metapunk

So, it’s been quite some time since my last post.  Busy busy, as they say.  See the new infrequent posts page for info.

Anyway, I’m about to be involved with a social anxiety workgroup at my local hospital, and because they’re always looking for fun socially-oriented activities to do, I suggested some role-playing.  To stay topical (at least during official time), we needed a game that was itself “about” social anxiety in some way.  It also has to be learned and played in a single two hour session, by people of all ages (late teens to 70′s) who have no experience with RPG’s as a hobby.

I figured I’d be designing something myself, or heavily modifying something.  I asked around at the Forge, and got some good answers as to some games that involved some level of interpersonal anxiety, which could be used for inspiration.  Looks like I’ll be trying to get my hands on My Life With Master ASAP.

In the meantime, I started brainstorming for ideas.  This is unlike any game I’ve tinkered with before, but in some ways it’s really nice to work on something outside my normal niche.

The result is a (very rough) first draft of a small-scale story game about how you overcame anxiety in the past.  It’s pretty much based on a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) approach to dealing with anxiety—that is, identifying anxious thoughts and challenging them.  But I threw in some other touches to make it a little more fun.

Also, the stories the players create take place sometime in the speaker’s past, with the assumption that the encounter was successfully handled.   This just seemed to make sense—to ease people’s anxieties about playing the game itself. It also reminds me of a rough draft of a paper I read somewhere (years ago) on one of psychologist Jordan Peterson’s websites, featuring a therapeutic technique called a “Trauma Narration.”

The idea of a Trauma Narration was to take the memory of some harrowing event and re-tell it in a more positive way.  The theory was that by re-imagining the past, the patient could learn to ease some of the anxiety, shame, or regret that these bad memories were creating in the present.  I don’t know how far they got with that.  I can’t seem to find the link on the site anymore; but interestingly, a casual google search reveals that “Narrative Psychology” is an emerging field, complete with guru’s, believers, and controversies. We won’t worry about all that here.

I seriously doubt my game is going to cure anybody of their social anxiety. But hopefully it will help them have a little fun with their social challenges, instead of always feeling burdened and controlled by this “disorder.”

Anyway, it’s rough, and it still needs a proper reward system, and rules for going beyond a single short vignette. But you can find it below.

One final note regarding Jordan Peterson—for any gaming, fiction, or spirituality buffs out there, he’s got some really interesting ideas about the function of stories in creating personality, psychology, and in turn, history. He calls his theory Maps of Meaning, and you can find some of his presentations on Google video.

Now, without further ado, the game:

_____________________________________________________________________________

I Have Overcome

(need a better title)

A story game of triumph over Social Anxiety

by Andre Canivet

• A game for 2-4 players
• Players take turns telling each other about times when they were anxious, but were able to handle their anxiety. These stories will be fictional—the players will make up the details as they go—but they will be told as if they really happened, and with the knowledge that the speaker handled the situation well. They’ve met with a difficult encounter and emerged victorious—now they just have to fill in the details, and maybe, explain what they learned or gained from the experience.
• For a session of a couple of hours, assume 15-30 minutes to demonstrate the game to the entire group. Also assume that each player will have 10-15 minutes to tell their story, and that each group will need 5-10 minutes of prep time. For a group of around a dozen people, this means breaking up into three smaller groups of 3-4 players each.

• You Will Need:
  • 2 to 4 players, including yourself.
  • Paper & Pencils (pen is okay too)
  • 1 standard deck of playing cards

• Within each group:
  • Begin by brainstorming a list of 4 to 6 settings: a crowded party, a bus stop, a shopping mall, a workplace, etc. Someone should write these down on a sheet of paper.

• • Now shuffle the deck.
  • Each player draws one card. The player with the highest valued Spade is the speaker for the first turn. On subsequent turns, the speaker will be the player to the left of the previous turn’s speaker. The speaker is the person whose turn it is to tell a tale.
  • Now it is time to assign roles.
    • There are four roles in the game: Speaker, and the Speaker’s Head, Heart, and Gut. The speaker is the person who is telling the tale (played by the player’s whose turn it is to hold the floor). The speaker’s head, heart, and gut (played by the other players) represent the different aspects of the speaker’s experience. Each informs the speaker in different ways.
  • On the first turn–Shuffle the deck, then everyone draws a card. The player with the first (or highest valued) card in the suit of Spades is the Speaker for the first turn. The player with the first (or highest) card in the suit of Diamonds is called the Head. The player with the first (or highest) card in the suit of Hearts is called the Heart. And the player with the first (or highest) card in the suit of Clubs is called the Gut. Keep drawing cards until everyone has a role.
    • In a four player game, every player has one role.
    • In a 3 player game, one player is the speaker, one player has two roles (from head, heart, and/or gut), and the third player has the remaining role, and also takes the notes.
    • In a two player game, one player is the speaker; the other player does everything else.
  • In subsequent turns, the speaker is the player to the left of the previous turn’s speaker. Re-shuffle the deck, and the other players draw cards to determine their roles, as in the first turn.
• The Speaker picks a setting from the brainstormed list, and starts by stating where he or she was (and perhaps what they were doing). For example:

• • “I was at a crowded party…”
  • “I was waiting for the bus…”
  • “I was just getting home…”

• The other players each ask one question from the following list, waiting as the speaker answers each one in turn, making the description as vivid as possible in one or two sentences:
  • • “What do you see?”
    • “What do you hear?”
    • “What do you smell?”
    • “What can you feel?”
    • “What do you taste?”
    • The other players may prompt the speaker a little bit. If the setting is a party, a player could ask “Do you hear music? What kind of Music?” But the questions should be open-ended.
    • Try to question a particular sense no more than twice… if someone has already asked the speaker “What do you hear?” then someone else may ask “What else do you hear?” only once.
• The Speaker’s Heart asks: “Who else was there?” And the Speaker answers.
  • • • E.g. “There was this pretty girl across the room…” or “The stop was crowded with commuters…” or “My husband was waiting in the kitchen…” or “A couple of co-workers were there…”
• The Speaker’s Gut asks: “What were they like? And what were they doing?” And the Speaker answers, describing the other person or people in the scene.
• The Speaker’s Head asks: “Was there something you wanted to say to them, or something they said to you?” And the Speaker answers.
• And the Speaker’s Head asks: “How anxious were you?” And the Speaker names a number between 1 and 5 (see chart below), describing their level of anxiety.
  • 1 = Hardly anxious
  • 2 = Sort of anxious
  • 3 = Fairly anxious
  • 4 = Very anxious
  • 5 = Totally anxious
• The Speaker then draws 1 card for each level of anxiety he or she is feeling, and turns them over one at a time.
  • • If the Speaker turns over a diamond, the Speaker’s Head asks: “What was going through your mind?” And the Speaker names an anxious thought, and writes it down.
      • • e.g. “Everybody thinks I’m a loser.” or “There’s no way out of here.”
    • If the Speaker turns over a heart, the Speaker’s Heart asks: “How did it make you feel?” And the Speaker names an emotion, or describes an image or metaphor; and writes it down.
      • • e.g. “I feel like I’m in the desert, all alone” or “I’m angry and tense” or “I feel like she is distant; cut off”
    • If the Speaker turns over a club, the Speaker’s Gut asks: “What sensations do you have in your body?” And the Speaker names a physical sensation, and writes it down.
      • • e.g. “My palms are sweaty” or “My face is hot and flushed” or “My stomach is clenched”
    • If the Speaker turns over a Spade, he or she may name a thought, emotion/relation, or physical sensation, at his or her discretion; and write it down.
• Once all the cards have been turned, and the results written down, the cards are put in the discard pile.
• Now all the other players in unison say “But how did you handle it?” And the Speaker draws more cards—one for each thought, emotion/image, or physical sensation that he or she has written down. Then she flips them over one by one, going down the list of anxious experiences and responding to them in turn. With each response, a line is struck through the anxious thought, emotion, or sensation, and the response is written next to it
  • • If the Speaker turns over a diamond, she names a healthy thought to counteract the anxious experience.
      • • e.g. “No one will hurt me here; I’m among friends.” or “I can handle this.”
    • If the Speaker turns over a heart, she names a healthy emotion or image that counteracts the anxious experience.
      • • e.g. “I feel pleasantly warm.” or “I am a pool of calm, clear water.”
    • If the Speaker turns over a club, she names a healthy action she takes to counteract the anxious experience.
      • • e.g. “I excuse myself and withdraw to the washroom to regroup.” or “I relax my shoulders and take a deep breath.”
    • If the Speaker turns over a spade, she can name any thought, emotion/image, or action that counteracts the anxious experience.
• Once all the anxious experiences have been addressed, the Speaker’s Heart asks: “And How do you feel now?” And the Speaker answers, and is free to fill in a sentence or two about how the interaction goes.
• If there is time, the Speaker can move on to describe another anxious moment in the scene, or to wrap up the scene and pass the torch to the next Speaker. (Probably, there should be a limit, agreed to by all players. Each “moment” is called a beat, and the number of beats per speaker per turn should be decided right after brainstorming. However, 3 is probably more than enough, and 1 is probably best for beginners or when there is limited time. It’s more important to make sure everybody gets a turn than to continue the scene). IN FACT: The Speaker should always change after 1 turn. If the game comes around again, then the Speaker can choose to start a new scene, or to continue one from his or her previous turn.
• At the end of a Speaker’s turn, re-shuffle the deck, and begin again, with the player to the left of the old Speaker as the new one.