I was thinking about madness while working on a project for Dungeon World. I have a cursed item that causes the wielder to slowly go insane. I want that to be a tangible mechanic, so I am going to make madness an amount that accumulates over time. My question to you is, should the maximum sanity a person has be equal to their Intelligence stat or their Wisdom stat? I plan on making a Get A Hold of Yourself move that functions like Last Breath but for when your madness would exceed your sanity (since you would essentially lose control of your character after you go insane) and I plan on it being a +WIS roll. For some reason I feel Intellect better represents a person’s capability for logical thought over allowing themselves to be driven insane, but WIS is used for mental fortitude when you use Defy Danger. See my dilemma?
Any suggestions are welcome =)
Brian Holland wrote something about this…
https://plus.google.com/101824580455031797035/posts/PWUe59Cr5Tv
Brian Holland wrote something about this…
https://plus.google.com/101824580455031797035/posts/PWUe59Cr5Tv
I wonder if it somewhat depends on the kind of horror you want to model. Is it an irrational kind of horror that attacks your understanding of the laws of physics? History? Everything you know to be true? If so, then it’s INT. If instead, you attack a person’s sense of well-being, identity, beliefs in social structures, everything you know to be “right.” Then it should be WIS. All that is just to say, yes, I see your problem!
I wonder if it somewhat depends on the kind of horror you want to model. Is it an irrational kind of horror that attacks your understanding of the laws of physics? History? Everything you know to be true? If so, then it’s INT. If instead, you attack a person’s sense of well-being, identity, beliefs in social structures, everything you know to be “right.” Then it should be WIS. All that is just to say, yes, I see your problem!
How about just tying it to HP instead, considering the “will to live” understanding of HP described in the Discern Realities podcast.
How about just tying it to HP instead, considering the “will to live” understanding of HP described in the Discern Realities podcast.
I’m no psychiatrist so don’t take this to heart, but I’m under the impression there are various forms of insanity. Dementia and loss of one’s ability to reason is one, but there can be other issues in which the character is fully functioning INT and WIS wise, but functions detached from reality. In such cases logical thought remains, it’s just distorted from what everyone around the character experiences. An example that springs to mind is the movie A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash keeps working his genius within the confines of an elaborate “secret project” delusion in his mind.
I’m no psychiatrist so don’t take this to heart, but I’m under the impression there are various forms of insanity. Dementia and loss of one’s ability to reason is one, but there can be other issues in which the character is fully functioning INT and WIS wise, but functions detached from reality. In such cases logical thought remains, it’s just distorted from what everyone around the character experiences. An example that springs to mind is the movie A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash keeps working his genius within the confines of an elaborate “secret project” delusion in his mind.
Ray Otus It’s whispering forbidden knowledge to them, not meant for mortal understanding. So probably more on the Intelligence side of what you are wondering. Which is why I leaned that way for the Sanity stat, but got caught up when I went to add WIS as the modifier to the Get A Hold of Yourself move.
Joshua Kershaw It doesn’t really match my style of how I interpret HP. I see it more like your physical wounds and your weariness/fatigue/ability to avoid being killed in combat. I appreciate the suggestion though, none the less!
Ray Otus It’s whispering forbidden knowledge to them, not meant for mortal understanding. So probably more on the Intelligence side of what you are wondering. Which is why I leaned that way for the Sanity stat, but got caught up when I went to add WIS as the modifier to the Get A Hold of Yourself move.
Joshua Kershaw It doesn’t really match my style of how I interpret HP. I see it more like your physical wounds and your weariness/fatigue/ability to avoid being killed in combat. I appreciate the suggestion though, none the less!
Gerardo Tasistro Thats a good observation, and it could make for interesting fiction while the player is going insane, but I just want a numerical value so players know their character is about to go completely off their rocker, which would cause them to lose control of their character, much like dying, only they become an NPC in the world until they die or their madness is removed somehow.
Gerardo Tasistro Thats a good observation, and it could make for interesting fiction while the player is going insane, but I just want a numerical value so players know their character is about to go completely off their rocker, which would cause them to lose control of their character, much like dying, only they become an NPC in the world until they die or their madness is removed somehow.
Scott Selvidge Maybe the mixed model (INT erosion, but WIS check) is okay. Maybe you Defy Danger WIS to know if you are insane or not. 🙂 That is, it’s one part of your intelligence keeping watch on the other. That seems oddly realistic to me.
Scott Selvidge Maybe the mixed model (INT erosion, but WIS check) is okay. Maybe you Defy Danger WIS to know if you are insane or not. 🙂 That is, it’s one part of your intelligence keeping watch on the other. That seems oddly realistic to me.
Ray Otus I think I agree, and that is probably why it made sense to me to do it like that in the first place. I guess I just needed some other peoples’ thoughts to justify my own thinking lol
Ray Otus I think I agree, and that is probably why it made sense to me to do it like that in the first place. I guess I just needed some other peoples’ thoughts to justify my own thinking lol
I think I’d go with strait wisdom. That way, as their wisdom declines, their Discern Realities roll gets worse and worse, reflecting their inability to accurately ascertain the real world around them.(It’s just an normal hallway…with a giant purple boil covered tongue picking at the moss between the stones…)
I think I’d go with strait wisdom. That way, as their wisdom declines, their Discern Realities roll gets worse and worse, reflecting their inability to accurately ascertain the real world around them.(It’s just an normal hallway…with a giant purple boil covered tongue picking at the moss between the stones…)
Behind the Eyes of Madness has a mechanic where mental trauma builds up and you either distract it to coping mechanisms or deal with it overflowing. I could see using Wis to keep a lid on your undistracted “insanity” and Int to distract some of those points to “harmless” things like delusions, phobias, or feelings of invulnerability.
vajraenterprises.com – Behind the Eyes of Madness | Vajra Enterprises
Behind the Eyes of Madness has a mechanic where mental trauma builds up and you either distract it to coping mechanisms or deal with it overflowing. I could see using Wis to keep a lid on your undistracted “insanity” and Int to distract some of those points to “harmless” things like delusions, phobias, or feelings of invulnerability.
vajraenterprises.com – Behind the Eyes of Madness | Vajra Enterprises
Joshua Kershaw There’s good and bad in that idea. It sets up a self-predicting death spiral model which means that once your sanity begins to erode it will erode at an exponential rate. (It gets harder and harder to make the “saving throws.”) The nice thing about the split model is that you can be very aggressive with racking up insanity points on someone and they still have a fair chance to make their WIS roll to be aware that their thoughts/sensory impressions are “wrong.” That is – you can feed their character all kinds of wrong ideas, but they can have the joy of either falling prey to them (failed WIS check) or playing a character who is battling inner demons (successful WIS check). Either way, the insanity points have an effect, but the issue is one of self-control. I have often been dissatisfied with the lack of subtlety in CoC mechanics in that regard. So the more I think about it, the more I believe the split model is more satisfying and warrants the small amount of extra complexity.
Joshua Kershaw There’s good and bad in that idea. It sets up a self-predicting death spiral model which means that once your sanity begins to erode it will erode at an exponential rate. (It gets harder and harder to make the “saving throws.”) The nice thing about the split model is that you can be very aggressive with racking up insanity points on someone and they still have a fair chance to make their WIS roll to be aware that their thoughts/sensory impressions are “wrong.” That is – you can feed their character all kinds of wrong ideas, but they can have the joy of either falling prey to them (failed WIS check) or playing a character who is battling inner demons (successful WIS check). Either way, the insanity points have an effect, but the issue is one of self-control. I have often been dissatisfied with the lack of subtlety in CoC mechanics in that regard. So the more I think about it, the more I believe the split model is more satisfying and warrants the small amount of extra complexity.
Scott Selvidge I’m going to steal a concept from my black swan mechanics and propose the following. Introduce a madness mechanism based on rerolls and add of values less than or equal to one’s madness level.
For example with 2d8. My madness level is one (slightly mad) then when I roll for madness I have to reroll and add any ones I get. If my madness level is two (mildly mad) I reroll and add all ones and twos. As madness progresses I’m forced to reroll ever higher values and add them to the result, making it harder to stay sane. So if I have an INT of 14 and I roll 2d8 (while mildly mad, rerolls of one and twos) and get 7 and 6 for a total of 13 and I’m not going crazy just there and then.
On the other hand if I roll 2 and 6, I have 8 so far but I have to reroll and add the 2, getting a one I now have a standing total of 9 (8+1) and I reroll again getting a 6 which takes the total to 15 and triggering a madness episode. The difference between the attribute and roll can be indicative of seriousness and duration. So a 15 over 14 is just a minor and short lived crisis, but as madness increases you will be rerolling higher values and obtaining larger differences.
Scott Selvidge I’m going to steal a concept from my black swan mechanics and propose the following. Introduce a madness mechanism based on rerolls and add of values less than or equal to one’s madness level.
For example with 2d8. My madness level is one (slightly mad) then when I roll for madness I have to reroll and add any ones I get. If my madness level is two (mildly mad) I reroll and add all ones and twos. As madness progresses I’m forced to reroll ever higher values and add them to the result, making it harder to stay sane. So if I have an INT of 14 and I roll 2d8 (while mildly mad, rerolls of one and twos) and get 7 and 6 for a total of 13 and I’m not going crazy just there and then.
On the other hand if I roll 2 and 6, I have 8 so far but I have to reroll and add the 2, getting a one I now have a standing total of 9 (8+1) and I reroll again getting a 6 which takes the total to 15 and triggering a madness episode. The difference between the attribute and roll can be indicative of seriousness and duration. So a 15 over 14 is just a minor and short lived crisis, but as madness increases you will be rerolling higher values and obtaining larger differences.
Ray Otus Your Bad aspect of my idea is a good one for me. I like the idea of a downward death spiral of insanity. As your wisdom slips away, it becomes harder and harder to keep hold of your sanity. This seems more realistic and more dramatic.
Additionally, it’s a simpler mechanic, which I appreciate.
That being said, I would probably do something at the end so that if the character survives, they are able to recover their wisdom somehow. Perhaps a magical item or location. This could also be an excellent opportunity for a really interesting Compendium Class. The idea of coping mechanisms is interesting, but ultimately I don’t see things like delusions, phobias, a sense of invulnerability, etc as being coping mechanisms, but more symptomatic of one’s loss of sanity. IMO
Ray Otus Your Bad aspect of my idea is a good one for me. I like the idea of a downward death spiral of insanity. As your wisdom slips away, it becomes harder and harder to keep hold of your sanity. This seems more realistic and more dramatic.
Additionally, it’s a simpler mechanic, which I appreciate.
That being said, I would probably do something at the end so that if the character survives, they are able to recover their wisdom somehow. Perhaps a magical item or location. This could also be an excellent opportunity for a really interesting Compendium Class. The idea of coping mechanisms is interesting, but ultimately I don’t see things like delusions, phobias, a sense of invulnerability, etc as being coping mechanisms, but more symptomatic of one’s loss of sanity. IMO
That’s kind of what I meant Joshua Kershaw. Some people/games like/want that death spiral. It can be cool. Just needs to be a conscious decision. I, personally, have kind of burned out death spiral mechanics. I want a bit more nuance. When I play in a game with one, I usually feel like I am programmed by the game. My player agency matters less and less. But that’s not always the case.
That’s kind of what I meant Joshua Kershaw. Some people/games like/want that death spiral. It can be cool. Just needs to be a conscious decision. I, personally, have kind of burned out death spiral mechanics. I want a bit more nuance. When I play in a game with one, I usually feel like I am programmed by the game. My player agency matters less and less. But that’s not always the case.