D&D Stresses Me Out (But I Think That's Okay)
62: choices make me too stressed to be blessed or nicely dressed or to healthily digest... but I'm working on it.
My Newest Addiction
Once upon a time 29 years ago last month, my husband was born. As a joint birthday gift, he received a PlayStation 5— something he had been lusting after since its original release in 2020. He was very excited to play a game called Baldur’s Gate 3 that everyone and their wives had been raving about. I didn’t know anything about this game nor did I have my eye on any PlayStation 5 game1. Little did I know, though, that an adorable, rounded robot (not Wild Robot, but I am sure they’ll join the list of cute robots like WALLE) was about to fly into my heart.
The PS5 came loaded up with Astro’s Playroom, a wonderful little celebration of the many great years of the PlayStation. You move through many creative new worlds with the high-tech DualSense controller (demo video here, but you really gotta feel it to experience it), in a way that likely makes Mario shake in his overalls. I quickly found myself squealing at the cuteness of these little robot guys as I collected all of the Playstation consoles and their accessories through the lands of the game. I one-hundred-percented Astro’s Playroom in 11 hours.
Crazy enough, as I completed Astro’s Playroom, the newer expanded game Astrobot was released on September 6. And I am already about 27 hours in and (I think) close to beating the game. It sure helps that Oakley loves to play “robot game” and I’ve been teaching him how to use more buttons on the controller. It fills my heart up that we can play video games together. (Zach and I have been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 as well, but we have to play when Oakley is asleep or it’s a date night, because of scary/adult content.)
As I was thinking of this week’s post, I realized why I’m having the best time playing Astrobot. Not only is the main character squishy and squeaky and some other third thing, but there is one distinct storyline, really detailed and diverse worlds, and I can completely 100% a level, once I have collected all of the hidden portals, puzzle pieces, and lost little robot friends. What a beautiful todo list! And what a sparkly, gold flag of success— even adorned with a crown— that you earn once 100% completed!
I can do wonders with a list of expectations. And I have sought out these games before. Growing up, I was found playing many story games in which I knew exactly what would happen next either because I had seen the movie (Shark Tale, Over the Hedge, Kung Fu Panda…) or because I had played through it before. Dreamlight Valley is a newer game that I played on the Nintendo Switch with a few of these elements— they got cute Disney characters and a huge todo list— but many of the tasks felt reminiscent of elementary school busywork. There were so many characters I loved, but they sent me on inessential quests for things like soup ingredients or to make more furniture. I didn’t feel motivated to move forward in the game because it didn’t feel like I was moving toward anything of meaning.
As many of you may know, I was super into the Sims 4 when Zach got the PS4 back in our apartment days. One of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever gotten was the Realm of Magic Game Pack (a Sims add-on) and a purple PS4 controller just for me. With that pack, I started a longstanding, now barely operational2 savegame with 6+ generations of a wizard family.
HOWEVER, before I was able to decide on that storyline and go with it, I was very much floundering. I had many stories and characters and, if I had to guess, spent a whole lot of my total play time (1056 hours) building a movie-accurate replica of Anna and Elsa’s castle in Arendelle. I didn’t know what to do with my time, but I eventually found things that were interesting to me and went with that.
Like everyone in 2020, I jumped on the Animal Crossing train, but— unlike all my cool friends who monstrously enjoyed building their islands out and making everything beautiful— I was overwhelmed by the amount of options and time it would take for me to build anything of value. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was my first experience with the Animal Crossing franchise and one of the first games I bought for myself on our Nintendo Switch, but I found the real-time element stressful. I had certain daily tasks that drained me— not unlike Dreamlight Valley— and I also felt scared that the villagers I was collecting would leave if I didn’t visit them all every day. Once I explained this feeling to another friend, I should have realized that I was playing the game wrong. But instead I decided it was just too difficult for me and not my kind of game (which do not sound like accurate reasons) and stopped playing.
Now and then, I still get a whiff of anxiety when I think of the villagers I worked so hard to please.
BG3: Where Your Choices Matter a Lot
The first game we purchased for the PS5 was Baldur’s Gate 3. And, man, was it just as impressive as everyone was saying. It feels a lot like Dungeons & Dragons (I’ll get to that) and even uses dice in-game for players to roll for chance. It doesn’t have as many options as my imagination obviously, but it still gives an insane amount of freedom to players to make decisions that can vastly alter the direction of their game and result in unexpected consequences. But I will say that Zach and I play pretty cautiously and many of our consequences result from being in the wrong place at the wrong time— like when we somehow triggered an interaction with someone we were avoiding or when Zach somehow triggered a bunch of ogres to argue over whether they were going to eat us or not.
If you know me and have played Baldur’s Gate, you may be thinking:
GABBY HOW THE HECK ARE YOU PLAYING THIS GAME, OH SENSITIVE ONE??
And to that I will say it’s a game that I try to play during the day, just because I am not sure what levels of creepiness or gore will show up in a play-through. I don’t want to add nightmare fuel to the fire right before I go to sleep. (I learned this the hard way while watching Zach play through all of The Last of Us— but especially Henry and Sam’s arc of devastation. I loved The Last of Us, but I truly do have PTSD from experiencing that game in the way that I experience things.) So, much to Zach’s dismay, we have not played as much as he would like. But I do appreciate him wanting to play through with me and my tiefling druid I have become very fond of.
The only game I have played that even comes close to BG3 in choices and intensity is Hogwarts Legacy on the PlayStation 4 (hehe I knowwww). I am a huge Harry Potter fan and this game was a very exciting blast from the past with a lot of cool game mechanics like casting spells, flying on a broom, and riding on a Hippogriff (I cried during that scene, no lie). Embarrassingly, I have still not finished the game— I have full intention to— but I was getting increasingly irritated at my supposed “original character.” In the game, you play as The Chosen One. There are choices in dialogue and in which forbidden curses you choose to learn, but your choices do not impact the game as much as the marketing team made it seem.
I was also taken aback by how emotionless and friendless the main character is. Unless you’re on a certain mission with a friend, you go through the story alone and your character stays way too calm for a fifth year battling hoards of monsters. I was particularly bothered by my character being randomly whisked away to Azkaban (a rather spooky prison for the wizarding world’s worst criminals), witnessing someone being stabbed, and then casually suggesting I go back to the castle like it was just another normal day. I still want to know what happens, but I do try to ignore my character’s dialogue if I can.
Seriously though, if you saw the amount of choices we had to choose from in BG3, it would be obvious how much higher the stakes are in BG3 than in HL each time you speak to another character.
See?
Dungeons & Dragons & Dice… OH MY
Alright, I think I need to explain what D&D is… dangit. That’s a big task! I tried my darndest to explain to my dad on a drive up to Flagstaff, but I’m not sure how well I did. (Dad— whatchya think?) But to summarize…
Dungeons & Dragons is a roleplaying game where you and real-life friends play through a story with fantasy characters of your own making. Your party will go on a quest directed and, many times, written by the Dungeon Master (DM) which is another friend at the table. The DM acts as a storyteller and leads the team on quests to meet characters, defeat monsters, and complete quests. It is a game of strategy and chance, as dice play a huge roll in deciding your fate (ie. which spells succeed and how much damage they do). There is an infinite number of paths to choose from while simply creating your character, but the choices continue to present themselves every step of the way— in combat, in character interactions, and what skills you gain when you level up.
BG3 uses these same game mechanics, even including a narrator, but it’s definitely a different experience seeing these decisions play out on screen in BG3 versus in my head while playing D&D— unless you play fully in-character with a board and figurines, then props to ya!
I have been in D&D groups previously and, even though I have a fun time, I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by the amount of decisions I make. In my experience, playing D&D in-person is very much tailored to the players of that particular party. BG3 can give you monsters you’re not necessarily leveled up enough to handle, but the DMs I have had in the past have always put things in place to keep us from getting annihilated by monsters we can’t handle.
However, in REAL life…
there is no one to warn you when you’ve made a decision that you’re not yet equipped to handle the consequences of. There is no narrator or DM asking you to roll a perception check, so not only do I not perceive what was there to perceive, but there is also a chance I won’t ever know there was even something to be perceived! (Thanks for hanging in there with me.) Where do I look for a job? What’s the best decision I can make for myself and my family? How do we afford everything we need to afford, like my individual therapy? Maybe the experience itself will level me up because I do not feel equipped to handle many of these decisions at present.
In BG3, all of the characters you create or meet have rich backstories, many involving danger and traumatic events. There’s a wizard being taken over by some sort of dark magic, a half-vampire who was enslaved for 200 years, a half-elf who gave up their memories in worship of a god, and most everyone in the story has a deadly parasite embedded behind their eye and needs a cure. These characters have thick skin and many secrets they don’t feel safe to tell just anyone. I have thankfully not lived a life that requires fighting to survive in a strange land filled with monsters and magic spells. In real life, I’ve never killed a goblin, or anything bigger than a bug.
I am sensitive and soft. Trusting and open. I am eager to connect and eager to make good memories. Of course, I have my burdens, but these are experiences that continue to shape me into who I am meant to be even if I struggle. And through that struggle, I am searching for a soft place to land. A place I can call home with community I can trust and who accept and support me as I am.
I chose to be a teifling in BG3 because many other races in the game look upon tieflings negatively. There are even communication options in the game that Zach has as a noble drow that my druid tiefling doesn’t have access to. The character felt fitting.
How different would my gameplay be as a human than if I was a half-orc?
How different would my life be if I could just believe what they wanted me to believe?
I chose to play as a teifling in my game, but I didn’t get to choose who I was born to be in real life. Over the last couple months, it’s been tough to ignore the glaring “what if’s” in my peripherals…
What if I had just lied?
What if I just moved to another state, another country?
What if I could have been more polite, more secretive?
What if I had quit as soon as that anti-LGBTQ series came out?
What if I never worked there to begin with?
What if I had never attended this church at all?
But I go all the way back to the first time I met Zach. Not when I got to know him for real in media class, but when I happened to meet him for the first time: at a summer CIY camp, hosted by the church that fired me.
Do I really wish I had never attended? No.
It was all meant to be. All for a reason.
2 Saturdays ago, we saw Wolverine & Deadpool.
You may be taken aback once more, thinking,
“OH MY GOD— GABBY HOW DID YOU WATCH THAT VIOLENT FILM??”
I would say it’s probably one of my favorite Marvel movies ever. And I did fine, actually. My sensitivities have weird rules that I am very much still trying to understand. (I think death and gore affect me only if there is emotional significance or— in Deadpool’s case— no hilarious music in the background… OH, and if I am too surprised by the turn of events, that can wreck me. So, I always read the movie summary before heading to the theater.)
Anyways, I was somehow very comforted by the idea of different timelines, which was a big theme of the movie (and of the MCU right now). I actually think about different timelines all the time. (hehe) My anxiety or my OCD (or my anxiety caused by my OCD) sends my mind wandering down paths of destruction. (At the least) unhelpful and (at the most) catastrophic what-ifs would lead to feelings of great stress— at times, making me fearful of leaving the house.
To combat those feelings, I chose to take medication and continue going to therapy, but I have also begun to imagine different timelines for my own life. Timelines where something completely different may be happening in my life in the present on another timeline. It’s very entertaining! I don’t picture the what-ifs of the future or the should-ofs of the past; I have lived through those moments and survived processing them, but they can still hurt. So, I focus my energy on imagining timelines that aren’t possible, (not ideal or terrible but) neutral, and creative.
Once again, you may be thinking, “Well, Gabby, aren’t you against distracting yourself from reality, leaving feelings unprocessed, and stuffing big trauma under the rug?”
Well, it depends on the specifics.
Distraction is a tool. I can use it to get through the day or parts of the week, but if I never stop using it, I will have a constipating amount of inner-turmoil to clean up in a couple years. Timeline-hopping is a great mental playground activity for me and works well as a functional distraction from many things in my life that are out of my control. The feelings and thoughts that once spiraled into a tornado are now usually stopped before they can gain traction. I journal. I write them down— like the todo lists I am so fond of— and I save them for therapy days or times I can process them with safe people. (Thank you, medication, for helping my mind have patience! 🙌🏽)
When I’m living through a string of bad days, I imagine another Gabby out there. Maybe she’s having a bad day too, but maybe she’s having a good day instead. Maybe all the versions of me— on every timeline— do find joy, but they are all following different paths.
D&D and BG3 and life stress me out, but I can trust myself. I will find my way to the best version of me. There is not a clear path, and that’s the beauty of it, not the problem with it. I will find my way to joy. I know the way, I do. I can trust myself.
Weekly Subscriptions & Cancellations💁🏽♀️
the ideas and soundtracks I want running in my head, or not.
🙋🏽♀️SUBSCRIBED to:
the idea that Astrobot will soon become an essential household game that everyone will own, akin to Super Smash Brothers or Mario Kart.
going to an inclusive, fully welcoming church. (So thankful for Rebekah and all of the wonderful people I have met so far!)
the Trolls trilogy. (Need I say more?3)
Ummmm CENTAUR WORLD?? Why did no one tell me about this show filled to the brim with Broadway stars??🤩
🤦🏽♀️UNSUBSCRIBED from:
the idea that anyone’s interpretation of the bible is 100% correct with no faults.
whole milk, I think. Dangit!
purity culture. (Shame can GTFO!)
anyone posting about their support for Trump. (yup. that’s just what’s up, fam.)
🌻ART SHOW & TELL🌻
Me & my no makeup (and the string on my dress that I tore off after lol) setting down some tracks! The biggest art show & tell of all might just be my album when it’s completed, but until then I will need to decide how much I want to share! I definitely want to market it when I have content to market... I am dying to share but trying to keep it a surprisey secret for now. 🙈
Time for some TLCCC💕
Treating myself to: Trader Joes groceries. We have officially switched from Fry’s. The prices are actually way better and the food is SO good!! #TraderHoe
Listening to: Aurora, Chappell Roan, Tori Kelly, Porter Robinson, the Trolls soundtracks…. and my Discover Weekly, a-course!
Crafting: I have been painting a lot and collaging in my journal, but my favorite type of crafting right now has to do with my music. Our focus is solely on song #1 but it’s really exciting!!!
Craving: Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese!!! A smoothie! BROWNIESS.
Caring SO much about: an upcoming break 🌲 I love my friends!
due to how slow it ran, ughhhhh
Need I?