[UA] Loser Newbie Question

[Matthew Rowan Norwood]

> Okay, to become a sociopath, you must be hardened completely -- ten ranks -- in all the madness axes (you can tell I'm a Loser Newbie because I don't know the right terms).  When you succeed a check, you gain a hardness rank, but you only make a check if the number of the check is greater than the number of hardened ranks you have on that axis.  So, then, if you have nine hardened ranks, you aren't fazed by anything short of a level ten challenge.  I understand this.  So you can only become a sociopath if you are subjected to... well, jeez.  Are there even that many rank-10 Unnatural challenges out there?  Am I understanding this properly?  From the history of the sample sociopath character, Eponymous, this sounds like a misunderstanding -- it doesn't read like he was ever subjected to rank-10 Unnatural, Helplessness, or Isolation checks.  Self and Violence, sure, but...

I asked this same question on the list a few months back, but no one
ever responded, so I assumed that I was the only person who found this
weird. I mean, "sociopath" has a real psychological definition, and I'll
bet that most sociopaths you run into as a psychiatrist haven't gone
through the 100+ madness checks at levels 1 through 10 it takes to turn
the average UA character into a UA-rules sociopath. Come on, what
happens _after_ you've tortured your entire family to death and eaten
their bodies while having sex with Cthulhu? You have to repeat the
experience a dozen times before making it into sociopath territory, and
hell, you've only _got_ one family.

Eponymous' background makes no mention of the kinds of event it takes to
trigger rank 8-10 checks in Unnatural, Self, or Helplessness, but his
meters indicate that he must have engaged in those kinds of activities
multiple times... after having worked his way up to level 7 in every
meter.

I remember proposing some rules to govern lesser levels of
soicopathology, but I don't remember what they were. You can check the
list archive if you're curious.

Matt Norwood

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