Going Crazy!

[i3ullseye]

Hi all. Haven't posted here in quite a while as I have been very busy with far too many other things than I care to count. But a few of us feel ready to start up a regular weekly game again, and I am considering running a HERO campaign.

 

I am putting the groundwork together now, and already have a basic concept, a time period, a power level, even a main adversary planned out. But one thing is still up in the air.

 

I am likely going to run a Cthulhu campaign based during the end of World War I. This lets me fuse two of the things I have the most affection for, and no one of them isn't Shoggoths.... Horror in general, and using the HERO system for WWI and WWII era engagements and equipment. Neither I think have been given enough full attention.

 

But I am uncertain how I want to handle the ever present staple of Lovecraft... going insane. There have been many ideas suggested in various sourcebooks, and all fo them have some merit. As much as I am loathe to add any arbitrary stats to HERO, adding a Sanity score for each player may be in order. Maybe base 50, and then add their EGO and half their Intelligence to have a starting point.

 

Another option is to have insanity actually drain their EGO, but this then impacts skill rolls and such, and many mad-men are of MUCH stronger will than most sane people, so i don't like that approach either.

 

So I want to open it up here. What would you reccommend for a way to track Sanity? As a guideline, I want each major encounter with the Elder Gods, or their Spawn, to tick away a bit of Sanity, but in my game I want sanity to also be restored by certain actions. I have some Skills and Perks planned to interact with Sanity and such, but I want it to be a pretty dynamic thing in the game.

 

Once I have a decent way to track it, I want to have it impact certain skill and ability use, and maybe a few other things also. It will be a central theme to the game itself.

 

Another note, the players will never know their score/rank. I have played with Mystery Damage in the past, and it can be great, but a book-keeping nightmare. This game may not be as heavily combat oriented as many are used to, so the tension of Mystery Damage won't add much. But Mystery Sanity sure will.

 

So any ideas are greatly appreciated.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I've done a pretty effective version of Sanity loss as a change environment that causes a slow transformation attack before...

 

it's in this post :

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=759603&postcount=4

[Mister E]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I've done a pretty effective version of Sanity loss as a change environment that causes a slow transformation attack before...

 

it's in this post :

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=759603&postcount=4

That's pretty good.

 

One of the things I always liked about insanity in Call of Cthulhu, was that the smarter you were, the more you understood the horrors you were facing, and the more insane you got. For instance:

 

While gazing on the soul-shattering visage of an elder Whozitwhatzit, you should make an INT Roll with some kind of modifier (like -1 if the reality of the horror is not too difficult to grasp... -5 if dealing with truly beyond comprehension horrors); and if you succeed, you gain Insanity.

 

What actually constitutes Insanity is still an open topic, but AmadanNaBriona's idea seems interesting.

 

I'd probably give a Psychological Limitation (like Arachnophobia, Nymphomania, or Death Wish), and make it stronger and stronger as the insanity grew. In the HERO System, you normally buy Disads in 5 point chunks; but in this case I would step it one point at a time; starting with +5 to EGO Roll, and working my way to -5 to EGO Roll.

[i3ullseye]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I like that, but not for overall Sanity I think.

 

that woudl work great for a creature that can cause a permanent psychosis just by viewing it, but I am going more for a slow burn. Something that reading a book, seeing a creature, even uttering a certain phrase.... might slowly creep up on you.

 

I also want to have triggers that might gain samnity back, but needless to say these will be far less common. I also want Intelligence and Ego to impact it directly. I also love the basic premise that the mroe you know, and the more accurrately you know it, the faster your sanity is in peril.

 

I expect many times I will explain something, and then have either basic Intelligence Rolls or a Deduction (or other skill) roll add more detail to the revelation. Who woudl have thought Deduction woudl be a primary skill for a campaign... and the players may not realize that it could be their doom.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I still think that of all the possible options in the Hero System, a Transform is one of the best models to use.

Obviously you can tweak it to taste...

ditch the Ego roll to resist, make it such that you take the transform if you see something and MAKE your Int roll (following the old Cthulhu mechanic)

Change the intervals for taking the damage or better yet, ditch them entirely and make each "interval" a specific sanity damaging event, just like in CoC

Transform is inherently cumulative, so you slowly accumulate "sanity" damage till you're transformed into "yourself, only with problems". Then you can start all over again building up a shiny NEW insanity

 

Run it against EGO instead of Body to give an idea of how much you can take

 

Transform is required to either heal or have set conditions that restore/remove the damage... which fits the recovery model you're looking for.

 

and you can exploit the 'Partial transform" rules to show a slow slide into oblivion.

 

You can always ditch the Change Environment (that was just an example I'd already thrown together) but I think that Transform against EGO is the single best way I've been able to come up with to model any sort of gradual mental deterioration (I've used it for demonic possession and cyberpsychosis as well)

 

Yeah, I'm an old Cthulhu fanatic from way back too

 

Ia Ia Cthulhu Ftghan!

[SteelDoom]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

While maybe not strictly correct to the rules, how about a Magor Transform (vs EGO) - Psych Limitation; which would build up to 25 point very common total. So if they just get 5 points they get a common moderate delusion and so on. This would allow you to set the decay rate so different creatures have a stronger or weaker power. ie Monster A has a strong transform that doesn't last long while Monster B has a slower more insideous transform that needs to be bought of with character points.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I'd actually not add an Insanity Stat. I would go with something along the lines of AmadanNaBriona's suggestion.

 

Insanity can start out with a couple of 5pt Psych Lims, little quirks that evetually develop into full blown 15-20pt psychosis.

 

Once characters start to gain a few 25pt Psych Lims they're good and damaged and probably should be stuck in a padded room.

 

How and when they start getting these should be determined by in game events, maybe a few EGO Rolls and roleplaying.

[Steve]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

Just a thought, but you might want to make available the ability to heal back from the psychological trauma with psychological therapy. I think that was available in CoC, but it required months of time to work (1-6 months, I believe).

 

Of course, you could be gradually driving your psychiatrist insane as you talk about your problems, which raises an entire new area of possible plotlines.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

There have actually been several "official" approaches to sanity loss in published Hero Games sources. I'm not sure from your remarks if you seen all or any of them, or what would best suit your preferences, so I'll just direct you to what I'm aware of.

 

One of the simpler ones is detailed in the "Genre By Genre" chapter of 5ER under the "Horror" section, as well as the comparable section of the HERO System Genre By Genre PDF. (If you don't have either of these, you can download the PDF from the Free Stuff section of the website, via the "HERO System Documents" link.") It suggests an optional Sanity Figured Characteristic, with some guidelines on how it can be affected and healed back.

 

Another approach was first designed in the 4E Champions sourcebook Champions in 3-D, for the adventure/setting "Horror World." It's an actual Power based on Transform NND, with the Defense being a successful Ego Roll. Each time you're exposed to the sanity blasting effect and fail your roll, the "damage" accumulates until you finally snap. The stronger your Ego, the longer you can resist. There's more to it than that, though; you can see the full writeup on the website of the author, Allen Varney, where he's put up the text of the original adventure (with Hero Games's permission). You'll find it here: http://www.allenvarney.com/anopheles.html . It would need a little tweaking to update to 5E, but you'd probably have done that to suit your tastes anyway.

 

The most elaborate sanity loss system is in the 4E genre supplement Horror Hero: Endless Nightmares. That gave detailed rules for exposure to both sudden extreme emotional/psychic trauma ("Shock") and long-term stressful environments ("Stress"). Steve Long told me that he prefers not to have those rules posted to these public forums, because he's not sure how he'll want to use them in future books. However, if you're interested you could PM me - I think I could set you up.

[i3ullseye]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

Thanks for the input all. I have seen the aforementioned rules, but my real problem with them is they all seem to work too fast. And then it is all or nothing. You resists and resist then POW, you have a disadvantage. I wasnted soemthing that was a bit more of a wasting effect, and a slow crawl... where every bit that impacts you is noticable, if ever so slightly.

 

But I don't want people to lose it completely on their first encounter or two.

 

I think I may have a compromise, and I will post it back to here once I have some details fleshed out, because i would love more feedback on it.

[pinecone]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

I think it depends on how mechanics based you want it...I once used poker chips very sucessfully...if something jarring happened I gave you a chip...if it was real bad you get a blue one...etc....the players can feel the dread as they see their stacks get higher....when they asked what they were for I smiled and said "I get to cash them in and hose you"

 

They got real worried about getting too many...then figure what they are worth and use them to give Unluck or Psch lims and the like....or use them like plot points...I don't see math and mechanics as sacred, as long as you get a good result...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

Thanks for the input all. I have seen the aforementioned rules, but my real problem with them is they all seem to work too fast. And then it is all or nothing. You resists and resist then POW, you have a disadvantage. I wasnted soemthing that was a bit more of a wasting effect, and a slow crawl... where every bit that impacts you is noticable, if ever so slightly.

 

But I don't want people to lose it completely on their first encounter or two.

 

I think I may have a compromise, and I will post it back to here once I have some details fleshed out, because i would love more feedback on it.

 

Well, I think this may be possible using the Transform approach if any PCs involved would be willing to roleplay the result. For one thing, the effects of Transform are supposed to be visible before the Transform fully takes effect. With a Mental Transform affecting the target's sanity, that could manifest as a character becoming increasingly moody, irritable, paranoid or otherwise "twitchy" in his behavior. Not necessarily enough to affect combat or Skill use, although this might justify some of those penalties to related Skills that you were talking about.

 

Secondly, you could use the Partial Transform Advantage to inflict "lower levels" of insanity at the one-third and two-thirds BODY damage levels (comparable to Cosmetic and Minor Transform effects). Besides the Skill penalties mentioned above, the lower levels of effect might result in less severe Psych Lims than with the full effect, or less frequent, or allowing for bonuses to the Ego Rolls.

[gojira]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

Well, obviously you've said that you are looking for something different, but I do like the idea of adding psych lims as the player delves deeper into the mythos.

 

Would not this work for slow deterioration?

 

So say your players start as normal, healthy people.

 

They have an mythos adventure, and about half the group aquires some sort of psych lim. Nothing crippling, and the activation (?) roll is quite low -- it does not come up in play much. Do require that they roleplay their new quirk.

 

So half the group is still ok, and about half are a just little twitchy.

 

As play progresses, eventually they all have at least one quirk to roleplay, and the truly adventurous, maybe have three or four. The activation rolls are still low for most of them, maybe only one player has a psych lim at the 50-50 level of 10-. That person is still good about half the time even if his lim is active. If he afraid of the dark, or rats, or has a strange adversion to certain elder signs, he has a tough time, but otherwise he is ok.

 

Now just keep adding on those psych lims, and increasing the activation roll for existing ones. This should happen every other adventure, tops, in most cases. Don't increase all rolls at the same time, just select one psych lim that was used during the adventure and increase that one by one. Or don't increase any activation rolls, but add a new psych lim at the starting level. As those activation rolls slowly creep up, the characters will slowly slide towards doom. They will become progressively more useless in more and more circumstaces.

 

Eventually you will have a character that can only function in bright sunlight on Tuesdays while holding a red umbrella. By then they are ready for the funny farm.

 

I would start rolls at, hmm, about 7-, and slowly increase them from there. By the time the activation is 15-, the character should be regarded as totally loopy for that lim, and no further increase is needed.

 

 

Meh, I'm not trying to say "You must do it this way", just trying to give you a couple of ideas.

[i3ullseye]

Re: Going Crazy!

 

Ok, without too much detail since at least one of my players reads and posts here...

 

I am going to go with the slow cummulative transform effect, and the result will vary each time. The transform will be based on EGO. Some creatures or events will generate more than 1 pip of transform, but most things are a base of 1. But there is a catch....

 

You will use EGO to resist this gain, but it will be blind rolled by me. The reason it is blind is there is a negative penalty applied. this penalty will be based on certain skills, perks, talents or powers. The more of these flagged items you have, the larger your penalty on your EGO roll. The higher your skill ranks or active points on these items, the higher your EGO roll penalty. This means a bit of book-keeping on my part, but the list of items won't be too long and it puts no extra work onto the players.

 

The cummulative transform to the EGO will also act as a negative modifer to this EGO roll, but I want to play with it or a bit and see how much of a negative I want it to cause. As you slip away, you start slipping faster and faster.

 

But since i don't want an over-night snap, I am going to make it a multi tiered drop. After the transform has doubled the EGo once, the player permanently gains a 5 pt disad... and a permanent reduction to furute EGO rolls of some as yet determined mystery amount. Second time through it is a 10 pt disad, and yet another EGO roll penalty against chaos. third time through is a 15 pt disad, and unless things are really weird for the character, this should just about have them committed.

 

Now even with a transform, I am hesitant to arbitrarily assign disads with no real point balancing benefit to the player. I am NOT sayifn i am matching it 1 for 1, but there will likely be a side benefit at each rank. It will be a sort of poetic double edged sword type thing, and will differ from character to character, and situation to situation.

 

Example.......

 

Long story arc where the player has to descend into dark crypts on multiple occasions, and each time rats swarmed him and his freinds. They hear a deep sound in the distance that sounds much larger than any normal rat. As this goes by for a few stragiht days, the sound gets louder, and closer, and he is sure he hears it hissing and squeaking out words in some language. As he is the only one who speaks Egyptian in the group, he starts to udnerstand the words directing the rats to feed on the gorup, and infest the food supply.

 

Since he speaks the lingo, he starts losing it a bit faster than the others. when they finally come face to face with a 15 foot long rat beast, and one of their team is rips to shreds in front of him, he snaps. this is when the EGO roll fails, and the transform has doubled his EGO. From that point forward he gains a phobia of rats... and he is permanently at -1 on all rolls VS chaos.

 

But since he is so on edge about rats, and heard them in the distance, he becomes hyper vigilant about it. He gains a +1 on all hearing related perception rolls as his paranoia has him always on alert for the crawling in the walls.

 

The disads are clearly worth more points that the single point of perception bonus, but it thematically ties in and takes the edge off this first neurosis.

 

Any suggestions other than this? Agian, I don't want to spell out any hard mathematical numbers on this, and a lot fo it I will be winging honestly to fit the situations best. But this is where I think i will go with it.