Psychological Stress House Rules

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Immediate downtime to recover – one month of recreation per point – can prevent this psychological trauma from becoming permanent. A Psychology roll (usually from a friendly PC), allowed once per month, can even reverse a point of old damage.

It's certainly a good explanation for why the PCs don't spend all their time between missions on training. 200h/CP can add up real fast, especially if you have the resources of a government espionage agency to back you, keenly interested in improving your ability to fulfil missions.

[Glimmerman]

Originally Posted by Sindri

They're nice rules, I had read over them before posting this. How have you found it to work in play?

To be honest I haven't used much SLA style Sanity rules for Player Characters expect now, because earlier there wasn't right theme (horror or mind-games) and personal player preferences. But I have checked when NPCs will get edgy or snap.

I didn't find original link from internet for whole rules anymore, but here is link for info I've made based on Maz's posts.

Stress rules are integral part of my latest high-fantasy Arabesque Ruins and Relics campaign, where they work. Energy cost for all spells is reduced by 2 (expect for Blocking spells), but anything larger reality bending puts a great strain on your psyche.

[Genesis]

I used the Stress/Derangement rules from Horror with only minor tweaks in a campaign I ran a couple years ago, and they worked ok. The Derangement, in particular, worked great - it takes so long to wear off that by the end of the story more than one of the characters was developing serious issues. The Stress rules, on the other hand, seemed quite lenient to me. It seemed like day after day of near misses, dead bodies, night-time noises and failed fright checks didn't have any cumulative toll - no one ever got more than a few points of Stress at any one time, and it got wiped clean every day.

In the end, I quite liked the 'death spiral' mechanic of accumulating Stress and Derangement subtracting from future fright checks, and I ended up using that quite a bit: add some Stress, use that penalty to hose the PCs when the sanity-blasting checks showed up and add another point or two of Derangement. Rinse off the Stress overnight, repeat the next day. When we get around to season 2 I'll surely keep the general feel of the mechanic - it works well for horror games - but I'll change the stress rules somehow... not sure how, exactly, but I've got to work in some medium-term consequences. That is to say, something between adding permanent disads to the sheet and being jumpy for a few minutes. I want day/week-scale accumulation - something to model the PCs coming to the end of their rope after a week of nightmare.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Sindri

So I'm messing with house rules for psychological stress and I figured I'd see what other people have done since I know a number of people have done things like this and it would be nice to collect them in a thread anyway. What modifications of things like mental fatigue and Horror's Stress and Derangement or new systems in the same general style have you come up with?

I haven't done much, yet, in my own designs, but part of my conception of Sanity mechanics, e.g. for use in Sagatafl, is that you recover lost Sanity more speedily if in a tranquil enviroment, such as monastery, or an insane asylum (of course, this assumes that the staff will actively keep the more extroverted and obnoxious asylees from bothering you), or even a subtly magical place such as Rivendell.

I envision using a fairly coarsegrained system with maybe four mundane steps going from no recovery to supercalm place, and above that comes various subtly magical steps (possibly even an overtly magical one like a magical sleep where you're out for a moon and wake up with a healed mind), but if one wants to use a more fine-grained approach, one can distinguish between such recovery speed stages as being constantly on the road, renting hotel and motel rooms, or couch surfing all the time (which to my mind might actually be less restful than accomodations that you pay for staffed by more-or-less service-minded staff), relative to home-sweet-home where all of your books are and your favourite couch and everything is just nice.

As for actual stress rules, how SAN loss happens, I still have very little in that department.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Kromm

The most obvious effect has been that the players insist on getting downtime for the PCs so that they don't become hopeless messes. That's fine with their nominal superiors, who are after all an "enlightened" cabal out to make the world a better place. Their backers understand that psychological trauma is a real thing, and that less-active, sane operators are more useful than constantly active, crazy ones who will create more problems than they solve. In short, it has led to more believable pacing.

It has also led to including a party member (Qoqa) who knows Psychology and taking her counsel seriously.

It has led to another party member (Anabel) acquiring a bevy of minor-but-annoying problems. She's has a bit of Lady MacBeth syndrome. Let's just say that being clean is very important. She has also vomited over Bad Things.

Most of the others have staved off permanent problems thanks to the downtime and the party shrink. But . . . what has actually happened is that they've used the points earned toward negating psychological harm to buy off their old "ordinary folks" disadvantages instead of the new cold-killer disadvantages. That is, their disadvantage points have stayed fixed but represent something different and a bit scarier. I allow this, as it's within the spirit of my intended rules: The PCs are no more messed-up but they're twitchy in ways that show evidence of their actions.

I'm glad I asked, focusing on buying off old disadvantages is an interesting effect.

Originally Posted by Glimmerman

To be honest I haven't used much SLA style Sanity rules for Player Characters expect now, because earlier there wasn't right theme (horror or mind-games) and personal player preferences. But I have checked when NPCs will get edgy or snap.

I didn't find original link from internet for whole rules anymore, but here is link for info I've made based on Maz's posts.

Stress rules are integral part of my latest high-fantasy Arabesque Ruins and Relics campaign, where they work. Energy cost for all spells is reduced by 2 (expect for Blocking spells), but anything larger reality bending puts a great strain on your psyche.

Thanks for the link.

Originally Posted by Genesis

I used the Stress/Derangement rules from Horror with only minor tweaks in a campaign I ran a couple years ago, and they worked ok. The Derangement, in particular, worked great - it takes so long to wear off that by the end of the story more than one of the characters was developing serious issues. The Stress rules, on the other hand, seemed quite lenient to me. It seemed like day after day of near misses, dead bodies, night-time noises and failed fright checks didn't have any cumulative toll - no one ever got more than a few points of Stress at any one time, and it got wiped clean every day.

In the end, I quite liked the 'death spiral' mechanic of accumulating Stress and Derangement subtracting from future fright checks, and I ended up using that quite a bit: add some Stress, use that penalty to hose the PCs when the sanity-blasting checks showed up and add another point or two of Derangement. Rinse off the Stress overnight, repeat the next day. When we get around to season 2 I'll surely keep the general feel of the mechanic - it works well for horror games - but I'll change the stress rules somehow... not sure how, exactly, but I've got to work in some medium-term consequences. That is to say, something between adding permanent disads to the sheet and being jumpy for a few minutes. I want day/week-scale accumulation - something to model the PCs coming to the end of their rope after a week of nightmare.

The stress rules do seem like they disappear pretty fast unless you're just totally unable to relax. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

I haven't done much, yet, in my own designs, but part of my conception of Sanity mechanics, e.g. for use in Sagatafl, is that you recover lost Sanity more speedily if in a tranquil enviroment, such as monastery, or an insane asylum (of course, this assumes that the staff will actively keep the more extroverted and obnoxious asylees from bothering you), or even a subtly magical place such as Rivendell.

I envision using a fairly coarsegrained system with maybe four mundane steps going from no recovery to supercalm place, and above that comes various subtly magical steps (possibly even an overtly magical one like a magical sleep where you're out for a moon and wake up with a healed mind), but if one wants to use a more fine-grained approach, one can distinguish between such recovery speed stages as being constantly on the road, renting hotel and motel rooms, or couch surfing all the time (which to my mind might actually be less restful than accomodations that you pay for staffed by more-or-less service-minded staff), relative to home-sweet-home where all of your books are and your favourite couch and everything is just nice.

As for actual stress rules, how SAN loss happens, I still have very little in that department.

It's nice to encourage characters to spend time in more tranquil settings and engage in indulgences in addition to the matter of pacing. Stress and Derangement have a number of modifications for better or worse environments. I especially like the creation of a meal analogue for Stress for engaging in relaxing indulgences though I may use a different sort of mechanic for it.

[Crakkerjakk]

I also like the Stress and Derangement rules for any game approaching remotely realistic.

Another thing is something a player in my DF game came up with, that new quirks and disadvantages gained from fright checks are treated like crippling wounds. That is, you roll Will after the scary situation is over to see whether it fades immediately, sticks until you get some down-time, or requires professional help and a lot of down time and CP to buy off.

Finally, I really liked the horror rules from Nemesis, the horror version of ORE. As you get exposed to mental trauma, you tend to harden. Basically, you can get Fearlessness, but it tends to be counterbalanced by being seen as "odd" by normal people. They break it up into four different types of mental trauma (Violence, The Unnatural, Self, and Helplessness) and you can become more resistant to trauma by succeeding at a Fright Check related to the type of trauma that you're exposed to, but becoming hardened in this way starts to impact your ability to empathize with others. People who are hardened to violence tend to find things funny instead of horrific, or don't see the problem with backhandedly threatening to cripple someone who is annoying them, that kind of thing.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

I also like the Stress and Derangement rules for any game approaching remotely realistic.

Another thing is something a player in my DF game came up with, that new quirks and disadvantages gained from fright checks are treated like crippling wounds. That is, you roll Will after the scary situation is over to see whether it fades immediately, sticks until you get some down-time, or requires professional help and a lot of down time and CP to buy off.

Finally, I really liked the horror rules from Nemesis, the horror version of ORE. As you get exposed to mental trauma, you tend to harden. Basically, you can get Fearlessness, but it tends to be counterbalanced by being seen as "odd" by normal people. They break it up into four different types of mental trauma (Violence, The Unnatural, Self, and Helplessness) and you can become more resistant to trauma by succeeding at a Fright Check related to the type of trauma that you're exposed to, but becoming hardened in this way starts to impact your ability to empathize with others. People who are hardened to violence tend to find things funny instead of horrific, or don't see the problem with backhandedly threatening to cripple someone who is annoying them, that kind of thing.

Extending the crippling wounds rules like that is interesting, I'll have to remember that.

Personally since hardening shouldn't be automatic I'm inclined to just let the player choose whether to purchase things like Fearlessness to represent developed resistance.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Kromm

In my secret-agents campaign, I use a simple house rule:

After each assignment, the PCs must make a Will roll. If the job involved killing, torture, or similar unpleasantness, there's a penalty equal to the Fright Check penalty for encountering bodies in the state or number involved, whether the PCs witnessed those acts or committed them. Even if there's no physical violence, a roll is required at no modifier. Disadvantages liable to be triggered by the events of the mission (e.g., Charitable or Selfless if the bad guys were starving innocent villagers) give -1 per -5 points of value.

Would Unfazable make you immune to this?

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Personally since hardening shouldn't be automatic I'm inclined to just let the player choose whether to purchase things like Fearlessness to represent developed resistance.

Well, the trick is you CAN'T get hardened without losing some of your humanity. Interesting mechanic.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Well, the trick is you CAN'T get hardened without losing some of your humanity. Interesting mechanic.

It is interesting but I'm not sure whether an absolute prohibition is suitable outside of a horror game. Having a certain level of resistance be explainable as intrinsic resistance or side-effect free developed resistance but requiring further levels to come with disadvantages might work as a less extreme option.