Avert Your Eyes! Saving Sanity By Not Looking

[Jim Hague]

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.

 

[Slife]

No, it's more like I see something horribly alien that my brain can't make sense of, and my brain doesn't make sense of it. If I keep seeing things that my brain can't make sense of, my brain will stop trying to make sense of it. From what I've heard (from a tour guide at Carlsbad Cave), if you are in the darkness for long enough (a span of weeks) your brain will eventually stop taking input from your eyes. Same general principle. If the signal to noise ratio gets low enough, (and something that doesn't fit into this universe would count as noise) your brain 'decides' (and here I'm anthropomorphizing the brain) not to pay any more attention. By converse, if you get a new set of inputs with a very high signal ration, your brain will eventually 'figure out' what the input is supposed to be.

I have read some Lovecraft, but it's seemed so over-the-top that it's just silly to me. Did he write with a thesaurus in one hand and a pen in the other?

 

[Bryon_Soulweaver]

Humans (and, presumably, all the PC races in the game books) are highly visual creatures. For us, seeing, unfortunately, is believeing.

Bah! Humans suck.

 

[Jim Hague]

No, it's more like I see something horribly alien that my brain can't make sense of, and my brain doesn't make sense of it. If I keep seeing things that my brain can't make sense of, my brain will stop trying to make sense of it. From what I've heard (from a tour guide at Carlsbad Cave), if you are in the darkness for long enough (a span of weeks) your brain will eventually stop taking input from your eyes. Same general principle. If the signal to noise ratio gets low enough, (and something that doesn't fit into this universe would count as noise) your brain 'decides' (and here I'm anthropomorphizing the brain) not to pay any more attention. By converse, if you get a new set of inputs with a very high signal ration, your brain will eventually 'figure out' what the input is supposed to be.

And seeing isn't the issue - a principle you seem to be entirely missing by applying the logic of our world to a fictional one. Yes, you can avoid the devastating sanity-blasting from some Mythos entities by not seeing them...but far more simply creep into your consciousness, simply by their presence, and thence the damage comes in. The way you think the brain works really doesn't have anything to do with it. These things are well and truly alien, literally beyond humanity's limited understanding, and thankfully so.

Put simply - what you're saying isn't applicable here. That's nice, but in the context of the Mythos, it means nothing. Stop trying to apply those ideas when it's been explained by many posters that those ideas simply don't apply. It looks foolish.

I have read some Lovecraft, but it's seemed so over-the-top that it's just silly to me. Did he write with a thesaurus in one hand and a pen in the other?

He wrote for the pulp magazines, where lurid, over-the-top prose was demanded. Please don't insult the man who helped develop modern horror fiction because you read 'some' stories and didn't like them.

It's pretty obvious that you don't 'get' the ideas behind the Mythos. Obviously, it's not the game for you. Plenty of others out there that have what you're looking for.

 

[Kelleris]

No, it's more like I see something horribly alien that my brain can't make sense of, and my brain doesn't make sense of it. If I keep seeing things that my brain can't make sense of, my brain will stop trying to make sense of it. From what I've heard (from a tour guide at Carlsbad Cave), if you are in the darkness for long enough (a span of weeks) your brain will eventually stop taking input from your eyes. Same general principle. If the signal to noise ratio gets low enough, (and something that doesn't fit into this universe would count as noise) your brain 'decides' (and here I'm anthropomorphizing the brain) not to pay any more attention. By converse, if you get a new set of inputs with a very high signal ration, your brain will eventually 'figure out' what the input is supposed to be.

I have read some Lovecraft, but it's seemed so over-the-top that it's just silly to me. Did he write with a thesaurus in one hand and a pen in the other?

Well, I guess I can see why Jim Hague is getting so cranky about this idea, but it's worked great for me in my games, from a gaming perspective - though we're talking about Far Realms creatures in D&D and not proper CoC action. Actually describing the creature, well, my imaginative powers tend to fail me - I have a hard time making it especially interesting. Instead, all Far Realms creatures in my campaign (true Far Realms creatures, that is, not merely pseudonatural ones) are completely invisible to any sense type as an Ex ability (even spells like divination fail to take the actions of Far Realms creatures into account, unless you use a special incantation along with the spell that basically tanks your Wisdom). FR creatures' SR is also based on this "invisibility." You can voluntarily take a semi-permanent Wisdom penalty to see more of the creature - staring into the abyss, as it were - for as long as your Wisdom penalty is reduced, with higher penalties giving you a more thorough description (so a minor Wisdom loss lets you pinpoint the creature, a greater one lets you fight it with it only having concealment, and the full-on, 20-point Wisdom "embrace the madness" penalty actually gives you some bonuses). Basically, the Far Realms and the normal multiverse are mutually exclusive universes, and you can't adequately understand both at the same time. And your mind tends to go all pear-shaped if you opt for the Far Realms' version of reality.

It's led to some very interesting combats, where some players try to fight something they can barely detect, or risk exposure to the creature's Form of Madness ability (cribbed from the FC:I) with a reduced Will save. I've found it does a much better job inspiring genuine fright in my players than the Sanity system I swiped from Unearthed Arcana, combined with an unspoken agreement with them that true Far Realms encounters are always going to be just this side of totally overpowering.

So your idea has merit, at least in my experience. I'd prefer a good sanity system like Jim Hague seems to prefer, but this way works better and more easily in my actual games.

 

[Mercule]

And here I've always thought that's what the Will save was all about: figuring out a way to deal with mental stuff, whether that be disassociation, willpower, or just looking away.

If your players want to over-ride the mechanics in such situations, let 'em. But, if they don't establish a coping mechanism for some encounter, they're pretty much screwed because they've opted to foregore the Will save in favor of pure description.

Two notes: 1) I would probably give a Will bonus to any interesting description of dealing with the trauma -- this is a game that begs for description and roleplaying, after all. I do the same thing with descriptive social roleplaying. But, if it becomes routine, or they phone it in, then it's either straight-up by the numbers or at a penalty.

2) You could always try Amber Diceless if your group really wants to go the descriptive, non-random route whole hog.

 

[Wil]

Because the actual physical appearance defies the laws of reality in such a way that it makes brain go breaky?

 

[Umbran]

I disagree. As a kid, I was absolutely terrified of what might be under the bed or just outside my covers. I never saw anything. I didn't have to. I couldn't even hear it. I was straining to listen. Something was out there. I just couldn't detect it.

Yeah, but you see, that's just normal fear. That's something humans are built to experience and handle. Loss of sanity is because the character is forced into a reaction his brain isn't built for...

If horror is reduced to the one dimension of sight alone, it means that by negating sight I don't lose sanity.

Yes. That's fine. If you negate sight, you can't effectively defend yourself (or, if things are set things up properly, even flee) and thing is going to eat your head with a notable slurping sound.

The point here is that the characters are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they look, they lose sanity. If they don't look, they cannot deal with the creature, and they die.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

As someone said, it affects all FIVE of your senses, therefore affecting only our should result in less sanity loss. Hold your nose and close your eyes, and you get even less sanity loss. At least in theory.

 

[Mordacius]

Anybody here ever seen Unknown Armies? It had a sanity system that handled this whole thing way better than CoC.

You had multiple tracks for different sorts of stressful stimulation, like Isolation, Self, Violence, Unnatural and...one more I'm not remembering at this late hour. You could gain levels of Hardened and Failure on each track, at the same time.

Hardening represented, well, becoming hardened to a particular type of situation. If something was not sanity rending enough to get past your Hardening, you didn't have to roll a check for it at all.

Prior Failures on your sanity track meant that when you did fail a check, it'd get progressively worse. Failures could be cured by therapy, but I think Hardening got in the way.

So, your typical man on the street would probably have Violence: Hardened 0 / Failed 0, and so he'd have a chance of breakdown being held at gunpoint, but it wouldn't be too serious. Heat of the moment reaction easily recovered from later.

On the other hand, a professional soldier might have Violence: Hardened 3 / Failed 2. He's had a couple of unresolved bad encounters, but he's also gotten used to weapons fire. He won't lose his cool in the face of mere gunshots, but when someone blows his buddy's brains out next to him, he's going to snap. Badly.

Both guys might have 0/0 vs. Unnatural, and be just as susceptible to freaking out if a ghost manifested in front of them, and equally likely to shrug it off as hysteria afterwards. Ditto for being trapped in a cave in, (Isolation), or finding out you've committed cannibalism, (Self).

I have always wanted to use this system in another game, but I haven't had the chance to fool with it. (I would've just used Unknown Armies whole - their magic system is at least as innovative as their sanity system - but it used percentile based skills, and I'm just not down with that.)

After Edit:
I realize that's getting a little off-topic, but I'm wondering if a system like that wouldn't help people that aren't happy with SAN points in general.

Don't really have anything to say about the whole "close your eyes" thing, except that I'd encourage it, because closing your eyes and going "la-la-la" in the face of a monster indicates you've already snapped, SAN or no SAN.