Aphantasia and Role Playing Games

[Thomas Shey]

I turned fifty last year and then made my discovery too. Mind blowing really

Its not that surprising, really; if the extreme cases are rare, it'd be easy for them to assume others talking about it are using a metaphor, and with the rest how often is someone going to go into it in enough detail that someone else would realize their experience is different.

 

[moriantumr]

I first realized I was different while talking to my brother in our early teens. We both read fast, he a little faster. I asked if he would skim or some other trick to get through quicker. He responded that as he read it was like watching a movie in his mind. I compared that to what I saw, which was the words scrolling through mine. Makes sense why he was faster and enjoyed books I never could get into.

 

[Jahydin]

I'm still quite fascinated by all of this and in a bit of shock that I could blithely sail through life without having a clue that most other people were experiencing the world differently!

Right?!

If it wasn't for PbtA games, I probably would have went my whole life not noticing.

 

[SakanaSensei]

I'm between a 4 and a 5 when trying to visualize most things, but having just say down to try imagining things with other senses, I definitely get a much stronger reaction when trying to imagine food taste and texture. I can easily just think "heavily spiced pumpkin pie" and bam, flavor, crumbly crust, dollop of whip cream. But ask me to visually imagine that pie? Ehhh... The ol' brain tries its best.

 

[Proma]

I have just been reading the Crown and Skull Free Player's Guide and came across this line in the intro

And I thought it might be an interesting discussion, for those of us who have Aphantasia. I never knew I had aphantasia, or even had heard of it, until listening to one of the excellent 'No Such thing as a fish' podcasts - highly recommended for QI fans! One of the hosts has aphantasia which means he is unable to form images in his mind. The easy 'test' he mentioned was think of an apple, eyes closed, what do you see?'. I see nothing, never see anything in my 'mind's eye'. When I read stories of people seeing the faces of their loved ones, or similar, I thought it was all poetic licence. I close my eyes and I see blackness, nothing else at all. It's interesting to find after 50 years that your mind works very differently from the norm! Apparently, 1~3% of people have this condition, two of my four kids do, so I guess it must be genetic. My wife sees the full on every detail image from below, she's #1 and I'm #5 - I must say I am jealous!

Aphantasia - Wikipedia

For me, then role-playing lacks the visual pictures that (I imagine haha) others imagine. I focus very much on the rules and challenges, not so much the emotion. I can't do theatre of the mind and always need maps of some type to help me, even if it is just dots on a sheet of graph paper. I normally DM and I can describe things perfectly well, I just don't see them. I think that makes me a more 'technical' DM and I know that has meant I have not been a good fit for some groups. Even of people we are still very good friends, I can play board games with them, but DnD just didn't work. I am wondering if any others on here also have anaphantasia? And how does it affect your gaming?

On a positive note, it means I can read a book and when a movie comes out it is not ruined by the character not looking exactly as I visualized

 

[Gradine]

Not sure what the reason for the necro was, but I, for one, appreciate it.

I recently discovered I had aphantasia too, and I wonder if that is what made it so difficult for me to keep as an avid reader into adulthood. As was mentioned upthread, I think the books I read the most often were ones where the characters were mostly visualized on the cover (Wheel of Time springs to mind) or were from a character or property I already had a ton of visual familiarity with (Star Wars and D&D novels), but these days I struggle with novels. Even back then I'd just skim through all of the meatier descriptive paragraphs to get to the dialogue (which, for what it's worth, I could definitely hear in my head). Small wonder I ended up originally getting into dramatic writing.

I will say, though, that I definitely prefer running Theatre of the Mind over maps and figures, but that's more a logistical thing than anything (even VTTs I hate). I can't picture it in my own head but I've figured out how to describe it, at the very least. I wonder how much different it would be for me as a player, though. Pretty much every game I've played in used minis.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Not sure what the reason for the necro was, but I, for one, appreciate it.

I recently discovered I had aphantasia too, and I wonder if that is what made it so difficult for me to keep as an avid reader into adulthood. As was mentioned upthread, I think the books I read the most often were ones where the characters were mostly visualized on the cover (Wheel of Time springs to mind) or were from a character or property I already had a ton of visual familiarity with (Star Wars and D&D novels), but these days I struggle with novels. Even back then I'd just skim through all of the meatier descriptive paragraphs to get to the dialogue (which, for what it's worth, I could definitely hear in my head). Small wonder I ended up originally getting into dramatic writing.

I will say, though, that I definitely prefer running Theatre of the Mind over maps and figures, but that's more a logistical thing than anything (even VTTs I hate). I can't picture it in my own head but I've figured out how to describe it, at the very least. I wonder how much different it would be for me as a player, though. Pretty much every game I've played in used minis.

I suspect its not as bad if you have a good spatial memory/imagination. I'm bad at both, so...

 

[uzirath]

I recently discovered I had aphantasia too, and I wonder if that is what made it so difficult for me to keep as an avid reader into adulthood.

My experience is different, which probably just means that brains are really complicated things. I have been a voracious reader for my whole life. The only reason I ever stop reading is when adulting gets in the way. Prior to learning that I have aphantasia, I would have said that I "picture" scenes from books just fine. But what that meant for me was mostly retelling the story in my head. No visuals, alas.

I will say, though, that I definitely prefer running Theatre of the Mind over maps and figures, but that's more a logistical thing than anything (even VTTs I hate). I can't picture it in my own head but I've figured out how to describe it, at the very least. I wonder how much different it would be for me as a player, though. Pretty much every game I've played in used minis.

I don't have strong preferences on this front. With a large group, I prefer some form of illustration just so we're all on the same page. (Could be scribbled on paper or a whiteboard.) With smaller groups, I find that Theater of the Mind works pretty well unless we're dealing with a very complex tactical situation. I still can't quite explain how I can keep track of a "scene" without being able to see it in my mind. It's definitely not visual, though I usually have a clear sense of the spatial relationships.

 

[Jahydin]

@Proma
Did you mean to just re-post the OP?

 

[aramis erak]

Both of the folk with Aphantasia I've known disliked D&D... but one plays Warhammer minis games.

As for me, my mental pull of of an apple includes not just a more realistic image than number one on the list, but the correlated smell, taste, and the bite just taken, and, if I want, the act of cutting it in half to reveal the internal structures.