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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8276372" data-attributes="member: 82106">I always thought SAN was one of the most dead-on mechanical particularizations of a genre trope that has ever appeared in RPGs. Lovecraft and Co are FILLED with scenes where characters are reduced to gibbering idiots or rendered utterly helpless by the sheer mind blowing experiences inherent in the mythos. I mean, I'm sure there are other ways to handle it than a discrete specific SAN attribute, but I liked that there was this feeling of inevitability, sooner or later you WOULD go mad, it is only a matter of time. Even a 99 SAN PC with a mind like a rock is living on borrowed time there (though he'll probably get eaten by something before he goes bonkers). I suppose you could simply model it as increasingly acquiring quirks and phobias and whatnot until your character is useless, but the numerical approach is fun because it actually produces some good player motivations. "I'm closing my eyes and running away, while putting my fingers in my ears!" is a move I remember one PC making. The player's motive and decisions in this case meshing perfectly with what a character might do in such a situation.I would think that Fear is pretty much going back to the concept of 'morale' in D&D, plus various fear effects that have existed in most editions, and Stress is more than likely a borrowing of at least terminology if not mechanics from things like FitD. However, FitD stress is in some ways an analog of SAN in CoC.</blockquote>

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