Playing my class (Primalist) naturally involves sanity loss. Though usually manageable, sometimes it can get out of hand!
It is very easy to reach an inhibitive sanity level just by using Beastskin and other Primalist abilities, especially those relevant to combat. And that's with 500 Meditation, 700 Druidry, and before I've even engaged in combat itself. I'm fine with that, I think, but I'd like to encourage Rias (and everybody else) to think of ways for Sanity loss to take effect without taking away a player's agency over their character's speech.
When it reaches very high levels (e.g., Irrational), I'm finding that it has the effect of just making me want to log off, or stop roleplaying with other characters and come back when the effect is over. The main reason I don't find the play satisfying is the coded incoherence that's imposed on SAYs and ESP communications.
Don't get me wrong; I very much enjoy roleplaying a madcap, capricious eccentric. In fact, I do that *most* of the time, irrespective of my "Sanity level". I enjoy making little sense! But when the coded version of this kicks in, it feels like I'm being patronised. It's like being dragged through the experience by a subeditor who insists using three commas in a row is fun and wacky. Because that's crAaazEe talk! Eventually it has me thinking: if this is the enforced style guide for lunacy, I might as well not bother.
I like to see players representing "Irrational" or "Paranoid", or whatever uncomfortable thing is happening to them without this imposition, just as much as I enjoy coming up with my own characterisations. Hey, I even do some of the things mentioned in HELP SANITY of my own accord; it's not all off-the-menu stuff!
Of course, I could just avoid ESP and bypass the whole thing with the use of speech in EMOTEs, which remains unaffected for whatever reason. But I'd rather not be made to feel like I'm using an exploit just so I can effectively represent my character's state of mind and avoid these punctuation drip paintings.
Another possible drawback: new players might be inclined to think a player with low sanity levels is just in a fat-fingered typo-making frame of mind; they mightn't spot the signs. I find it tends to be the more experienced Physicker players who make the connection between wordsalad and therapy.
I hope this isn't too negative, and I'm hopeful we can find less daft ways to make Sanity feel impactful.
Sanity Loss & Say
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
I've never had to deal with speech mangling on one of my own characters, however I still completely agree. I frankly think that the majority of people who choose to play sanity-focused classes are good enough roleplayers that they can incorporate the consequences of sanity loss into the way they speak without this coded effect.
Given this, I am thinking that a mechanic which provides food for roleplay might work better than a forced speech filter. What if, after a certain amount of sanity has been lost, the player begins receiving messages about hallucinations their character is experiencing? Those could be thematically related to the means by which sanity was lowered in the first place, and there could be lists of them for each of the methods currently available. However, the player would be free to choose how to have their character inwardly and outwardly react to the hallucinations. Maybe inflict a tiny bit of roundtime when first hit with a message, but I'm hesitant to suggest this as I have no idea how much of a hindrance that would be!
I don't have any experience with any manner of severe psychological conditions, nor do I know anyone struggling with them. The above suggestion is probably no more indicative of an insane person's behaviour than three commas in a row are. However, I'm putting it out there thinking this is a game, and most mechanical sanity loss is achieved via the occult and returning from death. I hope it makes sense and isn't offensive to anybody!
Thanks for reading.
Given this, I am thinking that a mechanic which provides food for roleplay might work better than a forced speech filter. What if, after a certain amount of sanity has been lost, the player begins receiving messages about hallucinations their character is experiencing? Those could be thematically related to the means by which sanity was lowered in the first place, and there could be lists of them for each of the methods currently available. However, the player would be free to choose how to have their character inwardly and outwardly react to the hallucinations. Maybe inflict a tiny bit of roundtime when first hit with a message, but I'm hesitant to suggest this as I have no idea how much of a hindrance that would be!
I don't have any experience with any manner of severe psychological conditions, nor do I know anyone struggling with them. The above suggestion is probably no more indicative of an insane person's behaviour than three commas in a row are. However, I'm putting it out there thinking this is a game, and most mechanical sanity loss is achieved via the occult and returning from death. I hope it makes sense and isn't offensive to anybody!
Thanks for reading.
Stop putting watermellons into the first thing you see that looks like it can hold a watermellon. It is most rude, because you'll only make them feel like they don't belong.
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
I think the topic on druidic magic (and other esoteric) effects modifying one's sanity is definitely an interesting one that begs more discussion.
I will begin with the disclaimer that sanity is never a simple concept or topic to touch on. We're all mature individuals having a discussion on a mechanical item in COGG and not the real-life condition or issues related to them.
I've played 3 druids in my time here. All of my druids have dipped into the insane threshold and I agree that the speech impediment is one of the biggest obstacles to roleplay while so affected. The recovery is not fast either, requiring hours of realtime sunk into slow sanity recovery (that cannot be sped up by attribute or skill). While I agree that there are potentially better mechanisms to represent the effect of tapping into the druidic bond, it's also a matter of dev-cycle, ideology, and player interaction.
I agree that the current speech-rt-impediment system isn't perfect. However, as obstructive as it is, it does a very good job of isolating and provoking an immediate social consequence to reflect the helpless nature of not being in full control of yourself.
As far as player interaction goes, psychological conditions are difficult for a non-professional to manifest in a meaningful representation and it's incredibly easy to handwave the effects away and play as if you were completely in control. I'm not hand-waving away the roleplay potentiality and freedom of expression, but I will refer back to issues we've had historically with negative representations of the disabled in game.
Mechano-lorewise, the druidic bond is an acceptance of powers that are beyond human understanding into the body. I believe it is fair to agree that once you accept such a connection with the occult, that never comes without consequence. You are going to stand out, for good or bad reasons, and it isn't because of your tattoos.
On the flipside, I will also add that recovering from insanity through a physicker only takes one session. It's a push of a button. Of all of the conditions, the horrendous speech impediment through overuse of druidic magic is one of the easier ones to resolve beyond 'waiting for hours.'
This of course does not apply when you have all of your layered druidic rituals active at once. The maximum sanity loss per ritual is a hard-coded number based on the ritual cast. Beast-skin, for example, takes 30 off your maximum. If you apply snowbird, which takes 5, sun-drinker which takes 10, you're already sitting at a maximum sanity of 60 (anxious). One more spell casting (of... say... vitality) is going to make you paranoid. Being aware of these mechanics also helps you to understand how close you are to losing some of your character's command over themselves.
I will begin with the disclaimer that sanity is never a simple concept or topic to touch on. We're all mature individuals having a discussion on a mechanical item in COGG and not the real-life condition or issues related to them.
I've played 3 druids in my time here. All of my druids have dipped into the insane threshold and I agree that the speech impediment is one of the biggest obstacles to roleplay while so affected. The recovery is not fast either, requiring hours of realtime sunk into slow sanity recovery (that cannot be sped up by attribute or skill). While I agree that there are potentially better mechanisms to represent the effect of tapping into the druidic bond, it's also a matter of dev-cycle, ideology, and player interaction.
I agree that the current speech-rt-impediment system isn't perfect. However, as obstructive as it is, it does a very good job of isolating and provoking an immediate social consequence to reflect the helpless nature of not being in full control of yourself.
As far as player interaction goes, psychological conditions are difficult for a non-professional to manifest in a meaningful representation and it's incredibly easy to handwave the effects away and play as if you were completely in control. I'm not hand-waving away the roleplay potentiality and freedom of expression, but I will refer back to issues we've had historically with negative representations of the disabled in game.
Mechano-lorewise, the druidic bond is an acceptance of powers that are beyond human understanding into the body. I believe it is fair to agree that once you accept such a connection with the occult, that never comes without consequence. You are going to stand out, for good or bad reasons, and it isn't because of your tattoos.
On the flipside, I will also add that recovering from insanity through a physicker only takes one session. It's a push of a button. Of all of the conditions, the horrendous speech impediment through overuse of druidic magic is one of the easier ones to resolve beyond 'waiting for hours.'
This of course does not apply when you have all of your layered druidic rituals active at once. The maximum sanity loss per ritual is a hard-coded number based on the ritual cast. Beast-skin, for example, takes 30 off your maximum. If you apply snowbird, which takes 5, sun-drinker which takes 10, you're already sitting at a maximum sanity of 60 (anxious). One more spell casting (of... say... vitality) is going to make you paranoid. Being aware of these mechanics also helps you to understand how close you are to losing some of your character's command over themselves.
Last edited by Dennis on Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
I forgot to add on my recommendations:
If the speech-rp impediment is considered wide-spreadly disruptive, I would recommend looking at mechanics already seen in games like CyberPunk (both the tabletop versions 2020, RED, as well as the video game 2077). Transhumanism concepts is often a sci-fi issue, but I think it can be applied here.
I think that as you disassociate with your human side and tap into primal magic, it should come with mechanical drawbacks based on pathological symptoms.
I am going to refer to the Cyberpunk's mechanic of human empathy. There is a strong parallel as druids are undergoing a voluntary process when it comes to mechanical dissociation with the human form, which is a leading indicator of psychosis. Cyberpunk Red treats the removal of someone's own body parts willingly as a part of that trauma. Choosing to remove a part of a body to replace it with metal fits the meaning of dissociation pretty well. Likewise, when you are applying an occult to reshape your human body into a more dangerous, beast-like form, you're dissociating with your own human form.
Of course you can roleplay how it conceptualizes according to your own beliefs. I also agree that there is nothing in the mechanics to indicate to what extent one can feel 'safe' to do so. I'm going to encourage people to read the Hare Psychopathology Checklist (or PCL-R) to describe some of the features that may go alongside of the dissociative symptoms as the character drops in Empathy below Paranoid. I don't expect everyone who plays a druid to have read and understood the DSM-V. A link to the symptomatic expressions is found here, but I will also warn everyone that you should never use suchresources to self-diagnosis in any way. https://psychology-tools.com/test/pcl-22
In summation, your character may suffer from a grandiose sense of self, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and more. These give a broad set of examples to explain the gist of it. Not only is the character losing their sense of self, but they are losing the value of others too.
Some suggestions for mechanical side effects of loss of sanity may include:
lose of face-recognition (Loss of access to your names list, generalization of visible characters in the world to generic persons)
Loss of hostile state control (I don't like this idea very much as it has long-lasting issues associated. It could be done mechanically by delimiting untargetted attacks, which normally distinguish between neutral and hostile mobs.)
Refusal of services by establishments due to hostile or irregular body and spoken language
Hallucinations that a creature in the room is attacking you, causing loss of balance.
Loss of taste or smell, revulsion to consuming things
sudden drops of morale due to depressive-manic state
Educating on the sanity loss as it occurs may also be helpful. As recommended above by Frisbee, some mental triggers that such as generalized hallucinations that infer to interpretations of your mental state might help with the roleplay aspect.
Slower movement speed caused by loss of attention
Random bouts of disassociation that inflict roundtime as you stare off, triggered by something only you can see.
improper responses to the loss of physical condition. (inability to distinguish bleeding wounds, gagging energy loss caused by bleeding and inability to perceive wounds beyond moderate)
If the speech-rp impediment is considered wide-spreadly disruptive, I would recommend looking at mechanics already seen in games like CyberPunk (both the tabletop versions 2020, RED, as well as the video game 2077). Transhumanism concepts is often a sci-fi issue, but I think it can be applied here.
I think that as you disassociate with your human side and tap into primal magic, it should come with mechanical drawbacks based on pathological symptoms.
I am going to refer to the Cyberpunk's mechanic of human empathy. There is a strong parallel as druids are undergoing a voluntary process when it comes to mechanical dissociation with the human form, which is a leading indicator of psychosis. Cyberpunk Red treats the removal of someone's own body parts willingly as a part of that trauma. Choosing to remove a part of a body to replace it with metal fits the meaning of dissociation pretty well. Likewise, when you are applying an occult to reshape your human body into a more dangerous, beast-like form, you're dissociating with your own human form.
Of course you can roleplay how it conceptualizes according to your own beliefs. I also agree that there is nothing in the mechanics to indicate to what extent one can feel 'safe' to do so. I'm going to encourage people to read the Hare Psychopathology Checklist (or PCL-R) to describe some of the features that may go alongside of the dissociative symptoms as the character drops in Empathy below Paranoid. I don't expect everyone who plays a druid to have read and understood the DSM-V. A link to the symptomatic expressions is found here, but I will also warn everyone that you should never use suchresources to self-diagnosis in any way. https://psychology-tools.com/test/pcl-22
In summation, your character may suffer from a grandiose sense of self, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and more. These give a broad set of examples to explain the gist of it. Not only is the character losing their sense of self, but they are losing the value of others too.
Some suggestions for mechanical side effects of loss of sanity may include:
lose of face-recognition (Loss of access to your names list, generalization of visible characters in the world to generic persons)
Loss of hostile state control (I don't like this idea very much as it has long-lasting issues associated. It could be done mechanically by delimiting untargetted attacks, which normally distinguish between neutral and hostile mobs.)
Refusal of services by establishments due to hostile or irregular body and spoken language
Hallucinations that a creature in the room is attacking you, causing loss of balance.
Loss of taste or smell, revulsion to consuming things
sudden drops of morale due to depressive-manic state
Educating on the sanity loss as it occurs may also be helpful. As recommended above by Frisbee, some mental triggers that such as generalized hallucinations that infer to interpretations of your mental state might help with the roleplay aspect.
Slower movement speed caused by loss of attention
Random bouts of disassociation that inflict roundtime as you stare off, triggered by something only you can see.
improper responses to the loss of physical condition. (inability to distinguish bleeding wounds, gagging energy loss caused by bleeding and inability to perceive wounds beyond moderate)
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
I have no issue with sanity loss being something a player has to manage, anticipate, and remedy. And, honestly, at this point I'm well aware of how these abilities work. I can anticipate when my use of Druidic combat abilities is going to blunt my attempts at engaging roleplay, and that's part of the problem. It puts me right off even going there; the potential consequences are already reckoned with. My main reason for joining in with a combat "event" is to roleplay, but the only way to do so without a heavy Sanity hit is by turning up in armor and wielding steel, which breaks the Primalist class fantasy and sidesteps all the abilities introduced so far.Being aware of these mechanics also helps you to understand how close you are to losing some of your character's command over themselves.
My character is already isolated; I've actively made him that way. I don't need the speech filter to emphasise it so clumsily. There can be (and are) non-social consequences to sanity loss, without the need for social ones to be actually *coded*.it does a very good job of isolating and provoking an immediate social consequence
One consequence of the above, being that isolated figure, is that it would be somewhat out of character to seek the attentions of a professional therapist. And if the character is really that high on Primal energies, it's doubtful they would think to, anyway. I'm far more interested in acknowledging and working with the low Sanity level, rather than doing the convenient thing. In any case, it doesn't seem to be immediately obvious to some Physickers that a player needs Sanity Therapy (I could be wrong here, I haven't played one. Do they get a list of symptoms to look out for?), and seeking therapy is complicated by the speech filter in that case.recovering from insanity through a physicker only takes one session
My chief frustration is that my character's behaviour when he's speech-filtered is an OOCly embarrassing, simplistic and just not very entertaining rendering of what I could just do myself with a handful of EMOTEs and half a thought.
I really like Frisbee's idea of prompts for players (like drawing a tarot card: here's today's encumbrance/difficulty to negotiate!)
I should add I did not make this thread with the purpose of discussing representations of disabilities in-game and I don't think armchair psychology is the answer here. I would like to think of the occult as probing the unknown, with positive and negative consequences. I'd want to avoid closely caricaturing real-world mental health conditions. We don't have the budget for consultation, for one!
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
Tulpa, I just want to add that my recommendations are a set of ideas for sparking imagination or creative drive as you stated "but I'd like to encourage Rias (and everybody else) to think of ways for Sanity loss to take effect without taking away a player's agency over their character's speech."
I am going to exit this conversation as I no longer feel comfortable sharing my thoughts on this post, without reading into or intending any hostility. These ideas just aren't a hill I plan to die on!
I am going to exit this conversation as I no longer feel comfortable sharing my thoughts on this post, without reading into or intending any hostility. These ideas just aren't a hill I plan to die on!
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
So, I actually haven't experienced any sanity loss yet (aside from the initiation which was the coolest automated joining experience I've ever seen in a mud btw) as I'm still a baby druid, but just playing off of the lore we were given when we were initiated (opening yourself to primal powers sort of shines a spotlight on you where there was none and makes you vulnerable to the primal powers) what if instead of sanity loss giving word salad as Tulpa said, sanity loss could give flavor text sort of centered around the whole fear of THE PRIMAL FORCES ARE COMING TO EAT ME? Or something like that. Like maybe after a certain threshold you start to see things like:
You hear a rumbling snarl sound behind you. A quickening of your pulse engages your fight-or-flight response. (Open-ended so you can RP turning and snarling back into the shadows or making a break for it.)
Or it could also lean into the your sanity is slipping because you're embracing more of the primal aspect so you're feeling less human? Like you start seeing things like:
You feel a sudden urge to go sink your teeth into a hunk of raw meat and rend flesh from bone.
You feel a sudden urge to run wild through the forest.
You catch a whiff of a prey animal on the wind and it stirs something inside you, making you want to give chase.
Maybe as part of the sanity loss, you can see different things in rooms? Just RP flavor. Like how you can see as part of the room description when there's a large collection of primal power in a place. Maybe if your sanity is at a certain threshold, you would get other sort of flavor feedback? Like... um... I actually don't have any good suggestions here. But maybe you would see different things in wilderness rooms.
I think things like that would be cool and give druid players (I don't know if there are other classes that struggle with sanity loss) RP prompts but the freedom to play them out in a way that makes sense for the character.
You hear a rumbling snarl sound behind you. A quickening of your pulse engages your fight-or-flight response. (Open-ended so you can RP turning and snarling back into the shadows or making a break for it.)
Or it could also lean into the your sanity is slipping because you're embracing more of the primal aspect so you're feeling less human? Like you start seeing things like:
You feel a sudden urge to go sink your teeth into a hunk of raw meat and rend flesh from bone.
You feel a sudden urge to run wild through the forest.
You catch a whiff of a prey animal on the wind and it stirs something inside you, making you want to give chase.
Maybe as part of the sanity loss, you can see different things in rooms? Just RP flavor. Like how you can see as part of the room description when there's a large collection of primal power in a place. Maybe if your sanity is at a certain threshold, you would get other sort of flavor feedback? Like... um... I actually don't have any good suggestions here. But maybe you would see different things in wilderness rooms.
I think things like that would be cool and give druid players (I don't know if there are other classes that struggle with sanity loss) RP prompts but the freedom to play them out in a way that makes sense for the character.
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
May have come off a little harsh and direct, there. Didn't mean to come down quite so hard on Dennis' contributions.
I think that's the sort of angle I like, too, Oracle. The eldrich/horror theme running through that initiation. I admit, I often wonder what other players see when various druidic rituals occur. There is flavour text for the druid, but I don't know how much turmoil is imparted to players around them.
I think that's the sort of angle I like, too, Oracle. The eldrich/horror theme running through that initiation. I admit, I often wonder what other players see when various druidic rituals occur. There is flavour text for the druid, but I don't know how much turmoil is imparted to players around them.
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
Not much at all, really. It's mostly cut and dry descriptions of the physical affects. If at any point you'd like to step aside in an OOC room and test stuff so I can show you strings, I'm willing. But i expect it's done the way it is to allow you to emote the character's eldritch reactions.
Re: Sanity Loss & Say
I have Feelings about sanity as a mechanic in games, so I'm going to avoid going too deep down that rabbit hole. I generally run to town for treatment and then stop playing when it gets as bad as to mess with your words, too. I do want to clarify two things that seem to have been brought up:
When concern has been expressed regarding real life mental illness and the representation thereof, Rias has made it clear that the Sanity system is specifically occult influence and not reflective of any actual mental illness.
Also, as a general reminder, Druidry is not the only thing in the game that lowers Sanity. Sorcerers have to deal with it, too, if far less often and to lesser degrees, as well as anyone who encounters certain in-game areas or effects. Any proposed solutions should probably not be specific to Druids and Primal forces.
I hope this is helpful to those discussing that may not have been aware.
When concern has been expressed regarding real life mental illness and the representation thereof, Rias has made it clear that the Sanity system is specifically occult influence and not reflective of any actual mental illness.
Also, as a general reminder, Druidry is not the only thing in the game that lowers Sanity. Sorcerers have to deal with it, too, if far less often and to lesser degrees, as well as anyone who encounters certain in-game areas or effects. Any proposed solutions should probably not be specific to Druids and Primal forces.
I hope this is helpful to those discussing that may not have been aware.