halciber

8 hours ago, svensson said:

Casting the net just a little wider, Delta Green's system for SAN loss is just as devastating.

DG characters have 'bonds', people who are important to them - - the people DG operatives fight the Mythos for. But the more operations you go on, the more exposure you have to the Mythos, the more SAN you lose, the easier it is to damage or lose a bond-relationship. This means that as you gain experience you also erode the support system that is so important for you to regain that SAN.

On a personal note, I am a mental health patient with PTSD. The process of 'the better at your job you get, the crazier you get, the less support you have' rings very true to my experiences.

I'm not bringing this up to elicit sympathy or 'thoughts and prayers'. My intention to is just to explain why I think the DG system is authentic to the processes of mental health damage [aka SAN loss] and recovery. Just as in CoC, DG has processes by which SAN can be regained on a permanent basis, but the patient [aka the PC] must be willing to repair or form new bonds and make an especial point of maintaining them.

Hi Svenson,

Thank you for this input. Until your post, I hadn't heard of Delta Green. I just took a quick peek. Given what you wrote this makes sense to me. In fact the point of getting more experience eroding one's sanity was where my confusion lay. I just thought repeated exposure would eventually tear apart a person's mind, regardless of the mental health help they got. Furthermore, given the mythos is a hidden part of the universe, mental health professionals wouldn't necessarily  be exposed to the mythos, and thus treat everyone who's been exposed a sick people. And as a result giving the characters useless treatment. 

I'm going to take a deeper look at DG. I really appreciate your perspectives on this question.

Regards,

Mike

On 9/23/2022 at 7:20 PM, werecorpse said:

Page 164 - 168 of the 7e Core Rule Book.

In essence all San loss is to some extent permanent, it doesn’t recover like hit points do but equally San gain can be permanent as well. The only permanent reduction is that max San is (99-Cthulhu mythos). No other San loss permanently fixes a characters San at a number until a character reaches 0 when it’s all over.

The death spiral effect of losing San is that the less a character has the more they are likely to fail a San roll and thus lose a big chunk when they encounter shocking situation. Plus having low San means the indefinite insanity threshold is closer. Having a character with high San they almost always make their San rolls and lose 0 or 1 San multiple times where the low San character is failing and losing 1d4, 1d6 or 1d8 each time.

Thank you werecorpse. This explanation is really helpful. From your explanation it seems like that unless the characters are spending months in recovery between adventures, the small hits to sanity begin to add up. So, it becomes easier (over time) to succumb to more serious bouts of insanity.

I really appreciate your help. Thank you!

Mike 

Hello Everyone,

There is a part of the Sanity rules that I'm not clear on. The rules talk about temporary and indefinite sanity. This is clear. When reaching 0 sanity points, the character is 'permanently' insane. This is clear. What I'm not clear on is the character's ability to recover sanity points. From the temporary and indefinite sanity rules, it seems like sanity points lost in a game session can be recovered. It doesn't specify cases where points can't be recovered.

But I'm wondering if there are cases or events where a loss of points is permanent? For example, does studying mythos tomes cause permanent sanity point loss. Or encountering a horrible monster cause permanent point loss. What about a character regularly casting spells? Are these points always recoverable, or is there a point when the sanity points can't be recovered?

Thanks,

Mike

Thank you both for helping to answer my question. I appreciate it. Sorry for my late response.

Regards,

Mike

Looking at the skills in the Keeper's Rulebook, each one has a percentage in the title. E.g. Accounting (05%).

What does that mean exactly? What is this value used for?

Thanks,

Mike