We Need a Better Game

***EDIT***
Liftoff, the better game, is HERE​

NoFap was founded in 2011 by Alexander Rhodes, partially in attempt to "gameify" quitting PMO. This was accomplished rather simplistically by merely counting "clean" days in a row, which we refer to as our "streak." It is now 2023, over a decade from when the concept began. The games and challenges continue to reflect that simple concept. The challenges almost universally present an overlay of a specific fandom or other cultural concept, such as the Matrix, U.S. Politics, Naruto, etm., with varying degrees of applicability in metaphor and in "rewards" as we compile a strong of abstinent days. The two exceptions I have found is "NoFap Duels," which strips the aesthetic of a narrative and simply pits addicts against one another in a contest to see who can maintain a streak longer, and the Harry Potter challenge, which allows participants to choose "houses" and make a team effort to compile clean days. This PvP aspect is interesting, but still maintains that unsophisticated concept; days clean = power, or progress.

Many of us laymen have learned what psychologists always did, that addiction is far more complicated than merely abstaining for extended periods of time. Addiction recovery is about identifying and resolving the psychological wounds that cause the addiction in the first place, and constructing robust habits, developing strategies, and reorienting our mindset, to protect ourselves against unhealthy thoughts and behaviors. Clean days are easily quantified, and they are not wholly useless. AA counts clean time and awards chips to the successful, as an example, but equating addiction recovery with simple clean days does not reflect the complexity of this deep psychological problem, nor does it appreciate the stakes involved. Even worse, it makes the early stages of recovery more difficult as it provides an illusion that a single reset, or "relapse" as we nearly always incorrectly refer to them, completely erases all progress. At bare minimum, we need to track percentage of days clean, and/or times we PMO, to break the misconception that it's okay to binge after a minor slip. I know the lie is easy to see from a rational perspective, but addiction is not rational. Addiction takes advantage of any half-baked loophole to protect itself; any addict committed to recovery knows this on a profound, intimate level. We need better tools, a better game to more accurately reflect addiction, and better milestones to accurately depict what needs to be done in order to defeat it.

Game design is harder than first appears. The mechanics need to be simple, so they are easy to learn and manage, but complex enough to maintain interest, and allow for differences in strategy. It needs to do this while remaining entertaining. The challenges are different for us, as we have the added requirement to design a game with direct, accurate correlation to real world milestones, and entertainment necessarily takes a back seat to practicality. I think the stakes are felt by most addicts, we don't need to trick them to keep them engaged. But the need for an elegant solution, sitting in a sweet spot between simplicity and complexity, is still required. If we make it too complex, too "fiddly," as board gamers sometimes refer to dense game mechanics, there will be too steep of a learning curve and it will be too difficult for the game moderator to maintain. However, we need a game that accurately incentivizes behaviors that lead to addiction recovery, and that will be difficult, especially as there is still not a consensus, even among professionals, on exactly what those behaviors are, and the contribution each individual behavior has toward overall recovery.

That said, nearly anything is better than what we have currently. If I could use board games as an example, strictly counting days is a rough equivalent to "Chutes and Ladders" or "Candy Land." Fun enough as a small kid when counting and identifying colors are a challenge, but around eight years old you see that winning is totally randomized. We know addiction recovery is not randomized, but might as well be if counting days is your only strategy. "Monopoly" is a better game. That one gives you opportunities to make decisions, and influence the outcome. However, it is notoriously complicated and not fun, as it was never designed to be fun, but to expose the inherent unfairness of Capitalism. It's still random. Addiction recovery is not. "Settlers of Catan" is better than "Monopoly," as the rules are simpler and is less (but still) reliant on dice, but what we really need is something more along the lines of the newer, lesser known but infinitely better games like "Wingspan," "Galaxy Trucker," "Quarriors," or "Pandemic," cooperative games, and/or engine builders that incentivize constructing a sophisticated strategy toward addiction recovery into our real world lifestyles, one that we as addicts have more control over, and provides no excuses on "bad dice rolls" or "unavoidable triggers" in real life.

My first thought was to construct an RPG, perhaps with a Sword and Sorcery motif similar to D&D. It could allow addicts/players to correlate good behaviors and strategies for addiction recovery, such as reflective journaling, exercising, good dietary and sleeping practices, with studying spells, weapons training, and... good dietary and sleeping practices. Identifying a trigger could be equated with learning what a troll or goblin is, and establishing a strategy for avoiding those triggers as learning how to step around the goblin nest or the troll cave. Surviving an encounter with an unavoidable trigger without PMO as surviving combat without dying; "You are alive, but you were cut and wounded. Consider taking time to rest, and be extra vigilant about those encounters over the next couple of days. But you do get XP, huzzah." The problem with this idea is, like any TTRPG, it's intensely fiddly. You can't play without a GM, for instance, which would mean your personalized game would need a personalized coach or Accountability Partner, and like a TTRPG, the quality in recovery experience would be too reliant on the quality of that AP. It also requires accurate reporting on behalf of the addict, and that can lead to inaccuracies as addicts are, shall we say, not in the best position to reliably self-report. Gaining self-awareness is one of those skills that need to be developed. It needs to be a skill that is incentivized to learn, if possible, not a built-in requirement to play the game in the first place.

If anyone else has better ideas, you have my undivided attention. Am I even on the right track? Old guard residents, @Roady , @EagleRising , @IGY , @Jefe Rojo , @JoeinUSA , @Bob_the_Rebuilder , and you challenge enthusiasts, @Thadeus Tuffington , @Red_John , @HiddenWarrior , @RiseToGreatness , @Marcus Aurelius , @LLOYYD , @RogueLeader , what do you think about building a better game?

 

No worries, man. This is a complicated problem, I don't expect a working model to be produced overnight.

I think the nature of addiction is ultimately PvE, Player, on this case Addict, against Environment. In the end it isn't a co-op game, either. Much as I love the idea of team effort and a group win, there is no possible way for an addict to be carried to victory. Support is invaluable, but ultimately, this is a battle only an addict can fight and win. That said, competing "against" others to get more gains is instinctive, and if we're competing against one another, as long as we do it through our own progress and not sabotaging our "competition," we all win. It's more of a "beat the game faster than you," than an "I beat you" kind of thing.

Many video games reward players with titles, perks, and vanity items for engaging in various activities. NoFap already sort of does this, with "trophies" for making posts and attracting "likes." Theoretically this incentivizes high quality posts, but that's about being a forum member, not fighting addiction.

First, we need to scour the forums and identify the key behaviors that most often lead to recovery. One of the biggest problems, however, is lack of consensus. NoFap itself is reluctant to say what is the most effective behaviors. For example, I believe it is important to replace the incoming dopamine lost by refusing to fap, by a different, more positive means such as exercise. Others believe it is better to "fast" dopamine. We could offer an incentive for exercising daily, but is that the best policy? Is it even important? Another is having real world sex. I personally believe it's best to avoid casual sex at all times, and even sex with your spouse can be detrimental if done too early, or for the wrong reasons. Exactly how early is "too early," though, and how can anyone know if the reasoning is solid? And many believe my view is too sex-negative, and unnecessarily restrictive.

Maybe that needs to be tabled for the moment. We may need to develop a reward system that can be easily implemented, then plug in different behaviors to reward according the the philosophy of the person creating the game. Like, come up with a module.

 

They kind of do already. We have these counters, for example. We can set them to merely "achieving my goals" and people still cheat. In the end, recovery is the goal and it's on you.

That would be a far better tool than a mere counter, and that is super basic. We don't have that, though.

Who is going to pay them? It's mostly volunteer work, my friend, and we get what we pay for. We have to be the change we wish to see, using the tools we have.

That could be something to incentivize in a game, honestly. Quitting porn is the goal, but it's a complicated process requiring a lot of smaller changes, a lot of steps. I was considering awarding points for journaling, for reading a book, for working out, for disclosing to a partner. Reducing time online would be an excellent piece to the whole, but that is complicated to track and, like you said, people will cheat.

What is it? I don't understand.

Maybe baby steps are in order. Maybe another challenge similar to what we already have is needed, only instead of tracking a simple streak, we record days spent quitting, and percentage of clean days for calculating progress. That way, people don't feel like a slip is losing everything. We could also count individual P, M, and O. An addict fantasizes a bit, well that's not ideal so he loses points, but he loses more if he jerks it, and even more if he completes, and even more if he says "fck it, I'm already at 0, might as well do it a few more times to get my fun in before I start all over again," which we all know is terrible for recovery and does happen, in part because of how we track recovery.

 

That's an amazing system, way better than anything we have. More detailed than what I was thinking of. Should we beta test it? Seems like this could have a learning curve for the scoring system, and would probably need to be tweaked, but sophisticated enough to quantify a genuine recovery.

 

Both points are valid. There should be a disclaimer at the beginning, that completing or “winning” the game doesn’t mean you are permanently “cured” any more than by achieving a 90 day streak. The aim is to get you into a much better place by the end of the game. However, completing it has to be reasonably attainable, otherwise people will never try.

Accessibility is important, but only the most engaged members meet any kind of success in NoFap anyway. Forget the game, addiction itself is hard. This is supposed to help make it easier, by informing and incentivizing essential steps, but this is always going to be a hard game. I mean yes, it should be reasonably simple. I had been considering compiling a daily point total, then using a small, growing multiplier based on a streak. That seems like a reasonably accurate way to quantify recovery, but super complicated. This method is already better, in that respect.

Agreed, and it’s always going to be that way. “Healthy eating” has been hotly disputed since before I was born. The rules keep changing, there’s like four super popular diets out there right now and they all conflict. Bodies are different, so what is ok for me may not be for you. It’s a good goal but ultimately the entire game has to be on the honor system, so “meeting your own dietary goals” seems hopelessly vague but the best we can do.

And this can get down to where people fight. Quitting porn is the common goal, but there’s differences of opinion in how and what is most crucial. Even “why” can inform what we name as a score, and how heavily we weight it. For example, some guys want to quit porn because it ruins their confidence and they want to get laid, so “talk to a girl” would be a fantastic milestone to put up there. I, on the other hand, believe porn completely rearranged our priorities regarding sex, and engaging in transactional hookup culture is an extension of a pornographic mindset. I’d be more willing to place “talk to a stranger,” as a milestone over social anxiety.

That’s where we’re going to have to be careful, set our egos aside, and come up with a consensus on what is the most generally valuable and how to weight it.