Quote:
Originally Posted by Imbicatus
complex mental health tracking is more appropriate for horror than hack and slash.
|
Pretty much this.
—
The dungeon fantasy genre is about as far from the horror genre as you can get. The
Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game is pulled from
GURPS – which supports both of those genres and all the others, and which has optional rules everything (e.g., you can find the equivalent of "mental HP" on pp. 141-142 of
GURPS Horror) – and keeps only the parts that pertain to the dungeon fantasy genre. That genre is about Big Damn Heroes who, when faced with horrific monsters, fight them, destroy them, and take their stuff; it isn't about madness, fragility, and terror. Consider, for instance, what
Exploits has to say about disease:
Battling severe illness is a heroic struggle, but Dungeon Fantasy is about battles involving swords and sorcery. Though plagues resembling the real world's harshest, most life-altering sicknesses might ravage NPCs – sending the PCs on quests to find cures and save the day – the role of ailments contracted by delvers is to heighten the challenges of adventuring. Heroes certainly face disability and death . . . they just don't waste away in bed!
That's a big change from
GURPS, which has to support lots of genres, including ones where falling ill and perishing are important.
The
Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game quite logically treats
mental illness exactly the same way. In fact, since physical disease makes at least some sense as an attack for sewer rats or rotting undead, the game covers that it more detail than it does mental illness. As the rules also say:
Brave dungeon delvers don't have to roll when they encounter most monsters – even horrors like the walking dead – or "creepy" places, objects, or events (such as tombs, shrunken heads, and rains of blood). For professional adventurers, that stuff is just part of the job.
Those who want that stuff should probably buy
GURPS, which includes rules for it all. Including that in the
Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game would be a bit like including rules for car chases or winning political campaigns there: You could do it, but it would be badly out of genre.