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Re: [FMAS] Is this insane or what? Re: real-life FT playing (was: Re: Fighter Group Turn around time was: YAFS

From: agoodall@a...
Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 16:51:18 +0000
Subject: Re: [FMAS] Is this insane or what? Re: real-life FT playing (was: Re: Fighter Group Turn around time was: YAFS

David wrote:

> Did you ever see or play R. Talsorian Games Cyberpunk, and it's
> combat system Friday Night Firefight?
<<snippage>>
<
> Nevertheless, I thought this was a reasonably compact set of
> mechanics for psychology (to the extent that the idea isn't
> laughable). 

That's an interesting idea, the two stats offsetting each other. I'll
have to 
think about this. I think there's something vaguely similar in Atlas
Games' 
_Unknown Armies_. I'll look through that, too.

> So, anyway, I think it's fair to use morale checks as SAN checks.
> I don't know that the loss of humanity leading to
> fearless-but-batty cultist behaviour is going to happen over the
> scale of a wargame.

This is what makes modelling sanity difficult. While a figure isn't
going to 
go from normally sane to completely and totally loopy in a single
scenario 
(unless he sees one of the Great Old Ones), there are still things that
I 
want to model that require a separation of Sanity and Fear.

I mentioned the fearless-but-batty cultist. There's also the
cowardly-and-
batty cultist, who cringes every time a bullet flies past him but who
isn't 
going to go catatonic at the sight of a shoggoth. 

As another example, there's the brave, upper crust Englishman on safari.
A 
Dark Young appears and his mind snaps. As the Dark Young (think
ambulatory 
plant/tree thing with large tentacles sprouting out the top) advances,
he 
turns to his trembling bearer and says, "Look, Mbutu! Pythons! Hand me
my 
machete!" In this case the player probably _does_ wish his figure would
turn 
tail and run, but due to him becoming temporarily insane he doesn't see
the 
lurching monstrosity as anything more than a swaying tree with pythons 
hanging from the limbs.

Handling these various situations is difficult. Failing a sanity roll
but not 
losing a lot of sanity in the process will be the same as failing a fear

roll. I'm not sure how to handle a figure that becomes temporarily
insane. 
I'm toying with the idea of letting the other player handle the figure
until 
it "snaps out of it", but I'm not sure how to go about limiting the
other 
player's influence on the figure. Having the player move the insane
hunter 
towards the Dark Young is fair, but it gets boring if all insane
characters 
ever do is march forward into the open so that the other side can get a
clean 
shot at them.

--
Allan Goodall		   
agoodall@att.net
http://www.hyperbear.com   
agoodall@hyperbear.com

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