[CoC] Variant Pulp Sanity Mechanic - Comments?

[Merak Gren]

Right. I'm not entirely happy with the current Sanity Mechanic and its death spiral.

I appreciate that to a third party, an unhinged mind will slip into madness more and more, unless cared for. They will see the at first few signs of madness and then see a quick deterioration as the madness takes over.

However, the way I see it, its not a true madness. In fact the person is actually seeing the truth and removing the veil of ignorance. To an ignorant mind, he might be considered 'mad' but he's not really.

To reflect this I propose to tweak a few things to eliminate the death spiral.

1. Roll SAN as normal when encountering a mythos creature.

2. On a failure (inc min SAN on success) SAN loss is not applied to Current Sanity, but is Shaded in starting at 1. For example Harvey losses 6 SAN. Shade in SAN points 1 to 6.

3. Next time Harvey encounters a different Mythos Creature, Roll SAN again. This time, for a loss see 2 above. For a success, either min SAN loss per 2 above or no effect.

However, if the roll is within the range of the shaded numbers, ie between 1 and 6 in our example, no SAN is 'lost' or shaded in, but min SAN loss is converted to Cthulhu Mythos Skill. This represents gaining an insight.

4. As Cthulhu Mythos increases, Max SAN decreases as normal.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

I haven't playtested this yet, but have been thinking about it a few days. I see that pcs will generally be more resilient to SAN loss as they are using POW x 5 most of the time. This will be eroded as PCs roll low and gain Cthulhu Mythos insights. With this version, I was thinking of tying Madness to thresholds of Cthulhu Mythos skill, so at POW x1 skill points, something happens. And so on. Similar to the way Insanity is worked in Dark Heresy.

Eventually the shaded part will consume all SAN points up to MAX SAN at which point, the PC is retired, considered seduced by the Cthulhu Mythos.

Thoughts? Feedback? Can anyone foresee any problems with this approach?

Cheers

Damon

[tedopon]

This is just my opinion, don't get upset if you disagree.

I think it's a waste of time using Sanity if this is your modification to the core mechanic.

I suspect I have many of the same issues with the Sanity mechanic as you do. It's a one way road to nowhere. I've tinkered with it in the past, but never came up with a solution that I felt kept the Doom vibe it adds to a game while being a bit more lenient.

My problem with your proposed solution (which, by all means, you should at least try) is that it is tipping the scale too far in the favor of the PCs. Not only are most frightening encounters nerfed, the PCs are getting a bone thrown to them for exposing themselves to horror.

My point is that if you're going to cushion the players that much, maybe you should scrap Sanity altogether.

I don't use Sanity in anything but CoC, and I haven't run a CoC game in years. What I developed (not saying you should use it, just throwing out an idea that shows that you can use something in the same vein that is a lot less damning to PCs) is a kind of hybrid of the Fort and Will saves from d20. It's called Composure, and is an average of your POW and CON multiplied by 4. In shocking situations, PCs have to make a composure roll. Depending on the intensity of the situation, I make the roll more or less difficult. Only in situations where PCs absolutely FAIL their roll via fumble, is there any long term effect (which is a permanent loss from that number), most times it's just a short term problem where they are shaken or something or other.

The point is that I don't run CoC. I've always seen the point of CoC as being driving characters absolutely mad. You get a real feeling of accomplishment keeping a character alive long enough to go batshit insane. Seems like adding a bonus on top of the reduced impact of the mechanic runs counter to the whole vibe of the game.

I'm pretty sure I didn't write a single relevant or useful word in my reply...sorry, my brain is like jelly after hours of reading stuff for school.

EDIT: Yes, there I notice after rereading that this is supposed to be for a "Pulp" game. I assume this means higher adventure pulp rather than Lovecraft style doom and gloom pulp. In that case, sounds fine. PCs in a game that's supposed to be heroic should be able to shrug stuff like that off routinely. See, my original post was bereft of utility...

Edited October 29, 2010 by tedopon

[Merak Gren]

Thanks for the comments.

Yes. Pulp game. I want to Run Masks of Nyarlathotep and want to give it a more Indiana Jones feel to it. Insanity is not going to be the theme of the game, but I wanted sonething to encourage Cthulhu Mythos skill.

[Merak Gren]

59 views. Nobody else have anything else to add?

Cheers

D

[soltakss]

59 views. Nobody else have anything else to add?

Cheers

D

I don't like SAN, won't use SAN and hence had nothing to add.

[Merak Gren]

I don't like SAN, won't use SAN and hence had nothing to add.

Fair enough.

[SDLeary]

I've been thinking about two different SAN mechanisms, neither of which would really work for Pulp I think.

One is an extreme adaption of the Unknown Armies method... and its really extreme, but using that for baseline. That is, a SAN mechanism where tolerances to certain types of trigger are built up over time.

The other, somewhat based on personality traits. Similar to what is in COC now, but where the adverse effects are more manifest in the way a person reacts or might be perceived to react. The downside to this is somewhat stricter enforcement, at least in certain circumstances, of personality trait value pairs as defining rather than guiding.

Neither one of these has been written up yet, much less playtested. But both, to me at least, don't sound like they would fit what your looking for.

SDLeary

[Trifletraxor]

Thanks for the comments.

Yes. Pulp game. I want to Run Masks of Nyarlathotep and want to give it a more Indiana Jones feel to it. Insanity is not going to be the theme of the game, but I wanted sonething to encourage Cthulhu Mythos skill.

I'm currently playing Mask of Nyarlatothep as a player. One way to get through the campåaign is doing what our GM does. Just soften up the sanity rules a bit. No crippling permanent insanities, generous SAN bonuses when accomplishing something, good effect from alcohol and pills addiction, players down at 0 SAN are pretty mad, but still retain control of their character and can get back up again without months on the asylum, at least until the campaign is done. Works to get you through the campaign, but probably not enough if you plan future campaigns with the same group later. My character is started out as a pretty sane cop, but have become a mad and hideous warlock. If he survives the campaign, the character will most likely retire afterwards.

SGL.

[rust]

I rarely use the Mythos and the Sanity rules in my Call of Cthulhu settings,

they are mostly pseudo-historical ones without a Lovecraftian horror element.

In the few cases where I use Sanity, a failed Sanity roll only means that the

character becomes temporarily insane, there is no permanent damage that is

carried over from one adventure to the next. The character is considered to

recover or to be healed between the adventures. The one exception is the

Cthulhu Mythos skill, which lowers a character's Sanity permanently and so

makes temporary insanity more likely.

However, I think this makes only sense in campaigns with a lot of downtime

between the adventures, in my campaigns of this kind there is usually about

one year between the adventures, so the characters have a plausible chance

to get back to normal within that year.

[deleriad]

I'm presently working on a RQII based pulp action based mod and have been toying with idea of making Sanity Points work much like Hit Points; i.e. you can lose them but they recover.

E.g. You have X Sanity Points (say 10 for argument's sake). As long as you remain on positive sanity then everything's fine. If you get reduced to zero though you need to make a test to remain (mostly functional). Taking more than your sanity threshold in a single loss means making a difficult test or go badly dysfunctional. Reaching -X Sanity means a test to either become permanently insane (effectively dead) or flip to the dark side and become a pawn of the eldritch ones and so on. It avoids the death spiral issue while still keeping insanity as a threat.

[Merak Gren]

Thanks for the replies.

Very thought provoking.

Cheers

Damon