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Fonitrus
I remeber early in my GMing endevours i started off running my players in a somewhat strong campaign that eventually ended up having the strongest character with the meanest rifle 10RC end up going In Character crazy because he chose to play out what happened to his character. The other weaker characters just pretended nothing would ever happen to their 'self-proclaimed' kings of steel nerves etc etc...

So that wa the most fun campaign because it added emotional change on the character that was affecting his gameplay abilities..
then recently i acuired some books (lent to me from this player who his charcter went crazy) which are the Call of Cthulhu rules.

one aspect of the Call of Cthulhu game i liked was the Sanity attribute. So I started thinking what and how would one go about introducing that into SR as either a house rule or even a separate mechanic just for roleplaying flare..
I know u can simply parralell track the Sanity using Call of Cthulhu rules but does anyone have any ideas on SR meld i mean d6 conversion?
Reaver
I require a Willpower check. A failed roll results in Intel loss. Which of course could be temporary or permanent depending on the failure results.
Siege
Willpower roll versus TN of "horror witnessed".

Apply a +1 TN per die of Cthulhu mythos knowledge.

Blow a roll and the GM rolls randomly on an insanity table, leaving the character with a mental flaw of some sort: phobias and so on.

-Siege
Jason Farlander
I don't like the idea of sanity loss being reflected as int loss. For starters, there are plenty of extremely intelligent madmen. Additionally, going insane shouldnt make you less perceptive... thats kinda silly.

Here is a system I thought of off the top of my head

Characters have a limited supply of sanity points, equal to the twice the sum of their int, will, cha, and ess. Each time a character encounters something utterly horrific or simply quite beyond the realm of their experience, have them roll willpower vs TN4. The GM assigns a difficulty between 1 and 6 based on how difficult the situation would be to cope with. If the willpower test generates no successes, the character loses a number of sanity points equal to the base difficulty; each success reduces the number of sanity points lost by 1. A botch indicates that the character loses one extra point of sanity. Re-encountering a situation that caused a loss of one of more sanity points in the past, or a situation that involves a phobia of the character, increases the TN by 1 (these modifiers stack) If the character's sanity points ever reach zero, the character snaps, and becomes controlled by the GM.

Attribute loss (and Essence loss) decreases the maximum sanity of a character by 3 sanity points per attribute point lost. This only affects current sanity points if the maximum sanity is decreased below the number of current sanity points the character possesses. The Decrease (Attribute) spell has no effect on sanity points.

Loss of sanity is not a sudden thing. For every 6 sanity points lost, or any time the character loses 4 sanity points from a single situation, that character gains one point of mental flaws. At the GM's discretion, these flaws can manifest as low point flaws or build towards higher point flaws, and may manifest at any time.

There are ways to regain lost sanity points. Raising a mental attribute through karma adds 2 points to your max sanity score and recovers half of the new attribute (round down) in lost points. Intense psychotherapy can recover small losses of sanity -- the psychiatrist rolls his or her psychoanalysis skill with a TN equal to 1/3 the total amount of sanity points lost. Each success allows the character to buy back one sanity point with 1 point of karma. Finally, the character can undergo an astral quest to regain sanity, with the details left up to the GM.

Hmm... that came out rather complicated... but I kinda like it.
Ancient History
Roll Willpower vs. Intelligence, add modifiers for Cthulu Mythos Knowledge and horror experienced.

Failure results in a mental flaw related to the horror experienced.
Botches results in magical or physical flaw.
Fonitrus
QUOTE (Ancient History)
Roll Willpower vs. Intelligence, add modifiers for Cthulu Mythos Knowledge and horror experienced.

Failure results in a mental flaw related to the horror experienced.
Botches results in magical or physical flaw.

hmm...interesting ideas...having never played Call of Cthulhu i cant trully say whats horryfying to what degree which brings me to another related question.

Often my players do nasty things to NPCs (pile drive them head first, decapitate, set on fire etc etc) just because they thought it was a 'smart' thing to do or it was 'cool' at the time to show off OOC to the group how 'leet' his character is. So with these events taking place would the character doing the nasty thing be subject to sanity test or just the other PCs who are watching him. Still reading parts of the Call of Cthulhu book...cant find anything that relates to Self-Induced Horror smile.gif
Siege
In the 1930's CoC book I have, it goes into some discussion about relative horror values.

Wandering onto one of Jack the Ripper's victims for someone of his day would be more shocking than perhaps someone of today given the relative amounts of gore and splatter we've become accustomed to.

With that in mind, your players' characters are a jaded, indifferent bunch -- fully resistant to the occasional nastiness.

Now, if the next time they take a chainsaw to a victim and the head leaps off, sprouts legs and jumps at the chainsaw wielder's face...well...that's a Horror of another color.

-Siege
Fonitrus
QUOTE (Siege)
Now, if the next time they take a chainsaw to a victim and the head leaps off, sprouts legs and jumps at the chainsaw wielder's face...well...that's a Horror of another color.

hmm... what if the head with legs was an illusion by a mage on which the player(s) did not succeed to breach...so they think its real..I think that also warants a sanity test?

i like to toy with my most OOC disturbing players who dont roleplay their characters or winge alot. So I have Sintex a level 4 initiate sorceror who likes to stalk my group and do powerfull illusions just for fun..never had the encounter with the group but he may be a shaman of some appropriate sort...just never needed to make him... smile.gif
Deep Blue
Why not just have a separate 'sanity condition monitor'? When you see something horrific, it'll have a sanity blasting 'power' and 'damage level' that can be resisted with willpower. Each box of lost sanity = 1 point worth of mental flaw, appropriate to the situation, permanent or temporary at Gm discression.
Siege
QUOTE (Fonitrus @ Jan 31 2004, 06:17 PM)
QUOTE (Siege)
Now, if the next time they take a chainsaw to a victim and the head leaps off, sprouts legs and jumps at the chainsaw wielder's face...well...that's a Horror of another color.

hmm... what if the head with legs was an illusion by a mage on which the player(s) did not succeed to breach...so they think its real..I think that also warants a sanity test?

i like to toy with my most OOC disturbing players who dont roleplay their characters or winge alot. So I have Sintex a level 4 initiate sorceror who likes to stalk my group and do powerfull illusions just for fun..never had the encounter with the group but he may be a shaman of some appropriate sort...just never needed to make him... smile.gif

As long as they think it's real, certainly.

Sight is our primary sources of information -- and we tend to believe it over other sensory inputs.

-Siege

Edit: And, just cause I have a dislike of your players, if they start meta-gaming "oh, it's just an illusion", have the damn head bite them and roll damage. grinbig.gif
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