Sociopath

[Jingo]

I want to throw out there that I do see characters like this from time to time.

Characters that don't care about anyone, anything but themselves are usually quite boring imho.

[Sokotra]

I want to throw out there that I do see characters like this from time to time.

Characters that don't care about anyone, anything but themselves are usually quite boring imho.

In real life I come across people from time to time that don't seem like they care about anyone or anything but themselves... you get to know them or delve a little deeper (or a lot deeper in some cases) and you end up finding out that a lot of what you think is actually the complete opposite.  Sometimes those deeper issues manifest themselves to seem like the person doesn't care about anything, but that is mostly not the case at all.  Think about an example where the person is someone who has taken a hostage in a violent situation and imagine the difficulty and complications that arise when a negotiator tries to talk that person down.  Sometimes even "sociopathic" people aren't really sociopaths. 

[Synthesis]

I want to throw out there that I do see characters like this from time to time.

Characters that don't care about anyone, anything but themselves are usually quite boring imho.

Someone with ASPD doesn't necessarily not care about anything but themselves.  You could still be paranoid, borderline, histrionic, or even schizoid, schizotypal, or obsessive-compulsive.  Even someone with ASPD and narcissistic personality disorder would at least interact with people, if only to prove how awesome they were.

For example someone with ASPD+borderline may form brief, intense relationships with other people, come to depend on them completely, then murder them when they fail to live up to expectations.  Someone with ASPD+schizotypal/paranoid may believe that everyone in the city is a mindbender and is extracting or implanting thoughts to control his or her behavior.  Histrionics would do things like pick fights and then be excessively cruel (although it's hard to imagine what this might be, with respect to Allanaki standards) to the loser, or exact disproportionate revenge if someone manages to humiliate him publicly.  ASPD+schizoid would probably be the only really reclusive type, simply because that's essentially the definition of schizoid personality disorder in the first place...although really, it's difficult to imagine how those two would overlap...probably something like a rogue magicker/tinker who becomes extremely violent when faced with very painful rejection/humiliation/embarrassment or a forced change in routine.

[Marshmellow]

ASPD people do care about things/events.  They don't care about people.  Someone that truly cares about nothing would be boring indeed, but when an ASPD character is done well, the character should be just as engaging as any other character.

[DustMight]

I would caution against playing anyone with a mental illness until one can play a "normal" person of that particular race convincingly.  Mental illness, in my opinion, is pretty uninteresting as it removes a lot of choice from the character.  Much better to play a normal person who is deeply conflicted in their loyalties, ethics, or interests.  This to me, is why Muls and half-elves rock so hard, though those personality traits can be found in any race or class.

No need to venture into mental illness.

If you want to do it because you want to play a killer, just play a killer and be done with it.  Nothing wrong with that!

[Faustin]

Well from my view, I think that playing this role does take away choices but I also provides many new choices for  instance, decisions and attitudes towards different races and views on the Templarate, nobles, their level of piousness etc. I am not looking to play a crazed killer, I would like to play someone on with ASPD DustMight, I think Marshmellow stated it perfectly that sociopaths are not necessarily murderous beasts rather, someone who has little to no emotion, severely narcissistic, and has a mind for personal gain only. Oddly enough, I am finding many are confusing a sociopath with a psychopath.

Sociopath doesn't even have to hurt people, let alone kill people.  Plenty of sociopaths in real life lead fairly normal lives, just lives tainted by their somewhat flattened sense of emotions and disregard for society's norms.

[Sam]

The only challenge I see would be to show that disconnect.

You don't want to keep emoting:
So-And-So the almighty shows no emotion. The field around them littered with the corpses of the innocent.

So, if your PC wanted to blend in with an emotional group of people. You would need to show how you are trying to have emotions, but you are just awkward about showing it.

[Anaiah]

The true irony of this is that the 'feel' command is the perfect place to show that disconnect and truly get into the flesh of your sociopath.

[Marauder Moe]

Watch Dexter before making this character.  The first 2 seasons at least are on Netflix streaming.

[valeria]

The true irony of this is that the 'feel' command is the perfect place to show that disconnect and truly get into the flesh of your sociopath.

Love it.

[Scarecrow]

I also wouldn't play more than one psychopath, as it was more a novel experience. I also have a severe dislike for PKing after playing that sociopath, so would find the role hard to get satisfaction from again. I prefer more normalish characters with a touch of oddness, but still okay folks at heart.
Also yeah, Dexter is a good source for inspiration. Love that show.

[Clavis]

Most of the crazy people I worked around seeemed completely normal average people. Then in the blink of an eye well it got ugly. None went by the book or even acted the way you think they would. Small quirks gave away what they felt, and those you had to actually be looking for.

Most of the time the same thing didn't even set them off, though only a select few triggers would set them off all the time. Very few. A certain smell, sound, food, something to drink, a song, anothers action.

Oh and if you can watch one flew over the Coco's nest. Great portraying of different mental illnesses.

[Kronus]

This morning I'm really thinking about how likely it is that mental illness in the DSM-IV sense would have survived on Zalanthas.  We're talking about a planet where anything without psychic powers went extinct a long, long time ago, which seems to suggest that brains are highly developed and incredibly 'tough' compared to modern-day Earth.    Mental illnesses like ASPD (anti-social personality disorder - aka sociopathy and psychopathy) seem to be present from birth (and presumably before even that), so it's more plausible than others which are environmentally induced.  I can't, for instance, see someone's brain snapping under stress and making them (permanently) insane.  Zalanthan brains, like their bodies, are just too hardened for that.

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

[Synthesis]

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

Actually, I seriously doubt you could put together a cogent argument for that, because it's patently absurd.  First of all, you seem to be implicitly assuming some sort of teleological quality in the process of evolution that simply isn't present.  Second, if a particular society's norms are fitness-reducing, the only way you could make a case that biological evolution would get involved is if you hypothesized a particular set of genes that produced a phenotype that reliably leads to those norms.  Even if you could do that (and I'm sure it could probably be done...for example, genes involved in problem solving, empathy, attachment, anger, etc.), it's hard to imagine how a significant sociopathy could ever result in increased fitness.  Everything about human existence is incredibly dependent on sociality.  We birth offspring that must as a biological necessity be raised by another human for quite a long time.  Our cognitive development is immensely dependent on social interaction.  Our individual survival is dependent on social interaction, because we don't possess instincts that reliably allow us to navigate a complex environment, and individually we'd be virtually defenseless without the trappings of society, particularly with respect to the use of tools, but also simply in the fact that a band of hairless hooting monkeys is much more intimidating than a single hairless hooting monkey.  Given these constraints, truly genetic sociopathy could only be adaptive or neutral if a) the age of onset were beyond or during the later stages of the reproductive years b) the sociopathy is so mild that it doesn't affect child-rearing and other group-oriented behavior (at which point you have to stop and question where it's really a "sociopathic" phenotype), c) if the alternate phenotype is really so awful that it's resulting in frank extinction (and this would require a substantial shift in environment, otherwise how would it have expanded to become the dominant phenotype in the first place?), or d) if there existed some alternate genotype/phenotype that offset the child-rearing and sociality problems, effectively allowing the sociopathic genotype/phenotype to persist somewhat parasitically (or symbiotically).  At this point, you haven't argued that the original society's norms are maladaptive, you've argued that there is a distinct phenotype that has found a socio-ecological niche that is likely to be self-limiting as far as expansion of the underlying genotype is concerned.  Finally, if a particular set of norms were substantially maladaptive, it's far more likely that natural selection would occur on a memetic, not a genetic basis, because the rate of changes in memes themselves, and in their population distribution is immeasurably faster. 

That being said, if you define "psychopathy" in terms of memotypes, a quasi-teleological argument could hold, as a meme can be generated by human intent, aimed at a particular goal.  The process of natural selection of such a meme could look remarkably like a teleological process if a substantial portion of the population recognizes a common problem and the meme provides a solution.  For example someone might recognize that "being nice to elves" is leading to elves taking over the city, so they develop the meme "not nice to elves."  "Nice to elves" memotypes could then label "not nice to elves" memotypes as "sociopathic."  However, this is a substantially weaker version of what I think the original argument implies, as it's both a very special case of natural selection and a very limited use of the term sociopathy.

If you're going down the "evolution and mental illness route," you'd be better served by arguing that

1. Genes that ultimately result in what is now considered to be mental illness were once adaptive when humans or their ancestors lived in a different social and natural environment.

2. Or said genes don't decrease fitness so substantially that it's possible to eliminate them from the population. (This also includes the host-parasite relationship I described above.)

3. Or mental illnesses are multifactorial in such a way that individual genes substantially increase fitness when present in certain combinations, and produce mental illness in other combinations.  That is, that there are allelic and zygosity-dependent advantages and disadvantages.

[Kronus]

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

Actually, I seriously doubt you could put together a cogent argument for that, because it's patently absurd. 

It's patently absurd in reality.  In science-fiction/fantasy, it's an entertaining conceit.   Social predators, vampires, the Terminator, whatever; it's always scarier when the monster looks just like you.    I'm a little surprised you didn't say anything about my primary notion, that the minds of Zalanthas' sentient denizens are more developed, more rugged and less prone to "breaking".

Your argument that humans (and by extension, demi-humans) are socially dependent creatures is very true, and actually supports my opinion that mental illness really wouldn't exist in the way that we know it here on Earth.  Our modern society tries to cure, rehabilitate, medicate and normalize aberrant and dangerous behaviour, and many sociopaths actually rely on this and manipulate it to their advantage.  On Zalanthas it could be largely self-correcting where even if the individual doesn't get themselves killed, someone else will gladly do it for them, not ask them to talk about their feelings.  Societies on Zalanthas simply do not have the resources to willingly support individuals who do not contribute to the society, so the only successful (i.e., surviving long enough to reproduce) sociopaths will be the ones who have everyone fooled and manipulated.

Another odd notion:
Mindbenders are universally hated and persecuted for their ability (and willingness) to manipulate others' thoughts and emotions -- maybe they're the extreme example of what sociopathy + psionics results in.  It's not unreasonable to assume that there are examples in Zalanthas' history where a truly gifted sociopath was falsely accused - with plenty of seemingly plausible evidence - of being a mindbender and slaughtered, despite having no psionic powers beyond the norm.

Good discussion.

[Kismetic]

The true irony of this is that the 'feel' command is the perfect place to show that disconnect and truly get into the flesh of your sociopath.

Most excellent and true!

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

Actually, I seriously doubt you could put together a cogent argument for that, because it's patently absurd.  ...

tl;dr;waiting for the annotated

I somehow doubt sociopaths are as rare on Zalanthas as they are on Earth (if indeed they are even that rare on Earth).  Your average Zalanthan likely would have endured some sort of trauma in their early development that would lead to at least bearing some of these symptoms.  I don't think it has to do with evolution, per se ...   but I do agree that it would be seen as less aberrant.

That said, a lot of behavior of sociopaths that we understand as bad would likely be less relevant on Zalanthas, yes?

[Cindy42]

hehe, i had an insane character once. not a medical sociopath, but insane, in a way that dealt more with her emotional well-being and confusing her memories with the present day than it did with the psychological aspect. that should have made sense to me.

she didn't last long; unfortunately i didn't think her all the way through and i wouldn't break character to aid her long-term survival, so she did something expected of her and died.

insanity is interesting, and i know you're probably thinking this well out if you're not making this character five minutes from the time you first thought of the idea like i do, but please, for the sake of art, don't allow their personality to hinder their survival. it sucks making an inspiring person--- and then watching them do something stupid and die.

[Cindy42]

your probably right, I will probably still make him but not as my next character, I will wait for a much later time like a couple months, I was just  kind of making a brainstorming thing, it still seems pretty interesting role to play though, if I do play it I going to get a book about the illness so I can play him realistic, I view this role as  and could be very "fun" to play as, but I could be wrong.

This is a very difficult role to play - I'd seriously spend some time exploring the real implications of making this kind of PC...  I tried making one recently and stored it, because I started to get depressed IRL trying to get into the mindset of the character.

oh, actually, yeah, the girl i was playing--- completely out of her f$&%ing mind, nervous and anxious all the time--- it got annoying after a while. its a tough play. and she wasn't a sociopath, she could care about others, which i'm guessing might add another level of complexity to you character.

heck, its not boring, tho


EDIT: umm, and you might want a backup plan, such as--- dynamic character change! people sometimes change over time. i'm testing that theory out with my own character right now. she is slowly changing into something that she knows should scare her and no longer does. could a sociopath change tho? because yes, your options are limited, but aren't they always? the insane will always intrigue me, and (should i write this) a recent conversation in the Gaj between me and several others implies that the recent flood in tuluk and fire-thing (didn't hear enough about it to know what it is) could have been a factor in the recent increase of insane and unstable people, or people doing insane and unstable things. i'm sorry for saying something obvious just now, for those of you who are up to date about allanak.

i think i recently saw an insane PC with a scar like the Joker's. am i allowed to say that? that was AWESOME.

[Fredd]

The primary symptom of this mental illness is very simple.

Sociopaths cannot feel empathy. They usualy dont feel many other emotions, but it's defined by lack of empathy.

This does not mean you will go around killing everything. It means essentially, emptions are muted and you dont understand them. There is alot of wiggle room for sociopath pc's.

not every sociopath is Dexter. Not every Sociopaths murder animals. it is common for such things to happen, but there are many successfull sociopaths. (they can crush there competitors without remorse, afterall)

[Cindy42]

you might be thinking masochists.

sadomasochists?

try looking up violent forms of insanity, and something more fitting than anyone's mentioned here might pop up.

i honestly have to agree with the idea that an oppressive society creates crazy people. its just not healthy to live in, say, north korea, whose horror scenarios are more than enough to create twisted people. asylums, full of the insane in order to contain them from society, are said to not help or make a patient worse.

i think an insane character is more believable in places like Allanak and other harsh social environments. oh my god the rinth. and tuluk's subtlety could go a long way in making someone snap. in that case your aggression/manipulative nature might be directing more towards the oppressors, since (i think) the commoner society would be a bit less at fault for your mental and emotional degradation.

or be born crazy. or a combo.

EDIT: if you want to be technical, there are two requirements to be a sociopath: to not feel emotions correctly and to be unable to learn from past mistakes.

yeah but that was wikipedia; reliable wikipedia, worked on only by phDs in the field, of course.

[Synthesis]

The true irony of this is that the 'feel' command is the perfect place to show that disconnect and truly get into the flesh of your sociopath.

Most excellent and true!

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

Actually, I seriously doubt you could put together a cogent argument for that, because it's patently absurd.  ...

tl;dr;waiting for the annotated

I somehow doubt sociopaths are as rare on Zalanthas as they are on Earth (if indeed they are even that rare on Earth).  Your average Zalanthan likely would have endured some sort of trauma in their early development that would lead to at least bearing some of these symptoms.  I don't think it has to do with evolution, per se ...   but I do agree that it would be seen as less aberrant.

That said, a lot of behavior of sociopaths that we understand as bad would likely be less relevant on Zalanthas, yes?

I was specifically commenting on the idea that the behavior in question could be an adaptive mechanism and be selected for.  I'm sure there are plenty of crazies on Zalanthas--that doesn't necessarily (or even probably) mean that it's a positive adaptation. 

I would probably argue that the vast majority of these have more to do with environmental influences than genotype, although there you start to get into somewhat murky philosophical territory regarding specific genotypes that may or may not be particularly adaptive in certain very limited socioeconomic niches.  My previous argument still holds on the level of the general population, however.

As far as how such persons are treated by the local populace, I would tend to take a somewhat harsher approach, given the scarcity of resources on Zalanthas.  When you're always only one waterskin away from dying, I suspect you'd be slightly more attuned to behaviors that deviate from reciprocity, and far less willing to allow them to continue unchecked.

[My 2 sids]

If I would play a sociopath, I would pick a handful of emotions and switch them. Is something very awful going on? You may show you are being nonchalant. Is something happening that your PC has waited a long time for? Make sure a PC around you knows that if they emss it up, they will regret it. (Even if that PC has no way of changing the events.)
Emote, emote, emote.

This. 

Remember anti-social behavior isn't well tolerated in game -- everyone from Templars to beggars to 2-sid Breed whores have expected roles to fill in society.  A non-conformist has to at least appear to be a conformist, which can be difficult for a person who doesn't understand all these un-spoken social norms and emotions.  So what do they do?  They act! 

This isn't a spy or Neck trying to pull a fast one... this is someone who has to consciously figure out what is that look pasted on the faces of people when a Templar steps into a room?  Why are all the people in the unit smiling when someone raises a mug for a toast?  Yeah, what was said:  pick out just a handful of rehearsed, basic emotions and stick with them. 

[Fredd]

you might be thinking masochists.

sadomasochists?

try looking up violent forms of insanity, and something more fitting than anyone's mentioned here might pop up.

i honestly have to agree with the idea that an oppressive society creates crazy people. its just not healthy to live in, say, north korea, whose horror scenarios are more than enough to create twisted people. asylums, full of the insane in order to contain them from society, are said to not help or make a patient worse.

i think an insane character is more believable in places like Allanak and other harsh social environments. oh my god the rinth. and tuluk's subtlety could go a long way in making someone snap. in that case your aggression/manipulative nature might be directing more towards the oppressors, since (i think) the commoner society would be a bit less at fault for your mental and emotional degradation.

or be born crazy. or a combo.

EDIT: if you want to be technical, there are two requirements to be a sociopath: to not feel emotions correctly and to be unable to learn from past mistakes.

yeah but that was wikipedia; reliable wikipedia, worked on only by phDs in the field, of course.

Sadist is someone who gets sexual pleasure from others pain
a masochist is someone that gets pleasure from there own pain.

A sociopath is someone that cannot feel emotions correctly, and doesn't have empathy for others.

I know this because I have quite a few s&M friends. And a friend that was diagnosed with "Antisocial Personality Disorder" (what you refer to as being a sociopath, and was formorlay known as psychopathy until 1980 when they changed the name) when he returned from Iraq. APD can happen due to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) so i think it would easilly be doable on zalanthas.

I'm not a doctor though, though I am in the medical field. I had to take a test on mental illness', and that pretty much Jives with what I was taught as well.

[Jingo]

The true irony of this is that the 'feel' command is the perfect place to show that disconnect and truly get into the flesh of your sociopath.

Most excellent and true!

The argument can also be made that sociopathy - and even moreso psychopathy - is an evolutionary adaptation to an environment where one's own society is the greatest threat to their survival.  In that case it would be common enough on Zalanthas to hardly even be worth mention, much less be considered aberrant.

Actually, I seriously doubt you could put together a cogent argument for that, because it's patently absurd.  ...

tl;dr;waiting for the annotated

I somehow doubt sociopaths are as rare on Zalanthas as they are on Earth (if indeed they are even that rare on Earth).  Your average Zalanthan likely would have endured some sort of trauma in their early development that would lead to at least bearing some of these symptoms.  I don't think it has to do with evolution, per se ...   but I do agree that it would be seen as less aberrant.

That said, a lot of behavior of sociopaths that we understand as bad would likely be less relevant on Zalanthas, yes?

I was specifically commenting on the idea that the behavior in question could be an adaptive mechanism and be selected for.  I'm sure there are plenty of crazies on Zalanthas--that doesn't necessarily (or even probably) mean that it's a positive adaptation. 

I would probably argue that the vast majority of these have more to do with environmental influences than genotype, although there you start to get into somewhat murky philosophical territory regarding specific genotypes that may or may not be particularly adaptive in certain very limited socioeconomic niches.  My previous argument still holds on the level of the general population, however.

As far as how such persons are treated by the local populace, I would tend to take a somewhat harsher approach, given the scarcity of resources on Zalanthas.  When you're always only one waterskin away from dying, I suspect you'd be slightly more attuned to behaviors that deviate from reciprocity, and far less willing to allow them to continue unchecked.

Just going to add that certain social institutions may actually select for certain anti-social behaviors. Particularly competitive meritocracies.

This is an interesting article that links cheating in school with psychopathy. It doesn't really surprise me that business students are more likely to cheat and are more likely to be (non-clinically) anti-social. (no offense to any business students here)

Now imagine a Templar school and make it like 100 times more competitive and much less inhibitive.

[Cowboy]

In another world there might be sociopaths...in Zalanthas, your just another asshole.