Underlying Insanity advice & ruling

[rune]

Hi. In need of UNDERLYING INSANITY-advice. I have a player whose character has survived three scenarios and his Sanity is seriously down. Furthermore; he has become Indefinite Insane triggering Underlying Insanity until treated. According to rules the slightest loss of Sanity during Underlying Insanity will trigger a new Bout' of Madness. ISSUE AT HAND: Violently interrogating a NPC while drawing close to the end of last session the Investigator with Underlying Insanity made a Sanity Check because of disturbing revelations and succeeded with a Normal success. No Bout' of Madness was triggered because he did not lose any Sanity. After rolling the Successful Sanity Check he knocked the interrogated victim unconscious and pulled him into a still burning pyre in the area. Leaving the victim as if it had been drunk and fallen into the pyre he afterward went to bed in the local motel. For "reasons" i would like to make the Underlying Insane Characters action of pulling the victim into the pyre a Delusion during Underlying Insanity. Making it so; that the whole deal with pulling the unconscious victim into the pyre did not happen - but something else,.. like he buried the victim in the woods. Would you think I can allow myself as a Keeper to do this??? Rules only describe Delusions during Underlying Insanity as "delusional sensory information" (p.162) which i interpret as visions and voices.

If I can/may pull it off then; In the upcoming session it is my plan to firstly let the Investigator wake up in bed in his motel room, then soon realize that despite his recollection of interrogation, knocking unconscious and pulling the victim into the pyre. He now realizes that he has dark mud covering his shoes and lower parts of his pants. Also, while expecting local people to react on the finding of a burned dead body in the pyre nothing happens,.. because no dead body was ever in the pyre in the first place.

[Atgxtg]

I wound not do that, as the character made his SAN roll and so shouldn't have been insane when he dragged the victim to the pyre. So there is really no reason for the player not to remember events correctly. A GM shouldn't make a player go insane just because it suits their idea for a story. 

That said, depending on why you want the PC to bury his victim in the first place, you could have someone/thing else come across the body on the pyre, bury it, and then plant mud on the unconscious PC. Now as to why they would do that, well that would depend on what else you had in mind. Maybe some NPC wants to blackmail the PC? 

IMO though, a better, and fairer, idea would be if the players memory of the situation got distorted after the fail a SAN roll in the future. Maybe they think the victim got away and they had to bury them to keep them from esacping again.  Maybe the victim keeps coming back, no matter what the PC does to dispose of the body. Maybe there is a strange string of killings as the PC repeatedly "recognizes" the victim on the street, night after night, and has to dispose of the body again. 

[EricW]

I think horribly murdering someone without desperate provocation is a pretty insane act. I think I remember reading somewhere to say sacrifice someone for a grisly magic ritual you have to *fail* a SAN check to proceed - so murdering people in gross ways gets easier as you lose sanity. Should probably lose sanity as well just for committing such an act, a save means you convinced yourself your action was justified. 

Edited August 3, 2023 by EricW

[Grimmshade]

8 hours ago, EricW said:

I think horribly murdering someone without desperate provocation is a pretty insane act. I think I remember reading somewhere to say sacrifice someone for a grisly magic ritual you have to *fail* a SAN check to proceed - so murdering people in gross ways gets easier as you lose sanity. Should probably lose sanity as well just for committing such an act, a save means you convinced yourself your action was justified. 

That's what surprised me the most; it doesn't look like the PC lost any sanity for outright murder. 

I don't think I'd force insanity/delusions on the PC at this point, but next time they are insane I'd definitely create some delusions about that murder. Have the PC see the man in public, maybe receive a phone call from him, or see his face in a fire, etc. 

[EricW]

9 hours ago, Grimmshade said:

That's what surprised me the most; it doesn't look like the PC lost any sanity for outright murder. 

I don't think I'd force insanity/delusions on the PC at this point, but next time they are insane I'd definitely create some delusions about that murder. Have the PC see the man in public, maybe receive a phone call from him, or see his face in a fire, etc. 

I think murdering someone even in self defence is worth a san check. People in desperate situations like soldiers can get inured to it to an extent, but a lot of them come back pretty messed up. I know someone who had do so something horrible in Iraq, I think what he did was right and justified, but what he had to do to achieve that justified outcome was so horrible it left him profoundly f*cked up. At a fundamental level he cannot reconcile committing such an act with being the good person he imagines himself to be, and actually is.

Edited August 3, 2023 by EricW