Sanity Meter: Difference between revisions

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== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' pretty much [[Trope Maker|pioneered]] the Sanity Meter. Each character starts with some measure of Sanity out of 100. When encountering a Mythos horror, or something just plain horrific, they roll their Sanity score. If they succeed, they roll to see how many of a smaller amount of Sanity points they lose; if they fail, they roll to see how many of a ''larger'' amount of Sanity points they lose (e.g., "roll for 1d6/1d20 SAN"). SAN points can be regained through psychotherapy and successful adventuring, but learning more about the Mythos ''permanently'' decreases your maximum Sanity. In fact, it is absolutely impossible to learn everything about the mythos without your SAN falling to 0 before.

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' pretty much [[Trope Maker|pioneered]] the Sanity Meter. Each character starts with some measure of Sanity out of 100. When encountering a Mythos horror, or something just plain horrific, they roll their Sanity score. If they succeed, they roll to see how many of a smaller amount of Sanity points they lose; if they fail, they roll to see how many of a ''larger'' amount of Sanity points they lose (e.g., "roll for 1d6/1d20 SAN"). SAN points can be regained through psychotherapy and successful adventuring, but learning more about the Mythos ''permanently'' decreases your maximum Sanity. In fact, it is absolutely impossible to learn everything about the mythos without your SAN falling to 0 before.

** A form of [[Sanity Meter]] is actually implemented in the [[First-Person Shooter]] ''Call Of Cthulhu: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'', where the longer you spend looking at (or just being around) the horror scenes, the more disturbed the protagonist becomes, eventually bringing in [[Interface Screw]] and, at one point, suicide.

** In another take on Lovecraft RPGs, Trail Of Cthulhu, the [[Sanity Meter]] is broken down into two parts: Stability and Sanity. The former represents short-term sanity and explains how you can have characters who are nuttier than a bag of fruitcakes and yet still interact with society on a relatively normal level. Stability can regenerate, but once a character loses Sanity points, they're generally not getting them back.

** Parodied in ''[[Toon the Cartoon Role Playing Game]]''. One of the settings in the ''Tooniversal Tour Guide'' supplement is "[[Parody Names|Crawl of Catchooloo]]", where exposure to the eldritch but otherwise strait-laced minions of the Elderly Gods drives the 'toon PCs ''sane'' (since they're already crazy to begin with). Sane PCs become boring, unremarkable characters with pointlessly dull interests.

** ''[[Arkham Horror]]'', being [[Cthulhu Mythos]] [[The Board Game]], also makes use of sanity rules. Seeing monsters and casting spells are the primary cause of sanity loss, but many encounters can also trigger it. Being reduced to zero sends you to Arkham Asylum ([[Batman: Arkham Asylum|not that one]]) with some items lost. (Before long, you'll regain enough Sanity to leave ... but you'll be back. Oh yes. This game takes ''hours.'')

* ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' has a Clarity rating for its characters. Unlike the standard [[Karma Meter|Karma Meters]] for the other World of Darkness games, Clarity is more a rating of how well a person's able to hold it together after being put through hell at the hands of [[The Fair Folk]]. Murder and theft count as sins, but so do taking psychotropic drugs and experiencing unexpected life changes.

** There is also the fact that in all of the gamelines, when the [[Karma Meter]] decreases, a charecter has to roll to determine if they gain a Derangement. The Storyteller is advised to select a Derangement appropriate to whatever caused the [[Karma Meter]] to decrease.

* ''[[Exalted]]'' has the Limit meter, which measures mental and emotional stress. Max it out, and it drops back down to zero...because you've just unleashed all that stress in an outburst of insanity that can last anywhere from a few hours to ''several months.''