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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Theory of Games" data-source="post: 9693537" data-attributes="member: 7042201">Call of Cthulhu's great success is in the SAN trait. The  concept that PCs slowly lose their minds when constantly exposed to horror is genius. And it's not about the players being frightened - like most ttrpgs, the focus is the PCs. A group can joke, laugh and have fun while their PCs are scared out of their minds.SAN is like "mental Hit Points" that dwindle as the PCs experience more and more horror. But with classic HP, once you hit 0, the PC drops. Once SAN hits 0, there's no telling what the now-insane PC will do. I've listened to CoC/DG actual plays where a PC goes mad and causes a TPK or helps cultists summon a Great Old One, destroying the entire planet <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😬" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f62c.png" title="Grimacing face    :grimacing:" data-shortname=":grimacing:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />That unpredictably of what happens if a PC runs out of SAN is one of the best ttrpg designs ever. IMO a horror game needs to replicate that kind of unpredictably because that's a strong aspect of the horror genre.</blockquote>