Slife said:The entire reason why seeing your friend killed in front of your eyes is *because* it's something familar. If I saw a gigantic blue blob with twenty horns and fifty eyes turn orange and emit yellow gas, it would lack the same emotional impact, even if the blob really was the great poet Qavd-dax of Elordora who just was murdered by his enemies from Zygath-tirsax because of his inablity to Emmfoz.
Ah, no. If you really think you can break it down this easily, the American Psychiatric Association would like to have a word with you.
The events are traumatizing because they are outside typical experience; a shock. Likewise, by extending that, Mythos entities (which aren't blobs with horns and such - read the stories and GMing advice in the book) are entirely antithetcal to human perception and experience - hence the Sanity loss; that's neurons frying in their own juices. If you can't grasp this fundamental aspect of the stories and the game, then I'd suggest you find another game to criticize.
The fact that all of the horrible monstrosities can be quantified (at least on a metagame level) means that they will never really seem horribly alien. And if your brain gets sensory input that doesn't make sense, it will just stop interpreting the messages (certain forms of blindness happen because of this, IIRC). When it really comes down to it, it's all light rays (waves|particles) anyway. Just because they happen to be reflected off Hastur doesn't make them special.
Again, you're missing the fundamental point - it's not 'light rays reflected off Hastur' - it's experiencing something the human mind has constructed careful and deep delusions to deal with, and cannot do so with the truth of the matter staring it in the face. Human understanding of physics means nothing in the context. Here's a quote:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." - The Call of Cthulhu
I would prefer a "sanity" system where the characters' brain stops parsing inputs that no longer contribute enough meaningful information. A penalty to spot checks whenever you saw someting from outside the universe (cumulative temporary penalties, each of which has a chance to become permanent) and other things of that nature, combined with a sanity system based on seeing atrocities.
Actually, something similar to this has been proposed earlier. If it had a less nonsensical OMG I can SEE something with a SQUID for a HEAD it's just CRAZY! sanity system, (and flavor text to boot), I would probably find it enjoyable.
Your idea makes as little sense as what you attribute Sanity damage in CoC to be. I see something horrible and go blind? If you're referring to so-called 'hysterical blindness' (functional vision loss), that's exceedingly rare, and often caused by an underlying physical issue, usually something neurological.
And once again - Cthulhu isn't Godzilla in a squid mask; that is the imperfect and erroneous attempt by the human mind in the universe of the Mythos to try and make sense of the utterly incomprehensible. You're really not understanding the idea here, so once again I recommend you go and read the stories before levying judgement that is ill-informed at best.
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