Trait Suggestion: Anhedonia

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

Anhedonia - not finding pleasure in things you normally take pleasure in - is a symptom of depression.

Expanded Blurb

HXL416N.png498×1262 573 KB

"When depressed, you will also be reluctant to start things, and won’t find things appealing.

This sets up a nasty vicious cycle where ‘life feels bleak’ -> ‘nothing sounds fun’ -> do nothing -> don’t have fun -> ‘Hey I’m not having fun, life really is pretty bleak right now’ -> More depressed.

The way to break that cycle is to do things that you enjoy. Doing things solely for the sake of having fun is an important part of handling depression . Not only does it keep you from getting more depressed, but it can make you go ‘Hey I’m having a really nice day’ and give you bouncy energy to do productive things with.

I get so focused on all the things that need doing that I forget that when depressed, doing things solely because they’re fun is the practical thing to do if I want to get thing done.

There is a difference between procrastination and having trouble activating. If there’s a thing you need to do and you know you aren’t going to be able to do it now, do something fun , and afterwards you will have better odds of actually doing the thing.

If you find yourself in the situation in the picture, pick something that you are intellectually aware you would find fun if you were feeling better and start doing it.’ This means that you are focusing on something other than sigh and playing a game can make you feel productive, put ‘life is good!’ and ‘I can succeed at things!’ chemicals into a brain that is sorely in need of them."

What I’m thinking is rather simple. I noticed that it’s real easy to get stupidly high morale bonuses when season length is set to 91 days(not sure if this is the default now), so I propose a trait that reduces the maximum amount of morale you get from morale boosting things.

On the first use of an item you would get the full morale boost, but subsequent uses of that item while you’re still receiving morale buffs would provide diminishing returns eventually to the point it doesn’t raise morale at all.

Currently listening to an MP3 can boost your morale up to about 50, with this trait you’d max out at about 20 with music.

3 Likes
2

Seems pretty brutal.

Love it :smiling_imp:

3

I don’t know if it really needs to be a trait. A mechanic like that should exist for all characters, everyone gets tired of things over time, especially if they do it all the time. Food especially.

4

Yeah, but this isn’t being tired of doing things, as much as it is getting random morale debuffs the longer you go without doing something fun.

The difference is like “Oh, I played that game yesterday, so I won’t play it today” and “wow, I feel like crap and don’t feel like actually doing anything, including things that would make me feel better.”

5

Jesus Christ. That’s literally my life for the last four years…

1 Like
6

Oh I see, not reducing morale from things you’ve done a lot of, the trait would flat out prevent you from getting any buffs from pleasant activities. Personally, sounds like something I’d take as free points since I rarely, if ever, put any effort into raising my morale.

That said, it would have to be a fairly low cost trait, or perhaps worked into an overall chronic depression trait which could include that and more, but a trait like that might be so unpleasant to play with that nobody would take it aside from for RP purposes.

1 Like
7

Don’t worry depression can be beat. On that note maybe meds could stop the trait from being as harsh like with schizophrenia.

1 Like
8

This has not been my experience, even while properly medicated. o_o Not enjoying life is like attrition. Sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s not, but it’s a constant eroding pressure.

Not to get all bleak or anything.

9

I speak from personal experience depression can be beat it just requires alot of time and the help of friends and family. In the apocalypse you don’t typically have friends and family. But you do have meds one of my friends was suicidally depressed she took some meds and with time she is now one of the happiest people I know but it took her along time to get to where she is now.

1 Like