Temporary Insanity duration vs Bout of Madness - Summary duration

[Greggers]

Sorry if this question has been answered already, but I searched this message board and google, and found nothing.

Per the Keeper Rulebook, the duration Temporary Insanity is determined by 1d10 hours.

Also per the Keeper Rulebook the Bout of Madness - Summary, an experience that takes place within Temporary Insanity, often has a duration determined by1d10 hours.

What if the Bout of Madness duration roll exceeds the Temporary Insanity duration roll? 

Which takes precedence?  And does the end of the Bout of Madness, either capped by the Temporary Insanity limit or the Bout of Insanity limit, eliminate the Underlying Insanity phase? 

What is best practice here?

[tendentious]

By the rules I'd say that, while Temporary Insanity (TI) begins at the same time as a Bout of Madness (BoM), Temporary Insanity is not a requirement for a Bout of Madness.

In the case of a BoM that lasts 1d10 hours, at the end of the bout the character may or may not be suffering TI depending on the duration of the TI.

If they're lucky, once the BoM ends they have recovered and suffer no further effects: ie, the TI duration was equal to or less than the BoM duration.

Otherwise, after the BoM, they are still vulnerable to a further BoM from a single point of SAN loss: ie the TI duration was greater than the BoM duration.

Also consider the case where a character suffers a BoM for 1 hour and is TI for 10 hours. The BoM ends, but the character may suffer another BoM if they suffer any SAN loss in the next 9 hours. Suppose that after another 8 hours they lose 1 point of SAN, prompting another BoM. By the rules the BoM doesn't extend the duration of the TI, or begin a new period of TI. And if the BoM were to go for 2 or more hours, at the end of the bout the character would recover with no TI.

Underlying Insanity (UI) is not really a factor when suffering BoM, as a character cannot suffer SAN loss during a BoM. Also Delusions, Phobias and Manias do not play a part in a BoM. These features only apply when the player has control of their character's actions, which a BoM precludes.

Edited November 2, 2020 by tendentious

[Lordabdul]

15 hours ago, Greggers said:

What if the Bout of Madness duration roll exceeds the Temporary Insanity duration roll?

Just take the lowest or highest roll, depending on how mean of a GM you are

In the case of the "Summary" bout of madness, the SAN loss happened "off screen". Maybe the investigator was studying a cursed grimoire, or watching some disturbing video recording, or something... the GM and player are supposed to only "summarize" what the bout of madness was about (as opposed to the "real-time" bout of madness that happens when the character loses 5 SAN or more in the middle of a scene). In many cases, you're just going to come up with something cool/funny/appropriate that the character did, and it doesn't really matter too much how long that lasted, because the investigator resumes "real-time" play much later, like the next day or something (depending on what they were doing in the first place). So I wouldn't give too much attention to that specific 1D10 roll, especially since it's worded as being optional anyway.

I'm actually wondering if that roll (on p158) is a typo, and was supposed to be 1D10 minutes, or something along those lines.

[mvincent]

On 11/1/2020 at 8:43 PM, Greggers said:

What if the Bout of Madness duration roll exceeds the Temporary Insanity duration roll? 

I think it might be writer's intent for them to be the same (i.e. referring to the same d10 hours). And either way: using one of the rolls would likely make the other roll superfluous.

Edited November 3, 2020 by mvincent

[greger]

On page 158, it says

Quote

In this way the investigator may be lost in madness and thus not under the player’s control for minutes or hours (typically 1D10 hours, or as the Keeper judges appropriate). Note that these minutes or hours are not played out; they are simply summarized by the Keeper.

So, I wouldn't be too hung up on the amount of time for the bout. I mean, decide what works best for the story.