild paranoia, mild narcissism, mild anxiety problems, and mild schitzophrenia are not severe mental disorders, primarily because they don't significantly impede the quality of life of the person they effect. They are disorienting and problematic, but leave a person capable of functioning as a mostly-normal member of society. Severe mental disorders are a completely different ball game. Severe mental disorders are debilitating, frightening, and traumatizing, and not "fun" or "funny."

Furthermore, I find it quite morally reprehensible to construe them as such because it makes a very serious and terrifying problem trivial and amusing. Most people with an alcoholic parent don't think that an alcoholic D&D character is funny. Similarly, anybody who has ever witnessed severe mental disorder or severe retardation is unlikely to find a character with a severe mental disorder being played as an unpredictable wacky funster very appealing. It's not only in poor taste to play such a character as comic relief or as suffering from something trivial, it's flat-out incorrect and does not match the actual mental disorder whatsoever.

I am not contesting that violence in fantasy games is glorified or over-simplified. It is. Some systems (like the repugnantly horrible RPG FATAL) attempt to convey the gruesomeness of violence, but mostly they serve as an outlet for players who enjoy the imagery of their characters swimming through entrails, which is disgusting at best. However, violence in fantasy games is very abstract - almost always described in terms of "points" of damage. This allows anyone imagining the scene to fill in the details however they like. If an orc takes 6 points of damage, one player may imagine the orc is getting tired but thus far dodging attacks and the next strike will quickly dispatch it with little mess, another may imagine the orc's abdomen got cut away and its guts are starting to spill out.

The difference here is that damage has an abstract system that is already built for use with characters' statistics within a fantasy game world. A mental illness effects how a character behaves, and as such there are no hard-and-fast rules for it. It's up to the player to ensure their character is played truthfully, so if you're going to say your character is afflicted with something or prefers something, then you're expected to pretend that way. I can say my character is infected with late-stage smallpox yet manages to do flying cartwheels and back flips through his enemies, but that's clearly unbelievable. Saying your character is somehow "in control" of an extreme disorder like DID or "doesn't care" about its significant symptoms is even more unbelievable. The simple fact that almost all DID cases result from extreme cases of early childhood abuse should be testament to the fact that this is not a mental disorder that can be reliably played without the nasty bits. It's got deep mental trauma built into its very foundation.

A good solution was presented by malusmalus many posts ago about how one could run a character that presents themselves as multiple personalities (and probably even believes it!) while only suffering from a mild mental disorder. At this point, we're arguing specifically about DID, which means anyone who wants to misconstrue this specific mental disorder is doing it while deliberately ignoring what DID actually is. That's what's got me so riled about this.

On to the rest:
MrHorse, I note a conspicuous absence of an assertion that you are clinically diagnosed, which would be one of the first things I'd expect from someone who actually was. I'll be honest in that I was contesting your assertion based off of a strong educated guess and was prepared to apologize should you have responded in the manner of someone who would (rightfully) have been upset that I had questioned an ailment they had outside verification of, and informed me of this fact promptly.

Your story is a prime example of how mental disorders screw up party cohesion and story-telling. Maybe you think having a mentally unbalanced, randomly-screaming kung-fu guy is good storytelling. But if any real person was traveling with someone so obviously unbalanced (randomly stabbing the party leader, locking themselves into closets, embarrassing the whole party), they would have left them behind, killed them, or committed them. I fail to see how playing an extremely mentally unhinged character added to the experience of your party members, other than laughing at how stupidly your character behaved and doubtlessly annoying your DM.

I think the primary division here comes between whether you roleplay to tell a story or roleplay for ****s and giggles. If you roleplay for ****s and giggles, feel free to play DID as some kind of comedy gag while you throw cream pies at one another, backstab party leaders, play cat-girls, lock yourselves into closets, and fight Sephiroth-derivative 2027B with your comically oversized swords. If you roleplay to tell a story, then it's probably best to play characteristics as they're represented - a character can socially get along just about fine with a mild mental disorder, but a major disorder is out of the question.

And with that, I'm done with this thread. I've really said all I need to say. Good day.

Lazy Zomb
2007-11-10, 04:35 PM
Uh... Looney Toons. Wile E Coyote falls off a cliff, to be immersed in a cloud of dust at the bottom. The rooster (Foghorn Leghorn or something like that) dissappears in the explosion of a stick of dynamite he was holding. Tom Cat lands in a tub of water with something electrical. All these would result in death, wich I'd have to say is a lot more traumatizing in the real world then DID. On account of, y'know, not living anymore. I still laughed at trhose when I was a kid, and I'd probably still laugh at them today. Is that wrong?

Making fun of a disease, why is that bad? So long as you aren't making fun of the person that it affects. I mean, hell, I'm a tad overweight, but if you make fun of fatness, as in, a general statement not directed at me, then I wouldn't give a ****. Yeah, its not as bad as DID, and I can't say I have a crippling disorder, but if you laugh at senseless violence and death, why not senseless crippling disorders, especially when they are exagerated for comical reasons?

Edit: And about the topic, I've played a character with multiple personalities in a freeform rp. One was a tad bit lecherous to the ladies, cool, kinda true neutral-ish, and only protective of one person - the permanently ten year old true good little kid in him that would occasionally surface.

And of course, this being a super hero game, I absolutely had to make the little kid personality the only one with significant control over the character's powers.

Mr Horse
2007-11-10, 04:35 PM
Logic Cannon, you know what? I had initially written a riled up, angry post about how I indeed AM diagnosed schizotypal and HAVE in my bathroom the medication for it, but you know what made me delete it and write the other post instead?

The notion that you don't know who I am, and don't trust me. What the hell does it matter what I say to defend myself? I can't prove it unless I scan in my medical papers and email them to you. And sorry, you're just not that important.

Again, get the hell over yourself.

Solo
2007-11-10, 04:38 PM
Yes, you. Now creep back under the bridge you crawled out from under.

You seem to be a little hostile today. Any particular reason?

Grey Watcher
2007-11-10, 04:39 PM
OK, folks. Let's just calm down and go about our business. I'm closing this thread, pending a little modly review.