Sanity systems

Losing sanity reduces the spacial curvature of the playing field.

Remember, when you reach 0 sanity, you don't become a dribbling lunatic. 0 sanity 'just' represents very severe PTSD or Psychosis.
You know, the kind of stuff that would transfer you from occult field-agent to occult desk-job, at best.

I believe they're best done when hidden from the players. I know my group at least have a hard time not meta-gaming on a casual level, "Oh, he saw that because his sanity is higher, cool". But it can take a bit out of the game to keep everyone engaged and invested if you have to describe something differently to a certain player because they're either seeing things that aren't real, or are real and that's worse.

I'm enough of a fan of mental health systems that I use them in practically every game that's not a purely lighthearted romp, since they give both the GM and the player something to work off.

I like simple and straightforward sanity systems. Something akin to Call of Cthulhu: You have a simple number that can go up or down and if you are reduced to zero sanity, you are out of the game, at least for a while. Under certain conditions you also take a permanent derangement. It's easy to handle, easy to keep track off and does what it's supposed to do.

>>52363118
Unknown armies had a pretty good one

>>52363998
How is it, then?

>>52364152
You have a bunch of tracks for different kinds of mind eroding stuff. If you encounter one of that type, you roll to resist against a certain difficulty. If you fail the roll, you get a failed notch, enough of which start to degrade your sanity. If you pass the check, you get a hardened notch which help you resist against that type of horror, but collect too many and you become jaded and get a bunch of penalties.
It's a bunch to keep track off and takes a lot of space on the character sheet, so it's great if you play an explicit horror game but unwieldy to port to other systems.

I like them but it depends on the game and what the host is trying to make you feel. Obviously if the entire point of a game is to make it a climb to eventually become a god while smashing giants in the face than it may be best to not have sanity or at least make it difficult to go insane.

If the entire point is to remind your players of their mortality or that there are strange going on than yeah Sanity is awesome.

I haven't really seen one that was all that satisfactory. They tend to assume a Cartesian basis for mental disorders that I just don't care for (as in they overlook the body portion of the mind-body equation).

>>52365711
For most sanity systems, I can understand why they do that. If you have a physical disability, it would work better as a purchased disadvantage than something that appears over time, and if you wanted to add in the effects of injury causing it, you'd have to keep track of which injuries go to the head, what region was damaged with a table for what effects it results in et c. It might work for something like Dwarf Fortress where all that happens in the background, but when you need to use it at the table you have to simplify it somehow.

Also this Captcha is so slow holy shit.

>>52365835
Well, I just mean it's a bit jarring to see a willy nilly assortment of disorders just develop spontaneously in response to trauma, when we're talking about disorders that themselves likely have a physiological basis as much as psychological.

>>52364441
I like this. I like it when mental damage sometimes "helps", but is also dangerous. Don't Rest Your head had nice stuff, but I don't have the book on hand and I don't remember the specifics.

>>52363118
Fun and atmospheric when done properly. Frustrating when not.

A good sanity mechanic is a slow erosion of a character's mind that is difficult to undo. A bad one is just a different kind of HP bar.

>>52365711
>look how smart I am for pointing out that a mechanic in an RPG is not a perfect simulation of reality

>>52363672
Sanity is important in CoC for yet another reason: as source for comic relief.

>>52366192

It can feel out of place in a serious game