Long story short I'm going to a mental ward for about 5 months minimum soon, and I'd like to bring the gift of Tabletops with me, which game isn't going to cost me $800 but also not be a shitty system?
>>43517086
Your phone or something thta can be used to browse the internet.
I wouldn't want to play games with anyone in a mental hospital. I'm sure they're nice poeple and all but there is a good reason they're there.
>>43517107
ive been in the temporary stays, and they don't allow any electronic devices. I really doubt they'd let me have a cellphone even if i had one.
>>43517086
There are plenty of affordable RPGs, but without knowing what kind of game you're looking for, it's hard to make a recommendation. Savage Worlds has the advantage of being relatively flexible, with tons of settings for it. Barbarians of Lemuria is a nice rules-light swords and sorcery game that uses 2d6, which is handy because d6s are ubiquitous and easily replaced should you lose them. *Shrug* Does this mean you'll be gaming with crazy people? Are you a crazy person? Because if so, I hear that Mazes and Monsters is a far out game...
>>43517137
I should have explained what i was looking for huh. all i really want is a game where i can play it almost completely "socially" with a lot of talking and very little actual dungeon crawling. That way I at least have some way of fudging it as "therapy" and getting away with it.
>>43517178
Create a system with 5 to 10 attributes (D&D's attributes are familiar to most folks; you can start there and change things around to suit youself). Everything is attribute checks. Everything is an opposed check. It's your attribute vs. another attribute, or your attribute vs. a difficulty level. Regardless of whether it's an attribute or difficulty level, a given number represents the same level of badass-ness. So if a 5 is a really high attribute level, it's also a really high difficulty level.
You as GM decide which attributes are the most appropriate for the given action. Then, each side rolls a d6 and adds it to their appropriate stat, and whoever gets higher, wins. Ties are generally resolved in favor of the active party / attacker / aggressor / etc.
You, as GM, improvise results based on how much higher or lower a character rolls than he needs to (how much higher his roll is than the defender / task's difficulty roll).
Either based on their character background, or a small list of specialties / skills / areas of expertise you let player's pick for their characters, characters can be skilled at certain things. If you want this to be a big fucking deal, then you let folks roll two dice and add them to their attribute when doing things related to this area of expertise. If you want to constrain the power of your skills a bit more, maybe they just add +2 to your check.
So, for instance, let's make things really simple and say that instead of skills per se, there are 3 basic classes: a warrior, a knave, and an adept. Warriors are skilled at aggressive, heroic actions like hitting people with swords, kicking down doors, being brave and so forth. Knaves are skilled at sneaky stuff, like stealth, picking locks, and tricking people. Adepts are skilled at intellectual and mystical stuff, like arcane knowledge and translating foreign texts, but most of all, they can cast spells.
>I'm going to a mental ward for about 5 months minimum soon
I'm curious as to what would bring about such circumstances. You're not in the mental ward yet, and able to post on /tg/, but you know that you will be in one and you know what the minimum time you'll be there is. Just how are people being put in mental wards these days?
>>43517361
Start everybody's stats off in a relatively confined range, maybe 1 to 5, as the best possible roll of the dice will give you a +5 relative to your opponent (you roll a 6, they roll a 1, giving you a 5 point advantage). You may wish a 6 to be an automatic success under most circumstances. Of course, you may just want to decide a number checks (and reduce the number of rolls you have to make) based on somebody having a significantly higher score.
You could even decide to resolve things by rock-paper-scissors if you want to dispense with the necessity for dice. In that case, a tie is decided in favor of the person with a higher score (do a tie breaker if the both people have the same score). If somebody has a far superior score (maybe 4 higher), they either automatically win, or the person with the lower score must get two consecutive wins in order to succeed.
Of course, maybe you don't like this system, but the idea is that it's pretty easy to create your own rules-light system that's based more on story-telling than nitty-gritty combat statistics. And at that point, you can use any game or story for inspiration as far as your setting goes.
>>43517361
>>43517413
This is genius anon, thanks.
>>43517372
The media hugely misrepresents psychiatric facilities. A mental care facility is not a hospital for the criminally insane and most residents/patients are not held against their will.
Likely he's had some mental health problems, his therapist recommended some time in a dedicated care facility, he's agreed and that's why he knows it's going to happen and for roughly how long
>>43517086
Play call of cuthulu, what's the worst that could happen?
>>43517372
Mental wards now are rehabilitation suites to get people back to the normal level of crazy.
Seeing as he got 5 months, he probably committed a medium level crime, that would have got 9-12 months of normal prison time while off his meds or they evaluated him and realized he was mentally screwed up
or
He is a repeat suicide attempt risk and the judge/family is tired of having him do so. So they send him to one of these facilities while he and his family recovers and the judge cools off.
Doctor: "So mister anonymous, for how long you've imagined yourself to be a wizard?"
>>43518461
Since last week, I was a half-dragon assassin before that
>>43517086
I'd suggest finding a one or two-pages free RPG. Just print it out on a bristol and that's it.
>>43517421
He just described FATE Freeport
>>43517086
Mental patients seem like they could make for really good role players.
I'd be worried about them further blurring the line between fiction and reality, though.
>>43519052
Mazes & Monsters is a far out game.
>>43517729
To be fair, at one point this was completely true, and the "caregivers" were only a few steps up from Mengele. It's not anymore, but the dual problems of "there's nothing wrong with me!" Because people are that afraid of mental illness, and old stories that get passed down of what it used to be keep everyone away.
>>43519052
Most people in mental wards have no problem with the fiction/reality line.
Lots of the one I have seen were suicidal, got depression, alcoholism or things like that.
It's bad but they're not batshit crazy
Play Don't Rest Your Head, and post some session recordings.
>>43517086
Bring a handfull of dices and cards.
If you're going to spend 5 monthq there, you might aswel create your own RPG with its own setting and universe, it'll keep you busy.
Though I can't really say that working on creating a fictive universe where you can be who you want won't get you strange looks from the medical team.
For extra keks, play a few games of "Everyone is John" with other people. Pretty simple and accessible game, and you might also get funny looks from the med team.
One thing I know for sure is that assembling/painting figures IS seen as a therapic activity. But it would cost an arm and a leg, and you wouldn't have anyone to play with.
Something without d4s, since you might not be allowed those.
>>43517086
>I'm going to a mental ward
Call of cuthulu.
>>43519817
One of the guys I was in with thought the building was floating and they had a hard time getting him to stop jumping.
Nice guy, he gave me his cake.He was dropped of my the military police for punching a Drill Sargent.
>>43521603
>my
*by
Don't play with any borderliners, if you kill their character they'll fuck you up. Talking from experience here.
>>43517086
Unknown Armies. Shit'll be cash, just find and listen to some of the more gone schizophrenic patients and bam, you'll have a couple of notebooks full of juicey rumors to fill out a campaign with.
Speaking from personal experience: you most likely won't find people wanting to play complex, time-consuming or rules-heavy games with you. Ordinary cards, dice if you are allowed those, and a MASSIVE supply of cigarettes can be a god-sent though.
Aside from that, anything relatively casual, which can be learned quickly and ends in relatively short session. Don't expect people there clammoring to learn a book worth of rules and fiction: most of people there have enough of their own problems of that kind of shit.
If you do find people actually willing to amuse you with more complex tabletops, and even table-top RPG, then you can make up your own rules, as somebody suggested. It's a good way to keep yourself focused on something and don't let the place get to you too much.
>>43517086
Everybody is John, or one of the Call of Cthulhu system.
You'll be in an asylium, might as well.
If you can bring a laptop, install Darkest Dungeon for its positive, cheerful atmosphere and how it reinforces group activity.
On /teeg/ side of things, any LARP game. Especially something where you can play a vampire.
I'd echo the sentiment to bring six sided dice and cards. Gaming dice might be too hard to replace if you lose them.
>>43522270
i'll probably do this, make a system based around d6 rolls. i've got a ton of d6 from PTU anyway
>>43522301
It isn't like you couldn't use d6 as d4s and just reroll 5 and 6 when they come up.
GURPS. YOu can waste so much time with GURPS, the 5 months'll pass like nothing.
>>43522797
He probably won't be able to take a bunch of books with him.
Play TIME WIZARDS, if your ward has the gear for it. Probably as social as it gets.
>>43517086
Everyone is John.
...
What?
>>43517178
FATE systems like a pretty flexible system that can be done for whatever you want. It's not super rule-heavy, and the emphasis is on narrative and creativity. Wrap "discussing attributes" in to your therapy.
GL, anon.
>>43517086
D&D Rules Cyclopedia.
All you need to play Basic D&D in one book. You can keep going with that one book for years.
>>43517178
Golden Sky Stories.
>>43517086
....GURPS
It's hard to get into first, because there's so many traits to go through, but y'all have a lot of free time so.
Once you get into it you can use it for almost anything, and the rules are straight forward, so nobody is going to get overloaded on their unstable psyche.
