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

[Udoshi]

The easiest way to incorporate some sort of Sanity stat into shadowrun quickly and without headache or houserule-adjusting time is to.....

Give everyone a Sanity Condition Monitor. 8+Half Will. Or maybe Logic, or even edge. But pick a stat to pair it with, and go with it. Use that stat, or that stat x 2 to soak it.

When you reach a full sanity monitor, you don't pass out/ko - you go Temporarily Nuts. If you somehow manage to overflow the Sanity monitor, instead of dying and bleeding out, then its time to pick up negative mental qualities. As the sanity meter gets filled, a character takes Dice Pool penalties as normal, due to losing their grip slowly.

Healing your sanity monitor occurs when your character has time to relax, destress, and deal with this stuff. Treat it like stun damage, that can't be healed while something's aggravating it (So, basically, you can't go grab a massage and a cup of coffee while there's a mind-destroying horror around the corner - but once its dealt with and not making things worse, you can go home, take a nap, relax and shake it off.)

Thats my two cents, anyway. Simple, effective, easy to adjust to.

[Rand]

Sorry if this was put out there, I couldn't read through the whole thread (work and all that jazz). Here's how I would (and will) handle it:

Sanity Condition Monitor: 8 + (Will+Cha/2, round up)

It is just like your other condition monitors, with -1 at three boxes, -2 at six, and -3 at nine. These are modifiers to your Composure Test you must make everytime you encounter something of the nastiness (whatever it is in your game that would drive the PCs insane in the first place). The TN would vary depending upon the level of threat; a minor could be TN 1 or 2, while the equivilent of The Greater Outer Ones would be a 6+. (I would place meeting Cthulhu itself at a Composure (9) test, for example. Do-able, just not without Edge, and even then, not likely.) A failed Composure (Insanity) test does 2 things: 1) You become instantly, temporarily insane with a random insanity* or one chosen by the GM, and 2) the character gains the full Insanity Damage from that being. A successful test means they take one-half (round down) of the beings Insanity Damage (minimum of zero). That is applied directly to their Sanity Condition Monitor.

When you fill up your Sanity Condition Monitor you go Totally Insane (TI) with either a random insanity, or one you have suffered before or one the GM chooses. To "heal" insanity, you must go to a psychiatrist or psychologist for therapy. The therapist then attempts to heal your psychosis: Psychology Active Skill + Logic (Number of Sanity Boxes, 2 months). It costs 50Y*Skill Rating/session (1/week). if you have gone TI then you will be sent to a facilty for treatment: double your boxes of damage and the interval for purposes of healing, with the facility Professional Rating x2 as it's die pool. (Ratings: Dismal = 1, Very Poor = 2, Poor = 3, Average = 4, Good = 5, and High-Class = 6.) Glitches and critical glitches can cause "set-backs" or, even, new psychosis. (GMs discretion.)

The modifiers from the monitor could also apply to various (or All) social skill tests as their insanity makes it harder for them to interact with "normal" folk. No, 2 insane individuals do not "cancel out" each others insanities for the purposes of social interaction.

How's that?

[tete]

I like an Unknown Armies take...
Willpower+Logic vs a threshold
Hits over the threshold harden you (sociopath) where as missing it makes you insane. Once you have enough hits (or lack of hits) to pay for a flaw in BP you get something appropriate to your condition. Drugs and counseling can bring you back toward normal. (GM to track)
I also like the idea of the threshold being horrible stuff rating + (1/2 your Essence or Magic, whichever is higher). So people with cyberware are more likely to become sociopaths and magicians are more likely to go insane.

[Laodicea]

I like an Unknown Armies take...
Willpower+Logic vs a threshold
Hits over the threshold harden you (sociopath) where as missing it makes you insane. Once you have enough hits (or lack of hits) to pay for a flaw in BP you get something appropriate to your condition. Drugs and counseling can bring you back toward normal. (GM to track)
I also like the idea of the threshold being horrible stuff rating + (1/2 your Essence or Magic, whichever is higher). So people with cyberware are more likely to become sociopaths and magicians are more likely to go insane.

haha thats pretty good.

[Draco18s]

I also like the idea of the threshold being horrible stuff rating + (1/2 your Essence or Magic, whichever is higher). So people with cyberware are more likely to become sociopaths and magicians are more likely to go insane.

That doesn't work. High magic mages aren't going to go insane at the same rate as low essence characters, because one is high, the other is low.

Think about it.

Threshold for success on [DP] of N + 7 (high magic mage): go crazy very quickly.
Threshold for success on [DP] of N + 1 (low essence sam): go crazy slowly.

or

Threshold for success on [N + 7] of TH (high magic mage): go crazy slowly.
Threshold for success on [N + 1] of TH (low essence sam): go crazy very quickly.

Unless you intend for mages to go insane (loss of sanity) from the horrors while cybermonkies will get more cyber and become sociopaths through a loss of essence in an attempt to go crazy less quickly.