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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8277093" data-attributes="member: 82106">CoC doesn't actually distinguish. Anything traumatic is potentially worth some SAN loss. That being said, the losses for fairly mundane 'icky' stuff are not incredibly severe. A normal human with a sound mind (lets call that 50 SAN) would, for example, when unexpectedly encountering a mutilated dead body make a SAN check, at say 0/1d6 or something like that, maybe even less if the situation is not too trying. That means 0 SAN loss on a success (IE rolling under your current SAN), and 1d6 points if you fail. A loss of some amount, I'd have to go back and check the rules, but it is something like 10% can induce temporary insanity. Temporary insanity is somewhat debilitating and can require treatment (counseling, institutionalization, medication) but the character recovers after some down time. Honestly, its a crude model of ACTUAL mental trauma, but no worse than hit points is a model of physical trauma. If you have been acquainted with service people who have experienced combat, etc. you might recognize some truth to the idea that bad stuff takes a mental toll, and ENOUGH bad stuff can break people. I'm not so sure that the '0 SAN you are gone forever' rule is very realistic, nor that the actual EFFECTS of mental trauma in CoC are super accurate, but it still captures some of the reality of the thing in a highly gamist fashion that is playable, follows genre logic, and isn't so far out there that it cannot be swallowed for purposes of play. Obviously you could probably include additional realism in the model, but I'm not sure how that would make it a better game. As for any other Mythos games, I cannot really say, as I haven't played them. Perhaps they have improved on this. All/most of them AFAIK do have some sort of mechanic that models the mental effects of the Mythos.</blockquote>

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