Modelling psychological damage

[coronatiger]

Several methods have been suggested for modelling some kind of mental or psychological damage.

The fright check table either gives temporary effects (stunned for X time, running away etc.) or permanent Disadvantages or Quirks. This is all related to fear of some kind, and may not be appropriate in all situations.

Corruption points turn characters gradually more evil, and can result in nasty Disads eventually, but I would argue that they model spiritual damage, not psychological.

Another method is to lower Will (temporarily, and possibly only for defensive rolls) after an unpleasant incident, to reflect the vulnerability of traumatized individuals.

Similarly, Self Controll rolls for certain Disads may be lowered to increase the chance of them triggering.

Other games/systems use some kind of mental hit points, often called Sanity Points, to model mental damage. The obvious way to port this into GURPS would be to base SP on Will the same way FP is based on HT and HP is based on ST. If you take only a couple points of SP damage, you suffer no ill effects, but if you cross certain thresholds, something might happen, just like with FP and HP.

What other methods have you come across?