Game: Therapy

Thread: Re: Trapping other players in your Therapy Office

ellenas_1 — 2008-01-03T18:10:34+00:00

I played the new VIP version last weekend, and I'm almost certain there was no change to that rule. In fact, I was trapped in various group therapy and individual therapy sessions for several turns. That's the danger when playing with people you don't know very well!

And I don't know about people being too nice to exploit it because there was some definite "I don't want to give that person a peg because they're about to win" going on. I'm not sure how long that would've lasted if we hadn't stopped to eat dinner. My guess would be that we would have gotten tired of playing the game and tried to finish it as quickly as possible.

Thread: Trapping other players in your Therapy Office

Rileywiebe — 2007-10-18T02:41:26+00:00

I was playing the 1st edition of this game last weekend with some friends and we discovered an oddity in the rules:

If someone else lands on your Therapy space, you must try to "cure" them, i.e. match their answer to a given question. If you successfully match, you get a peg in your couch (1 step closer to winning) and they roll again. If you don't match, they stay put and you try again next turn.

Thing is, if you either (a) have all your couch pegs or (b)have enough that you don't especially need help getting the rest or (c) your "patient" is much closer to winning than you, it is in your interest to NOT "cure" them, leaving them stuck in your Office for as long as you can successfully not match your "patient's" answers! After all, there are other ways for you to get couch pegs, but if they are stuck in your Office they are just plain screwed.

This in turn led me to imagine a low-down, dirty-scoundrel game of Therapy where eveyone did their best to trap other players in their Office, and the whole thing would take 8 hours.

Has this rule been tweaked/fixed in later editions, does anyone know? Or are people just too nice & honest to exploit it?

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Goodsound — 2007-05-03T10:06:53+00:00

German Cover - 3rd Edition

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T14:19:31+00:00

Norwegian edition. Cards.

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T14:17:09+00:00

Norwegian edition. Card with question.

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T14:09:53+00:00

Norwegian edition. Unpunched score-markers.

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T14:05:14+00:00

Norwegian edition. The board.

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T13:59:40+00:00

Norwegian edition. Boxfront.

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pyr-shep — 2007-04-13T13:58:26+00:00

Norwegian edition, boxback.

Thread: Re: Therapy: Spending some time on the couch

Admiral Fisher — 2007-03-11T21:09:21+00:00

I find the game quite fun, but it can cause arguments if you say the wrong thing about someone else who is sensitive about something or other.

Thread: Therapy: Spending some time on the couch

adam.skinner — 2007-03-09T14:21:40+00:00

Therapy is a party game. It's also pretty old - it came out over 20 years ago.

Let me say right off the bat that I had a good time playing Therapy. While the core gameplay is deeply flawed, the game itself is a fun time, and with people who don't care about winning, you should enjoy yourself.

The game board is sectioned off into 6 distinct parts, each a different color. Each part represents a different phase of life.

Each player is both therapist and patient. During your turn, you take the roll of a patient. You take your game piece (a colored couch), and move it 2d6 spaces clockwise. There are a number of different types of squares you can land on, and these determine what happens during your turn.

If you land on a "Therapy" square, the person whose couch is that color takes the top card from the Therapy deck and reads it to you. It might be something like "Which of these was the most traumatic event in your childhood: a) your first dentist visit, b) your first dance with a member of the opposite sex, or c) your first day at school?". You then write down your answer secretly on a piece of paper. Your "therapist" (the person with the couch of that color) then tries to guess which answer you picked. If he guesses correctly, then your therapy session is successful and you get to put a peg in your couch to indicate that you've completed that color. The person who gets all their pegs and then passes the "Finish" square wins the game.

As you can see, this is the part where the gameplay is "deeply flawed". Your therapist is the one who guesses your answer, and you gain the benefit from his correct answer! So what incentive does he have to answer correctly? All he has to do to keep you from getting points is to do the opposite of what he should be doing, per the game instructions. It benefits him if he does so, since it keeps points away from you. And what if everyone does it? The game devolves into . . . no fun.

So, during a Therapy session, you can't play this game to win. If you do, you ruin the game. You must do your earnest best to help another player get points.

There are other ways to score your little couch pegs. The most common type of space on the board is the "Insight" space. When a player lands here, he has to answer a multiple choice question correctly. Most of the time these are "True/False" questions, but sometimes they'll throw a choice of three in there to switch it up. If you answer the question correctly, you get the peg associated with the color of the square that you're on.

There are a couple other types of squares, but they just add even more randomness to the game.

As the game plays out, it's fun. You'll get to talking about people's past experiences. For example, I'd guessed that Barry's most traumatic experience of the set of three provided above was the dance. That wasn't so though - he'd answered "dentist". He went on to explain that when he was a kid, his father wanted to make a man out of him, and so he took him to an old military dentist to have him work on some cavities. The dentist didn't give him any Novocain, however, and Barry experienced quite a bit of pain.

You'll also have True Colors-esque "rate yourself" questions. The question might be "On a scale of 1 to 10, how strongly would you rate yourself on the trait of feeling guilty?". So you might answer a 2, but your Therapist would guess of you that you would say 7. This kind of perception conflict will raise interesting discussions, and even pointed disputes.

Another aspect of the game is that since it was made back in the mid to late 80's, it uses research results from prior to that era. The differences can be surprising, especially on statistics and the like.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Therapy. While one of the core game mechanics is hopelessly broken, it does provide for an interesting and enjoyable way to spend time together with your friends. It's also a great way to get to know people better. I wouldn't recommend it to people who are strangers, however, as part of the "experience" of the game is the shock you'll see and feel when people give answers contrary to your perception of yourself.

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Courtesy of http://skinnerclan.org/blogs/adam-skinner/therapy-spending-s...

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samoan_jo — 2007-01-24T16:33:57+00:00

full frame shot of the German 2nd edition (MB, Hasbro, 1994)

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fellonmyhead — 2006-12-29T18:36:25+00:00

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Rileywiebe — 2006-10-14T19:25:21+00:00

The Psychosis space in the centre of the 1st edition board.

Thread: Quick Comments

jeff3316 — 2006-01-07T01:16:54+00:00

There was a re-make of this game in 1996 called therapy the second session.

The first is better. An absolute riot to play with friends due to some of the very risque and revealing questions that the second session lacks.

Also, all of the questions are from studies conducted in the 40's through 60's. One must use that as a perspective when answering questions --- very entertaining.