Need tips for PC's with Max Sanity

[Grimmshade]

I've been playing Call of Cthulhu since 1st edition, but ion the last two campaigns I've come across a new "problem."

Some of the PC's (about half, so 2 or 3) gave gotten pretty lucky with Sanity rolls, and this the Sanity rewards at the end of adventures have taken their Sanity to max or near max levels. Now they never fail a Sanity check, and since must Sanity losses are 0/something or 1/something, they are never in much danger of any great sanity threat. 

At this point it feels like it will never change. I don't want to suddenly start forcing more or harder checks, because the other 2 PC's are the ones who will suffer the most for it. 

Any suggestions? We still have a lots of Masks of Nyarlathotep to get through. 

[Gray Raven]

Hmmm...

How many Mythos points do they have?

Does not the number of Mythos points a character has decrease that character's sanity points?  "Thus current Sanity points can never be higher than 99 minus the amount of Cthulhu Mythos Skill." pg 46 of Fifth edition in the section of Sanity & Insanity.

It would seem that having 90+Sanity would mean a near disbelief in anything Mythos-related, i.e., no Mythos points.  This should mean that any actual confrontation with a Mythos creature or any other tangible and verifiable evidence of such a thing would send these sane characters reeling since they could not handle the challenge of their disbelief in such things.

Thus their own sanity rolls for the extremely sane characters would be highly penalized, more so than the others who have Mythos and thus have the protection of lesser sanity.  The more you know, the closer to insanity you are; however, the more adept at handling the challenges of Mythos since you believe in them and can readily act to defend yourself from such threats.  Thus exceptionally sane characters would have no practical ability to cast any sort of magick or use or carry an Elder Sign.  (Though whether that is effective is questionable according to some texts.) These characters might also interfere with the other less sane characters, being annoyed and even angry at the less sane characters for acting so dangerously foolish as to believe in the Mythos, use magick, etc.

Does any of this help?

[Gray Raven]

As I ponder this even more, perhaps Sanity should also take away Mythos knowledge and points.

Just as Mythos is a threat to sanity, so too is sanity a threat to seeing and believing in Mythos.  The more sane you are, the more unconsciously fearful you are of holding onto that fragile grip of belief in so-called normality.  The higher the sanity, the more you would doubt and thus refuse to see and acknowledge Mythos.  I do mean literally see in this statement.  Seeing is an act of belief; seeing is a participatory physical and cognitive function.  It has been academically shown that you can fail to see something that you don't wish to see or don't believe is there.  There is the famous experiment with trying to cope with seeing a red ace of spades when it is flashed before your eyes.  Many people could not see it as either the color red or as a spade.  They had to distort what they saw into something that fit their preconceived views of what is acceptable.

Thus, a high sanity character might not be willing to notice sights, sounds, smells, etc., danger signals of an approaching Mythos being or such.  This would make them more vulnerable to attack - more easily surprised by any Mythos creature.  

Perhaps a rule that says that having 70 Sanity points is the threshold for retaining Mythos points.  Therefore any gains after 70 in Sanity points could result in a loss of 2 or 3 Mythos points.

This could also mean that the high Sanity character would not remember magick and would tend to remove any Mythos and Magick texts that they once had from their collection since having those texts would threaten their hold on their high sanity.  

[Grimmshade]

I don't really want to punish players/PC's for having a high Sanity. Mythos skill limiting Sanity is the mechanic basically handling your observations (that Sanity and the Cthulhu Mythos don't play well together.) 

I've had the idea of adding some more Mythos tomes that need skimming, and possibly a spell or two that need casting. It wouldn't make much sense for them to put the person with low Sanity on the case, so if they begin having high Sanity PC's read tomes and cast spells, that's some automatic Sanity loss, and probably some Mythos skill gain. It may all balance out. 

I guess story -wise it does make sense that their confidence (and sanity) against the Mythos would be bolstered after having some success against them so far in the campaign. 

[Gray Raven]

Curious, what are the specifics in this situation that you are dealing with?

High Sanity players have what amount of Sanity points and what amount of Mythos points?

[Grimmshade]

The highest is Cthulhu Mythos 4%, Sanity 95%. 

That's after the first two chapters of Masks of Nyarlathotep, and a couple of other published adventures I used as filler. The Sanity rewards for each adventure have outweighed the loss by a lot for some PC's. (Plus the ability to "self help" during downtime.)

Edited November 2, 2023 by Grimmshade

[Gray Raven]

Perhaps limit self-help for the lower Sanity players.  It would seem that the higher Sanity players would not believe that they need any self-help at all since they would naturally disbelieve in the Mythos.