As much as people may disagree, mental illness is a grey area. There are a few lines you don't want to cross when it comes to these things. First, portraying mental illness as a triviality, or even worse, as a gift is going to alienate those who actually suffer with it. The madness rules, as currently written, are a bit awkward in relation to the first, because the indefinite madness descriptions border on comedy, and player portrayals of madness are frequently trivializing. I'd also like to throw in there that Lovecraft was a supreme *******. I, for one, would love it if cosmic horror were to finally advance beyond him, but we're still stuck in the age of cyclopean tentacles and whatnot.
Considering the number of users in this thread that I happen to know either:
Actually live with one or more mental disorders (the current preferred clinical term).
Are sensitive to and supportive of matters related to mental disorders in either their personal communities or this comunity.
And considering how many of them are on the side of this conversation saying that this is not a problem and doesn’t represent squat all to do with real life..
And considering that I am am one of them, take it from me: This is in no way representative of nor related to any real world issue, nor is it offensive to people who live with mental disorders.
In fact, this conversation is more offensive than the use of the term “Madness” in the DMG.
If anyone here does not have any mental disorders and feels like being offended on my behalf, don’t. Go find some other cause to martyr yourself for, your services are not required in this matter.
I hope this helps.
I'd respectfully ask that you don't position yourself as the spokesperson for those suffering with mental illness. There are certainly aspects of 5e's "madness" that may be perceived as insensitive to reasonable people.
As much as people may disagree, mental illness is a grey area. There are a few lines you don't want to cross when it comes to these things. First, portraying mental illness as a triviality, or even worse, as a gift is going to alienate those who actually suffer with it. The madness rules, as currently written, are a bit awkward in relation to the first, because the indefinite madness descriptions border on comedy, and player portrayals of madness are frequently trivializing. I'd also like to throw in there that Lovecraft was a supreme *******. I, for one, would love it if cosmic horror were to finally advance beyond him, but we're still stuck in the age of cyclopean tentacles and whatnot.
Considering the number of users in this thread that I happen to know either:
Actually live with one or more mental disorders (the current preferred clinical term).
Are sensitive to and supportive of matters related to mental disorders in either their personal communities or this comunity.
And considering how many of them are on the side of this conversation saying that this is not a problem and doesn’t represent squat all to do with real life..
And considering that I am am one of them, take it from me: This is in no way representative of nor related to any real world issue, nor is it offensive to people who live with mental disorders.
In fact, this conversation is more offensive than the use of the term “Madness” in the DMG.
If anyone here does not have any mental disorders and feels like being offended on my behalf, don’t. Go find some other cause to martyr yourself for, your services are not required in this matter.
I hope this helps.
I'd respectfully ask that you don't position yourself as the spokesperson for those suffering with mental illness. There are certainly aspects of 5e's "madness" that may be perceived as insensitive to reasonable people.
So you’re calling me unreasonable now?
Don't waddle into the realm of attacks.
Being fair, your post comes off as "I am the authority figure on this topic, and therefore my word is Law" and then also immediately goes "But don't use me as your reference tool if you don't also have the things I might have". It's negative to the conversation.
And considering that I am am one of them, take it from me: This is in no way representative of nor related to any real world issue, nor is it offensive to people who live with mental disorders.
I'm going to wade in here as someone with a fairly long history of mental health issues (that I won't go into the specifics of as they can be triggering); I personally have found the representation of mental illness and madness in D&D troubling at times. It plays into the problematic stereotype of the "dangerous, raving lunatic" depiction of the mentally ill, a depiction that makes people scared of those with mental illness, and often makes those with mental illness (such as myself) scared to be open about it, lest they be judged as such 'dangerously unstable' individuals.
I do not speak for anyone else but myself and those who I have spoken with and share my opinion. Depiction of mental illness, not just in D&D but across media, is very rarely sympathetic but instead played purely for the horror of it. It's so uncommon that I will often be startled by a genuinely sympathetic depiction.
As such, I'd like to direct people to this twitter thread by Doctor B, a mental health advocate, doctor of psychology and director of the mental health charity Take This. In it he comments on how WotC has moved away from 'madness and insanity' and towards 'fears and stress'. This is a very significant leap because it's moving away from the internal to the external, from mental illness to stressors. This is a much more accurate representation of what the DMGs madness and insanity system is aiming for; external stressors that tax the hero, not mental illnesses.
Now, to put my mod hat back on.
I ask that everyone be kind to each other. Remember that mental illness is an acutely personal, painful, and still stigmatised problem people face. Your experience of mental illness is yours and yours alone; no one has the right to invalidate it, but equally no one has the right to speak for the experiences of others. If you cannot speak kindly, respectfully and considerately on this matter, it is better to not speak at all. D&D may be a game, but mental health is not. Be excellent to each other.
And considering that I am am one of them, take it from me: This is in no way representative of nor related to any real world issue, nor is it offensive to people who live with mental disorders.
Fair, and I object to this whole topic. I personally find it offensive that anyone would in any way draw any direct correlation between what real people have to live with day in and day out and the abject fiction presented in the DMG as “Madnesses.”
So it appears we are at an impasse, I object to this entire conversation being validated in any way, shape, or form; and you object to my objection.
I’m on this blasted website at all crazy hours of the day and night because the nightmares are so Godawful that I’m afraid to sleep most nights. I damn near jump out of my skin whenever my one dog barks, or my wife drops a pot in the kitchen. I’m afraid to drive to work because I’m worried that the sounds of the diesel engines will trigger a panic attack and I’ll cause an accident. This is my effing life we’re talking about here, and one thing that helps me cope is D&D.
Wanna know something funny? I am currently DMing a Cthulhu inspired campaign using both the optional Sanity ability score as well as the Madnesses from the DMG. That’s right, every Wednesday night I get a little relief from my reality of actual mental health issues by playing a game that uses those rules that are supposedly so offensive to folks who struggle with mental health issues… you know, like me. 🤨
Those rules are so far removed from anything even remotely resembling reality that it’s almost a satirical catharsis to use them for their sheet absurdity.
So tell me again I have no right to a voice in this conversation when I am probably the only one in this thread with an metaphorical dog currently in the fight.
I repeat, as someone living with mental health issues, this conversation is more offensive to me than the subject.
I would like to point out to all here that we are discussing a magical setting where magical cures actually exist and generally, magic exists. And where people literally heal the worst wounds by simply sleeping them off and where even death itself is a reversible condition with sufficient resources.
No sane person is equating such a setting with reality.
Furthermore, madness is treated in game as a medical condition, as something that can or should be treated. How, precisely, is that different from reality in any negative way? There is no implication of any of the real world stigmas too often associated with madness. Someone suffering from a condition that could be so described is not to be written off as 'evil' but rather as someone with a condition, a specific set of symptoms.
And as someone who has fought depression (and who still fights against depression) I am very glad I did get help when I needed it most. It is much better under control now but still there. If there was a literal magical cure with no negative side effects (greater restoration, or equivalent) I would be very happy for it. However, this is the real world. It is what it is. That is just my experience on the subject, no one else's nor do I claim to be speaking for anyone else.
The issue is complicated for sure. We can get into the sociological pieces in D&D about how you can cure even the most dire things with money, and therefore sickness is only for poor people or non gifted people and man does that become a slippery slope fast, but that's not the intent of the thread.
I would also caution against using arguments of sane, reasonable and the like in this thread. Why? Because people with mental conditions are too often told that if they were just more rational about something their condition would go away. Howie Mandell is a great public example of this. Famous comedian, but struggles constantly with ADHD, OCD, and germaphobia. Hes done interviews about how he wish he never told anyone about his ADHD, but ended up doing as an impulse due to his ADHD.
The reason for the discussion, and I truly hope it stays one is that D&D is used as a means of escape. For those with these types of issues, seeing it presented as a "preventable flaw" or a "curable whim" can in turn create moments of pain. We play D&D to have fun, but now that pain in game is brought back to the person. Some might be able to use that as an escape, others will see it happen and start screaming. With the "Someone suffering from a condition that could be so described is not to be written off as 'evil' but rather as someone with a condition, a specific set of symptoms" line, depending on how the DM presents it? If someone is acting like the "I am convinced that powerful enemies are hunting me, and their agents are everywhere I go. I am sure they’re watching me all the time" madness, is your gutcheck reaction going to be "Oh they're sick, let me greater restoration" or is it going to be "That person is paranoid, gonna avoid them?" That's where the madness table can fail to certain people.
There are always better ways of doing things. There just are. Boundaries exist at every table and each one is going to have different limits. I have to believe that the intent at most tables is never to offend, even though I've personally seen and experienced otherwise, it was a very minor selection. Most DMs and players really do want everyone to have a good time. It's just a matter of being able to present that and go from there.
And considering that I am am one of them, take it from me: This is in no way representative of nor related to any real world issue, nor is it offensive to people who live with mental disorders.
Fair, and I object to this whole topic. I personally find it offensive that anyone would in any way draw any direct correlation between what real people have to live with day in and day out and the abject fiction presented in the DMG as “Madnesses.”
So it appears we are at an impasse, I object to this entire conversation being validated in any way, shape, or form; and you object to my objection.
I’m on this blasted website at all crazy hours of the day and night because the nightmares are so Godawful that I’m afraid to sleep most nights. I damn near jump out of my skin whenever my one dog barks, or my wife drops a pot in the kitchen. I’m afraid to drive to work because I’m worried that the sounds of the diesel engines will trigger a panic attack and I’ll cause an accident. This is my effing life we’re talking about here, and one thing that helps me cope is D&D.
Wanna know something funny? I am currently DMing a Cthulhu inspired campaign using both the optional Sanity ability score as well as the Madnesses from the DMG. That’s right, every Wednesday night I get a little relief from my reality of actual mental health issues by playing a game that uses those rules that are supposedly so offensive to folks who struggle with mental health issues… you know, like me. 🤨
Those rules are so far removed from anything even remotely resembling reality that it’s almost a satirical catharsis to use them for their sheet absurdity.
So tell me again I have no right to a voice in this conversation when I am probably the only one in this thread with an metaphorical dog currently in the fight.
I repeat, as someone living with mental health issues, this conversation is more offensive to me than the subject.
You absolutely have a voice. The whole point was to say that your voice is ONLY your voice. You don't want others to speak for you, so employ the same respect. That's it. You can absolutely share your distaste for the topic, and I think the point being made is that people aren't correlating the two. People are trying to find ways so that people don't get offended by something presented in the table that could very well be close to the vest to them in real life. Just because there are people in this thread, like yourself who fall into the mental conditions category and aren't offended by the madness table, there are absolutely others that would be, could be and are. I can say this as a fact as I had an ex girlfriend walk out of a D&D session when her character was presented with a madness. She couldn't handle the fact that her character was now "sick" because she thought the party would treat her like a "sick" person. She had already dealt with it in real life and didn't want that to happen in the game either.
This was a failure on the DMs part for sure, but the DM was using the mechanics RAW. People on this website always preach that RAW is best, and well, sometimes it ain't. The intent of the DM wasn't to personally offend her, but he ended up doing it.
No. Just no. D&D is a game, it is not a real life simulation, it’s not meant to train its players and qualify them as psychologists, or any other trade for that matter. The madness that is caused by spells, gods, demons etc within the game world are not meant to reflect real world medical conditions.
In seriousness, as to the question in the thread's title: honestly, I don't have a good answer. Some of it is kinda adjacent to things I've experienced (though I'd prefer not to go into detail about that right now), while other parts just have me here scratching my head as to why they were included (blinded or deafened, I have no clue as to their inclusion on a table for madness...)
My whole issue is people considering Mental Health as only either sane or madness. People out here IRL think Mental Illness is madness. That's the problem.
The title of this thread doesn't do us any favors when it proposes that D&D's madness affects Mental Illness. That statement implies that madness is directly related to Mental Illness.
What irks me most about that is the title and original post was supposedly typed in an attempt to raise awareness of people like me and possibly made things worse by promoting a stereotype with its verbiage.
D&D is not portraying Mental Illness as madness. The topic of this thread is. As one who keeps encountering stuff like this, I'm right sick of it. It's not helping us by trying to make people "woke". What would help is to stop associating us with the word, madness, and not saying that D&D madness is Mental Illness.
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So, is "madness" offensive? No. It's just a catch-all term to depict a variety of mental effects. That's the term in real-life and the term in this game. As a person with multiple mental health issues that have had severe impacts on all aspects of my life, am I offended by this term? No. It's not an insult. It's not derogatory. It's a harmless term, it's very fitting, and personally I find it more endearing than some alternatives (like 'batshit cray-cray", which I also find funny, rather than offensive, but that's more of a 'me' thing).
So, while I have plenty of my own mental issues and demons, I'm not going to comment specifically on Madness. I think it is a nuanced subject which would take several pages for me to express my opinions on, and I'm not going to subject you all to that.
What I do want to raise is that, just because a phrase is used to describe something and is widely recognised, does not make that a valid argument to shut down discussion on whether the term should be used. There is a very famous example of a word which was widely used as a catch-all term for a group of people from various background with some commonalities, which is now well known to be a highly offensive word to use. I'm sure that many would have argued that it was "just a catch-all term", and that "this is the term in real life", but that doesn't in itself shield it from criticism.
Note that I am not saying that the situation is the same for the word madness*, just pointing out that this line of reasoning is flawed.
* Although I have not heard it used in anything but either a highly derogatory or comedic sense for describing someone with real mental conditions for a lot of years
No. Just no. D&D is a game, it is not a real life simulation, it’s not meant to train its players and qualify them as psychologists, or any other trade for that matter. The madness that is caused by spells, gods, demons etc within the game world are not meant to reflect real world medical conditions.
I will point out that if the description of something or the name of something matches something in the real world, parallels will be drawn and comparisons will be made.
Saying "it's just a game" is not a magical shield from any criticism. In fact, if something is already causing offence (whether that is rightly or wrongly in you eyes), this is likely the worst possible thing you can say.
No. Just no. D&D is a game, it is not a real life simulation, it’s not meant to train its players and qualify them as psychologists, or any other trade for that matter. The madness that is caused by spells, gods, demons etc within the game world are not meant to reflect real world medical conditions.
I will point out that if the description of something or the name of something matches something in the real world, parallels will be drawn and comparisons will be made.
Saying "it's just a game" is not a magical shield from any criticism. In fact, if something is already causing offence (whether that is rightly or wrongly in you eyes), this is likely the worst possible thing you can say.
Pardon the pun, but who in their right mind would make ANY parallels and comparisons with the real world and D&D, outside of physical stuff? No matter what you say, D&D IS a game, like quite literally millions of other games created in the history of mankind. Are you planning of ridding every single game in the world of any feature of that game that some segment of the population finds uncomfortable or offensive, where that segment can range from the majority to a single person?
There are so many real world problems that need attention. Conflating D&D with said real world problems and thinking you are doing good by wiping out something in D&D you find offensive is NOT the way to address real world issues.
No. Just no. D&D is a game, it is not a real life simulation, it’s not meant to train its players and qualify them as psychologists, or any other trade for that matter. The madness that is caused by spells, gods, demons etc within the game world are not meant to reflect real world medical conditions.
I will point out that if the description of something or the name of something matches something in the real world, parallels will be drawn and comparisons will be made.
Saying "it's just a game" is not a magical shield from any criticism. In fact, if something is already causing offence (whether that is rightly or wrongly in you eyes), this is likely the worst possible thing you can say.
Pardon the pun, but who in their right mind would make ANY parallels and comparisons with the real world and D&D, outside of physical stuff? No matter what you say, D&D IS a game, like quite literally millions of other games created in the history of mankind. Are you planning of ridding every single game in the world of any feature of that game that some segment of the population finds uncomfortable or offensive, where that segment can range from the majority to a single person?
There are so many real world problems that need attention. Conflating D&D with said real world problems and thinking you are doing good by wiping out something in D&D you find offensive is NOT the way to address real world issues.
Really?!
So, when a condition is termed unconscious, nobody links that in their mind to being unconscious in the real world? When a D&D rule talks of gravity, nobody considers it in terms of the force which "holds us down"? When a character is described as being happy, they don't link it to their own experiences of happiness?
If people link those, why is it suddenly unreasonable for people to link madness, a word which has been used throughout the ages to cover various forms of mental illness, to mental illness? If they have suffered hallucinations, an inability to speak or paralysing, unreasoning fear due to mental conditions, why is it not reasonable for a description of those conditions in the game to provoke memories of such effects occurring to them in real life?
I can only laugh at this. Things which exist both in the real world and in the game will be linked by a lot of people, especially those with a strong connection to them. Whether this is an axe, a horse, a human, fire, fear, or madness, there will be a connection and a comparison made. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
Again, I am not actually saying that madness, in game, is offensive. All I am saying is that "It's just a game" is, at the very best, an incredibly weak argument when what is being described in the game (or even a word in the game) exists in the real world.
Van Richten's Guide has changed what was previously sanity and madness rules to fear and stress rules. Presumably for the same reasons it is being scrutinized here.
This is a game and I feel the designers are working hard to evolve on many triggering/inclusive subjects all at once and put a lot of effort into doing the right thing.
You are not yelling into a void is all I am saying.
Spoiler'd comment is one more futile attempt to convince someone of why "parallels between the real world and D&D" are unavoidable. Ignore if you're as sick of reading these as I am of writing them.
Vince.
Vince.
Vince.
The game of D&D is played by people who live in the real world. Their experiences are from the real world. Their fears are from the real world. Their anger is from the real world. The game of D&D - the people sitting around a table eating snacks, talking to each other and throwing math rocks to build an adventure together - is in the real world.
Your stubborn, caustic refusal to admit that something which exists in the real world can have unintended interactions with other things that also exist in the real world - namely, people's personal experiences, traumas, and trials - is actively harmful to everyone whom you constantly claim to be...well. A bunch of words that would get me banned if I repeated them. You have been told many dozens of times at this point about the numerous logical fallacies, faulty arguments, and outright hostility you offer at every turn.
You are not allowed to invalidate other people's own experiences simply because you dislike what that experience says. You are not allowed to tell someone they are lying about their own experiences, that their experiences are wrong, or that their experiences don't matter. When someone tells you that something about the game causes them pain, stress, or fear, you do ******* not get to tell them that they are wrong for feeling that way. You can dispute the methods being used to correct this problem. You can argue in favor of other, less invasive methods of correcting the problem - not that a few language choice changes are 'invasive', but nevertheless. You can argue that "losing the history of D&D" causes you pain, stress and fear, and try to argue for ways we can use to reduce the impact of that experience on you. I would be quite willing to have that conversation with you, provided you were conversing in good faith.
If you continue to use "your pain, stress and fear isn't real" as your primary argument against any sort of change or modernization of the game? if you continue to disrupt good, healthy conversations like this thread started as because you cannot contain your anger? I will speak to a moderator and ask what the proper method is for reporting those posts or otherwise dealing with them, because I refuse to tolerate you dismissing and denigrating people's personal experiences.
Pain, stress, and fear is always real. Do not - ever - presume otherwise again, please.
Van Richten's Guide has changed what was previously sanity and madness rules to fear and stress rules. Presumably for the same reasons it is being scrutinized here.
Not actually convinced that's better. Supernatural effects that drive people nuts aren't directly comparable to any real world effects and thus you're not going to be wrong (or even really talking about people) if you make statements about what they do. Fear and stress, by comparison, is a real world thing with known acute and chronic (PTSD) effects that you can easily misrepresent.
I would note that CoS has a number of 'mad' NPCs, and also a bunch of NPCs who are not specifically mentioned as mad but clearly have problems, and whether the treatment of mad NPCs is insensitive is a reasonable question that I think is separate from the DMG tables.
Spoiler'd comment is one more futile attempt to convince someone of why "parallels between the real world and D&D" are unavoidable. Ignore if you're as sick of reading these as I am of writing them.
Vince.
Vince.
Vince.
The game of D&D is played by people who live in the real world. Their experiences are from the real world. Their fears are from the real world. Their anger is from the real world. The game of D&D - the people sitting around a table eating snacks, talking to each other and throwing math rocks to build an adventure together - is in the real world.
Your stubborn, caustic refusal to admit that something which exists in the real world can have unintended interactions with other things that also exist in the real world - namely, people's personal experiences, traumas, and trials - is actively harmful to everyone whom you constantly claim to be...well. A bunch of words that would get me banned if I repeated them. You have been told many dozens of times at this point about the numerous logical fallacies, faulty arguments, and outright hostility you offer at every turn.
You are not allowed to invalidate other people's own experiences simply because you dislike what that experience says. You are not allowed to tell someone they are lying about their own experiences, that their experiences are wrong, or that their experiences don't matter. When someone tells you that something about the game causes them pain, stress, or fear, you do ****ing not get to tell them that they are wrong for feeling that way. You can dispute the methods being used to correct this problem. You can argue in favor of other, less invasive methods of correcting the problem - not that a few language choice changes are 'invasive', but nevertheless. You can argue that "losing the history of D&D" causes you pain, stress and fear, and try to argue for ways we can use to reduce the impact of that experience on you. I would be quite willing to have that conversation with you, provided you were conversing in good faith.
If you continue to use "your pain, stress and fear isn't real" as your primary argument against any sort of change or modernization of the game? if you continue to disrupt good, healthy conversations like this thread started as because you cannot contain your anger? I will speak to a moderator and ask what the proper method is for reporting those posts or otherwise dealing with them, because I refuse to tolerate you dismissing and denigrating people's personal experiences.
Pain, stress, and fear is always real. Do not - ever - presume otherwise again, please.
People attack people with knives in the real world. On rare occasion, even with swords.
People steal from others, use deception, use persuasion in negative ways, use intimidation in negative ways.
Should all RP and drama be shut down lest someone take exception?
That is not a rhetorical question.
Of everything in this game, the madness rules are far closer to the magic rules than to the physical combat rules. There is zero chance in RAW of developing any such symptoms from the usual real life triggers. There are no genetic risks. There are no risks from normal combat stresses, no traumatic stress disorder risk.
The rules say "Various magical effects can inflict madness on an otherwise stable mind." Out of the Abyss adds more mundane causes but in the context of the party being hounded by Demonic effects.
It really is distanced.
I kinda disagree.
The very first sentence of the rules you link to says:
In a typical campaign, characters aren't driven mad by the horrors they face and the carnage they inflict day after day, but sometimes the stress of being an adventurer can be too much to bear.
This strongly links the Madness rules to many real-world effects: stress, PTSD, etc.
In addition, most of the effects in the Madness Table are very close to possible effects of serious mental conditions.
Finally, once again, the very word "madness" has been used throughout the ages to mean various mental conditions.
Now if it were described purely as a magical condition and the effects were not so clearly taken from both real world mental conditions and stereotypical mentally ill people from popular fiction, I could agree with you. But when the very rules start with a mundane cause, I don't think this argument flies at all.
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So you’re calling me unreasonable now?
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Don't waddle into the realm of attacks.
Being fair, your post comes off as "I am the authority figure on this topic, and therefore my word is Law" and then also immediately goes "But don't use me as your reference tool if you don't also have the things I might have". It's negative to the conversation.
Not at all what I said. This is what I object to:
I just want to put in I find this thread interesting in light of the main page article on psychological horror and understanding player boundaries.
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I'm going to wade in here as someone with a fairly long history of mental health issues (that I won't go into the specifics of as they can be triggering); I personally have found the representation of mental illness and madness in D&D troubling at times. It plays into the problematic stereotype of the "dangerous, raving lunatic" depiction of the mentally ill, a depiction that makes people scared of those with mental illness, and often makes those with mental illness (such as myself) scared to be open about it, lest they be judged as such 'dangerously unstable' individuals.
I do not speak for anyone else but myself and those who I have spoken with and share my opinion. Depiction of mental illness, not just in D&D but across media, is very rarely sympathetic but instead played purely for the horror of it. It's so uncommon that I will often be startled by a genuinely sympathetic depiction.
As such, I'd like to direct people to this twitter thread by Doctor B, a mental health advocate, doctor of psychology and director of the mental health charity Take This. In it he comments on how WotC has moved away from 'madness and insanity' and towards 'fears and stress'. This is a very significant leap because it's moving away from the internal to the external, from mental illness to stressors. This is a much more accurate representation of what the DMGs madness and insanity system is aiming for; external stressors that tax the hero, not mental illnesses.
Now, to put my mod hat back on.
I ask that everyone be kind to each other. Remember that mental illness is an acutely personal, painful, and still stigmatised problem people face. Your experience of mental illness is yours and yours alone; no one has the right to invalidate it, but equally no one has the right to speak for the experiences of others. If you cannot speak kindly, respectfully and considerately on this matter, it is better to not speak at all. D&D may be a game, but mental health is not. Be excellent to each other.
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Fair, and I object to this whole topic. I personally find it offensive that anyone would in any way draw any direct correlation between what real people have to live with day in and day out and the abject fiction presented in the DMG as “Madnesses.”
So it appears we are at an impasse, I object to this entire conversation being validated in any way, shape, or form; and you object to my objection.
I’m on this blasted website at all crazy hours of the day and night because the nightmares are so Godawful that I’m afraid to sleep most nights. I damn near jump out of my skin whenever my one dog barks, or my wife drops a pot in the kitchen. I’m afraid to drive to work because I’m worried that the sounds of the diesel engines will trigger a panic attack and I’ll cause an accident. This is my effing life we’re talking about here, and one thing that helps me cope is D&D.
Wanna know something funny? I am currently DMing a Cthulhu inspired campaign using both the optional Sanity ability score as well as the Madnesses from the DMG. That’s right, every Wednesday night I get a little relief from my reality of actual mental health issues by playing a game that uses those rules that are supposedly so offensive to folks who struggle with mental health issues… you know, like me. 🤨
Those rules are so far removed from anything even remotely resembling reality that it’s almost a satirical catharsis to use them for their sheet absurdity.
So tell me again I have no right to a voice in this conversation when I am probably the only one in this thread with an metaphorical dog currently in the fight.
I repeat, as someone living with mental health issues, this conversation is more offensive to me than the subject.
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Content Troubleshooting
The issue is complicated for sure. We can get into the sociological pieces in D&D about how you can cure even the most dire things with money, and therefore sickness is only for poor people or non gifted people and man does that become a slippery slope fast, but that's not the intent of the thread.
I would also caution against using arguments of sane, reasonable and the like in this thread. Why? Because people with mental conditions are too often told that if they were just more rational about something their condition would go away. Howie Mandell is a great public example of this. Famous comedian, but struggles constantly with ADHD, OCD, and germaphobia. Hes done interviews about how he wish he never told anyone about his ADHD, but ended up doing as an impulse due to his ADHD.
The reason for the discussion, and I truly hope it stays one is that D&D is used as a means of escape. For those with these types of issues, seeing it presented as a "preventable flaw" or a "curable whim" can in turn create moments of pain. We play D&D to have fun, but now that pain in game is brought back to the person. Some might be able to use that as an escape, others will see it happen and start screaming. With the "Someone suffering from a condition that could be so described is not to be written off as 'evil' but rather as someone with a condition, a specific set of symptoms" line, depending on how the DM presents it? If someone is acting like the "I am convinced that powerful enemies are hunting me, and their agents are everywhere I go. I am sure they’re watching me all the time" madness, is your gutcheck reaction going to be "Oh they're sick, let me greater restoration" or is it going to be "That person is paranoid, gonna avoid them?" That's where the madness table can fail to certain people.
There are always better ways of doing things. There just are. Boundaries exist at every table and each one is going to have different limits. I have to believe that the intent at most tables is never to offend, even though I've personally seen and experienced otherwise, it was a very minor selection. Most DMs and players really do want everyone to have a good time. It's just a matter of being able to present that and go from there.
You absolutely have a voice. The whole point was to say that your voice is ONLY your voice. You don't want others to speak for you, so employ the same respect. That's it. You can absolutely share your distaste for the topic, and I think the point being made is that people aren't correlating the two. People are trying to find ways so that people don't get offended by something presented in the table that could very well be close to the vest to them in real life. Just because there are people in this thread, like yourself who fall into the mental conditions category and aren't offended by the madness table, there are absolutely others that would be, could be and are. I can say this as a fact as I had an ex girlfriend walk out of a D&D session when her character was presented with a madness. She couldn't handle the fact that her character was now "sick" because she thought the party would treat her like a "sick" person. She had already dealt with it in real life and didn't want that to happen in the game either.
This was a failure on the DMs part for sure, but the DM was using the mechanics RAW. People on this website always preach that RAW is best, and well, sometimes it ain't. The intent of the DM wasn't to personally offend her, but he ended up doing it.
No. Just no. D&D is a game, it is not a real life simulation, it’s not meant to train its players and qualify them as psychologists, or any other trade for that matter. The madness that is caused by spells, gods, demons etc within the game world are not meant to reflect real world medical conditions.
Well, that's optimistic...
In seriousness, as to the question in the thread's title: honestly, I don't have a good answer. Some of it is kinda adjacent to things I've experienced (though I'd prefer not to go into detail about that right now), while other parts just have me here scratching my head as to why they were included (blinded or deafened, I have no clue as to their inclusion on a table for madness...)
My whole issue is people considering Mental Health as only either sane or madness. People out here IRL think Mental Illness is madness. That's the problem.
The title of this thread doesn't do us any favors when it proposes that D&D's madness affects Mental Illness. That statement implies that madness is directly related to Mental Illness.
What irks me most about that is the title and original post was supposedly typed in an attempt to raise awareness of people like me and possibly made things worse by promoting a stereotype with its verbiage.
D&D is not portraying Mental Illness as madness. The topic of this thread is. As one who keeps encountering stuff like this, I'm right sick of it. It's not helping us by trying to make people "woke". What would help is to stop associating us with the word, madness, and not saying that D&D madness is Mental Illness.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
So, while I have plenty of my own mental issues and demons, I'm not going to comment specifically on Madness. I think it is a nuanced subject which would take several pages for me to express my opinions on, and I'm not going to subject you all to that.
What I do want to raise is that, just because a phrase is used to describe something and is widely recognised, does not make that a valid argument to shut down discussion on whether the term should be used. There is a very famous example of a word which was widely used as a catch-all term for a group of people from various background with some commonalities, which is now well known to be a highly offensive word to use. I'm sure that many would have argued that it was "just a catch-all term", and that "this is the term in real life", but that doesn't in itself shield it from criticism.
Note that I am not saying that the situation is the same for the word madness*, just pointing out that this line of reasoning is flawed.
* Although I have not heard it used in anything but either a highly derogatory or comedic sense for describing someone with real mental conditions for a lot of years
I will point out that if the description of something or the name of something matches something in the real world, parallels will be drawn and comparisons will be made.
Saying "it's just a game" is not a magical shield from any criticism. In fact, if something is already causing offence (whether that is rightly or wrongly in you eyes), this is likely the worst possible thing you can say.
Pardon the pun, but who in their right mind would make ANY parallels and comparisons with the real world and D&D, outside of physical stuff? No matter what you say, D&D IS a game, like quite literally millions of other games created in the history of mankind. Are you planning of ridding every single game in the world of any feature of that game that some segment of the population finds uncomfortable or offensive, where that segment can range from the majority to a single person?
There are so many real world problems that need attention. Conflating D&D with said real world problems and thinking you are doing good by wiping out something in D&D you find offensive is NOT the way to address real world issues.
Really?!
So, when a condition is termed unconscious, nobody links that in their mind to being unconscious in the real world? When a D&D rule talks of gravity, nobody considers it in terms of the force which "holds us down"? When a character is described as being happy, they don't link it to their own experiences of happiness?
If people link those, why is it suddenly unreasonable for people to link madness, a word which has been used throughout the ages to cover various forms of mental illness, to mental illness? If they have suffered hallucinations, an inability to speak or paralysing, unreasoning fear due to mental conditions, why is it not reasonable for a description of those conditions in the game to provoke memories of such effects occurring to them in real life?
I can only laugh at this. Things which exist both in the real world and in the game will be linked by a lot of people, especially those with a strong connection to them. Whether this is an axe, a horse, a human, fire, fear, or madness, there will be a connection and a comparison made. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.
Again, I am not actually saying that madness, in game, is offensive. All I am saying is that "It's just a game" is, at the very best, an incredibly weak argument when what is being described in the game (or even a word in the game) exists in the real world.
Van Richten's Guide has changed what was previously sanity and madness rules to fear and stress rules. Presumably for the same reasons it is being scrutinized here.
This is a game and I feel the designers are working hard to evolve on many triggering/inclusive subjects all at once and put a lot of effort into doing the right thing.
You are not yelling into a void is all I am saying.
Sigh.
Spoiler'd comment is one more futile attempt to convince someone of why "parallels between the real world and D&D" are unavoidable. Ignore if you're as sick of reading these as I am of writing them.
Vince.
Vince.
Vince.
The game of D&D is played by people who live in the real world. Their experiences are from the real world. Their fears are from the real world. Their anger is from the real world. The game of D&D - the people sitting around a table eating snacks, talking to each other and throwing math rocks to build an adventure together - is in the real world.
Your stubborn, caustic refusal to admit that something which exists in the real world can have unintended interactions with other things that also exist in the real world - namely, people's personal experiences, traumas, and trials - is actively harmful to everyone whom you constantly claim to be...well. A bunch of words that would get me banned if I repeated them. You have been told many dozens of times at this point about the numerous logical fallacies, faulty arguments, and outright hostility you offer at every turn.
You are not allowed to invalidate other people's own experiences simply because you dislike what that experience says. You are not allowed to tell someone they are lying about their own experiences, that their experiences are wrong, or that their experiences don't matter. When someone tells you that something about the game causes them pain, stress, or fear, you do ******* not get to tell them that they are wrong for feeling that way. You can dispute the methods being used to correct this problem. You can argue in favor of other, less invasive methods of correcting the problem - not that a few language choice changes are 'invasive', but nevertheless. You can argue that "losing the history of D&D" causes you pain, stress and fear, and try to argue for ways we can use to reduce the impact of that experience on you. I would be quite willing to have that conversation with you, provided you were conversing in good faith.
If you continue to use "your pain, stress and fear isn't real" as your primary argument against any sort of change or modernization of the game? if you continue to disrupt good, healthy conversations like this thread started as because you cannot contain your anger? I will speak to a moderator and ask what the proper method is for reporting those posts or otherwise dealing with them, because I refuse to tolerate you dismissing and denigrating people's personal experiences.
Pain, stress, and fear is always real. Do not - ever - presume otherwise again, please.
Please do not contact or message me.
Not actually convinced that's better. Supernatural effects that drive people nuts aren't directly comparable to any real world effects and thus you're not going to be wrong (or even really talking about people) if you make statements about what they do. Fear and stress, by comparison, is a real world thing with known acute and chronic (PTSD) effects that you can easily misrepresent.
I would note that CoS has a number of 'mad' NPCs, and also a bunch of NPCs who are not specifically mentioned as mad but clearly have problems, and whether the treatment of mad NPCs is insensitive is a reasonable question that I think is separate from the DMG tables.
I kinda disagree.
The very first sentence of the rules you link to says:
This strongly links the Madness rules to many real-world effects: stress, PTSD, etc.
In addition, most of the effects in the Madness Table are very close to possible effects of serious mental conditions.
Finally, once again, the very word "madness" has been used throughout the ages to mean various mental conditions.
Now if it were described purely as a magical condition and the effects were not so clearly taken from both real world mental conditions and stereotypical mentally ill people from popular fiction, I could agree with you. But when the very rules start with a mundane cause, I don't think this argument flies at all.