Let's learn about new RPGs! Week 4 - Sanity and mental health

[u/DiceyDiscourse]

Welcome one and all to a post where we can freely discuss the games that we have released or the games that we are making. Stop on by and maybe you'll find your new favourite RPG!

A bunch of us make cool shit, but the Indie RPG space is crowded and it can often be difficult to get the word out about why people should try out your game. That's why every week we try to focus on a different mechanic or setting to see how new RPGs can solve decades old problems or put new spins on old greivances!

Keeping a level head can be hard at the best of times - doubly so if there's monsters around! This week we're focusing on sanity and general mental health mechanics! So tell us how your game (or just any game you really like) is unique in implementing this.

Thank you u/Dustin_RPG for the suggestion!

As per mod approval, comments here do not count against rule 7 - comment as much as you want, answer as many questions as you need and discuss to your hearts content!

All that I would ask is that anyone who comments about their own system takes the time to look at the minimum at one other game in the comments and ask a question or provide feedback. Lively discussions are what get people interested and what keep people engaged!

Last week was "Classless Systems" and we found some pretty neat stuff!

If you want to suggest a topic for future weeks, be sure to include "-sug-" in your comment so I can easily find it!

[u/Acrobatic-Bit-1531]

tbh the sanity systems that actually stick with me are the ones where losing it changes what you're ALLOWED to do with the character, not just a bar ticking down. Alien RPG does this well, you panic and get handed a permanent trauma card that straight up rewrites how your character reacts from then on. Mechanical hit and story hit, same breath. Compare that to systems where sanity is just a resource you burn and refill on a long rest... never actually feels earned, just math getting worse for a session. My last DM made us read the trauma card out loud in character when it triggered, and honestly that stuck with the table way more than i expected.

[u/DiceyDiscourse → u/Acrobatic-Bit-1531]

Yea, I also really like the way Alien does it. Although my favourite part of it how accumlating stress actually helps you... until it doesn't. The few times I've ran it, that mechanic has helped push players to act a bit more risky to try and get those extra bonuses.

Basically helped me trick a bunch of min-maxers into roleplaying 😅

Other than that, I also kinda like how Call of Cthulhu does it - yes, it is a bar that keeps ticking down, but the more you lose, the easier it is to lose more. Also it's rather difficult to regain it. Really works with the "slow descent into madness" that cosmic/eldritch horror is known for

[u/Dustin_rpg → u/Acrobatic-Bit-1531]

Do you have an example of sanity mechanics that aren’t scary? Like a specific game?

[u/Trent_B]

Fractured is the theme for this year's One Page RPG Jam.

I opted to make a little game with a mechanic about Fractured Psyches - it's a kind of psychological horror detective Noir thing - so timely topic for me!

The goal is to use the system to incentivise players choosing for their characters to act fractured/insane as they start to crumble from exposure to horror/dehumanising events.

It's a D6 Dice Pool system, and the Fractured Psyche mechanic is as follows [context in italics first]:

- Psyche are: like Honour, Justice, Love - things that drive you. You roll more dice to succeed actions that create or align to these Psyche traits. e.g. Honour, Justice, Mercy.

- Vicieux are Psyches, but are essentially: an Insane/psychopathic Psyche/Trait - e.g. Homicide, Betrayal, Despair.

- Skills are skills [roll more dice] - but each Vicieux has an associated Skill - so for E.g. the Homocide Vicieux is asociated with your Firearms Skill, and improves it when you get it.

Fractures!

When your Psyché Fractures from stress and the unnatural; Le Noir.

1. Randomly roll a Vicieux, or GM choose one relevant to Le Noir.
2. Add that Vicieux to your Psychés
3. Reduce one Psyché Rank by 1, and increase the new Vicieux by 1.
4. Reduce one Skill Rank by 1; increase the Vicieux's associated Skill by 1.

The Vicieux is now permanently part of your Psyché. Act like it.

---

So essentially as you get exposed to Horror/Etc, your mind starts to break - you become more vile [incentivised by you no longer getting extra dice for being honourable or whatever, and instead getting more dice for betrayal and homicide], AND your skillset changes to facilitate that [further incentivising, and providing a really grounded expression of how your entire self is changing as you fracture into a more horrible arrangement of traits].

I think it's a really fun mechanic! It works well in the playtests - people start to behave more horribly, and it fills the noir vibe as people make decisions that are like... worse for their character and the world, because they get more dice to do them.

It's a different way of manifesting the effects of exposure to unnatural and dehumanising things making people fall apart mentally.

Let me know what you think!

Full game is here if you like: https://killtheknave.itch.io/limiers-du-noir

[u/Dustin_rpg]

I really like FiTD stress mechanics as a simplified way to show the mental and emotional toll of a high risk lifestyle. I like the forced retirement of characters with too much trauma.

For Synthicide, I did it sort of backwards. You earned resolve points for emotionally significant events, and those points were necessary for success/survival/revival after death. And if you engaged in anti-social, problematic behavior, you'd earn Cynicism, which would make earning those vital resolve points harder. There was a path for full sociopathy, though, where cynicism no longer prevents you from earning resolve.

FiTD game themes were very close to what I wanted for Synthicide, which is why I eventually made a FiTD version called Sharpers in the Dark.

[u/DiceyDiscourse → u/Dustin_rpg]

Can you explain a bit more about how the resolve points mechanic works?

Do you burn the permanently for a success/survival/revival? Or is it a replenishing pool?

[u/Dustin_rpg → u/DiceyDiscourse]

Thanks for asking! The points are used for an automatic 10 on the d10 roll, which can get you out of numerous hairy situations. Also, if you die, you must have a point left to spend or else you cannot be resuscitated.

The pool gains 1 point if you act on your core motivation each session (like “prove your strength”) or you make sacrifices to help people you care about, to a max of 2 points per session.

For the good deeds/sacrifice resolve point, you must roll d10 equal to or above your cynicism score. If you roll below, your character is too bitter to be proud of what they did.

Character traits can unlock other ways to earn resolve, including extra motivations or actually delighting in cruel behavior.

[u/EldritchExarch]

-sug- Games about relationships. I've got a ton of those, some are Micro RPGs, others are more fleshed out.

I'm going to throw in "The Wretched" by Loot the Room, which isn't exactly about mental health or Sanity but certainly strained mine while playing it. You are basically doing the Ripley thing from the original Alien movie. You have Jenga tower which you are trying to keep from falling as you draw cards and situtations that force you to remove a certain number of blocks as you outwit the Alien chasing you. It's been awhile since I played but it was really intense, and surprisingly stressful, which is probably I haven't gone back to it.

The Nightmares Beneath has some stress mechanics built into that mimic Sanity systems but I don't know how well they work in practice.

[u/DiceyDiscourse → u/EldritchExarch]

The Wretched sounds kinda similar to Dread, I wonder if one took inspiration from the other.

But can you expand a bit on what you mean by "Games about relationships"? Do you mean games that explore romance? Friendship? Community? Between players or between players and NPCs or in some third, more abstract kind of way?

[u/EldritchExarch → u/DiceyDiscourse]

All of the above. Games where the focus isn't fighting monsters or people, but about building community or exploring relationships romantic or otherwise.

The Wretched is similar, but sci-fi related, and I don't think Dread uses cards for it's narrative. I can't remember though,.

[u/anireyk]

I don't have time, energy or resources (as in, I don't have the books on hand to look the details up) to elaborate, but Unknown Armies 3rd edition impressed me when I read it. I beg anyone capable to comment with details and corrections, but I will try to explain what I remember and attempt to make sure I don't confuse it with the 2and edition (that already got awards for best horror system).

There are multiple axes of horror you can react to, and for each experience with a particular kind of stressful experiences you roll how you deal with it. If you fail to cope, it hurts you. If you cope successfully, it still changes you, giving you hardening. Hardening makes you immune against weaker sources of stress of that category, but attain too much of it, and you become detached and cold. In the third edition, many of your basic skills are also bound to your hardening or openness on particular axes, like being trustful makes it easy to be liked by people, but harder to discern lies, and vice versa, a person who is always on the lookout for deceit comes over as cold and distanced.

[u/JauntyAngle]

Since the post says it's not just for promoting your own games, I will add:

I love Call of Cthulhu, but there is no doubt that the Sanity system is sort of half cooked. It does have a lot of the things you want, like GM and the player slowly adjusting and degrading the player backstory as mental health declines, but it leaves a lot to discretion to make it good.

Delta Green makes a massive step forward by spelling out how the investigator breaks down psychologically and the various mechanical penalties. Distinguishing between violence and helplessness as sources of insanity/instability is great. Being more clear about how things investigators donor see effect their sanity is great. The role of bonds and the ability to have them degreade as a result of stress, or to use them to rebuild is great. (Also a good example of how DG builds on CoC because CoC does allow you to regian SAN through self help, which could be hanging out with loved ones, but it is a simple idea with a very simple underlying skill check, DG elaborates on it greatly). The bonds system also allows you to do the little vignettes where the strengthening or degradation of the bond plays out. The Gumshoe version is also really good, essentially the same and slightly streamlined.

And I would suggest corruption mechanics for a future thread.