Some people get through a depressive time with tender support, and friends potentially using kid gloves.
That’s not how Brett does things!
Brett is pointing out patterns that Sam has fallen into in the past, and seems to be a constant thing that comes up when Sam has these times in his life. What was the saying? (I believe Einstein?)
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I think this fits quite a bit here for sam. He keeps crawling into a secluded shell (the same thing over and over again) when bad shit hits the fan for him, and, as Brett put it so succinctly, ‘hopes things magically get better’.
Sam, maybe it’s time you visit that therapist you were going to a while back. If you feel you can’t talk about this with your friends, your therapist will be a neutral party who can give you educated advice on how to work through your troubles.
I may not be the confrontational or blunt person that Brett is, but I applaud the way he handled it. He handed Sam like a parent handles the angst of a teenager.
I think the only thing the mantle has really helped with has been softening his rough edges. Brett, despite his faults, always is there for his friends; he’s just matured enough to deal with his and their issues without defaulting to neckbeard rage.
…..hm. I’m currently reading this as ‘a bastard player who cannot be bothered to GM attempts to guilt trip his friend into GMing rather than actually addressing the causes of the problem’.
I’m aware that this says more about my thoughts at the moment than Brett, but…Sam’s got reasons. That TPK was utterly Sam screwing up. It doesn’t matter all the arguments about whether TPKs are justified. It wasn’t the point of the encounter, so Sam made a mistake – a big one, that ended the campaign in session one. The fact that the group was accepting of this minimised that mistake, but it could have been a lot worse. He did this while under the influence of painkillers – how much is the worry that his pain meds are messing with his head affecting Sam? He’s being hounded by Dove and his cronies about a call he made at Dungeon Run. Was that call correct? Well, Sam thought so at the time, but it’s very easy to reconsider, and if he made one critical mistake…maybe that one was also a mistake? (To be clear, objectively speaking, it probably wasn’t. But in Sam’s head at the moment?)
Sam’s got reasons to be depressed. Actually depressed, not just sad. And Brett – supposedly his best friend – is coming out with the utterly bullcrap “We all have problems”. Sure, it gets a bit better from there, with not hoping things just get magically better.
But he starts out by telling a depressed person that they suck.
look I understand where you are coming from I suffer from manic depression myself and I understand where Bret is coming he loves his friend and it hurts him to see him give up something that makes him happy, but when it really gets down to it to seek help you need a swift kick in the pants to help you see the problem of course I think that calling in Bret is more like the old saying about the mule ,you have to hit it between the yes with a big enough club to get its attention before you can start negotiating the problem
What I read was a bit of not very tactful tough love from Brett. Brett wants Sam to see that there are triggers that cause Sam’s depression and it is he wants Sam to seek professional help, because it has finally become clear to all of them how serious it is when he wants to leave.
Now on to Sam screwing up the encounter, I do not agree with you. The players had bad tactics and worse rolls. How is a randomized roll being low or being high Sam’s screw up? How is Carlos running without checking for traps Sam’s screw up?
Sam designed the encounter so that the players could learn their abilities. However, he had the enemy for this first encounter in a situation wherein they would automatically gain 2 full rounds of actions before the majority of the enemy (scouting for the ambush doesn’t apply, since they ambushed them during exposition). This is not good ‘learning experience’. Spot checks don’t matter, since it was a passive effect. Further, while the GM can’t control the randomness of the dice, he CAN control how much variance there is. He decided to use weapons that had the possibility to easily kill a party member if focus fired (remember how far into negative she went), and then he decided to focus fire. Does it make sense for intelligent enemies to do that? Yes. But the GM’s goal here was a learning experience. You can’t learn your abilities if you are dead.
And then the trap. Carlos, the fighter, and the newbie to the group, runs forward. He wants to use his abilities. Remember the goal here? But instead, he sets off a trap. That’s not a problem – in fact, it’s probably a good idea to let players know traps are going to be a thing. But the trap had the possibility to wipe out the entire party. With no warning, it was able to one shot the entire party. Yes, bad rolls happened, but the fact is that the trap had the potential to wipe out the entire party, and no one in said party could spot it. Both of these were under Sam’s control.
The degree of lethality of the encounter wasn’t Sam’s fault. But it wasn’t the high rolls that were the screw up, it’s that a learning encounter started out by near killing two player characters before the first real action the party got was to TPK itself.
People go on about the party having bad tactics. I wanted to pull this out, because the argument is specious.
Bad tactics would only matter if they actually had actions. They didn’t. The actions they had were a single spellcast and a move action.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad their tactics were, they never got to use any.
Apologies for triple post, I can’t work out how to edit. It’s occured to me after posting the above that it doesn’t actually matter if WE think the encounter was screwed up.
I still call bad tactics, because retreat is an option/tactic. You have 1 player dead, they have declared they are focus firing on soft targets so the mage will be down next round, then the Bard most likely, this will swing the action economy back into their favor. They knew full well the cultists were organized and when you go treading in someone’s turf you better check for traps. Rolling a perception to avoid a trip line doesn’t count as an action in any system I play (3.5, 4th, 5th, and PF but maybe that is a house rule.)
Surprisingly a situation like this happened to my group. In a dungeon and we get surprised and our mage drops to -1, my paladin steps in front of him and takes a defensive stance, the fighter gets adjacent to me giving cover. The bandits shoot again and we take some shots, the cleric casts obscuring mists (which I would guess a mage in Karthun could/would have) and we bounce.
Hindsight is 20/20. But to your point, if this was a teaching game they all learned something (Sam included) but as objectively as I can: This was not screwed up by anyone. Just the way the game goes.
They still didn’t have any actions to accomplish “tactics”. The only actions they had were a single spellcast in the suprise round and the least accomplished player’s turn. Then they were all dead.
Your situation isn’t the same. In your situation, the party actually got to act. They didn’t in this one. As for checking for the trap :- Uh, yeah. Checking for traps is an action in 3.5. Also, Karthun appears to have passive perception.
It wasn’t a teaching GAME, it was a teaching encounter. And it’s not an “if”. We know absolutely that that was Sam’s intention for the encounter. It failed at doing this.
There is a disconnect with my point and I’m sorry, but because of my nature I have to give it one more shot.
Bad tactic (s): Carlos rushing ahead without doing an active perception check in enemy territory and under attack.
Result: Triggered a trap that TPKed the party. They all fell unconscious and could not act.
My story was an example of what different tactics could result in. Because we formed a shield wall and cast defensive spells we lived
One act took them all down, and it wasn’t Sam’s action it was a player. No DM can account for all actions players will take. Since it wasnt fully played out that trap could have served as Sam’s teaching moment about traps. In conclusion that is how a BAD TACTIC ruined the session/campaign.
One action is not a tactic, and Sam CAN control how much damage his traps do. In this case, he put in a trap that in ONE action could kill the entire party.
That’s not a ‘this is how you learn your abilities’.
Given that I’ve played in Systems and Settings where Learning Encounters were fights with literal gods, I can say that yes, this was a learning encounter. They don’t all need to be hand-holding tutorial levels of difficulty.
This isn’t Pathfinder or D&D. This game is a Homebrew System and Setting made by Sam. For all we know, it might be impossible for Sam to design an encounter that couldn’t possibly result in a TPK if the dice went bad. Not without compromising the world, the system, or his morals as a GM.
In any case, having re-read the encounter strip, the trap only did 5d6 damage. That’s a minimum of 5 damage, and a maximum of 36. On average, that’s probably closer to 15 damage, which would knock out most characters, maybe kill the squishiest.
Not to mention a good perception check, which is a free action in almost any system designed by a non-moron, would reveal the trap.
And yet no perception check was called for, and the only indication we have for what rules are being used for perception is that it’s a passive number – IE, Sam should have known about it in advance. And yet, the enemy got TWO ENTIRE TURNS before the player characters got to act. And yet, the trap did this ‘only’ 5d6 to the entire party.
You’ve played in systems where the learning encounters are against gods? That’s nice. That’s not Karthun. Sam designed this to be an encounter so the characters could learn their abilities. Not how Sam GMed, their abilities. This is explictly stated. And in this encounter about them learning their abilities, he killed off one party member before they could possibly act, and then TPKed the remainder of the party because of the melee character attempted to get into melee to use their abilities.
the intent was for the party to use their abilities. Your campaigns are irrelevant to this. The intent Sam had was to have the players learn their abilities.
Player 1 died before they could act. This is a failure on Sam’s part, because no matter how intelligently he wants to show his NPCs, Player 1 had exactly ZERO chance to learn their abilities.
Player 2 got to cast 1 spell. It failed. This is not Sam’s fault.
Player 3 charges forward, in an attempt to use his abilities. Before he gets there, with NO ability shown to stop it (it doesn’t matter if another system allows a check, this one demonstrates no such thing), Player 3 kills the entire party.
Player 3 has not been given an opportunity to learn abilities. Learning encounters don’t need to be handholds, no. In fact, they probably shouldn’t be. What they DO need to do is actually allow the players to act. This did not.
You say it yourself. The AVERAGE result of that trap knocks most characters out or kills squishys. The average result ends the encounter, as soon as the primary melee character moves up.
In fact, the sum total actions done by any player in the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN are:-
Pass a note
Talk back to an NPC
Cast a spell
Make a move action.
That’s the sum total of player actions in the entire campaign.
Stop trying to defend this encounter. It failed at its purpose. And again, it doesn’t matter what YOU or I think about it, it matters what Sam thinks about it. And we know Sam thinks it was messed up.
Alastores, you have been a kind and gracious opponent which is rare on the internet so thank you.
I am sticking to my opinion of this was a bad tactic that robbed the party of their actions. Dont be disheartened though because of our discussion I thought of one more thing.
We are disregarding the medium that this is presented in to some extent. Brian has done a great job, but this is not a livestream, podcast or YouTube video where we see/and hear everything. We are given what makes sense for the medium of webcomic and that isn’t as all inclusive as we are treating it.
We are also making quite a few of assumptions about Karthun when we really shouldn’t, and I’m going to make some more in a second. I am going to assume that players can ask to make perception checks when they want like other systems, which gives Carlos the responsibility to check. As a courtesy some DM’s go with the “Are you sure?” To try to make a player think about what they just proposed. I also assume this is lower on the experience scale as it is the start of the campaign so these characters may have up to +5 to some saves and when you roll a 2 you won’t be saved from much.
(They may be 3rd to 4th because of the previous Karthun campaign {if it is even measured that way, it could be like Word of Darkness, l5r or Savage worlds} )
Lastly, my own experiences matter in this argument as abstract examples of what caution can get you. If outside stories didn’t matter we wouldn’t have a term ‘cautionary tales.’ Now this is one of them, as Trevor (?) makes it a point to say he will tell this at cons for a long time. My guess is he will tell it at tables where someone rushes ahead to take the fight to the enemy.
In conclusion (Tl;dr)
You are a cool cat, stay that way.
Webcomics only allow for so much exposition and we may have got a head of ourselves on what really transpired at the table.
We don’t know the system so we have to assume, but as the saying goes “assuming makes an ass of u and me (mostly me)”
Cautionary tales are a thing and this is now one of them.
Carlos also strikes me as a guy who *really* gets into character. He doesn’t think “what’s the *smart* move?”, he thinks “what would my character do?” Which is great from an RP perspective, but has the potential to lead to some stupid stuff (“Shiny rock is mine!”). Thought that kind of behavior will almost certainly lead to some great stories.
(However, he might want to rein the urge to run head-first into battle. He doesn’t need to go all Leroy Jenkins on everything.)
@Sean
There is that as well, and it is sad the way it played out because we hadn’t seen a Forge hand or Sentinel yet and both those players (mainly Carlos) really seemed to be nailing the RP.
Yes, only 5d6. When 22hp is notably low for a mage, 5d6 is not all that much damage. It only has about a 15% chance of killing the extra-squishy mage. It was a pretty big surprise that it even could kill the others, even on a failed save.
“Death does not wait for you to be ready! Death is not considerate, or fair! And make no mistake: here, you face Death.”
Ra’s al ghul
Also every session ever.
@Sean
I had a similar experience to Carlos in Pathfinder with my paladin. We came across a cerebral fungus that had developed a taste for blood. It asked us if we found any that we bring it some. The way the dm played the fungus made it seem like a giddy child, and i felt bad for it. So i promised we would come back to give it some. Well, we did eventually return. I made my paladin cut his hand to give it some blood. It went crazy and almost killed the whole party. We defeated it, but it was close. Now, i myself knew giving it blood was a bad idea. But my character made a promise, and he is the kind to always be a man (well, wyvaran) of his word, no matter what. So i know what it’s like to do something you know is a bad idea for the sake of being in character.
I don’t see that simply because Brett’s not saying “Man up and get behind the screen again”.
He’s saying “Dude, get your life back in order.”
Even at the end, he wasn’t asking Sam to DM. He was saying, “Dude, the deep end, you’re falling off of it.”
Him being mad about Sam not GMing doesn’t seem to stem from the fact that he won’t get to game anymore. It’s that no matter how bad things have been, Sam has always DMed. It’s his thing. He obviously LOVES doing it, he made an entire setting.
And now, he’s thinking of tossing aside the one anchor that he has always held on to. And that worries Brett, so Brett is doing the only thing he can, calling Sam out.
“dude get your life in order” is exactly the wrong approach to take with a depressed person. They CAN’T get their life in order by snapping fingers.
Depression is very easy to fix….as long as you are not depressed. It’s so very easy for Brett to say “Boo-hoo, we’ve all got problems, get over it”. It’s also irrelevant, because if Sam is depressed (actually depressed, not what most people think it is) which would make sense given the previous events, then all Brett is doing is saying to the Depressed-Sam that Sam’s failed. Again.
Yeah, the GMing thing is my mind, not sensible interpretation. But even beyond that, Brett’s screwing up. It’s the screw up nearly everyone makes with depression – thinking that it’s just about the person needing a good, hard talking to.
It isn’t.
Should it worry Brett that Sam wants to quit DMing? Yes, it absolutely should. It’s one of the most critical signs that Sam’s actually depressed. But that’s what makes his response so shitty. Brett’s statement to Sam is:-
“You suck, you are whining” (Boo-hoo-hoo)
“We’ve all got problems, but only you are weak enough to let it get to you” (We’ve all got problems)
“You are useless” (When things go bad, you crawl into a pity cave)
“you’ve failed at all these things before” (“Don’t get my started on relationships”)
“You are making it harder for me” (“I’m sick of watching my friends wallow”)
“You are a failure” (“Grow up”)
Now, my speciality is autism, but a huge number of autists are depressed (including me, for most of my life). I’m not pulling this criticism of Brett out my ass. This sort of stuff is EXACTLY what people who are depressed get told, and the BEST POSSIBLE RESPONSE for most people is that it means they ignore the friend for a while. A likely response is that they stop trusting that friend (because the friend keeps telling them they suck, and yes, that is how the depressed brain interprets it), or avoid contacting the friend (because the friend is angry and hurt by them). The worst outcome is that they take this outburst as a reason to believe they have no-one and to try and kill themselves.
This is not a criticism of the writing – this is a very normal response from people to their depressed friends. It happens all the time. It fits Brett’s character.
But it’s absolutely the wrong approach for Brett to take, and therefore, I will by quite disappointed if the outcome is “Oh, wow, Brett, you are right!”.
Not to criticize your insights – I’ve been the depressed guy more than once, and I absolutely hate the way Brett’s phrased everything and the “pity-with-harshness” tack he’s taking – but what is the *right* approach for Brett to take?
Asking because I’d prefer to not be Brett in my own life.
It’s difficult, to be honest, and it DOES vary a lot from person to person. With some of the people I’m dealing with, it’s about distraction until it passes, because while they are in a depressive episode, nothing will help. With others, pointing out to them how screwed up my life has been works (but with some, that would be a terrible idea).
Brett’s approach…is what a lot of people WANT to do. Common sense feels that it’s a good idea. Very (very) occasionally, it is, although the only person I’ve encountered in a decade who that would apply to is me.
Honestly, in this case, the first thing Brett should have done is find out what Sam thinks is wrong, not go insulting him out of the gate.
It’s important to note that I’m NOT a depression specialist. I work with autists. It’s just that a lot of us are depressed, so it’s something I have to deal with with people on a near daily basis.
But if you want stuff specifically for depression…..it’s probably better to talk to someone who actually does specialise in it. π
What you are taking into this wasn’t the point I was making.
Your point was that Brett was being a selfish ass. I agree that Brett was being an ass, but Brett was being anything but selfish. He cares about his friend and is trying to help in any way that he can. He isn’t doing it the -right- way, but you making a value call on someone trying is what I was going after, not that it was the right move.
He’s trying very hard for Sam, he’s just, as the character goes, a very limited character. He’s grown a lot, but he’s still Brett. Which is amazing writing.
But that doesn’t make him selfish or just trying to get Sam behind the screen. He’s worried about his friend and, unfortunately, lashing. I apologize for not making that more clear.
Being uninformed (and honestly pretty stupid) and selfish are two very different things.
As for your OTHER point:
Background: Clinically depressed here (on SSRIs) with a focus on college based reactions to depression as my career.
Depression is complex. You deal with depression specifically in a group of people that have complex and different psycho-social and mental constructs than the average population so I’m not going to even bring that up because I don’t know autism all that well. So I’m gonna assume know what you’re talking about within that very varied and wide population. And honestly, your response is true for a lot of other depressed individuals.
But what I know of depression within neurotypical individuals (I think that’s the correct terminology, if not correct me) is that it varies. What works for some doesn’t work for others. Some depressed individuals don’t even seem sad. They’re in the most danger.
Sometimes, the tough love can work. It works for me. Well sometimes and only temporarily. Other times, it can be the -worst- possible tactic and cause a complete retreat within the depressed individual. I’ve seen that happen as well.
If Sam is actually depressed, clinically so, his friends coming together won’t help long term. It’ll relieve him of a burden or add on to it depending on how he processes, but it won’t fix anything. If he is clinically depressed, the only thing that will see an improvement is usually medicine and a therapist. Thus the entire arc where a certain girl got bitched out for trying to play therapist when she wasn’t capable of it. A chemical imbalance in the head sucks because we try to deal with it as though we deal with sadness and it doesn’t work and it’s illogical and it sucks. So if he is depressed clinically, he needs medical attention and therapy.
Unfortunately, you can be depressed when you have NOTHING to be sad about. You have a great job. A great relationship. Nothing is going wrong. But you just can’t. You have no motivation, you have no light, you have no hope. It’s just a black pit of despair and you don’t know what you’re doing wrong and it SUCKS. Brain chemistry sucks.
But given that Sam is responding to multiple truly horrible, I’m assuming he’s probably not clinically depressed. He’s sad and he’s hurting. If he’s not, this arc is gonna take a very different turn probably.
It’s possible he is clinically depressed. He could literally just have so little energy left that he can’t mitigate it anymore. Most people with low level clinical depression don’t take meds (though whether or not they should is another question), it just springs up at times where their energy is lowest to be able to push up against the constant pull. And if that’s the case, again, this’ll be a very different arc.
If Sam is the other kind of depressed, what he needs depends on what’s bothering him. He still probably needs to talk to someone (hopefully a professional) and you’re right, he doesn’t need to be bitched out by his best friend like that before they even show support. That probably isn’t gonna help. Tough love usually only works if it’s countered beforehand by non-tough love. The usual strategy is seeing the stark difference in how much you’re pushing someone away to pull you back. Or push you right over the edge and say fuck it. It’s not a good strategy to use so you’re 100% on the money though. Don’t play that card unless you’ve run out of cards to play.
Given that Brett didn’t try the supportive angle first…. Ya, no, bad. I hope someone talks some sense into him.
Clinical and non-clinical are BOTH super dangerous and both just as worthy of attention. So I’m not saying if he isn’t clinically depressed he should just suck it up and get over it. He should probably seek out therapy. Just in one case, if he needs meds and isn’t taking them, no amount of good words is going to help bring him out of the hole for much longer than maybe a few hours, a day or two if he’s lucky.
But, back to the original point, I think Brett is still, for failing at it, good intentioned. He’s not being selfish, he cares.
He’s just fucking it up. As is par for the course.
It takes his oldest dearest friend to be harsh enough to rip his bandaid off fast. It may hurt more but Brett being an ass is more likely to work than some tea and gentle words. Brett is clearly not trying to blow smoke up his rear and so hiw words will break thru the self-pity cloud.
Tho yes the tea and kind words can do well batting cleanup for afterwards, lulling the effect of the harshness and putting everyone in a better mood.
Γ’ΛΒΊ
I’ll stay in my hoping corner, that third frame suggested a lot of anger build up. I hope Sam dresses down “Dr. Brett” harder than he was just pushed. “Get yourself in order” Hah. If only that was as easy as a remark, and it kills me that it’s coming from someone who literally had magic clean up his life. Before the mantle Brett was a walking That Guy.
I think Brett approached Sam perfectly. Sure, the blowhard version of Brett would’ve been much more harsh and unhelpful, but the fact is that he and Sam have been lifelong friends…and that relationship wouldn’t exist or persist without something deeper. We just saw the ‘deeper’ part today.
As for criticism that “it’s not that easy,” I don’t think Brett is suggesting it will be easy. He said, first, here is a behavior pattern that clearly represents a problem, so –second– you need to admit you have a problem, and third, get professional help. Brett’s inimitable style doesn’t diminish the advice. In fact, that Brett is being direct without being abusive is probably exactly what Sam needs to hear. That, and the unshakable support of his friends–with Brett in the lead. As it should be.
I’m looking forward to seeing Sam’s journey to recovery from whatever his assortment of challenges are.
Yes, Brett is trying to help. But the fact is that Brett is doing absolutely the worst thing you can ever do to someone who is depressed. Does this make this bad writing? Hell no, because Brett’s also doing the thing that everyone thinks will help. He’s doing the thing that people think they should do to someone who is depressed – call them out on their behaviour.
But the usual response from the depressed person is not “Oh, wow, I better get my life in order”. It’s “I pissed YOU off as well. I’m even more worthless than I thought I was”.
As a mostly functional (or at least able to pretend as such) person with autism AND a high degree of depression:
Screw you. I’m glad I never had you as a professional. I’ve learned that most of the time people coddling me and trying to cheer me up gently like what you seem to suggest just makes it worse. It’s the times when someone stood up and kicked me in the pants with a serious “Dude, get your shit in gear.” talk like above is when I usually snap out of the funk and start fixing stuff. I want my friends to be able to say “I love you man, but you’re fucking pissing me off, and we’re not going to sit here and let you bitch and not try to fix stuff.”
So, as much as I respect you being a professional, please take your professional opinion, and shove it up somewhere uncomfortable.
Not true; I’ve often had occasion to question and mock “trained professionals” in real life.
Particularly when the opinion or actions of those “trained professionals” has put the life of a loved one in jeopardy.
Remember that just because someone has a degree and an education, it does not mean that they know everything about their field. The good ones recognize that, the bad ones will have an ego that blinds them to that fact. Watch out for “trained professionals” (especially in the medical field) who seem too certain about their own abilities, or about a diagnosis or course of treatment. If you know anything about medicine, you know that it is a lot of it is guesswork and trial and error. Beware any medical professional who leaves no room to consider or discuss the possibilities that they may be wrong; they absolutely should be questioned and mocked.
I am honestly slightly saddened by the number of positve responses to Brett’s menthod of handling depression. Unless Sam is supposed to be ‘only’ self pitying (in which case, Brian, you’ve done way too good a job at making him fit depression criteria), Brett’s done pretty much exactly the wrong thing with everything except “Go and talk to someone”.
He’s done the thing everyone who hasn’t been depressed (depressed, not sad) thinks should be done, but that’s because they think depression is angst. Or self pity. Or sadness. It isn’t.
I understand what you’re saying, and I won’t question your expertise on the matter.
However, I do think you’re ignoring a possibility – maybe Brett’s *trying* to get a reaction from Sam. Look at Sam’s face in panel 3. That’s not an “oh god, he’s right, I’m a mess, there’s no hope for me” face – that’s an “I’m pissed” face. And I can’t help but think that Sam getting angry and exploding on Brett has to be better than how he’s been for the past few comics.
Yes, Sam needs help, but the first stage in helping him is to get him out of the funk he’s currently in, because I doubt he’d be willing to seek out help in his current emotional state. Everyone else in the group might have gone the long way and given Sam love and support, but Brett (being Brett) decided to take the short route. And if that means making himself a target for Sam’s anger, then so be it.
Yeah, and I hope that’s the route it goes down. But standing alone, this is not a sensible strategy on Brett’s behalf….and yet people are saying it was a brilliant idea. It’s not.
Brett didn’t even bother actually asking what the problem was. Had he gone in with “Why the fuck are you stopping DMing?” this would actually have been better.
It’s not that he might become a target for Sam’s anger that makes this strategy stupid. It’s that this sort of speech frequently pushes people MORE into their ‘funk’, not out of it. Sam probably doesn’t need Brett to be loving and supportive. You are correct, that’s not Brett’s character. But the problem is that Brett comes in and instantly attacks Sam, instantly tells him that he’s whinging, in a pity cave, and that everyone else has problems and all Sam needs to do is grow up.
That drives people to suicide, not health.Not always, sure, but often enough that the stream of “You go Brett!” comments is saddening.
Don’t forget that both Brett and Charlie have been dealing with this since they were kids and have seen the pattern before and it seems that Brett has decided that he’s had enough of seeing his best friend withdrawing from life (yet again) and is going for the direct approach. He’s made Sam focus on him for better or worse and only Brian can tell us how effective it’ll be.
After all, this is a work of fiction so folks really should calm down about such things.
I’m sure Brett is fed up of that. That’s why people come out with those speechs, after all.
As for “only Brian can tell us how effective it’ll be” :- I don’t agree with author fiat. Unless Brian actually gives us a reason why in this case the worst possible approach works, saying it is effective is bad writing. Up until this point, the comic’s been very well written, so I hope that it doesn’t go that way.
And fiction is important. Fiction shapes a lot of how people see the world. A lot of stereotypical understandings are shaped more by fiction that reality. Mental Health, gender, race issues are all massively shaped by fiction.
I’ll admit that Brett’s response is not the best method to go with. And yeah, the fact that a lot of people are cheering him on for it is also kinda upsetting.
But like Sweeper pointed out, this isn’t the first time Brett’s seen Sam like this. And life’s pretty much thrown a lot of crap at Sam ever since Dungeon Run – Mel’s gone, Dove and his minions are probably still harassing him, his accident, and then to top it off with an unintentional TPK? Yeah, I’d be pretty messed up, too. I’m *hoping* (and I can’t stress that enough) that Brett’s acting like this because he knows that their usual methods aren’t going to work, and the only way for Sam to recover is for him to make a serious effort to do so.
I understand that many people would not respond to Brett’s ministrations and advice. But the way I see it, Brett and Sam have been friends since they were little kids, and Brian knows that there’s a lot of bluster in Brett, and there always will be. But he can see through that as well, and see what’s happening underneath. The first 3 panels are Brett being Brett, and Sam ignores it as such. But he knows that Sam can’t just “snap out of it”, and needs to get real help, so says so in panel 4. I’m sure Sam can tell the difference.
-shrugs-. Depends on what’s going on. If it’s a mistake – like this one, where Sam misjudged the balance of his ability learning encounter? Eh. Happens. If you don’t fudge, it’s going to happen eventually.
If they’ve said “ok, this is a lethal system, TPKs happen” (like old school D+D, or Cthulu) then that’s perfectly fine. IF the players know TPKs are likely to happen, there’s no problem with a TPK at any point.
If they are doing it deliberatly, or repeatedly, then they are either a dick or incapable of DMing.
Its not tactful, and its probably not going to be all that effective, but goddamn if I cant sympathize with Brett here. I have a friend like Sam, and sometimes I just want to shake him until he stops being such a blubbering pussy and actually deals with his problems. He’s not depressed either, he has some kind of disorder he takes medication for now, but its not depression. I like to try and avoid my problems too, but when it comes down to it, I do deal with them, I dont just hide and hope it’ll all solve itself. Granted, I dont have clinical depression, just run of the mill anxiety, but still.
So speaking as someone with chronic depression, which is what I would diagnose Sam as having, given Brett’s speech, Brett’s actions here would be horrible as a general idea of dealing with a depressive, but might be helpful in the specific. For example, if Amy were to blow up at him like this, Sam would be driven deeper into self-hate and self-incrimination and his depression would worsen. But Brett is not Amy, if Brett were to come in with kid gloves he would not be acting like Brett, and Sam would notice and feel guilty about that. Here Sam is dreading what Brett will have to say (and probably has been building it up in his own mind), and it starts coming but then transforms into an argument for what he can do as a positive course of action. Brett would make a piss-poor therapist but here his role is best friend and motivator and getting Sam’s attention, and he did that, and I suspect others will take it in a more outwardly supportive direction.
Hello, it’s a pleasure to finally find something I wanted to comment about. Nearly commented at the TPK section but this is a slightly more appropriate time.
A lot of people have been disagreeing with Brett and his methods of dealing with Sams (probable) depression. In general I would agree that “tough love” is not normally the method one should use. It generally places pressure, stress and makes the person feel worse.
With that being said, Brett knows Sam better than you. Ok fine they’re both actually fictional characters. But Brett is aiming to jar his friend back to reality, he’s not said anything horrible and has cited other times in Sams life that he has gone through pain and retreated rather than faced it. Brett has years, decades of experience with Sam.
Additionally, I’ve been depressed (part of being bipolar) most of my family suffer from depression in some manner. 99/100 this would be the wrong approach, but after months of trying and failing to do anything productive a change of tact can help. At least it can make you realize you’ve become self absorbed so you can start working it out. Or it can mean you give up some of your agency to friends and family so they can arrange help for you.
/>
HOVER-TEXT: Tune in next week for the premiere of Brett’s new daytime television show: Truth Crits with Dr. Brett
I’d watch it!
Satna telling it like it is
Santa*
Sounds better than anything with Dr. Phil!
Finally!
That is an epic name for a show
I would so watch that show.
Someone hand Brett a mic so he can drop it.
Nah, I don’t think he’s leaving until he has Sam sitting behind the screen and rolling some dice again.
Some people get through a depressive time with tender support, and friends potentially using kid gloves.
That’s not how Brett does things!
Brett is pointing out patterns that Sam has fallen into in the past, and seems to be a constant thing that comes up when Sam has these times in his life. What was the saying? (I believe Einstein?)
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I think this fits quite a bit here for sam. He keeps crawling into a secluded shell (the same thing over and over again) when bad shit hits the fan for him, and, as Brett put it so succinctly, ‘hopes things magically get better’.
Sam, maybe it’s time you visit that therapist you were going to a while back. If you feel you can’t talk about this with your friends, your therapist will be a neutral party who can give you educated advice on how to work through your troubles.
I may not be the confrontational or blunt person that Brett is, but I applaud the way he handled it. He handed Sam like a parent handles the angst of a teenager.
… I was NOT expecting that.
Seconding Don on that idea
Calling Oprah now to inform her to drop Dr. Phil and get Dr. Brett schedule.
Somehow, I was expecting that. Also what time is Truth Crits with Dr. Brett? I don’t want to miss its premiere debut.
Sometimes I wish I had a guy like Brett around to motivate me.
Is this possible we are seeing another way in which the Mantle has affected Brett?
I think the only thing the mantle has really helped with has been softening his rough edges. Brett, despite his faults, always is there for his friends; he’s just matured enough to deal with his and their issues without defaulting to neckbeard rage.
Damn son. Somebody dropped the mic.
…..hm. I’m currently reading this as ‘a bastard player who cannot be bothered to GM attempts to guilt trip his friend into GMing rather than actually addressing the causes of the problem’.
I’m aware that this says more about my thoughts at the moment than Brett, but…Sam’s got reasons. That TPK was utterly Sam screwing up. It doesn’t matter all the arguments about whether TPKs are justified. It wasn’t the point of the encounter, so Sam made a mistake – a big one, that ended the campaign in session one. The fact that the group was accepting of this minimised that mistake, but it could have been a lot worse. He did this while under the influence of painkillers – how much is the worry that his pain meds are messing with his head affecting Sam? He’s being hounded by Dove and his cronies about a call he made at Dungeon Run. Was that call correct? Well, Sam thought so at the time, but it’s very easy to reconsider, and if he made one critical mistake…maybe that one was also a mistake? (To be clear, objectively speaking, it probably wasn’t. But in Sam’s head at the moment?)
Sam’s got reasons to be depressed. Actually depressed, not just sad. And Brett – supposedly his best friend – is coming out with the utterly bullcrap “We all have problems”. Sure, it gets a bit better from there, with not hoping things just get magically better.
But he starts out by telling a depressed person that they suck.
look I understand where you are coming from I suffer from manic depression myself and I understand where Bret is coming he loves his friend and it hurts him to see him give up something that makes him happy, but when it really gets down to it to seek help you need a swift kick in the pants to help you see the problem of course I think that calling in Bret is more like the old saying about the mule ,you have to hit it between the yes with a big enough club to get its attention before you can start negotiating the problem
I understand your point.
What I read was a bit of not very tactful tough love from Brett. Brett wants Sam to see that there are triggers that cause Sam’s depression and it is he wants Sam to seek professional help, because it has finally become clear to all of them how serious it is when he wants to leave.
Now on to Sam screwing up the encounter, I do not agree with you. The players had bad tactics and worse rolls. How is a randomized roll being low or being high Sam’s screw up? How is Carlos running without checking for traps Sam’s screw up?
I went through this before, but in short:-
Sam designed the encounter so that the players could learn their abilities. However, he had the enemy for this first encounter in a situation wherein they would automatically gain 2 full rounds of actions before the majority of the enemy (scouting for the ambush doesn’t apply, since they ambushed them during exposition). This is not good ‘learning experience’. Spot checks don’t matter, since it was a passive effect. Further, while the GM can’t control the randomness of the dice, he CAN control how much variance there is. He decided to use weapons that had the possibility to easily kill a party member if focus fired (remember how far into negative she went), and then he decided to focus fire. Does it make sense for intelligent enemies to do that? Yes. But the GM’s goal here was a learning experience. You can’t learn your abilities if you are dead.
And then the trap. Carlos, the fighter, and the newbie to the group, runs forward. He wants to use his abilities. Remember the goal here? But instead, he sets off a trap. That’s not a problem – in fact, it’s probably a good idea to let players know traps are going to be a thing. But the trap had the possibility to wipe out the entire party. With no warning, it was able to one shot the entire party. Yes, bad rolls happened, but the fact is that the trap had the potential to wipe out the entire party, and no one in said party could spot it. Both of these were under Sam’s control.
The degree of lethality of the encounter wasn’t Sam’s fault. But it wasn’t the high rolls that were the screw up, it’s that a learning encounter started out by near killing two player characters before the first real action the party got was to TPK itself.
People go on about the party having bad tactics. I wanted to pull this out, because the argument is specious.
Bad tactics would only matter if they actually had actions. They didn’t. The actions they had were a single spellcast and a move action.
It doesn’t matter how good or bad their tactics were, they never got to use any.
Apologies for triple post, I can’t work out how to edit. It’s occured to me after posting the above that it doesn’t actually matter if WE think the encounter was screwed up.
It matters if Sam does. And he does. He said so.
I still call bad tactics, because retreat is an option/tactic. You have 1 player dead, they have declared they are focus firing on soft targets so the mage will be down next round, then the Bard most likely, this will swing the action economy back into their favor. They knew full well the cultists were organized and when you go treading in someone’s turf you better check for traps. Rolling a perception to avoid a trip line doesn’t count as an action in any system I play (3.5, 4th, 5th, and PF but maybe that is a house rule.)
Surprisingly a situation like this happened to my group. In a dungeon and we get surprised and our mage drops to -1, my paladin steps in front of him and takes a defensive stance, the fighter gets adjacent to me giving cover. The bandits shoot again and we take some shots, the cleric casts obscuring mists (which I would guess a mage in Karthun could/would have) and we bounce.
Hindsight is 20/20. But to your point, if this was a teaching game they all learned something (Sam included) but as objectively as I can: This was not screwed up by anyone. Just the way the game goes.
They still didn’t have any actions to accomplish “tactics”. The only actions they had were a single spellcast in the suprise round and the least accomplished player’s turn. Then they were all dead.
Your situation isn’t the same. In your situation, the party actually got to act. They didn’t in this one. As for checking for the trap :- Uh, yeah. Checking for traps is an action in 3.5. Also, Karthun appears to have passive perception.
It wasn’t a teaching GAME, it was a teaching encounter. And it’s not an “if”. We know absolutely that that was Sam’s intention for the encounter. It failed at doing this.
There is a disconnect with my point and I’m sorry, but because of my nature I have to give it one more shot.
Bad tactic (s): Carlos rushing ahead without doing an active perception check in enemy territory and under attack.
Result: Triggered a trap that TPKed the party. They all fell unconscious and could not act.
My story was an example of what different tactics could result in. Because we formed a shield wall and cast defensive spells we lived
One act took them all down, and it wasn’t Sam’s action it was a player. No DM can account for all actions players will take. Since it wasnt fully played out that trap could have served as Sam’s teaching moment about traps. In conclusion that is how a BAD TACTIC ruined the session/campaign.
One action is not a tactic, and Sam CAN control how much damage his traps do. In this case, he put in a trap that in ONE action could kill the entire party.
That’s not a ‘this is how you learn your abilities’.
Given that I’ve played in Systems and Settings where Learning Encounters were fights with literal gods, I can say that yes, this was a learning encounter. They don’t all need to be hand-holding tutorial levels of difficulty.
This isn’t Pathfinder or D&D. This game is a Homebrew System and Setting made by Sam. For all we know, it might be impossible for Sam to design an encounter that couldn’t possibly result in a TPK if the dice went bad. Not without compromising the world, the system, or his morals as a GM.
In any case, having re-read the encounter strip, the trap only did 5d6 damage. That’s a minimum of 5 damage, and a maximum of 36. On average, that’s probably closer to 15 damage, which would knock out most characters, maybe kill the squishiest.
Not to mention a good perception check, which is a free action in almost any system designed by a non-moron, would reveal the trap.
And yet no perception check was called for, and the only indication we have for what rules are being used for perception is that it’s a passive number – IE, Sam should have known about it in advance. And yet, the enemy got TWO ENTIRE TURNS before the player characters got to act. And yet, the trap did this ‘only’ 5d6 to the entire party.
You’ve played in systems where the learning encounters are against gods? That’s nice. That’s not Karthun. Sam designed this to be an encounter so the characters could learn their abilities. Not how Sam GMed, their abilities. This is explictly stated. And in this encounter about them learning their abilities, he killed off one party member before they could possibly act, and then TPKed the remainder of the party because of the melee character attempted to get into melee to use their abilities.
the intent was for the party to use their abilities. Your campaigns are irrelevant to this. The intent Sam had was to have the players learn their abilities.
Player 1 died before they could act. This is a failure on Sam’s part, because no matter how intelligently he wants to show his NPCs, Player 1 had exactly ZERO chance to learn their abilities.
Player 2 got to cast 1 spell. It failed. This is not Sam’s fault.
Player 3 charges forward, in an attempt to use his abilities. Before he gets there, with NO ability shown to stop it (it doesn’t matter if another system allows a check, this one demonstrates no such thing), Player 3 kills the entire party.
Player 3 has not been given an opportunity to learn abilities. Learning encounters don’t need to be handholds, no. In fact, they probably shouldn’t be. What they DO need to do is actually allow the players to act. This did not.
You say it yourself. The AVERAGE result of that trap knocks most characters out or kills squishys. The average result ends the encounter, as soon as the primary melee character moves up.
In fact, the sum total actions done by any player in the ENTIRE CAMPAIGN are:-
Pass a note
Talk back to an NPC
Cast a spell
Make a move action.
That’s the sum total of player actions in the entire campaign.
Stop trying to defend this encounter. It failed at its purpose. And again, it doesn’t matter what YOU or I think about it, it matters what Sam thinks about it. And we know Sam thinks it was messed up.
Alastores, you have been a kind and gracious opponent which is rare on the internet so thank you.
I am sticking to my opinion of this was a bad tactic that robbed the party of their actions. Dont be disheartened though because of our discussion I thought of one more thing.
We are disregarding the medium that this is presented in to some extent. Brian has done a great job, but this is not a livestream, podcast or YouTube video where we see/and hear everything. We are given what makes sense for the medium of webcomic and that isn’t as all inclusive as we are treating it.
We are also making quite a few of assumptions about Karthun when we really shouldn’t, and I’m going to make some more in a second. I am going to assume that players can ask to make perception checks when they want like other systems, which gives Carlos the responsibility to check. As a courtesy some DM’s go with the “Are you sure?” To try to make a player think about what they just proposed. I also assume this is lower on the experience scale as it is the start of the campaign so these characters may have up to +5 to some saves and when you roll a 2 you won’t be saved from much.
(They may be 3rd to 4th because of the previous Karthun campaign {if it is even measured that way, it could be like Word of Darkness, l5r or Savage worlds} )
Lastly, my own experiences matter in this argument as abstract examples of what caution can get you. If outside stories didn’t matter we wouldn’t have a term ‘cautionary tales.’ Now this is one of them, as Trevor (?) makes it a point to say he will tell this at cons for a long time. My guess is he will tell it at tables where someone rushes ahead to take the fight to the enemy.
In conclusion (Tl;dr)
You are a cool cat, stay that way.
Webcomics only allow for so much exposition and we may have got a head of ourselves on what really transpired at the table.
We don’t know the system so we have to assume, but as the saying goes “assuming makes an ass of u and me (mostly me)”
Cautionary tales are a thing and this is now one of them.
@FuriousManwich
Carlos also strikes me as a guy who *really* gets into character. He doesn’t think “what’s the *smart* move?”, he thinks “what would my character do?” Which is great from an RP perspective, but has the potential to lead to some stupid stuff (“Shiny rock is mine!”). Thought that kind of behavior will almost certainly lead to some great stories.
(However, he might want to rein the urge to run head-first into battle. He doesn’t need to go all Leroy Jenkins on everything.)
@Sean
There is that as well, and it is sad the way it played out because we hadn’t seen a Forge hand or Sentinel yet and both those players (mainly Carlos) really seemed to be nailing the RP.
Yes, only 5d6. When 22hp is notably low for a mage, 5d6 is not all that much damage. It only has about a 15% chance of killing the extra-squishy mage. It was a pretty big surprise that it even could kill the others, even on a failed save.
“Death does not wait for you to be ready! Death is not considerate, or fair! And make no mistake: here, you face Death.”
Ra’s al ghul
Also every session ever.
@Sean
I had a similar experience to Carlos in Pathfinder with my paladin. We came across a cerebral fungus that had developed a taste for blood. It asked us if we found any that we bring it some. The way the dm played the fungus made it seem like a giddy child, and i felt bad for it. So i promised we would come back to give it some. Well, we did eventually return. I made my paladin cut his hand to give it some blood. It went crazy and almost killed the whole party. We defeated it, but it was close. Now, i myself knew giving it blood was a bad idea. But my character made a promise, and he is the kind to always be a man (well, wyvaran) of his word, no matter what. So i know what it’s like to do something you know is a bad idea for the sake of being in character.
Brett’s got it right. Pull your sh!t together Nancy boy. You go big man. Tell it like it is brutha’. Can I get an AH-MEN!!??
Selah, bro.
Not so much “Cant be bothered to Gm” so much as “Nobody wants him Gming, he’s an asshole”
I don’t see that simply because Brett’s not saying “Man up and get behind the screen again”.
He’s saying “Dude, get your life back in order.”
Even at the end, he wasn’t asking Sam to DM. He was saying, “Dude, the deep end, you’re falling off of it.”
Him being mad about Sam not GMing doesn’t seem to stem from the fact that he won’t get to game anymore. It’s that no matter how bad things have been, Sam has always DMed. It’s his thing. He obviously LOVES doing it, he made an entire setting.
And now, he’s thinking of tossing aside the one anchor that he has always held on to. And that worries Brett, so Brett is doing the only thing he can, calling Sam out.
“dude get your life in order” is exactly the wrong approach to take with a depressed person. They CAN’T get their life in order by snapping fingers.
Depression is very easy to fix….as long as you are not depressed. It’s so very easy for Brett to say “Boo-hoo, we’ve all got problems, get over it”. It’s also irrelevant, because if Sam is depressed (actually depressed, not what most people think it is) which would make sense given the previous events, then all Brett is doing is saying to the Depressed-Sam that Sam’s failed. Again.
Yeah, the GMing thing is my mind, not sensible interpretation. But even beyond that, Brett’s screwing up. It’s the screw up nearly everyone makes with depression – thinking that it’s just about the person needing a good, hard talking to.
It isn’t.
Should it worry Brett that Sam wants to quit DMing? Yes, it absolutely should. It’s one of the most critical signs that Sam’s actually depressed. But that’s what makes his response so shitty. Brett’s statement to Sam is:-
“You suck, you are whining” (Boo-hoo-hoo)
“We’ve all got problems, but only you are weak enough to let it get to you” (We’ve all got problems)
“You are useless” (When things go bad, you crawl into a pity cave)
“you’ve failed at all these things before” (“Don’t get my started on relationships”)
“You are making it harder for me” (“I’m sick of watching my friends wallow”)
“You are a failure” (“Grow up”)
Now, my speciality is autism, but a huge number of autists are depressed (including me, for most of my life). I’m not pulling this criticism of Brett out my ass. This sort of stuff is EXACTLY what people who are depressed get told, and the BEST POSSIBLE RESPONSE for most people is that it means they ignore the friend for a while. A likely response is that they stop trusting that friend (because the friend keeps telling them they suck, and yes, that is how the depressed brain interprets it), or avoid contacting the friend (because the friend is angry and hurt by them). The worst outcome is that they take this outburst as a reason to believe they have no-one and to try and kill themselves.
This is not a criticism of the writing – this is a very normal response from people to their depressed friends. It happens all the time. It fits Brett’s character.
But it’s absolutely the wrong approach for Brett to take, and therefore, I will by quite disappointed if the outcome is “Oh, wow, Brett, you are right!”.
Not to criticize your insights – I’ve been the depressed guy more than once, and I absolutely hate the way Brett’s phrased everything and the “pity-with-harshness” tack he’s taking – but what is the *right* approach for Brett to take?
Asking because I’d prefer to not be Brett in my own life.
It’s difficult, to be honest, and it DOES vary a lot from person to person. With some of the people I’m dealing with, it’s about distraction until it passes, because while they are in a depressive episode, nothing will help. With others, pointing out to them how screwed up my life has been works (but with some, that would be a terrible idea).
Brett’s approach…is what a lot of people WANT to do. Common sense feels that it’s a good idea. Very (very) occasionally, it is, although the only person I’ve encountered in a decade who that would apply to is me.
Honestly, in this case, the first thing Brett should have done is find out what Sam thinks is wrong, not go insulting him out of the gate.
It’s important to note that I’m NOT a depression specialist. I work with autists. It’s just that a lot of us are depressed, so it’s something I have to deal with with people on a near daily basis.
But if you want stuff specifically for depression…..it’s probably better to talk to someone who actually does specialise in it. π
Fair enough. Really I was just curious what your approach would be, and you’ve elaborated on that, so I’m pleased to have heard it.
What you are taking into this wasn’t the point I was making.
Your point was that Brett was being a selfish ass. I agree that Brett was being an ass, but Brett was being anything but selfish. He cares about his friend and is trying to help in any way that he can. He isn’t doing it the -right- way, but you making a value call on someone trying is what I was going after, not that it was the right move.
He’s trying very hard for Sam, he’s just, as the character goes, a very limited character. He’s grown a lot, but he’s still Brett. Which is amazing writing.
But that doesn’t make him selfish or just trying to get Sam behind the screen. He’s worried about his friend and, unfortunately, lashing. I apologize for not making that more clear.
Being uninformed (and honestly pretty stupid) and selfish are two very different things.
As for your OTHER point:
Background: Clinically depressed here (on SSRIs) with a focus on college based reactions to depression as my career.
Depression is complex. You deal with depression specifically in a group of people that have complex and different psycho-social and mental constructs than the average population so I’m not going to even bring that up because I don’t know autism all that well. So I’m gonna assume know what you’re talking about within that very varied and wide population. And honestly, your response is true for a lot of other depressed individuals.
But what I know of depression within neurotypical individuals (I think that’s the correct terminology, if not correct me) is that it varies. What works for some doesn’t work for others. Some depressed individuals don’t even seem sad. They’re in the most danger.
Sometimes, the tough love can work. It works for me. Well sometimes and only temporarily. Other times, it can be the -worst- possible tactic and cause a complete retreat within the depressed individual. I’ve seen that happen as well.
If Sam is actually depressed, clinically so, his friends coming together won’t help long term. It’ll relieve him of a burden or add on to it depending on how he processes, but it won’t fix anything. If he is clinically depressed, the only thing that will see an improvement is usually medicine and a therapist. Thus the entire arc where a certain girl got bitched out for trying to play therapist when she wasn’t capable of it. A chemical imbalance in the head sucks because we try to deal with it as though we deal with sadness and it doesn’t work and it’s illogical and it sucks. So if he is depressed clinically, he needs medical attention and therapy.
Unfortunately, you can be depressed when you have NOTHING to be sad about. You have a great job. A great relationship. Nothing is going wrong. But you just can’t. You have no motivation, you have no light, you have no hope. It’s just a black pit of despair and you don’t know what you’re doing wrong and it SUCKS. Brain chemistry sucks.
But given that Sam is responding to multiple truly horrible, I’m assuming he’s probably not clinically depressed. He’s sad and he’s hurting. If he’s not, this arc is gonna take a very different turn probably.
It’s possible he is clinically depressed. He could literally just have so little energy left that he can’t mitigate it anymore. Most people with low level clinical depression don’t take meds (though whether or not they should is another question), it just springs up at times where their energy is lowest to be able to push up against the constant pull. And if that’s the case, again, this’ll be a very different arc.
If Sam is the other kind of depressed, what he needs depends on what’s bothering him. He still probably needs to talk to someone (hopefully a professional) and you’re right, he doesn’t need to be bitched out by his best friend like that before they even show support. That probably isn’t gonna help. Tough love usually only works if it’s countered beforehand by non-tough love. The usual strategy is seeing the stark difference in how much you’re pushing someone away to pull you back. Or push you right over the edge and say fuck it. It’s not a good strategy to use so you’re 100% on the money though. Don’t play that card unless you’ve run out of cards to play.
Given that Brett didn’t try the supportive angle first…. Ya, no, bad. I hope someone talks some sense into him.
Clinical and non-clinical are BOTH super dangerous and both just as worthy of attention. So I’m not saying if he isn’t clinically depressed he should just suck it up and get over it. He should probably seek out therapy. Just in one case, if he needs meds and isn’t taking them, no amount of good words is going to help bring him out of the hole for much longer than maybe a few hours, a day or two if he’s lucky.
But, back to the original point, I think Brett is still, for failing at it, good intentioned. He’s not being selfish, he cares.
He’s just fucking it up. As is par for the course.
Good writing. Bad response.
It’s not like Brett’s telling him to “man up”, or anything. He specifically said to see someone about it.
It takes his oldest dearest friend to be harsh enough to rip his bandaid off fast. It may hurt more but Brett being an ass is more likely to work than some tea and gentle words. Brett is clearly not trying to blow smoke up his rear and so hiw words will break thru the self-pity cloud.
Tho yes the tea and kind words can do well batting cleanup for afterwards, lulling the effect of the harshness and putting everyone in a better mood.
Γ’ΛΒΊ
… huh… that was remarkably mellow and mature of Brett… I was expecting WAY more swearing and insults. XD
Damn Brian, you’ve got me tearing up, to see a true friend saying what needs to be said. Thank you for the power of your storytelling!
I’ll stay in my hoping corner, that third frame suggested a lot of anger build up. I hope Sam dresses down “Dr. Brett” harder than he was just pushed. “Get yourself in order” Hah. If only that was as easy as a remark, and it kills me that it’s coming from someone who literally had magic clean up his life. Before the mantle Brett was a walking That Guy.
I think Brett approached Sam perfectly. Sure, the blowhard version of Brett would’ve been much more harsh and unhelpful, but the fact is that he and Sam have been lifelong friends…and that relationship wouldn’t exist or persist without something deeper. We just saw the ‘deeper’ part today.
As for criticism that “it’s not that easy,” I don’t think Brett is suggesting it will be easy. He said, first, here is a behavior pattern that clearly represents a problem, so –second– you need to admit you have a problem, and third, get professional help. Brett’s inimitable style doesn’t diminish the advice. In fact, that Brett is being direct without being abusive is probably exactly what Sam needs to hear. That, and the unshakable support of his friends–with Brett in the lead. As it should be.
I’m looking forward to seeing Sam’s journey to recovery from whatever his assortment of challenges are.
Uh..he IS being abusive.
“You are all boo-hoo-hoo I’m sad” IS abusive.
Yes, Brett is trying to help. But the fact is that Brett is doing absolutely the worst thing you can ever do to someone who is depressed. Does this make this bad writing? Hell no, because Brett’s also doing the thing that everyone thinks will help. He’s doing the thing that people think they should do to someone who is depressed – call them out on their behaviour.
But the usual response from the depressed person is not “Oh, wow, I better get my life in order”. It’s “I pissed YOU off as well. I’m even more worthless than I thought I was”.
Jesus. I hope nobody ever has to depend on you getting your shit right, little dude.
me? Given that it’s my JOB to help people “Get their shit right”, yes…they do.
As a mostly functional (or at least able to pretend as such) person with autism AND a high degree of depression:
Screw you. I’m glad I never had you as a professional. I’ve learned that most of the time people coddling me and trying to cheer me up gently like what you seem to suggest just makes it worse. It’s the times when someone stood up and kicked me in the pants with a serious “Dude, get your shit in gear.” talk like above is when I usually snap out of the funk and start fixing stuff. I want my friends to be able to say “I love you man, but you’re fucking pissing me off, and we’re not going to sit here and let you bitch and not try to fix stuff.”
So, as much as I respect you being a professional, please take your professional opinion, and shove it up somewhere uncomfortable.
Only on the internet will you see a trained professional’s opinion mocked and questioned. π
Not true; I’ve often had occasion to question and mock “trained professionals” in real life.
Particularly when the opinion or actions of those “trained professionals” has put the life of a loved one in jeopardy.
Remember that just because someone has a degree and an education, it does not mean that they know everything about their field. The good ones recognize that, the bad ones will have an ego that blinds them to that fact. Watch out for “trained professionals” (especially in the medical field) who seem too certain about their own abilities, or about a diagnosis or course of treatment. If you know anything about medicine, you know that it is a lot of it is guesswork and trial and error. Beware any medical professional who leaves no room to consider or discuss the possibilities that they may be wrong; they absolutely should be questioned and mocked.
Least we forget that Brett probably went through his own time of darkness while being away for a year. I’m just sayin’ Brett knows what he speaks.
I am honestly slightly saddened by the number of positve responses to Brett’s menthod of handling depression. Unless Sam is supposed to be ‘only’ self pitying (in which case, Brian, you’ve done way too good a job at making him fit depression criteria), Brett’s done pretty much exactly the wrong thing with everything except “Go and talk to someone”.
He’s done the thing everyone who hasn’t been depressed (depressed, not sad) thinks should be done, but that’s because they think depression is angst. Or self pity. Or sadness. It isn’t.
I understand what you’re saying, and I won’t question your expertise on the matter.
However, I do think you’re ignoring a possibility – maybe Brett’s *trying* to get a reaction from Sam. Look at Sam’s face in panel 3. That’s not an “oh god, he’s right, I’m a mess, there’s no hope for me” face – that’s an “I’m pissed” face. And I can’t help but think that Sam getting angry and exploding on Brett has to be better than how he’s been for the past few comics.
Yes, Sam needs help, but the first stage in helping him is to get him out of the funk he’s currently in, because I doubt he’d be willing to seek out help in his current emotional state. Everyone else in the group might have gone the long way and given Sam love and support, but Brett (being Brett) decided to take the short route. And if that means making himself a target for Sam’s anger, then so be it.
But that’s just my interpretation.
Yeah, and I hope that’s the route it goes down. But standing alone, this is not a sensible strategy on Brett’s behalf….and yet people are saying it was a brilliant idea. It’s not.
Brett didn’t even bother actually asking what the problem was. Had he gone in with “Why the fuck are you stopping DMing?” this would actually have been better.
It’s not that he might become a target for Sam’s anger that makes this strategy stupid. It’s that this sort of speech frequently pushes people MORE into their ‘funk’, not out of it. Sam probably doesn’t need Brett to be loving and supportive. You are correct, that’s not Brett’s character. But the problem is that Brett comes in and instantly attacks Sam, instantly tells him that he’s whinging, in a pity cave, and that everyone else has problems and all Sam needs to do is grow up.
That drives people to suicide, not health.Not always, sure, but often enough that the stream of “You go Brett!” comments is saddening.
Don’t forget that both Brett and Charlie have been dealing with this since they were kids and have seen the pattern before and it seems that Brett has decided that he’s had enough of seeing his best friend withdrawing from life (yet again) and is going for the direct approach. He’s made Sam focus on him for better or worse and only Brian can tell us how effective it’ll be.
After all, this is a work of fiction so folks really should calm down about such things.
I’m sure Brett is fed up of that. That’s why people come out with those speechs, after all.
As for “only Brian can tell us how effective it’ll be” :- I don’t agree with author fiat. Unless Brian actually gives us a reason why in this case the worst possible approach works, saying it is effective is bad writing. Up until this point, the comic’s been very well written, so I hope that it doesn’t go that way.
And fiction is important. Fiction shapes a lot of how people see the world. A lot of stereotypical understandings are shaped more by fiction that reality. Mental Health, gender, race issues are all massively shaped by fiction.
Fuck you, Brian doesn’t have to justify his writing to you just because you’re a self-proclaimed expert on depression.
I’ll admit that Brett’s response is not the best method to go with. And yeah, the fact that a lot of people are cheering him on for it is also kinda upsetting.
But like Sweeper pointed out, this isn’t the first time Brett’s seen Sam like this. And life’s pretty much thrown a lot of crap at Sam ever since Dungeon Run – Mel’s gone, Dove and his minions are probably still harassing him, his accident, and then to top it off with an unintentional TPK? Yeah, I’d be pretty messed up, too. I’m *hoping* (and I can’t stress that enough) that Brett’s acting like this because he knows that their usual methods aren’t going to work, and the only way for Sam to recover is for him to make a serious effort to do so.
Maybe Step One is to find out if Sam is taking too much of his medication.
https://d20monkey.com/comic/harsh-reflections-part-twenty-two/
That’s… actually a pretty good point. And even if he’s not, who knows how they might be screwing with his brain chemistry.
reminds me of talking with my dad… but with my dad theres a LOT more swearing.
Oh man, I hope that the next strip is Sam asking Brett if that was actually Brett talking, “or is the King of Seasons off to wash his hand?”
I really love the hover text. Not sure if it’s a show I’d watch, but I’d at least check out the live-tweets about it.
Ho Ho Whoa Santa just dropped his sack
oh man that was bad.
I understand that many people would not respond to Brett’s ministrations and advice. But the way I see it, Brett and Sam have been friends since they were little kids, and Brian knows that there’s a lot of bluster in Brett, and there always will be. But he can see through that as well, and see what’s happening underneath. The first 3 panels are Brett being Brett, and Sam ignores it as such. But he knows that Sam can’t just “snap out of it”, and needs to get real help, so says so in panel 4. I’m sure Sam can tell the difference.
Also, holy crap if you get pissed at your DM that your party had a TPK in session 1 or 2? You really need to re-assess why you play the game.
-shrugs-. Depends on what’s going on. If it’s a mistake – like this one, where Sam misjudged the balance of his ability learning encounter? Eh. Happens. If you don’t fudge, it’s going to happen eventually.
If they’ve said “ok, this is a lethal system, TPKs happen” (like old school D+D, or Cthulu) then that’s perfectly fine. IF the players know TPKs are likely to happen, there’s no problem with a TPK at any point.
If they are doing it deliberatly, or repeatedly, then they are either a dick or incapable of DMing.
Its not tactful, and its probably not going to be all that effective, but goddamn if I cant sympathize with Brett here. I have a friend like Sam, and sometimes I just want to shake him until he stops being such a blubbering pussy and actually deals with his problems. He’s not depressed either, he has some kind of disorder he takes medication for now, but its not depression. I like to try and avoid my problems too, but when it comes down to it, I do deal with them, I dont just hide and hope it’ll all solve itself. Granted, I dont have clinical depression, just run of the mill anxiety, but still.
So speaking as someone with chronic depression, which is what I would diagnose Sam as having, given Brett’s speech, Brett’s actions here would be horrible as a general idea of dealing with a depressive, but might be helpful in the specific. For example, if Amy were to blow up at him like this, Sam would be driven deeper into self-hate and self-incrimination and his depression would worsen. But Brett is not Amy, if Brett were to come in with kid gloves he would not be acting like Brett, and Sam would notice and feel guilty about that. Here Sam is dreading what Brett will have to say (and probably has been building it up in his own mind), and it starts coming but then transforms into an argument for what he can do as a positive course of action. Brett would make a piss-poor therapist but here his role is best friend and motivator and getting Sam’s attention, and he did that, and I suspect others will take it in a more outwardly supportive direction.
Hello, it’s a pleasure to finally find something I wanted to comment about. Nearly commented at the TPK section but this is a slightly more appropriate time.
A lot of people have been disagreeing with Brett and his methods of dealing with Sams (probable) depression. In general I would agree that “tough love” is not normally the method one should use. It generally places pressure, stress and makes the person feel worse.
With that being said, Brett knows Sam better than you. Ok fine they’re both actually fictional characters. But Brett is aiming to jar his friend back to reality, he’s not said anything horrible and has cited other times in Sams life that he has gone through pain and retreated rather than faced it. Brett has years, decades of experience with Sam.
Additionally, I’ve been depressed (part of being bipolar) most of my family suffer from depression in some manner. 99/100 this would be the wrong approach, but after months of trying and failing to do anything productive a change of tact can help. At least it can make you realize you’ve become self absorbed so you can start working it out. Or it can mean you give up some of your agency to friends and family so they can arrange help for you.