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I've known for a while I get very invested in my RPGs. I identify strongly with my characters and am personally affected by their successes and failures. It's caused me an increased amount of stress recently as the mood of the games I'm playing in has become, on average, increasingly dramatic, emotional, and high stakes. Some nights I have trouble sleeping after a game - even when the game wraps up several hours before I go to bed.
I still very much enjoy playing but I'd rather not spend the day after a game recovering.
Any advice?
Remember that it's just a game, and that you are there to have fun, and so is everyone else.
Most of the time there is a chance to turn around any encounter that seems bad at first, and unless there is some extreme bad luck going on there is a high chance you and your party will succeed. I had the same problem, and I just had to tell myself that everything would be fine, and there was no reason to worry. That even if my character died, I was going to relax, play intelligently, and give it my best shot.
Breathe, and try not to focus on things that go wrong during a fight, but think more about things that go right and what you can do to help swing the battle in your parties favor.
Uh... Go on dates? party more? Therapy maybe?
Seriously though, I have experienced this too when a favorite character suffers an inglorious death that probably could have been avoided by another PCs spending one round to help. All you can do is jump back in and try again.
There are satisfying deaths too, such as a cleric I played who, when he was the last PC standing, threw down his shield, took his scimitar in two hands and power attacked a huge blue dragon. He died in the beginning of the dragon's full attack, but it was a good death.
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Actually, PC death doesn't bother me so much as failing to achieve an objective. The last thing to really freak me out was failing to remove an implanted bomb from an innocent NPC. (I wasn't even the PC making the check in this case, but I spent a while after the game ruminating about whether we should even have made the attempt given that we weren't sure whether it would go off at all if left alone.) Interestingly enough my PC had a talk with the healer afterwards that basically represented the advice I really wish I'd take about dealing with failure - but haven't quite internalized yet.
I'm an introvert. I think I average about two non-gaming social events a week - a weekly family dinner plus either a date night with my fiancee (also a gamer) or a visit with other friends.
Martial arts is a good idea. I used to practice but moved and never joined a new club.
I've been to therapy but for other issues. Worth going back, though I'm a bit worried they'll tell me to stop playing - the last time I went to a counselor gaming was one of the few things in my life I was really happy about.
I used to deal with this with Post by Post RPing online, it just takes a while to actually divorce yourself from your character. Experience helps, but it just takes a lot of focus to separate yourself. Think of it a little like Church and State, you and your character are two seperate people who CANNOT intermingle without causing problems.
I currently have the opposite problem where I am too diverged from my character. Namely because the only pathfinder game I am currently in is run by an awful GM, so I don't really care and I'm just in it to interact with my friends or poke fun at him.
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Get more exercise. It will give you better emotional perspective.
And every once in a while, play a game of Toon or Paranoia to liven things up.
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First of all, if you're getting that invested it sounds like it's probably an amazing group you're playing with, so propps to you guys.
For me I find that if I'm unhappy about something else in my life I tend to get more invested in my games. It's kind of an escapist mechanism. If life isn't going well, I turn to my "other life" and invest more time and emotion there.
This might not apply to you, but is there something else in your life that's troubling you?
(Obviously you don't have to answer a question that personal on an anonymous public forum like this, it's more a question to ask yourself, maybe talk about with your fiance or someone else close to you)
Get some of your gamer friends to throw down for a monthly poker night - or whatever game you prefer. Very different from RPGs and board games.
You say you're an introvert, so realistically you -need- to break that cycle. Take some risks and try some things you're afraid to.
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First of all, if you're getting that invested it sounds like it's probably an amazing group you're playing with, so propps to you guys.
It is a fantastic group. Been playing with them for years, they're coming to my wedding.
You say you're an introvert, so realistically you -need- to break that cycle. Take some risks and try some things you're afraid to.
Break what cycle? Being an introvert? It's not a bad thing, it just means that my ideal amount of socialization is lower than average (and is three social events a week - dinner with local family, game, date or friends night out - really that far below average?)
For me I find that if I'm unhappy about something else in my life I tend to get more invested in my games. It's kind of an escapist mechanism. If life isn't going well, I turn to my "other life" and invest more time and emotion there.
This might not apply to you, but is there something else in your life that's troubling you?
(Obviously you don't have to answer a question that personal on an anonymous public forum like this, it's more a question to ask yourself, maybe talk about with your fiance or someone else close to you)
Well, I already admitted in my last post that I've recently been in therapy. I'm not exactly getting a lot of fulfillment out of my work right now. I've been putting a lot of effort into my personal project for the last year and getting very little to show for it (not quite nothing, but nothing useful). I've always derived a lot of self-worth from my personal productivity and though I'm trying to enjoy the process the lack of results has me alternating between longer work hours, intense focus on personal projects (often but not always game related) and sitting on my butt feeling helpless and hopeless. Pretty sure this is early stage burnout and the usual treatment for that is downtime, which is part of why I'm finding it so vexing that my favourite downtime activity - Pathfinder - is also causing me stress.
And yes, I have talked about it to some of my close friends both at work and in my gaming group, and with my fiancee - who suggested I ask for advice here (and consider going back to therapy). Mostly wondering if anyone had any experience learning to separate "Church and State" as ShroudedInLight said. Obviously you guys can't solve all my problems but I know this one isn't 100% tied to the work stuff since the over-involvement pattern goes back much farther.
I find being the GM helps. Instead of worrying about whether your PC will fail, you can worry about whether the players are having fun, which is at least a real-world concern.
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Some of you make it sound like being an introvert is some kind of disease in need of a cure. Cut it out, it's not helping.
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As great as the advice forum is at advice, based on the above responses, I'm afraid it's terrible at life advice.
My money is this is on you using gaming as an outlet for something else, probably stuff you'd rather not talk about on a public forum.
The alternative is that what you're experiencing is perfectly normal. That it's such a good game that it's evoking powerful emotional responses, as it is apparently designed to (implanted bomb, for example?). There is something powerful about living out power fantasies in a group setting, freed from worrying about things like practicality and social backlash and just doing what the angels of your better nature would have you do.
Another possibility is you're inadequately interested by your personal life. If your job sucks and your personal projects aren't bearing fruit, it could be the only place you're getting paid off lately. If you tie your self-worth up with productivity, it might cause you to fixate on what makes you feel most productive.
If I were you, I'd just try picking up a book somewhere between the end of session, and the start of bed.
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I've known for a while I get very invested in my RPGs. I identify strongly with my characters and am personally affected by their successes and failures. It's caused me an increased amount of stress recently as the mood of the games I'm playing in has become, on average, increasingly dramatic, emotional, and high stakes. Some nights I have trouble sleeping after a game - even when the game wraps up several hours before I go to bed.
I still very much enjoy playing but I'd rather not spend the day after a game recovering.
Any advice?
Dosent Sound like you have a problem. What you described sound perfectly normal and healthy to me. if a game dosent affect you like you describe, you only have half the experience. IMOP.
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My two cents, for what they're worth:
If you actually feel an emotional response towards characters you've made, then well done sir. You are doing storytelling (which is really all that tabletop games are about) the RIGHT way. Your character should be a product of you, something you've fashioned and crafted within your mind. You should feel proud when they triumph. You should be sad when they suffer. This is, after all, something you've crafted yourself.
Should it rule your life? No. You are NOT defined by the characters you've made within this game, just as an painter is not defined by their work. If your character makes you happy when he or she triumphs, then good for you. And you are entitled to feel down if a character fails. But life goes on, and I certainly hope you don't believe that you have only a limited amount of characters to craft.
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@Weirdo: I can sympathise with your distress, but I'm not really able to offer much else. It sounds like you have a support network - in that your fellow gamers have a great and inspiring game. Your fiancee is a gamer, I imagine you talk about it with them. What are their insights or advice?
Interestingly enough my PC had a talk with the healer afterwards that basically represented the advice I really wish I'd take about dealing with failure - but haven't quite internalized yet.
So, what was the advice?
I'm an introvert. I think I average about two non-gaming social events a week - a weekly family dinner plus either a date night with my fiancee (also a gamer) or a visit with other friends.
Martial arts is a good idea. I used to practice but moved and never joined a new club.
I've been to therapy but for other issues. Worth going back, though I'm a bit worried they'll tell me to stop playing - the last time I went to a counselor gaming was one of the few things in my life I was really happy about.
Well I'm an introvert too. I used to score as INTP on Myers Briggs, and (long time ago) I got very involved with an RPG campaign that neither of the others were taking half as serious as I. Not being able to sleep after a sessions was par for the course for me.
I believe I'm more socially skilled now and would probably score differently. Still introverted but not as much. "Getting a life" apart from or better in addition to gaming helps. This is not meant to say gaming is bad or taking gaming seriously and getting emotionally involved is bad perse. But there's more to the world as they say. When I started sports again last year (HEMA!, so still nerdy/RPG related) my RPG Kickstarter budget was not even used any more. ;-)
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If you haven't already, let your GM know that the game, while great, has been adding to your stress rather than helping you, recently, and that you're hoping he can dial back the emotional, heavy-consequences-for-failure stuff for a few weeks to let you get some balance back.
Also, seriously consider whether it's the tension in the game, or another player's responses to it, that are causing the stress. If you're feeling like you don't have a lot of control over things in your life, and then someone at the table is making "wahoo, don't care about the consequences" decisions that drag the whole group into these sorts of scenarios, then maybe you need to enlist that player to approach things differently for a bit. (Although if that is the issue, my experience says that sort of player isn't very good at changing that sort of behavior.)
Finally, you need to find some way to regain a feeling of control over your life. Outside of work, increasing the amount of exercise you do can help improve your mood - get outside and walk daily, if nothing more. And in particular, if the work environment has been frustrating for a while, consider if it's likely to get better anytime soon. If not, it might be worth exploring other job opportunities in your area - even if you don't end up jumping ship, you'll feel better once you establish that you could if you needed to. Also look into professional networking opportunities in your area - if there is a networking group for your profession, someone there might be able to suggest a way past the current low-results work issue (depending on what kind of work you do - most likely to be helpful for technical fields), or it might just be helpful to talk with other professionals about the daily frustrations of your line of work.
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Weirdo, I'm an introvert too, and one of the things that defines us is not that we aren't capable of socialization, it's that it is draining to our energy. For most of us, early on, it leads to that kind of social isolation, but we are very capable of overcoming that and being very social creatures...for short periods of time, with nice recovery times alone to "recharge", as it were.
(Incidentally, it's not that extroverts are naturally better at socialization, they merely are drained by being alone, and recharge around others, so they constantly want to be around people, which leads to tons of practice, which leads to easier socialization - they just practice all the dang time.) So, I feel you. I've also been on the therapy boat...I guess I just want to start by saying you're not alone, there's lots of us out there suffering similar stuff. It's a great idea to reach out to the community...the folks here at Paizo have, so far to my experience, been about 95% awesome friendly folks.
The suggestions to socialize more are not bad, but it doesn't mean you have to jump out of your comfort zone head-first into something crazy. Try to spend more time with the people you do feel comfortable around, or go with those people to larger, more uncomfortable events, but you will have your comfortable friends around to keep you from feeling like you're alone in the middle of strangers. Progressive desensitization is the best way to overcome an issue, and it's something that professionals use all the time in the form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It's like if you're afraid of snakes, you don't jump into the snake pit, you start by looking at pictures of them until you can comfortable stare at it without freaking out, and then move to looking at one in a terrarium from a safe distance, etc, until one day, many months from then, you can pick one up and hold it. By getting more social interaction, you will have more personal stuff to attach to where gaming is no longer a crutch, but just one of many things you feel happy about.
In the meantime, since that will take a while to really kick in, you have to do some patch-ups. This won't fix it all the way, but basically some jury-rigging to get you through. Your problem, you say, is you become too invested in your character. One thing I would suggest is switching to third person during the game. Don't say "I attack with my claws", say "Paul the ripper attacks with his claws". It will help to cut the immersion a little bit, but still let you be collaboratively storytelling. Perhaps make a character that's different from you on some fundamental way that you could absolutely never imagine yourself being. I often make sociopathic villainous freaks simply because I personally couldn't be that kind of guy, ever, for one example.
Have you tried GMing? It's a lot harder to immerse yourself into a character when you're running dozens at a time, and none of them are the "stars" of the game the way that the PCs are.
Another thought is possibly to do a few one-shots, so you don't have time to grow attached.
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Maybe organizing sessions to stop at different points might be helpful?
Stopping with a cliff hanger instead if a resolution is normally used to get players more invested, but in your case maybe it helps offset ruminations of "what if I did something different ?" to a more proactive "what should I/we do next?".
Also realize that some losses are needed for a good narrative. This ties into GNS model but i don't get the feeling that your view is strictly gamist.
If your emotionally involved that means your doing it correctly.That's the heart of true role playing in my opinion. You have achieved immersion,Congratulations.
If you stop caring then it's time to worry.
As long as you don't start acting like Tom Hanks in the movie Mazes and Monsters you'll be fine.
Maybe the OP is young, my 11 year old gets really excited about games and can't sleep for a good long while, we try to give her some time to unwind and divest from the Game, like reading or watching a funny show like Bob's Burgers :-)
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One way to avoid getting overly attached to a character is to switch characters. Once you play different characters with different motivations and personalities, you can get into the role of your character without going overboard.
If you do this, you will find some of your characters to be more memorable than others. However, its likely that you will find you enjoy more than one of the characters you roleplay.
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Maybe the OP is young, my 11 year old gets really excited about games and can't sleep for a good long while, we try to give her some time to unwind and divest from the Game, like reading or watching a funny show like Bob's Burgers :-)
OP is engaged to be married and has a job. I'm not sure if you skimmed, or if you're hiding insults behind the thinnest possible veneer of civility. Would you be so kind as to clear that up for me?
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I usually smoke a big bag of weed. That puts me right to sleep.
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I skimmed it... yesterday, completely missed the engaged part, why on earth why would I insult anyone?
Also I'm nearly 40, anyone under 25 is "young" to me:-D nor should being called young be considered an insult, honestly you young 'ins need to let things go:-D
Weirdo, you're a great guy!*
I'm really sorry to hear about your stress. That sucks.
One thing that I think others have said is correct: it's likely a feeling of loss of control and loss of empowerment.
As you're proud of your accomplishments, you identify with your character, and you're having problems in-life right now, it may well be that such immersion plus in-character failure is, instead of allowing you to escape, causing the real-life frustrations to recursively pile back up. "Oh, I just felt this earlier today. At work. Yep: sucked then, too."
This is, by the way, normal.
Different people play the game in different ways. They get different things out of it. And sometimes the same people play the game different ways and get different things out of it.
In terms of gaming, it sounds like what you need is a sense of accomplishment.
Since everyone else took all the good advice I'd've come up with (and then some), I'll go with the bad advice: play a one-shot in which you take whatever strategies you want to make an ubermench and enjoy. In this case, it doesn't mean characterization or story are thrown by the wayside, but rather that you simply take EXTREME POWAH as a gaming thing for a one-off. It can feel good and empowering to do so.
Heck, maybe even play some one-on-one with your fiance. Grab a Master Summoner gestalted with an uber-Shaman or something, with a succubus (redeemed, naturally**)^ or nymph^ as the base race. Or maybe go with a legion archon gestalted with swordlord and swordlord, and maybe the agile or invincible simple mythic template. Or perhaps just a azlanti human rogue or a drow noble bard that gets his charisma to all saves (similar to that one feat).
Really anything like that. Have fun with it. Run a pre-written scenario.
Bear in mind that this probably isn't the best advice you've been given. It's just kind of all that I see as left, at present. If I come up with something else, I'll mention it!
I also wanted to say that, regardless of aught else, your accomplishments in posting here, on Paizo, both in tone, style, and presence, are really appreciated by me, and, I know for a fact, by many others. So you can, at least, feel good about that! And feel free to post in my thread (as apparently I have one now... *shakes fist at Jiggy* ;p).
*
** Unless you want to go CE! That works too, one supposes...
^ There is a belt or elixir if you want to keep base-canon creature but still play a male, or you could play a variant, perhaps "born of a curse" or something (which could give you license to drop redundant spellcasting, explain the gestalt or mythic, or whathaveyou, etc.)
I skimmed it... yesterday, completely missed the engaged part, why on earth why would I insult anyone?
Also I'm nearly 40, anyone under 25 is "young" to me:-D nor should being called young be considered an insult, honestly you young 'ins need to let things go:-D
I don't understand why people do 99% of the things they do on the internet. They still do them.
If you thought the OP was maybe young, yeah, that's fine. If on the other hand, you knew he was a grown adult, and deliberately compared him to an 11 year old, I would be surprised if you don't understand how that's insulting. That's not merely being called young.
I'm also further super, turbo offended that you called Bob's Burgers funny.
Oh well, guess you'll have to work through that on your own, sorry you picked nits with my posts, again you can figure out where you might be misinterpreting things, not my prob, enjoy your weekend, I'll enjoy mine :-)
I'm glad we now understand each other.
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Sarcasm isn't easily expressed in print format. Maybe both of you young 'uns need to smoke a bit of weed too. (And yes Captain, if you're only "nearly" 40, I am definitely older than thou! :D)
You say you're an introvert, so realistically you -need- to break that cycle. Take some risks and try some things you're afraid to.
Break what cycle? Being an introvert? It's not a bad thing, it just means that my ideal amount of socialization is lower than average (and is three social events a week - dinner with local family, game, date or friends night out - really that far below average?)
I have spend a lot of my life in my head as well (moreso in the past), and I promise I understand. Career and family very rarely allow me the quite time at home that I used to take for granted, and it drives me a little nutty sometimes. Introversion is part of what got me into RPGs in the first place. Maybe I understood your post incorrectly, but I inferred that introversion was causing you distress, instead of comfort. *If* that is the case then you need to be less introverted, but how that is acccomplished is something I know not. If I inferred wrong, then I apologize. I did not mean to offend.
If being an introvert has nothing to do with getting attached to your characters, and that is your sole source of distress, then it might be a good time to take a break from the hobby - or take a long term break from being a player. Pick up an AP and GM the entire thing.
Oh well, guess you'll have to work through that on your own, sorry you picked nits with my posts, again you can figure out where you might be misinterpreting things, not my prob, enjoy your weekend, I'll enjoy mine :-)
Recognizing difference between calling an adult a child, and calling a person young isn't nit picking. The statements have totally different context and meaning, and clear communication is on the onus of the speaker. Communicating poorly and then blaming the listener for not understanding isn't cool.
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My advice for what it's worth take a few days off with you lady just pack your car draw up a list of interesting places that our at least a couple of hours away and pick one drive there find a motel and spend a few days looking at the local sights doing nothing but enjoying each others company and do nothing to do with your normal life's
As they say a change is as good as a rest