[Horror] Why Roll vs Corruption So Early?

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Plane

Isn't that kind of like making players do random HT checks because they might be poisoned and not know it?

No, because it's not pointless harassment. It's a Horror game. The players are supposed to be worried, the more so if they've been fooling around with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Not checking for Corruption tells the player that they're still perfectly safe, which is sort of the exact opposite of creating an atmosphere of impending dread.

In this, rolling when only the GM knows whether the character has less then 25 points of Corruption is somewhat akin to the advice you often see for DF-style GMs to occasionally roll the dice to "check for wandering monsters" or occasionally call for Perception checks when there's no "trap" or sneaky ninja to find. GMs don't just soullessly implement dry mechanics; RPGs are interactive entertainment. All the people at the table should be trying to make a fun experience for all the others.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

No, because it's not pointless harassment. It's a Horror game. The players are supposed to be worried, the more so if they've been fooling around with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Not checking for Corruption tells the player that they're still perfectly safe, which is sort of the exact opposite of creating an atmosphere of impending dread.

You can keep an atmosphere of dread regarding disease/poison in other kinds of horror too though, not just soul-corrupting stuff. Like in After the End maybe GMs shuold make you roll like as if you were resisting radiation poisoning even if you weren't exposed?

You could have legit mundane reasons too, like maybe you make a HT roll to avoid infection every time a mosquito bites you even if it's not something serious like Malaria and it's a HT+10 roll you would automatically pass.