Sanity

[Steve]

Adding a Sanity characteristic was mentioned in 6E, and I was contemplating how to use it.

 

There are two methods that I can think of off-hand. I was wondering which of these (or other methods) have others used?

 

1) Drains: Sanity loss is treated as a type of Drain attack, such as how the Kings of Edom are written up.

2) Presence Attacks: The way I would use Sanity with Presence attacks would be to count the Body on fear-based Presence attack dice as you would a normal damage attack and subtract that from the Sanity characteristic. I could imagine that a variance of Impairing or Disabling effects could be ported over from Killing Attacks to show how Sanity loss is making the character more twitchy.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Sanity

 

You could build it as a mental transform.

[Steve]

Re: Sanity

 

You could build it as a mental transform.

 

Using the SAN characteristic as the BODY to resist transformation into an insane person? That's an intriguing idea. It has some mechanical sense to it.

[Beast]

Re: Sanity

 

I would say use ego as body then transform to monkey with the characters psy lims

long term mind control(more a plot device than a power that any 1 creature has)

each new monster seen,horrible act seen or commited just adds to it

[Sketchpad]

Re: Sanity

 

I suggested a few versions of fear here

[ghost-angel]

Re: Sanity

 

I would treat it closer to Endurance. With two types of Sanity Loss to track.

 

Short and Long Term. Most things are short term Sanity losses, a spook, or encounter. Sanity is regained in REC per hour. Too much at once can cause some serious damage.

 

Every once in a while some one thing really pulls you out of reality, and you lose Long Term Sanity. You can't recover Long Term Sanity Loss until you've rested without any kind of sanity loss for a month. Every month spent like that you get your REC in Sanity.

 

If your Sanity drops to 0 or less you're a gibbering mess, can't think straight and are essentially mentally incapacitated. If it's caused by short term Sanity Loss keep tracking below 0. Every full 5 below (-5, -10, etc) you lose one Long Term Sanity Point. If Long Term Sanity reaches 0 you've gone bye-bye permanently.

 

Either way, horror is hard to do mechanically without Player buy-in. If the players don't buy in the mechanics are meaningless.

[gojira]

Re: Sanity

 

Using the SAN characteristic as the BODY to resist transformation into an insane person? That's an intriguing idea. It has some mechanical sense to it.

 

That's more or less what I was going to say. Define a new characteristic as SAN, assign it a point cost, and then add drains or side effects to powers to do the SAN loss. SAN probably counts as an "unusual defense" for point costs.

 

Fear might be 10d6 Mind Control, Fear Only, PLUS 1d6 Transform vs SAN, causes 1 pip of permanent SAN loss if successful.

 

Note: I'm still on 5e here.

[torchwolf]

Re: Sanity

 

Adding a Sanity characteristic was mentioned in 6E, and I was contemplating how to use it.

 

There are two methods that I can think of off-hand. I was wondering which of these (or other methods) have others used?

 

I have contemplated it as well, but still not decided if I'm going to just use EGO for that purpose; plus, I'm waiting for the APG.

 

As Sean Waters notes, Transform is good.

It was used in 4th Ed Horror Hero - each 1 pt of Cumulative Transform (which was usually 1d3) counted as that many points of an appropriate Psych Lim.

 

A more 6E way would be to use a Mental Transform vs EGO using the rules for adding/altering Psychological Complications. If you combine that method with PRE Attacks, the effects on EGO Rolls are nicely included.

 

1) Drains: Sanity loss is treated as a type of Drain attack' date=' such as how the Kings of Edom are written up.[/quote']

 

Entangle (mental paralysis), Flash, Mental Blast, Mental Illusions, Mind Control, Suppress... again, I'll wait for the APG until I get back to polishing that.

 

2) Presence Attacks: The way I would use Sanity with Presence attacks would be to count the Body on fear-based Presence attack dice as you would a normal damage attack and subtract that from the Sanity characteristic. I could imagine that a variance of Impairing or Disabling effects could be ported over from Killing Attacks to show how Sanity loss is making the character more twitchy.

 

I would do something similar for the purposes of shock and fear. The expanded PRE Attack provides some of the effects... though I think PRE (or SAN if you will) itself could function as a defense here; subtract say all or part of PRE as defense from the "Body" as well; alternatively roll PRE/5 d6, count Body on dice, subtract from Body of PRE Attack.

 

Sanity might be used as it is used in Call of Cthulhu (using about 1/5 or 1/2 of the San Loss guidelines), which would represent all aspects of mental health and psychological stability.

Here, SAN could be used in 6E.

For recovering SAN, I think Ghost Angel's ideas are excellent.

 

Sanity might also be used more like it is in Trail of Cthulhu, where Sanity represents unawareness of the hopelessness of being human; i.e. the effects of learning dirty cosmic secrets and losing your connection to being human. This might not be a bad idea, since cult leaders and sociopaths have similar distinguishing traits and possibly psychology.

For purposes of insanity in 6E, this might be best represented by Transform - similar to a Mental Transform, with gradual effects (Murderously Uncaring & Unempathic, Fanatic Worshipper of Kings of Edom; Very Common, Total; at EGO+25).

 

Stability in Trail of Cthulhu would represent a more "normal" mental instability, and might be better represented with a PRE Attack mechanic, possibly expanded as you suggested.

 

Of course, never forget to increase each consecutive PRE Attack slightly throughout any horror scenario climax to represent everyone getting stressed out - that's what makes the PCs really annoyed at that pet running around and leaping out of closets near the climax.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Sanity

 

If you own Fifth Edition, Revised, and check the "HERO System Genre By Genre" chapter -- or have the free PDF document of the same name -- the section on Horror gaming describes an optional Sanity stat and suggests how it might be used.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Sanity

 

If you own Fifth Edition' date=' Revised, and check the "HERO System Genre By Genre" chapter -- or have the free PDF document of the same name -- the section on Horror gaming describes an optional Sanity stat and suggests how it might be used.[/quote']

 

The same thing is in the 6E genre by genre section.

[torchwolf]

Re: Sanity

 

Oh yeah, Allen Varney posted his Horror World online:

http://www.allenvarney.com/anopheles.html

 

This worked very well, IME.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Sanity

 

I think if you're going to have a Sanity stat that functions to model mental stability in a similar fashion to the way Body models physical stability, and use Transforms and Drains to simulate terrifying, incomprehensible, traumatic and stressful situations and conditions, then you should probably work out what "partial effects" of Sanity loss should be, either ala Partial Transform or Impairing/Disabling wounds. Perhaps the person temporarily loses some Int, Ego or Presence. Perhaps they acquire a moderate, strong or total psych lim--a phobia, compulsion, delusion, psychosis or even a personality disorder. Perhaps they develop psychosomatic blindness in response to witnessing some horrific act (like Hank Hill walking in on his mom having sex).

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: Sanity

 

To date, I've never actually done a campaign that uses a Sanity characteristic, though I suppose it's doable. When modelling sanity loss effects, I've usually used something like the following:

 

Major Transform Xd6 (person into gibbering insane person, heals at normal rate provided the victim recieves competent psychiatic care during the recovery time), BOECV (Mental Defense applies; +1), Works Against EGO, Not BODY (+1/4); Limited Target (humans; -1/2)

 

(select a number of dice, apply additional Modifiers to taste, and you're good to go)

[megaplayboy]

Re: Sanity

 

Detromazine (a fictional pharmaceutical used to treat survivors of trauma):

Heal Sanity, 6d6, gradual effect(1 day)

 

Hyperdetromazine (a really souped up version used to treat survivors of extreme trauma):

Heal Sanity, 12d6, gradual effect (1 day), SE--may cause some memory loss

[SteveZilla]

Re: Sanity

 

Hyperdetromazine (a really souped up version used to treat survivors of extreme trauma):

Heal Sanity, 12d6, gradual effect (1 day), SE--may cause some memory loss

 

Also known as:

 

Tryphorgetin