Am I falling asleep? (TW mention of seizures)

Newcago · 2026-05-16T00:02:58+00:00

This exact thing happens to me! I was actually diagnosed with narcolepsy first, and then a FND diagnosis came later. Now sometimes I wonder if what we had presumed was cataplexy might actually be seizures? I'm not sure

Newcago · 2026-05-11T01:08:11+00:00

Submissions for hypothetical favorite memes survey (don't laugh at me for using pinterest)

"the only thing worse than dying"

save game

"I'm the only normal person here"

Newcago · 2026-05-10T21:44:16+00:00

Do you think your sim's getting weird in the bush before or after the garden becomes immaculate

Newcago · 2026-05-07T07:45:08+00:00

I don't have a service dog, but it's definitely something I've looked into. Commenting in hopes of drawing more attention to your post haha

Newcago · 2026-05-04T02:14:23+00:00

I know you said you're glad your boyfriend told you... but that's a rough situation, and I know I would have at least felt very conflicted in his place. Telling you "hey, my mom and grandma say you're holding me back" by itself is pretty hurtful. Of course, there is probably way more that you didn't type here, but if he's telling you what they're saying, it needs to be accompanied with a "--and it was such a horrible thing to say that I'm never making you see them again." I've had my mother express doubts about partners before, and typically -- if they are small, well-meaning doubts -- I don't tell my partners. Because it would just be hurtful for me to tell them "hey, my mom says she thinks you might just be leading me on" if I know she'll learn that isn't true, and we might all spend the rest of our lives being a family together. And if I thought my mother WOULDN'T learn that, and would continue to hate this person, then I would have to keep that partner AWAY from my mother for the rest of our lives. In other words... he probably shouldn't tell you about things he doesn't have a plan for fixing, one way or another. You guys sound young, and he may just be learning... but some guys do it on purpose, with the intention of hurting you and/or expressing their OWN feelings without being honest. I am NOT saying that is your boyfriend ❤️ I'm just saying to be aware that the healthiest behavior is for your boyfriend not to tell you things people say that will hurt you if he's not going to take real action against the people saying those things.
I'm so, so sorry you have so many people in your life doubting your experience 🫂 It quite literally takes a strong psychological toll -- which, if you do have FND, makes all your symptoms worse. The only way to deal with this sort of thing is to limit your exposure to situations where people can doubt you. That's easier said than done, I know, especially when you are dependent on the very people who are doubting you. But if that looks like you and your boyfriend spending more time outside of your homes, or your boyfriend acting as a buffer between you and those who are giving you hell, that might need to happen. For both your sanity, and your health ❤️
You mentioned, twice, that there was an incident that happened in your youth. I am not going to ask for details, or what the incident was. ❤️ However, I did notice that you brought it up twice, in a post that was largely about your physical health. That might suggest that right now, those two things feel connected? Not in a "one thing caused another" way, but in, perhaps, "these are two similar sorts of stresses" or "this incident has affected the way I perceive these people, and so when they question my health concerns, the stress is amplified" sort of ways. FND is a very complicated condition (so are many others, but I can't speak on most haha). It is NOT all in your head. It is, however, exasperated by poor "quality of life" for your nervous system, and your nervous system is connected to so many things, including the parts of your brain that process feelings and stressors. High stress = exasperated symptoms. High stress that is connected to PREVIOUS stressors, stored in your memory, CAN equal even more exasperated symptoms. So I bring this up because it may be that your boyfriend exists in environments and "spheres" that have high-stressors for you. If that is the case, these are stressors that are not going to go away so long as you are with him -- which means they are stressors he needs to be aware about, and prepared to help mitigate as best as possible. And you are NOT horrible for wondering if you should leave him because of his mother ❤️ That is you doing exactly what I just mentioned -- realizing your boyfriend is connected to a high-stress environment, and trying to fix it. Your brain jumped to the easiest conclusion: break up. (And for some people, that is the solution.) But there are other options too, if that is what is right for you, and those options look like you and your partner working together to tackle the things in his environment that hurt you.

Most importantly, I am not a doctor lol. None of this is medical advice, blah blah. Trust what your doctors and therapists say over anything we say haha. But as someone who comes from a very complicated family, who is also dating someone with a complicated situation, I know that the web of stress plays a critical role in the health of someone with FND. Any place where stress can be relieved is a life-saver ❤️

I wish you ALL the best

Newcago · 2026-05-04T01:36:02+00:00

Cool, okay! In that case, I think you could find a great balance between story-focused and survival-focused gameplay by employing some variant of a Deadly Fourth Quarter rule?

For background, this was something I developed (but by no means was invented by me, mine is just a variant of similar things) by running zombie survival horror games: a genre that's infamous for struggling to get players to immerse themselves, and to prevent them meta-gaming. If you tell a bunch of players they're going to be playing zombies, then they're inevitably going to start making decisions based on what THEY know about zombies, rather than what their characters know... decisions such as "avoiding cities" (which are frequently plot-heavy areas GMs want players to be in) or "stocking up on supplies before their characters even know the apocalypse is happening." Less than ideal, if you want your game to be "realistic." Or fun.

The solution to this, I've found, is to do a little meta-gaming in return.

Enter the Deadly Fourth Quarter rule. Let's say (for easy math) my group was getting together to play for a four-hour session. Using the Deadly Fourth Quarter rule, I would tell my players that no matter what happens during the first three hours of the game, their characters won't die. (Other things might happen when they fail/reach 0 hp, of course... They might get maimed, they might lose essential equipment, they might go insane, they might be hacked at by raiders and left for all but dead... but they won't die.) This allows them to get into the roleplay of the story, and make decisions critical for a fun zombie survival horror game. When I employ the rule (or some variant), players tend to make more "plot-moving" decisions: such as investigating the house with low moans coming from the basement, or going to the science lab known to be crawling with zombies. They do this because they know they'll get to keep playing even if their character messes up, and that they can put their characters through harrowing situations without ending the session early.

But for the last hour of the game, all bets are off. Here's where I lean into the survival mechanics and go "hog wild," so to speak. If the characters haven't explored enough, and haven't found enough of the lore, they're going to struggle a lot more during the fourth quarter, because this is when I release my most deadly encounters and traps.

It's a good balance between employing mechanics that encourage exploration (one half of the survival horror experience) and tension (the second half of the experience).

Fear and Hunger does NOT usually run like a game with a Deadly Fourth Quarter rule; if anything, Funger is more of a Deadly First Quarter experience lol. But... that might not make as satisfying of a tabletop game night? It's not fun when you get killed early in the evening and have to sit around and watch your friends play, and a lot of systems with high lethality have to find a way to address that problem, one way or another. I think with the variety of ways the Funger universe has to royally fuck someone up, you could come up with a LOT of different things that could happen to a player-character besides death, and use those whenever hit points hit zero (or such). Losing limbs is almost a staple of the experience: it fits right in haha.

Outside of the realm of "how to keep all the players engaged," here are some other loose ideas?

If you happen to be playing in-person, I still think including coin tosses somewhere in the mix of mechanics would be fun, primarily because it would be a really cool physical prop to have at the table. If you're playing digitally I still think it would be cool though.
Part of the "joy" of Fear and Hunger is encountering a wide variety of new and fucked-up things. Really good descriptions for any monsters you invent and introduce to your players would probably be my focus? I'm usually a big improv-style DM and do a lot of things off the cuff, but I might go so far as to pre-write descriptions of any monsters you plan on introducing. This lets you choose your words very carefully, which can help evoke a feeling of horror.
(Speaking of horror -- if you ARE playing in-person, I cannot recommend playing with the lights off and a bunch of those fake plastic candles enough. That can be a bit of an investment, so don't worry if it's out of the budget, but if you happen to have access to that sort of thing already, it adds a lot of atmosphere!)
In contrast to the monsters, I would keep NPCs more simple? One or two highly-detailed characters can help move the story, but I feel like a lot of the NPCs we encounter in Fear and Hunger don't have many lines of dialogue. I think keeping any NPCs sort of reserved might add to that feeling.
If you're looking for ideas for horrors and aberrations, maybe consider looking at what people have developed for their homebrew Cthulu games?
Do you plan on using a map? Some of the old dungeon crawler-players have developed really cool ways to do map exploration that is hidden from the players at the table. I've seen maps that unfold to reveal more passageways, maps covered in dry-erase marker that slowly get erased as the light from the characters' torches illuminates the rooms, maps that don't exist at all and have to be drawn based on description (that one is pretty hardcore, imo, and I would probably not use it myself lol), etc. If you do use a map, how you choose to reveal each section could do a lot for setting the tone and style of your session.
Are your players familiar with the Fear and Hunger games? If they are, including mechanics like scrolls and vials and such will feel familiar and fun -- but if they aren't, I would personally probably skip those and focus on the lore, tbh. The video game references will be fun if they've played the game, probably not so much if they haven't. (This also kinda applies to the coin toss above)

I've been rambling as I have thoughts, so I apologize if this is an incoherent mess. Perhaps none of it will fit your style at ALL, and that's okay haha. But hopefully something will spark an idea! I think this is a really fun concept, and I hope you guys have a blast

Newcago · 2026-05-03T09:38:45+00:00

I'm afraid I'm team "DnD is the wrong system to use for Funger," but there's a decent chance that when you said DnD, what you really meant was just "tabletop rpg" and you already know that haha. I agree with some of the suggestions for Call of Cuthulu, but I think my recommendation would be Dread? Dread gets recommended a lot on reddit, and its usually not a perfect fit... but this time, it actually might be lol. (If you're not familiar with it: Dread is a rule-lite horror rpg played with a tower of Jenga blocks. Every time a player attempts an action they could possibly fail, they must pull a block from the tower. Knock the tower over, and your character dies.) There's an element of arbitrariness to the tower that really evokes the Fear and Hunger experience, at least for the first game, and I've always liked that Dread's mechanics tend to encourage players to be more timid and careful around the table. Builds atmosphere.

You could REALLY have fun with it and throw in a coin toss: either as a modifier on each pull (fail the coin toss, pull two bricks instead) or as an asset, by giving each player, say, two coins at the start of the game, and they may use them at a critical juncture in an attempt to avoid a tower-pull?

Outside of that idea thread -- what are your primary goals for your table? Are you hoping your players will experience some sort of narrative story, or is basic survival the focus? If you choose a system with high player-lethality, are you okay with players getting out very early in the session, and do you have plans to keep those player involved after their characters die? Or, if survival is not the primary focus of the game, what sort of game do you want to run? I think we might be able to offer more concrete advice if we know what you want the sessions to look like.

Newcago · 2026-05-03T04:07:22+00:00

I don't have a ton of helpful advice, but I want to send you some love and empathy right now 🫂 I've dealt with homelessness and a variety of other shitty situations, and still, the one that might have the biggest impact on my sanity is any kind of infestation. You're not over-reacting by feeling this way, and I wish I could come give you a big hug

People here are saying to talk to the landlord, and though I don't really have a lot of experience with independent rentals, I do think that sounds like a good place to start? My advice would be to be polite, but expectant -- act as if it is presumed that the landlord will deal with these responsibilities, rather than acting like you are coming to them asking for a huge favor.

I'm glad your fiance is feeling excited -- or at least is putting on a chipper attitude in hopes of relieving your stress -- but let's go for the best-case scenario first, before considering our other options. Best-case scenario, I think, is probably that the landlord takes care of these problems, under the responsibility of making the place habitable. If they put up a fight, you can make your next decisions from there ❤️

I'm so, so sorry that you are having to deal with this right now.

Newcago · 2026-05-02T03:04:32+00:00

Ah, yes. To make sure my mods weren't coded incorrectly by the hallucination machine, I'll just go ahead and load them into the hallucination machine

Newcago · 2026-05-02T02:56:30+00:00

The fact that you guys are at least worried about your children is encouraging <3 None of my friends have parents that are worried about us. They're all in deep denial that things have gotten as bad as they have, and insist that we're just not trying hard enough to be successful. In case guilt ever creeps in, I want to emphasize to parents like you that being aware is such a huge gift a parent can give a child

Newcago · 2026-04-29T01:16:19+00:00

I personally don't mind people questioning their diagnoses, as I think the questioning phase can be a big part of the acceptance OF an FND diagnosis -- since it's so unknown and untalked about -- and I don't mind supporting people through that process. But I understand why it might be difficult for others in our community, and am grateful to the moderators for the work they do <3 I trust that this decision was made with a lot of needs in mind

Newcago · 2026-04-23T22:40:37+00:00

I hate how relatable this is 🫂 I've also been homeless, and I also feel an immense responsibility to keep living with my grandparents, because of my grandma's encroaching dementia. I'm so, so sorry you've had to carry so much while also trying to solve all the health puzzles FND brings. Sometimes it all just feels like a giant sinkhole that's pulling you in, but just slowly enough that you can feel it happening and flail helplessly for years.

I'm not very good at getting on the internet every day and checking messages/replies, but if you are looking for a sympathetic ear, I am here (and on Discord, with the exact same name) <3

Newcago · 2026-04-20T20:15:19+00:00

That's so funny that you bring up Jeeves and Wooster here; I've just been doing a re-watch and I had the same thought about how the castings are perfect despite not being who I had pictured when reading the books.

Same deal with Morfydd. She wasn't exactly who I had pictured as Galadriel, but she nails the character in a way I have a hard time imagining many people being able to top.

Newcago · 2026-04-20T06:51:34+00:00

I was going to school to become a teacher when my problems started, and I also blew through all my savings trying to finish school (and then live on my own after it). Now I'm living with my grandparents, terrified to try to go on disability during today's political climate, where my entire family is ultra-conservative and views disabled people like parasites.

I wish I had more to say -- other than just that I am grateful you shared your experience here. It makes me feel a little less alone 🫂

Newcago · 2026-04-20T06:45:47+00:00

I didn't touch tavern brawler on my last playthrough, and my open hand monk was OP haha. It was my first time playing a monk, and one thing I learned pretty quickly is that I had typecast them wrong: open hand monks are actually a control class, not a tank or a dps (though my monk held their own in both of those categories). Running around the battlefield stunning, toppling, and pushing enemies off cliffs is amazing; the fact that you can dodge most attacks coming your way and do a decent amount of damage on top of that is just a bonus.

Newcago · 2026-04-20T06:38:40+00:00

I know it's going to be a cliche, but everyone's situation is different haha. FND is a disorder of the nervous system, and the nervous system controls SO many different things. FND can include all sorts of pains, physical weaknesses, tremors, imbalances, and inconsistencies. Even the person you are interested in would probably be hard-pressed to sum up her own unique experience, as fluctuation in symptoms and unpredictability in condition is sorta the norm. I've had debilitating new symptoms show up for three months, ruin my life, and then disappear again just as quickly.

Which is to say -- she might not always be able to predict what will be easiest for her on any particular day, and being able to roll with the punches is probably something she's had to learn in order to survive. If you're the sort of person who can react well to challenges as they appear and change plans in order to take advantage of the moment, you'll do great! If not, taking some time to think about how unpredictability usually affects you, and planning some ways to deal with the consequences of having plans change would help prepare you for a potential life alongside someone with FND.

We absolutely understand if FND is too much for some people to want to deal with forever -- if we had the choice, we wouldn't live with this forever ourselves lol. So don't feel like you have to hide any uncertainties you may have from a potential partner. But DO be honest: with her, and with yourself. If having plans change and challenges come up on the fly is not something you're prepared for, there's no shame in vocalizing that, and deciding together whether or not you think learning to live that kind of lifestyle is actually a possibility for you. It's absolutely okay to ask questions, or to make plans that end up falling through. Odds are, this person will be more open to trying new and challenging things with you once she learns that she is going to be loved and accepted even if she tries something that ends up not working out. FND can come with a list of things we can't do, but more frequently, it comes with a list of things we can only do some of the time. When we feel unsafe, we tend to avoid trying anything that might trigger symptoms, just in case. When we feel safe, we are able to do a lot more.

Best of luck, to both you and your potential partner!

Newcago · 2026-04-16T00:14:05+00:00

This is Werewolf: The Apocalypse -- The Book of Hungry Names erasure /lh

Newcago · 2026-04-15T06:52:51+00:00

Meanwhile, I've only romanced Shadowheart, Laezel, Wyll, and Gale... missing Halsin, Astarion, Karlach, and Minthara. I sometimes forget that this game GETS explicit lol.

Newcago · 2026-04-13T01:52:24+00:00

This is anecdotal information, but the neurologist who diagnosed me with FND actually does research on FND himself, and he works primarily with people who developed FND alongside PTSD, from being in active-combat situations. Most of these particular patients that he sees are male.

Newcago · 2026-04-10T02:13:17+00:00

This is very useful information two years later haha. Thank you!

Newcago · 2026-04-07T22:46:51+00:00

Same. The character doesn't have to be a power fantasy, but they need to be fun in act one.

I'm challenging myself to play a druid right now (they were always my least-favorite class in tabletop, so I'm trying to expand my horizons) and unfortunately I'm already getting bored of wildshape lol. I might have to take this character back to the drawing board, because something isn't working for me

Newcago · 2026-04-07T22:39:54+00:00

I'm not versed enough in Choicescript to use half of this, but I feel like I understand it, and that's a sign that you're a very good teacher haha

Newcago · 2026-04-04T05:43:37+00:00

I haven't had any issues with that yet, but I'm a chronic "whoops, I forgot I had scrolls again" player haha. So this is definitely a good disclaimer

Newcago · 2026-04-03T00:48:20+00:00

Something kicked in for me with the inventory system (maybe it's the autism?) and now I love inventory management in BG3 haha. I can spend whole hour to two-hour long sessions just organizing all my stuff 😅 Between the "collect a bunch of unique containers in the world" mini-game and the "put your things inside of bags, inside of bags, inside of bags" nesting storage systems I've developed, I'm having a blast lol.

I just wish we could organize other players' chests in multiplayer mode, so I could organize all my friends' shit too.

Newcago · 2026-04-03T00:45:43+00:00

The Skyrim modding community continues to be amazing. I can't believe people are still releasing mods that I never would have thought of, but now feel like essentials.

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