Insanity, Mental Scarring...dark powers *Possible Spoilers* Options

[Sharkman]

My campaign arc has pulled in much of the standard canon for the meta-plot and as my runner team moves forward and grows in power they are increasingly exposed to the Horror's/Dark/Shadow Spirit side of the meta plot and the long term threat to the Sixth World...etc...

How have others handled the threat of corruption/insanity. The more they are exposed to these dark things I would like to have temporary or semi-permanent risk to mental instability or possible corruptions and I was just looking to see how others have handled this?

Thanks,

[Karoline]

Call of Cuthulu's sanity points maybe? Don't know how that game handles it, but for SR you could give them sanity points based on their mental stats, and then when they are faced with something 'dark', you roll X dice, and hits equals how many sanity points they lose. Or maybe it is an opposed test, so that once they start losing points it is a slippery slope since they can't roll as many dice to 'defend their sanity' with.

Maybe base sanity points equals (mental stat total)/2 and a really really 'dark' thing would have about 12ish dice on their 'sanity attack'. Would be sanity attack vs sanity points, with net hits being loss of sanity points. Sanity points restore at a rate of one every hour of (conscious) rest in which they aren't being presented with anything dark.

Could adjust the numbers, maybe make it full mental stats if you want bigger numbers to work with, or average if you want it to be small numbers. Might make it just based off will and logic. And of course can adjust the recovery rate to suit your purposes.

Could set up that anyone with less than half their sanity gets whatever, people with no sanity get whatever, and negative half sanity (sanity attacks would be unresisted and get bonus dice) get whatever, and negative sanity is when stuff really hits the fan for the character.
Once again, can be adjusted to suit the needs of your campaign.

[Doc Chaos]

I wouldn't use all mental stats (why would CHA factor in?), but otherwise it sounds like a good idea. Maybe make it like this:

A new 'SANITY' attribute for dice rolls. SAN = (LOG+WIL)/2
A new 'SANITY POINTS' health monitor. SAN PTS = LOG+WIL

[Karoline]

I wouldn't use all mental stats (why would CHA factor in?), but otherwise it sounds like a good idea.

Because CHA is force of personality, not how good you look. It is used as 'power' for mages in astral combat, and it is used in composure tests (which is basically what sanity would be).

If any stat wouldn't factor in, I think it might be Int.

A new 'SANITY' attribute for dice rolls. SAN = (LOG+WIL)/2
A new 'SANITY POINTS' health monitor. SAN PTS = LOG+WIL

Personally I like the idea of the DP and the points being one and the same (kind of like init), as it gives a slippery slope which I think makes sense. Once you start going insane, you continue to descend into insanity much more quickly. Of course that can be GM preference. If they want a linear decent, then your method would work better.

[Doc Chaos]

If any stat wouldn't factor in, I think it might be Int

Which I didnt (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Good point on CHA. I'd go with

A new 'SANITY' attribute for dice rolls. SAN = (CHA+WIL)/2 (so its basically based on strength of mind and will)
A new 'SANITY POINTS' health monitor. SAN PTS = LOG+WIL (because theres only so much the logical mind can 'explain' away)

I can see where you are going with your approach. I'd favor mine though, better chance of characters that live through a few more adventures before finally going clinically insane.

[Laodicea]

I like the idea of a sanity stat.

I'm wondering if a mage or adept who goes insane would become a burnout, or just an insane mage. If your answer is burnout, I might recommend adding their initiate grade to their sanity checks. It would make sense that going insane would have a pronounced affect on someones magic, and that the stronger they are in their tradition, the less likely they are to let events shake their faith.

[Karoline]

I like the idea of a sanity stat.

I'm wondering if a mage or adept who goes insane would become a burnout, or just an insane mage. If your answer is burnout, I might recommend adding their initiate grade to their sanity checks. It would make sense that going insane would have a pronounced affect on someones magic, and that the stronger they are in their tradition, the less likely they are to let events shake their faith.

I'd say insane mage, possibly combined with a tradition swap, but not necessarily.

[CollateralDynamo]

Insane mage = toxics or in the worst case Bug shamans.

In Cthulu you have a sanity score that starts in the 80s or 90s, to pass a check you need to roll equal to or under your current sanity. If you fail you take a hit (usually on the order of a d10) and even if you succeed you still suffer one or two points of loss. You can gain back some of these sanity points through psychotherapy (i think 10% of what you lost rounded up can be gained back) but the rest is lost forever.

There are also two types of insanity in Cthulu, temporary madness, which occurs when you lose a significant chunk of your sanity in a limited amount of time. This causes you to go completely bonkers instantly but you can recover rather rapidly if you are restrained. The other type is legitimate insanity which results from having a low sanity. This is generally a permanent state and once a character gets to this point you have to check them into the nut-house before they hurt someone or themselves.

To reflect this in Shadowrun I would think a mechanic similar to initiative would work. Everyone has a sanity score of say will+cha(maybe also +logic). When they may suffer sanity damage they get to roll their sanity score against a general strength (like a toxin). So very scary things are say strength 6, then the player suffers strength - hits on their sanity score check number of sanity drain.

Immensely scary things, such as actual horrors come into the world would likely still do a minimum amount of sanity drain if you wanted to be 100% true to Cthulu, likely still causing a point of sanity loss no matter what.

This gives you your slippery slope mechanic. The only problem I foresee is that a standard min-maxed street sam would end up with a pathetic sanity of 4ish (or maybe 6 if you include logic).

[Karoline]

This gives you your slippery slope mechanic. The only problem I foresee is that a standard min-maxed street sam would end up with a pathetic sanity of 4ish (or maybe 6 if you include logic).

And that's what the standard min/maxed street sam gets for being a standard min/maxed street sam. Mages, hackers, and TMs have to deal with all kinds of problems from having low physical stats, why shouldn't sams have problem from having low mental stats?

[CollateralDynamo]

Hey, i didn't say it wasn't fair. I'm just saying that a Street Sam who sees a horror who automatically deals 10% of his total minimum forces him into insanity...those chrome buggers are usually insane anyways.

[LurkerOutThere]

Or you could just leave the mechanic alone, because players often hate it and it doesn't make much sense.

The Sixth world is traumatic, massive population die offs, awakened landscape, hostile gangs, invaders from other realms. Whle there are certainly cases where people are mentally damaged by these experiences I would make the argument that your average person, and especially your avetrage shadowrunners is more ready to accept and more equiped to deal with horrors and problems, virtual reality and mass media couple with the return of magic really would take the sanity breaking down to the scary and the scary down to "Just another bug hunt" for many shadowrunners.

Put simply, sanity score doesn't fit shadowrun, the characters arn't mewling investigators accidentally stumbling across cultists and things man was not meant to know. They are well paid sociopaths occasionally hired to punch Cthulu and get him to stop eating Gaiatronics experimental merrew habitat. Hey that's not a bad idea for a run actually.

[Doc Chaos]

Well, I think its not a surprise that not many of the people in the books who fight the horrors are cybered...

[SkepticInc]

Augmentation p163 : Cyborg and Cyberzombie negative traits

Covers dementia and whatnot. On page 161 it gives a Willpower + Intuition roll vs threshold 1 every month or start picking up the negative traits. I would recommend using the same mechanic.

[Doc Chaos]

As Karoline already said, Intuition just doesn't make sense in this context and I agree.

[Laodicea]

Or you could just leave the mechanic alone, because players often hate it and it doesn't make much sense.

The Sixth world is traumatic, massive population die offs, awakened landscape, hostile gangs, invaders from other realms. Whle there are certainly cases where people are mentally damaged by these experiences I would make the argument that your average person, and especially your avetrage shadowrunners is more ready to accept and more equiped to deal with horrors and problems, virtual reality and mass media couple with the return of magic really would take the sanity breaking down to the scary and the scary down to "Just another bug hunt" for many shadowrunners.

Put simply, sanity score doesn't fit shadowrun, the characters arn't mewling investigators accidentally stumbling across cultists and things man was not meant to know. They are well paid sociopaths occasionally hired to punch Cthulu and get him to stop eating Gaiatronics experimental merrew habitat. Hey that's not a bad idea for a run actually.

This is certainly a fair point, particularly in the case of shadowrunners. I have had NPCs in my games that were ostensibly more powerful mages than any of the shadowrunners characters. Why wouldn't these NPC mages just do a job themselves? Because they lack the mental fortitude it takes to do what shadowrunners do. There's no stat for it, but shadowrunners are generally ok with death and dismemberment on a level that would sicken most people.

[SkepticInc]

Yea, Shadowrunners have a tendency to break their arm punching out Cthulhu though.

[Draco18s]

I wouldn't use all mental stats (why would CHA factor in?), but otherwise it sounds like a good idea. Maybe make it like this:

A new 'SANITY' attribute for dice rolls. SAN = (LOG+WIL)/2
A new 'SANITY POINTS' health monitor. SAN PTS = LOG+WIL

Sanity points should be like any other condition monitor. 8 + (stat/2). Logic is a good choice, as Will is already used for Stun.

Likewise the defense pool always matches the condition monitor's stat, so Logic again.

Ideally you'd use Willpower, but its unfortunately already taken for Stun and resisting Magic, but if you wanted to, you could do (logic + willpower) / 2 for both (so 8 + [logic + willpower] / 4 for the SAN track, round up (eg 8 + (4+1)/4 = 10).

[SkepticInc]

Sanity points should be like any other condition monitor. 8 + (stat/2). Logic is a good choice, as Will is already used for Stun.

Likewise the defense pool always matches the condition monitor's stat, so Logic again.

Ideally you'd use Willpower, but its unfortunately already taken for Stun and resisting Magic, but if you wanted to, you could do (logic + willpower) / 2 for both (so 8 + [logic + willpower] / 4 for the SAN track, round up (eg 8 + (4+1)/4 = 10).

The way that Cthulhu stories seem to work (in my opinion, which is a big caveat) having an analytical, logical mind is a severe disadvantage. Logical minds need to sort things, and the more you try to sort the Book of Brain-Fracking into logical components, the more mad you go.

[Draco18s]

The way that Cthulhu stories seem to work (in my opinion, which is a big caveat) having an analytical, logical mind is a severe disadvantage. Logical minds need to sort things, and the more you try to sort the Book of Brain-Fracking into logical components, the more mad you go.

Which is why I don't like it too much, but Charisma doesn't seem appropriate, and using Willpower just overloads that stat.

[SkepticInc]

Which is why I don't like it too much, but Charisma doesn't seem appropriate, and using Willpower just overloads that stat.

You might use Essence, as the lower Essence gets the crazier the individual gets. You might even force Essence loss for crazy-go-nuts time. You might get murdered by your players though.

[Sharkman]

Thank you for the many opinions and ideas...very interesting things to consider.

[Draco18s]

You might use Essence, as the lower Essence gets the crazier the individual gets. You might even force Essence loss for crazy-go-nuts time. You might get murdered by your players though.

Hey, that's an idea.

Even low essence characters would have 9 sanity points though (8 + 1/2!). So they shouldn't get too upset.

[Simon Kerimov]

Hey, that's an idea.

Even low essence characters would have 9 sanity points though (8 + 1/2!). So they shouldn't get too upset.

True, but if you had them make sanity tests that took 0.1 Essence away on failure, street sammy would likely be a little bit upset.

[Laodicea]

It might help explain why anyone would actually choose to embrace cybermancy, though. Being already mostly insane, and having dangerously low essence, it could start to look pretty appealing. I am of course talking about individual motivations of the character, not the player. The power gaming player obviously wants cybermancy.

[Draco18s]

True, but if you had them make sanity tests that took 0.1 Essence away on failure, street sammy would likely be a little bit upset.

I don't think anyone suggested such a thing. It'd be sanity boxes just like you have stun boxes. It's not like taking a point of stun reduces your willpower.