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Post by Manah on Jul 17, 2019 11:31:06 GMT -5
And I'd argue most of the X-Men are , indeed, nuts in one way or another, and also that just because the comics do it wrong doesn't mean we, as game rule makers, should follow their lead.
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Post by Janus on Jul 17, 2019 12:06:55 GMT -5
And if the game were about real life I'd agree. My own personal experience of mental health conditions is that they are no fun and that realistically if you suffer 'mental damage' it will at best take you years to heal it, assuming you ever do. Not sure how much fun that sounds. It is certainly more horror genre than super hero genre
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Post by simonatomus777 on Jul 17, 2019 15:57:46 GMT -5
The X-Men should all rightly be pretty crazy, I can't argue with that logic. I think it should be like with any other house rule, where you generally want to enrich the narrative rather than complicate unnecessarily. You could only incorporate certain elements, like say the most basic and direct impact you want it to have then and there, and just run with that and add or trim as you go. I certainly understand the want to not necessarily have to worry about that sort of thing.
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Post by Manah on Jul 17, 2019 16:17:20 GMT -5
Janus, I think - no pun intended - that you're overthinking my overthought idea. It's not THAT realistic, nor does it needs to be, hence why I stated various ways to heal mental damage faster than in real life. My goal here is not to make MURPG 'ULTRA ABSOLUTELY TOTALLY FULLY REALISTIC', just 'more realistic', and actually give some sense to some things that made none to me. To me, mental damage should simply not deal damage to physical health, it should take longer to heal on its own, it should be faster with psychiatry, and it should be very fast with 'Repair minds' telepathy option although it might require some cool RP.
My goal is not to make this like real life, nor does my suggestions reflect that at all IMO. I think you're seeing something that just isn't there, and that's why you seem to dislike the idea so much. I got my fair share of mental BS, and trust me, I know it's not easy to get rid of, but that's not the point. The point is I think it would make the rules more fun in general, and no, I don't think it would have such a big impact, because just like in comics/anime/videogames/movies/whatnot, we're generally assuming most heroes to be somehow more resilient to that stuff than we are, hence why not all X-Men are spending all their free time in psychiatric wards. It would simply make it 'a thing', not make the entire game centered on it.
As far as I'm concerned, I think mental health is a major element in life in general, and that mere challenges do not cover everything it means. I don't think the proper answer to it is 'don't add it because in real life it's not fun'. I think the proper answer is 'add it in a way that makes it fun in the game'. And that's exactly what I want to do here.
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Post by Manah on Jul 17, 2019 16:20:42 GMT -5
Also, like all house rules... if you don't like it, don't use it, or change it. I might definitely use it myself, because I do, in fact, like it. If it reassures you, I won't use it in either of my current games because it's still a rather big change, but I might use it in future games, so if you dislike the idea that much, keep an eye out for that. Still, I think it will most definitely add to a game in the hands of a capable GM, and I know I can make it fun in mine. You do you, but if you avoid one of my games in the future just because of it, I assure you you'll be missing out even if you don't realize it.
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Post by Janus on Jul 18, 2019 7:51:34 GMT -5
It's not that I like or dislike it. I play Call of Cthulhu regularly so I'm good with games that involve mental damage. I just don't think it fits the genre.
Having had another think about it I worry that you run the risk of over simplifying an area of the game that needs to be left nebulous due to the complexity of the subject matter. Mental health issues are not like physical health issues in that a) We don't understand them well enough b) Everyone reacts differently to mental health issues c) They may or may not heal depending on the individual.
As you said though, it's a house rule and each to their own. The
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Post by Manah on Jul 18, 2019 8:36:09 GMT -5
It's not that I like or dislike it. I play Call of Cthulhu regularly so I'm good with games that involve mental damage. I just don't think it fits the genre. That's your opinion. I think it fits any genre except a humorous / light romance one. Anything that's even moderately serious could work well with this as far as I'm concerned. That is a nonissue as far as I am concerned. The complexity of real life issues is not a basis on which a game rule in an RPG should be added or not. If we were to exclude everything because of a given subject matter's complexity, there would be nothing left in the game. Martial arts and combat are a lot more complex than what's shown in the books. Should we exclude those? General medical treatment, surgeries and other health related issues are a lot more complex than what the Medical Healing action reflects. Should we remove it? Same goes for inventing things, advanced robotics, military training, science, genius-level intellect, hacking, just being wounded in general, physics, literally anything in existence is more complex than what is presented in any existing RPG. Simply put, if your logic stood for this, there would be no RPGs whatsoever, because complexity and real life. It's a game. It's not meant to be perfect, nor a representation of how it really works. You don't need to be a film maker to be a critic, you don't need to be a doctor to talk about medicine, you don't need to have a black belt to imagine cool moves, you don't need to be a psychiatrist to discuss mental health, and you don't need every single last one of those to make up rules for an RPG. The goal is to make something interesting, fun, and enjoyable for both the GM and the players. No more, no less. If someone wants an accurate description in detail of how mental health, issues and recovery works, they should meet with several experts in the domain, not look into my rules. And there's nothing wrong with that, since it's not what my rules exist for. Eeeeyup.
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Post by Neros on Jul 18, 2019 15:06:56 GMT -5
As Lillithsboy said, mental damage seem to have been hinted at in the books, but never really stated how it worked. So mostly, I just assumed the white stones lost to mental damage couldn't be healed by healing factor or similar.
I've noticed many games have this kind of mechanic. D&D, WoD/CoD, etc, where health is based on physical attributes and even with mental damage, still affects them. Some mental effects could logically deal damage physically (the attack seems so real, the bodies chemistry generates the damage, etc.). But that is only in those cases.
But using Intelligence to generate Sanity as mental health is clearly the ability to use. But I would suggest making it work more like normal health, where it heals at the same rate and leave long lasting things to conditions which could last weeks or even months (trauma, addictions, fobias, etc). This way, it follows an already established mechanics, lessening the amount of rules that needs remembering.
But does the character die when they reach 0 Sanity? Or are they alive but just mentally dead? Can their mental state be restored at that point with healing? Or do they need a special "resurrection" effect for this?
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Post by Manah on Jul 18, 2019 15:20:23 GMT -5
I don't think Mental health should be handled in the same manner as physical health, if only because I think it should not be nearly as easy to damage, nor to heal. So I'd still make different rules for it despite the rule of KISS.
As for what happens when Sanity hits the big O, I'd say it'd depend. Mental death is possible, though I'd probably keep that for more serious trauma. Falling in a coma, or catatonia, would be some I'd likely use more often, as it would give a chance to a character's allies to try and save them. Other possibilities might come up depending how the character suffered the damage in question. It'd depend on what caused the character to lose their final stones of Sanity, I'd say.
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