Running Medical Dramas in RPGs

September 8, 2009 10 comments

Most people know that I’m a huge fan of the television show House. I also know quite a few folks who would like to run “medical drama’-style roleplaying games, but run up against one major obstacle: lack of medical knowledge. Programs like House have consultants on staff to make sure that the information is accurate, but as a gamemaster or player you don’t have that sort of budget. I’m here to tell you that for a roleplaying game, the accuracy of the jargon doesn’t matter. As a viewer, I have no idea what they’re saying or if the symptoms and treatments they’re pitching are correct. All I know is, it’s never lupus and most wrong treatments apparently do permanent damage to the kidneys. Most of the actors, in interviews, have stated that they have no idea what they’re saying.

In medical dramas, including House, E.R., and going back to Marcus Welby and General Hospital (when it was actually about a hospital) , the medicine is a subplot at best. It’s about what else is going on in the lives of the player characters, and how they interact with the guest stars. The guest start are single-serving friends, there to push the buttons of whatever personal issues the regular characters are dealing with. allegory. Greek chorus. Author’s message.

Keeping that in mind, all you really need to keep down are the “beats” of diagnosis and treatment. I’m going to work on some medical jargon generation tables to make it sound good (and no doubt make people with actual medical knowledge fall over laughing). The beats of the medical portion of a game session would go something like this:

The patient is displaying [RANDOMLY ROLLED SYMPTOMS].

It could be [RANDOMLY ROLLED DISEASE].

Except [RANDOMLY ROLLED SYMPTOM] doesn’t fit, either because that symptom isn’t present in the patient or it isn’t a normal symptom of the disease.

The treatment for the disease is [RANDOMLY ROLLED TREATMENT].

The downside of the treatment is [RANDOMLY ROLLED SYMPTOM], which can either be a general side effect or something that can happen if it’s not the disease they think it is.

There is a low percentage the treatment works and the patient is cured. There is a chance the patient will get better, then suddenly get worse, and display a new symptom. There is a chance the patient will go into code and display a new symptom. Repeat the process. The chance that the disease has been diagnosed and the treatment is effective increases with each repetition of the process.

I’m going to flesh this out a bit more and release it as a PDF. I thought about writing this as it’s own game, but I think it will be just fine as an aid/cap system for the game of your choice. Use it to create a medical show for Primetime Adventures, or to add some forensic medicine to Call of Cthulhu, World of Darkness, or other modern and near-future games.