724 Anxiety Mechanic

The XCOM series has an interesting mechanic based around the stress of the in-game character. The stress is triggered when something horrific happens on the battlefield near the character. They lose their cool a bit and start freaking out, maybe acting randomly or refusing to act at all. Usually over time, the stress dissipates and the character returns to normal.

I’d love to see a system like this implemented in a more traditional RPG. Something that’s a bit more long-term and persistent.

Let’s take something like Fallout 4 as an example, just because it’s recent and relevant. There are many stressful and potentially unnerving things that happen in a post-apocolyptic world. For example, maybe every time you kill someone or something, your anxiety meter raises. Every time you see something disturbing, it raises. When you have certain types of discussions with people, it raises. And of course, certain other actions will help to lower it. If the meter gets too high, you run the risk of doing things unexpected, like blurting out responses during conversations, losing a stead hand during intense moments, or becoming completely uncontrollable briefly.

[ Today I Was Playing: nothing… ]

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