Sanity rules

[garrowolf]

I am reworking and trying to simplify a set of sanity rules for my Nexus d20 system. I personally never really liked the Call of Cthulhu rpg systems for sanity but they seem to be the foundation of most other sanity systems I've seen. I was also reading a very good article that was talking about how clunky and distracting the mechanics of sanity checks are. Even fear checks have their problems because they pull you out of the story to roll to see how your character reacts to things. It takes the control away from your character and makes it behave randomly no matter how you have established your character up to this point.
On the other hand most players won't pay much attention to something that has no consequence to them in game terms.
I don't want the game to fall into the problem that CoC has of people that don't want to read anything or do anything for fear of loosing sanity.
I would like to have a system that is more supportive of the players reacting in a realistic way instead of punishing them and taking their initiative and creativity away.

Any ideas?

 

[pming]

Hiya.

Try positive reinforcement. Give the player the option of just "playing his character" as he sees fit, no rolls needed. Or, he can choose to roll to see how his character handles the situation, and then role-play that reaction (whatever it may be). If he chooses to roll, give him bonus XP (or some other kind of 'point' thing he can use later for something else...like a hero point, or action point, or whatever).

There. The RP'ers who are interested in RP'ing shouldn't care and keep playing what they like and the way they like to play.The ones who like the Game part of "RPG's" can keep playing what they like.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Nagol]

Make a system where the player can remain in control, but types of actions are heavily penalised / incented to the point that rational course of action == genre appropriate course of action.

For example, for fear effects, the PC receives a penalty equal to (6 - squares of distance) to any attack action other than total defence, but gets a +2 to any skill or attribute check used in an attempt to move away from the source of fear.

Insanity is a bit harder. Create a random chart of socially awkward activities. Build a progressive penalty (-1 / hour or day cumulative) that is reset if the character engages in the activity. Give a bonus that drains away quickly over time (tens of minutes, minutes, or rounds) after immediately performing the activity.

 

[garrowolf]

Well I'm trying to get away from the random charts thing. That was one of the problems I had with CoC.

It's kind of hard to deal with sanity damage in a game without it devolving into silliness. Personally I can't stand when players try and have a "crazy" character. It just ends up being an excuse to do whatever they want with no logic. On the other hand some people really enjoy playing in horror settings and dealing with the slow decline into madness.

 

[garrowolf]

Ok this is what I worked up. I think that it is on the right track. I'll work out more of it later after I sleep.


Fear and Sanity Rules

Characters must make a Fright Check anytime that they encounter something that is frightening and out of their realm of experience. It is a willpower check but it also functions like an Initiative Check in that it will reset your Initiative place and can cause you to loose your turn to fear and surprise. It also functions as a Control Action in that the Fright Check will cause the character to flee without their full control. This movement occurs before the character's actual turn takes place. If you succeed in the Fright Check then you overcome your immediate flight response and get to keep your turn and don't flee blindly. The DC and circumstances of the Fright Check will determine other effects.
One of the possible effects of a Fright Check is Sanity Damage. Sanity Damage is shock to your understanding of the world around you. If you accumulate too much Sanity Damage then it will confuse you and cause you to hallucinate and become delusional. Your perceptions will start to change as you interpret the world in darker and more bizarre ways. You will start to see that everyone is staring at you and they know something. They are all working together to hurt you. You might hear what people say completely differently then others. You might see then do things that others do not. You may even start to see people and creatures that are not even there.
Fortunately the mind has a few defenses against this sort of thing. You have a trait called Composure. As long as your Sanity Damage amount is less than or equal to this value then you will not experience any obvious problems. You can also convert the Sanity Damage into Quirks, Phobias, and Derangements. You can also reduce your sanity damage by facing your fears.

Quirk (1 pt) – A Quirk is a strange behavior such as an OCD or habit.
Phobia (2 pt) – Your Phobia should be connected to the cause of the sanity damage but related to something in the everyday world. If you were attacked by flying monsters then you may not want to be near an open sky, especially at night.
Derangement (3 pt) – A Derangement is a belief that is not rational but that you very strongly believe. It should involve an attempt to rationalize the incidents in some way. You may become obsessed with trying to discover more about them to prove that these monsters are servants of the local girl scout troop. You will be aggressive about trying to prove or defend this belief. You may even take some actions against the targets of your Derangements.

These will cause problems with social encounters equal to their rating (-1, -2, -3). They are also possible food for explanations of botches. Players that make good use of their Sanity Damage can earn Social points or Hero points.
If your Sanity Damage goes past your Composure level then it will increase all of your error ranges by that amount and you will have frequent breaks with reality.

 

[Walking Dad]

Take a look into the White Wolf 'World of Darkness' core book for derangements mechanics. Nice penalties for having them, grouped in two tiers, logical relations between the weaker and stronger ones.

For creature-horror sanity loss, make them specific abilities of the creature, like the Horrific Appearance (Su) ability of the qlippoth in Pathfinder's Bestiary 2. It has a different effect, depending on the specific creature.

Sample:

Horrific Appearance (Su) Creatures that succumb to an augnagar’s horrific appearance are driven momentarily insane with fear. This results in 2 points of Charisma damage and leaves the victim confused for 1d3 rounds.

Horrific Appearance (Su) Creatures that succumb to a cythnigot’s horrific appearance become sickened for 1 round.

 

[Celebrim]

I've had pretty good luck with the Ravenloft 3.e rules for fear/horror/insanity.

Granted, there are some things that are worth tweaking (duration of minor fear effects for example is IMO too long), but all and all they are pretty solid and well thought out. They are unlikely to produce really awkward results in my experience, and they tie directly into existing mechanics so you don't have to worry to much about balance. And you can decide how often to use them and how much of a threat to make them. For example, against low level threats its rare to run into anything with more than about DC 10, and since you don't get a truly significant effect unless you fail by more than 5 its easy to use low DC checks to tie setting color to the mechanics without leaving the players to paranoid to investigate.

And if you are worried about san checks being awkward and distracting, simply throw them yourself and report the results to the players.

 

[Ahzad]

You may want to check out Fragile Minds by Crafty Games. They have some pretty solid rules for modeling sanity, stress and the like.

Fragile Minds - Crafty Games | DriveThruRPG.com

 

[garrowolf]

Well after working on it all night I finally decided on this:
Sanity Rules

Fear and Horror
There is Fear, which is a mostly rational response, and then there is Horror, which is not. Several games have fear checks based on seeing things that are frightening and out of the realm of experience for the characters. However characters are regularly encountering dangerous situations that would frighten most people. So then you end up with a long list of possible triggers to Fright Checks. The problem is that it takes control away from the player and it treats the PCs as NPCs under a morale check. Therefore this system foregos the Fear Check for PCs. That is left up to the Role Playing skills of the Players.
The factor of interest is Horror checks and Sanity Damage. A Horror check is a Fright Check where the encounter has the potential to damage the sanity of the character. Horror checks relate to encounters that damage a person's view of the world around them. It could be the loss of a loved one in an unexpected or horrifying manner. It could be a personal violation of your mind or body. It could be a threat from something that your mind says can not be.
Sanity Damage is shock to your understanding of the world around you. If you accumulate too much Sanity Damage then it will confuse you and cause you to hallucinate and become delusional. Your perceptions will start to change as you interpret the world in darker and more bizarre ways. You will start to see that everyone is staring at you and they know something. They are all working together to hurt you. You might hear what people say completely differently then others. You might see them do things that others do not. You may even start to see people and creatures that are not even there.
Fortunately the mind has a few defenses against this sort of thing. You have a trait called Composure. As long as your Sanity Damage amount is less than or equal to this value then you will not experience any obvious problems.
It becomes important to find ways to deal with your Sanity damage. You can convert the Sanity Damage into Quirks, Phobias, and Derangements. You can also reduce your sanity damage by facing your fears. If you get some therapy for it then you can heal some of this damage but it partially depends on if those that are helping you believe that you actually encountered these things. Otherwise they could cause further Sanity Damage while they convince you that you are already delusional even if you were not before.

Quirk (1 pt) – A Quirk is a strange behavior such as an OCD or habit.
Phobia (2 pt) – Your Phobia should be connected to the cause of the sanity damage but related to something in the everyday world. If you were attacked by flying monsters then you may not want to be near an open sky, especially at night.
Derangement (3 pt) – A Derangement is a belief that is not rational but that you very strongly believe. It should involve an attempt to rationalize the incidents in some way. You may become obsessed with trying to discover more about them to prove that these monsters are servants of the local girl scout troop. You will be aggressive about trying to prove or defend this belief. You may even take some actions against the targets of your Derangements.

These will cause problems with social encounters equal to their rating (-1, -2, -3) when these come up. They are also possible food for explanations of botches. Players that make good use of their Sanity Damage can earn Social points or Hero points.
If your Sanity Damage goes past your Composure level then it will increase all of your error ranges by that amount and you will have frequent breaks with reality.


Sanity Damage is listed as (DC 15) 2. This means that you roll willpower against a DC 15 to keep your calm but you will still take 2 sanity damage. However for every 5 points over the DC reduces the sanity damage by 1. If you fail in the roll then you freak out right there. This could be fight, flight, or freaking out. If you botch then your mind breaks right there. You will gain an instant Derangement AND your Sanity Damage will go to 1 higher then your Composure (OR gain +2 sanity damage over the listed amount, whichever is higher).

Facing Your Fears
If you face the source of your fears, especially if you destroy or defeat it then you can recover your lost sanity. Roll against the same DC as before. On a success then you remove a point of sanity damage. For every 5 points in your margin of success you can remove another point of sanity damage. You can only roll once per successful facing of fears but it will recover as much sanity as you want. You can remove a Quirk, Phobia, Or Derangement for the same price as you purchased them for instead of lowering your Sanity damage by that amount but only if your Sanity Damage is lower then your Composure.

 

[kitsune9]

Any ideas?

I have a couple:

1. Have sanity work like an ability score, once you lose points, you suffer penalties to concentrate, attack, and so on. Once you hit 0, you go nuts.

2. Sanity is a off-game mechanic. The PC's went out on adventure, they saw terrible horrors, but they pulled through. When the get home, rest, it's the "voices" down the hall, the sound of a growl in the dark, a pair of glowing eyes following you. After PC's adventure more, the game mechanics have worse symptoms to where eventually the PC's are completely insane. The mechanics of handling the PC's sanity is handled in between adventures, not during them.

3. There are other stressors that can affect a person other than go mad like the confusion spell or become panicked. Shaken effects are really good when someone's nerve is breaking. At the hospital where I work, PTSD is quite common and can block memory (can't use their feats or special abilities for a round), disrupts concentration (stunned or unable to cast spells), impairs vision (penalty to melee and range attacks), and so on.

4. Becoming insane is just corrupting. Someone who fails a saving throw of some sort "snaps" and they attack their comrades as their alignment shifts to CE. If they already were CE, then they just start killing. It doesn't put the player character out of the fight, just the wrong side of the fight.