Anyone else having trouble rationalizing CoC sanity loss?

[Olidammara]

It's amusing that people who believe they're creative can also be the least flexible.

If we were given the opportunity to somehow test this Cthulu gaming issue, I predict that those people here who cannot believe the possibility of sanity loss would be, ironically, the same people who lost their sanity first.

 

[Hammerhead]

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be sanity loss in CoC, it's part of the sub-genre.

However, based on almost every description of CoC games and my own rather limited experience, I think that the mechanics greatly overstate the problem. It seemed that sanity damage was being dished out for rather trivial reasons. "You see a dead alien, it looks really weird. Take 4 SAN." "The twisted spiral carvings seem to be the work of inhuman hands, certainly they were crafted by twisted alien reasoning. Take 2 SAN." If weird looking, alien art made people crazy, then we'd build sanitariums next to modern art galleries.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

But that sanity loss can be regained. Some of it is dished out easily, but that's because it's not necessarily permanent. That's what makes sanity usable in any game, really.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The worst thing the human mind can comprehend is trivial compared to the horrors of the universe as it really is in the world of HPL. If you can't even begin to imagine what the horror is how can you say, "Well I think we'd get used to it"?

 

[HeavyG]

Unless the character was a doctor or soldier. So why not be a doctor or soldier, become immune to show forms of san loss - the kind most likely to show up early, before the true Horror is revealed - and have the justification to pick up lots of useful skills?

Yes, but then, when you read the cultists' ledgers, you'll lose much SAN while your friend the accountant will be going "Wow ! I didn't know you could deduct THAT !"

It's all about hard choices.

 

[LostSoul]

I considered some of the tomes to speak to the subconcious in a hypnotic way. Reading those words in that order, looking at the images, is like hypnotizing the subject. Then horrific images get implanted and the mind comes unhinged. It's not just the information, it's how it is (must be) presented.

The human psyche is a weak construct.

 

[Xeriar]

It's amusing that people who believe they're creative can also be the least flexible.

If we were given the opportunity to somehow test this Cthulu gaming issue, I predict that those people here who cannot believe the possibility of sanity loss would be, ironically, the same people who lost their sanity first.

Well, some people consider my own personal view of the universe to be a little crazy. That there is no ultimate point to it all does not jive with many people, especially religious types.

That also gives me a certain sense of detachment from things like death, etc. It offends people, but that's how I am.

So I make my own purpose, and try to make the world a better place soley for the purpose of having a purpose. You can call that insane if you like, I realize that it isn't normal.

Regardless, the point here is sanity loss involving dead bodies and zombies. If you can take a trip through the world of rotten, the sight of dead bodies should not faze you (though the smell may, and I've heard of at least one instance where sound was involved... Don't think it'd drive me insane so much as just nautious).

 

[Chimera]

I suspect that part of the problem is that some people are expecting any SAN loss to be noticable to the loser, or be a major, mind rending incident.

That ain't so. Much of our IRL SAN losses are not noticable, they happen over long periods of time, changing our world view, our morals, etc, etc. So likewise in CoC. A SAN loss of a single point (or even a few points) is not necessarily a noticable event. But it adds up, and we change along with it.

See enough zombies and otherwise inconceivable alien-ness, and your whole world view becomes....insane. YOU change. Yes, you "get used to it", but that's because you are not as sane as you once were.

Perhaps we also need to define "Sane". I would have to define it in direct context to the 'Real World' and what we expect, and are expected to be, in this world. The Cthulhu stuff changes those expectations, makes us see that the 'real world' that we hold dear isn't quite what it's cracked up to be. We become less 'sane', because we come to know that things are really NOT the way we are taught to expect...

In any event, I would strongly recommend reading "The Illuminatus Trilogy". I have owned five copies of that book over the last 20 years, having lost three (four, but one came back years later) of those copies over time. I have to say that NO ONE I have loaned that book to has been unchanged by the experience. (Interestingly, it's not the story that does it, or even the specific content. It's the overall content, or gist of it all that does it.)

 

[LostSoul]

So I make my own purpose, and try to make the world a better place soley for the purpose of having a purpose. You can call that insane if you like, I realize that it isn't normal.

That sounds like Hemingway's "Code Hero".

Here's something about that idea: Code Hero

 

[Xeriar]

He's offering $10,000 to anyone who can disprove him. I think collectively we can prove him wrong and let Morrus have the money for server upgrades. I'll get started on proving him wrong as soon as I figure out what he's trying to say....

He's just saying the sun is always rising, setting, up and down somewhere on Earth. You can't really disprove it, but it's like Flat-Earthers asking why Australians don't dangle by their feet.

Of course, picking four specific periods is prety arbitrary. Our math evolved past Reimenien sums centuries ago - we can use integration now. Every creature in nature certainly experiences trillions and trillions of days in a single rotation, when you take it all as a whole.

Ultimately, though, you can only make a schedule for yourself.