A couple months ago, I started using a GLP-1 for weight loss: Zepbound, specifically. One of the Temu Ozempics. I’ve fought my weight my entire life. As I get older, the fight gets harder. It’s hard on my joints, it’s hard on my endocrine system (borderline diabetic for like a decade now). So, sure, why not. A shot a week, let’s see what happens.

It’s working. I’m down about twenty pounds since I started, and now the loss is slowing down. But it’s not working the way I thought it would.

And it’s ruining my gaming life.

GLP-1s and Impulse Control

I had no idea how GLP-1s work when I started. All I knew was what anyone knows: celebrities take it and turn skeletal. Before my first dose, my doctor explained that this drug class does three things: stimulates insulin release, slows down the stomach emptying so you feel fuller longer, and acts on brain receptors to reduce “food noise.” Cravings, emotional eating, boredom, all the stuff that leads you to eat bad shit, or too much.

Well it turns out that that brain receptor third also acts on your brain’s entire impulse portfolio. It attacks desire. You want less. Of everything.

These drugs are finding off-label applications across a whole array of maladaptive behaviors: alcoholism, sex addiction, gambling addiction, you name it. The Atlantic did a terrific piece about this a couple years ago, which showed up in my Facebook feed because the algorithm took an interest in my research. The premise of the piece is that Ozempic and the other GLP-1s are basically Buddhism in a bottle: it releases desire. The difference is that there’s no process. You don’t ever come to grips with the root of those desires. It doesn’t feel like Nirvana because you didn’t achieve enlightenment. You injected it.

Why Do We Play?

The past several weeks, I’ve definitely noticed my brain has changed. My wallet is very happy that my impulsive Kickstarter/Gamefound/Backerkit/Itchfunding has stopped. Sorry, crowdfunders! I would back upwards of $5,000 of games a year. And now, almost none. Vibes-forward RPG campaigns in particular hold no sway. I don’t miss it, but then again I wouldn’t. But why not?

The Indie Game Reading Club still has, gosh, a couple hundred unread titles sitting here waiting to be read, played, thought about, evaluated, written about. The whole library is probably upward of two thousand titles. My nightly ritual used to be to bring a rulebook to bed with me and read myself to sleep. Not a thing any more. I get no pleasure imagining running things, thinking through rules logic, chewing on potential new ideas. Regular reading is just better, and I still do it every night. But … yeah. Whatever impulse I had to read and study went away and left behind the unfiltered pleasure of reading good writing. (Working on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest, Children of Strife, if you’re curious.)

Tuesday game nights have been a mainstay of my entire adult life. At no point have I not had a weekly game night, and it’s been on Tuesdays for, gosh, going on 20 years now? As a primary parent it’s my main adult contact time. Keeps me socialized and grounded. I used to constantly crave the next Tuesday night even as the current Tuesday night was wrapping up. Not any more. And that is weird to become aware of.

So, without having gone through the yearslong Buddhist practice of confronting my desires, all the stuff that has anchored my life since 1989 is just gone. To be clear, I still love to play games. When I’m sitting at the table with friends, I’m having a terrific time. When my wife asks to play a board game, it’s the highlight of my day. Just last night, as a friend was setting up to run Dragonbane for us, I knew what the evening’s plans were but I had no particular rush to get there. Not a ding on Dragonbane; it’s a very nice fantasy adventure game. But: no desire, no craving, no impulse. And when it was over, it was also very nice! But a week will go by and I won’t spend even a moment itching to get it back to the table.

My buddy and I have been playing the bejeezus out of Stonesaga, this sprawling campaign boardgame about a Stone Age tribe bootstrapping itself into a civilization on a weird not-Earth. Every week, like clockwork, for like the past seven weeks. Now this one I do look forward to playing again. Why is that?

Why do we play? Why do I play?

Pleasure Without Desire

Someone a long while back made the astute observation that many of us are buying the fantasy of playing the game when we buy a game. The fantasy of having time, friends, freedom. Imagining what it’ll be like to sit around a table doing a thing together. Nostalgia for when we were young and had nothing but time on our hands.

I think this has to have been true for a lot of my adult life. Weird, though, since I actually do have the time, friends and freedom to play anything I want. I’ve built my adult life around doing it, after all.

Now that I’ve been on this stuff for a couple months and the impulse gremlins have been chemically neutered, I’m starting to get some clarity on what has driven my play for almost 50 years. Anticipation has been a big part of it. And now it isn’t.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the pleasure of play itself. In a roleplaying session specifically, it’s about riding the social ebbs and flows, keeping rules and play options at hand, aligning our shared imaginary space, feeling out characterization, the push and pull of achieving and performing and supporting, stepping up and pulling back. Sharing. Connecting.

I need to keep in mind as I re-establish my behavioral drivers: Games are good, y’all. But when I strip away the craving, I’m left only with why they’re good in the moment.