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Old 01-12-2023, 01:18 PM   #1
Queetser
 
Join Date: Jan 2023
Default Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

Hi,

I am going to lean into the horror aspect of Dungeon Fantasy RPG*. I'm going to give my inner Lovecraft/Howard/Wagner a day out to play. One of the defining elements of Lovecraftian horror is the lost of sanity due to seeing/experiencing things, 'Man is Not Meant to Know'.

I don't like the idea of crippling my players due to psychological or even physical disabilities before we get to March Madness (my tentative name for the truly otherworldly stuff coming after we get our feet wet).

To represent the loss of 'sanity' DF RPG GURPS provides helpful Disadvantages, everything from delusions and phobias, to odious personal habits or odd ritual behaviors, even quirks for lower level 'frights'. While not an absolute number like some game systems, I think that with a little work this will actually work better.

I am playing with the idea of having various Esoteric healing traditions as well as Holy/Cleric type of intervention being capable of restoring 'sanity' essentially allowing the characters to 'heal' the psychic/psychological damage perhaps with a quirk left over if the bout was of a particularly difficult nature. Or perhaps allowing some kind of healing over time. Or a combination of the two with particularly Holy/peaceful areas more conducive to healing.

I would appreciate any feedback.

*Not to say there won't be plenty of 'regular' DF RPG badguys. Plenty of room for Orc or Ogre soldiers/guards, undead being disturbed due to eldritch energies, or abominations being created by careless wizards and alchemist types or deliberately created by dedicated insane cultists, demoniacs (a word Lovecraft enjoyed using).

Sometimes a cannibal witch grabbing children to fatten up and eat is just a regular old cannibal witch, "Hungry fer victuals I couldn't raise nor buy."
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Old 01-12-2023, 05:40 PM   #2
Rolando
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

make good use of disadvantages like odious personal habit, compulsive behavior and obsession, that can be almost anything.

Phobias are great but tend to escalate, be too crippling or turn irrelevant. For example, fear of snakes because the big bad is snakes related in a dungeon fantasy means the adventure is also snakes themed, so phobia to snakes (or anything relating snakes) will be quite crippling.

In the above example instead of fear of snakes add a compulsive behavior to look in holes, nooks and crannies with a light source and a long stick, this represent the fear of having a snake hidden in typical snake hiding places. The character will act unhinged and will consume time looking for hidden snakes instead of traps and may be distracted, etc, but will not be crippling and from time to time will find something useful in one of those snake holes, maybe a snake and will kill it readily instead of fleeing in fright.
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Old 01-12-2023, 06:15 PM   #3
Queetser
 
Join Date: Jan 2023
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Originally Posted by Rolando View Post
make good use of disadvantages like odious personal habit, compulsive behavior and obsession, that can be almost anything.

Phobias are great but tend to escalate, be too crippling or turn irrelevant. For example, fear of snakes because the big bad is snakes related in a dungeon fantasy means the adventure is also snakes themed, so phobia to snakes (or anything relating snakes) will be quite crippling.

In the above example instead of fear of snakes add a compulsive behavior to look in holes, nooks and crannies with a light source and a long stick, this represent the fear of having a snake hidden in typical snake hiding places. The character will act unhinged and will consume time looking for hidden snakes instead of traps and may be distracted, etc, but will not be crippling and from time to time will find something useful in one of those snake holes, maybe a snake and will kill it readily instead of fleeing in fright.
Good advice. I don't want them to be emotionally broken, just maybe bent a bit!
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Old 01-12-2023, 06:32 PM   #4
sjmdw45
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Originally Posted by Queetser View Post
I would appreciate any feedback.
DFRPG mental disadvantages, like GURPS disadvantages, are a bit heavy handed and lacking in nuance. Even mild degrees of mental disadvantages have a chance to make you behave in insane ways: nobody in a non-comedic game wants to be forced to light a torch in the middle of a gunpower factory just because the torch is THERE and you rolled a 16 on your Pyromania-15.

The fundamental problem is that these disadvantages deprive you of choice. Instead of choosing between blowing yourself up (by lighting the torch) and causing yourself discomfort that gives you other penalties (the way hostile influence rolls do), you're simply at the mercy of the dice, and the only situational modifiers allowed relate to the strength of the stimuli not the strength of your desire under the circumstances not to give in: you'd think it would be harder for a single Lecher to avoid kissing a pretty girl who's obviously attracted to him than for a married Lecher to avoid kissing a pretty girl in front of her heavily-armed father Zeus and her husband Hades, but alas, consequences don't affect self-control rolls, so mental disadvantages are best avoided by RAW in favor of predictable traits like Code of Honor, which is too bad really (and a good reason to override RAW).

Would getting the disadvantages from Sanity loss turn this bug into a feature? Well, maybe if you rename "self-control roll" to "delusion roll" or something, and make it clear that yes, absolutely bonkers behavior like trying to make out with your sister is absolutely par for the course when you've been BRAIN DAMAGED BY CTHULHU.

Nevertheless, I'd recommend finding or inventing a different system for manifesting sanity damage in DF, rather than tying into the disadvantage system. Pick a system which constrains beliefs, not behavior. "You now believe being eaten by a shoggoth to be a delightful experience that most people, especially your loved ones, would enjoy if they would just give it a chance" still gives the player a lot of options for how to roleplay the delusion.

Last edited by sjmdw45; 01-12-2023 at 06:38 PM.
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Old 01-13-2023, 12:49 AM   #5
mburr0003
 
Join Date: Jun 2022
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Originally Posted by Queetser View Post
I would appreciate any feedback.
I recommend picking up GURPS Horror and reading up on the chapter on Corruption and Sanity, then GURPS Thaumatology and reading up on Threshold Magic (Thresholds and Tallies and Calamities), as well as the Reality "Snap-Backs" idea in Syntactic Magic and employ some of that as well.

I've combined Threshold magic with Corruption to nice effect in similar style fantasy games in the past.
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Old 01-14-2023, 04:16 PM   #6
Rolando
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

Many quirk level disadvantages are the best way of handling mild mental "damage" and corruption.

The regular mental disadvantages are always roleplayed, not just rolled for effect.

I believe GURPS/DFRPG handles that quite perfectly..

Remember a compulsive behavior may be mild or harsh, and then it may have a low or high self control roll, so there are two axes for control.

Following the example of a snake themed horror dungeon adventure (with some snake themed overland horror adventure), failing some sanity rolls make one of the characters nervous of small hiding spaces like holes in a wooden floor or walls, also behind cabinets, packed firewood, etc. The effect is just mild discomfort and mostly roleplaying, the character don't like to be near those unless they can see it or be ready if something comes from it, probably tell some hireling or fellow character to "watch that hole there" while passing by, this is a quirk (-1)

After more adventure and more sanity loss the player may get something new (fear of darkness, quirk level) or dial the fear of "snakes in hidden holes" up and turn it into a -5 Compulsive Behavior (check for monsters in small holes or cracks) with a self control of 15. Still a very mild disadvantage that is mostly roleplayed and pushes the character to take some time to check for evidently dangerous holes in floor or other places snakes can come from, but most people will find it barely amusing if at all, probably just party member will notice this character is taking some extra time to check for weird places or holes that are obviously empty, or things like checking the same hole twice.

After more sanity loss (this one is king rolling high when making fright checks), the disadvantage may still be -5 but with a self control of 9 or make it -10 disadvantage (will check for unusual places like cabinets and be nervous of people carrying lots of stuff like packed firewood) and keep the SC of 15 or maybe 12, so the character will not act like a maniac most of the time, but now fellow character see something is going on this character is probably not talking about.

That is why the disadvantages are great as sanity loss symptoms, you can control severity and frequency, also intensity by changing the compulsion to check holes (as fear of hidden snakes or monsters) to an actual phobia of snakes or monsters, or delusion (the snake god is going to get me through one of those dimension doors in the holes in the walls!).

Also, remember not all fright checks will result into sanity loss, you may tally the failed rolls (and by how much some of the nasty roll succeeded probably) for some nasty horrors. So sanity loss is more a flavor thing and not a crippling freakshow maker.

Also remember, each failed roll or even some successful rolls, if not by enough, will lower the will for future fright checks if they are related and/or if the situation gets worst.

If you have access to GURPS Horror it will help a lot more too, in many ways, it is a good read by itself.
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Old 01-14-2023, 07:48 PM   #7
sjmdw45
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Originally Posted by Rolando View Post
The regular mental disadvantages are always roleplayed, not just rolled for effect.

I believe GURPS/DFRPG handles that quite perfectly..
Roleplaying quirk-level disadvantages like Lechery works fine, but the mechanics of self-control rolls is where it all falls apart, because roleplay is complex and situational, whereas self-control rolls are simplistic and context-free.

I may as well share my houserule for restoring roleplay to mental disadvantages:

1. Roleplay your mental disadvantages per their description.

2. If you try to resist your mental disadvantages, make a self-control roll per DF Adventurers.

3. HOWEVER, on a failed self-control roll, you are not forced to act out the disadvantage. Instead, choose between

3a. Act out the disadvantage, per DF Adventurers as usual, OR

3b. Accept a distraction penalty on all success rolls until you overcome the disadvantage. A pyromaniac might find his mind drifting back to that one PERFECT bonfire that he could have set (if not for the fact that it would have killed the party); a lecher might find himself fantasizing about an attractive individual; these undermine readiness. The penalty is -1 for a mild disadvantage (self-control roll 15), -2 for moderate cases (12), -3 for severe (9), and -4 for crippling (6). New self-control rolls can be made after 1 hour, 1 day, and every day thereafter. A successful self-control roll ends the distraction and allows the character to put it out of their mind.

Result:

Roleplaying takes precedence, and you don't have to worry about being forced by die rolls to act out of character. If you're playing a devoted family man with Greedy (12), you can roleplay your greed to your heart's delight in every way that makes roleplaying sense, without the danger that you will murder your own family just because someone offers you $10,000. The very worst that could happen is that you'd be distracted, obsessed, and guilty for a while about the fact that part of you WANTS to take the $10,000 and perhaps fantasizes about having all that money.
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Old 01-15-2023, 02:39 PM   #8
Rolando
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Panama
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

That is a good house rule, I usually don-t have problems with self control rolls because my players tend to not use them much, instead they roleplay the disadvantage and we tend to go along in a way that doesn-t disturb the adventure nor the other players.

I can see why the rule may be kind of all or nothing as written tough.

For serious games it may upset the drama and turn the game into something silly, but again, there are multiple ways a pyromaniac can act or a lecher when losing self control, and many of them may be very serious and not silly at all, but at the end these are serious disadvantages (-15), so those are better not granted until a lot of sanity is lost.

If you grant -1 to -10 as sanity lost effects you will probably will be fine with no house rule.
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Old 01-15-2023, 06:01 PM   #9
malloyd
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Originally Posted by sjmdw45 View Post
Roleplaying quirk-level disadvantages like Lechery works fine, but the mechanics of self-control rolls is where it all falls apart, because roleplay is complex and situational, whereas self-control rolls are simplistic and context-free.
Well not really. What happens if you fail a self control roll isn't usually specified in any detail. The reason for that is the roll is to avoid the problem entirely, and the intended effect is if you fail it, you have to role play your problem even though you didn't want to in this scene. If you are [already] roleplaying your disadvantage to the satisfaction of the GM, you don't need to attempt a self control roll in the first place.

But yeah, distraction penalties are a pretty reasonable way of "playing" a disadvantage in a scene if you can't think of a better one, or your group dynamic means the GM needs to impose something mechanical.
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Old 01-15-2023, 06:29 PM   #10
sjmdw45
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Default Re: Sanity and other Soul-shaking horrors

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Well not really. What happens if you fail a self control roll isn't usually specified in any detail.
Greedy: "Failure means you’ll do whatever it takes to get the payoff, however illegal or ill-advised."

Gluttony: "Failure means you partake – regardless of the consequences."

Cowardice: "Failure means you must refuse to endanger yourself unless threatened with greater danger!"

Bloodlust: "Failure compels you to try to kill your foe instead – even if that means compromising stealth, straying from a plan, or (in town) breaking the law."

Compulsive lying: "Make a self-control roll to tell the truth even to your friends (roll out of sight of the other players!). Failure means you lie – regardless of the consequences."

Kleptomania: "Failure means you must try to steal it."

Miserliness: "Failure means you won’t spend the money."

Obsession: "Make a self-control roll whenever you believe (rightly or wrongly!) a course of action would bring you even a bit closer to this. Failure compels you to pursue that path regardless of the consequences."

Pyromania: "Make a self-control roll whenever you have an opportunity to set a fire, attack using fire, or stand around appreciating a fire. Failure means you do exactly that, regardless of the consequences."

Many of these are conceptually interesting from a RP angle, but that insane "regardless of the consequences" clause makes them infeasible to roleplay as written, except for a madman.

These are caricature traits, not character traits.

Last edited by sjmdw45; 01-15-2023 at 06:32 PM.
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