[UA] Madness

[Hammons, Jade]

Again, this discussion kind of goes over my head as to ... why?

Everyone keeps saying "Too stupid to be scared", well that's going to be pretty damned stupid, considering a leading cause of fear is ignorance. It's not 'OOh, I am stupid there is a big noise in the air', it is 'EEee! I am stupid, the gods are angry'. It's the intelligent one that finds out what the noise is, rationalizes it, moves on. Stupid Man - "So what if Cthulu is gonna eat the world, we're in America." - Smart Man - "You still believe in cthulu?"

The situation sounds like one where you wish you players would miss more madness checks... so add modifiers. I learned my lesson once as the players in my Immortal game got better and better, and instead of letting them be as amazing as their stats would indicate, I just kept ratcheting up the difficult on challenges, until I realized I was being counter-productive to my own game. 

The stupid/ignorant have no inherent resistance to fear. The brain damaged or mentally disabled might, but that's a good call for a paradigm like skill. High mind have the insulation of a rather stable worldview, a higher ability to adapt and rationalize, and more experience. It just means that on the occasions when they do fail, it has really torn them up, really shaken their outlook. Hit them harder if you must at that point, but don't punish them for having an advantage over a lesser. IT would be like giving people with lesser strength less of a chance to herniated themselves because they are weaker... it's counter-intuitive.

And if you single out high intelligence characters for 'special treatment', they will notice, they will dislike it, even if it's not voiced, and either not want to play the game again, or you'll end up with college drop-outs and a huge soul dump, because that is what you will be teaching them is advantageous in your games.

Jade Hammons

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal." - Albert Camus




-----Original Message-----
From: ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com
[mailto:ua-bounces at lists.unknown-armies.com]On Behalf Of Jeff Wikstrom
Sent: Saturday, February 07, 2004 12:19 PM
To: The Unknown Armies RPG Mailing List
Subject: [UA] Madness


Towards a slightly more complex Madness check

When you have a high Mind, Madness checks become trivial.  When you have a low Mind, they’re terrifying.  I don’t like that, and (as I have in the past) I’m considering ways to make Madness checks nastier to smart people and less dangerous to foolish people.  Low-Mind characters in particular seem less viable.

What I’m thinking of first off is a “Resist Madness” Mind skill, calculated exactly like Initiative for Speed.  So Mr. Mind 40 has a Resist Madness skill of 20 to start with, but can put skill points in Resist Madness and bring it up to 40.  Dame Mind 70 has a Resist Madness skill of 35, and maybe she has better things to put those other 35 skill points in.

Thus smart characters aren’t *necessarily* better at Madness checks than the foolish, and the foolish can have a fighting chance relative to them, by buying up the skill.

I recall discussing this same thing on this same list awhile back, but I don’t think this specific variant was suggested.
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