[UA] Alternative madness system

[Stephen K]

I see your point, but I think of the Mind roll as determining whether your character can rationalise and incorporate what he's just experienced into his schema of understanding. And that is something that high-Mind people would have an advantage in doing.

From: fieldstone at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 03:48:04 -0500
To: ua at lists.unknown-armies.com
Subject: [UA] Alternative madness system

I don't think the madness system in UA really makes sense as written. Whether or not you crack up from trauma shouldn't be based on how smart you are... smart people go crazy all the time in real life. It should probably be based on Soul instead, but that would mean Adepts could never go mad, which makes no sense either. So here's my idea.


Madness should be tied to either Mind or Soul, the player's choice, based on the character's personality and whether they cope with stress intellectually or emotionally. Madness checks should always be major checks, not minor or significant ones. Each character will start with a skill called "Keeping It Together" at 15% like all the other free skills, under either Mind or Soul, as appropriate. Characters who don't spend much on this skill will tend to go madder faster, which I also think is a bit more true to life: some people have coping skills, and others don't. Intelligence doesn't enter into it.


When making a madness check, you'd have to roll under your Keeping It Together skill. Matched successes that are under your Mind or Soul stat could also count, just to be a little less harsh.


Thoughts?
Jason

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