Reply To: Disabilities and mental health (problems)

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 3]

I posted a comment about this on the weekender when it was discussed and I wonder if part of the issue is how it’s being framed.  Do you get more powerful the more insane you get or do you get more insane the more powerful you become.  The former frames power as a reward of insanity, the latter frames insanity as the price of power  and I feel the latter is far more appropriate for a Cthulu game, it has a very Nietzschean feel to it.

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

I haven’t actually seen the Death may Die game in any detail beyond what was talked about on the weekender so I really can’t comment on exactly how the game puts the concept across, only what I watched in the weekender;  if the game does frame power as a reward for insanity then that’s probably not such a great idea.  Also, I probably won’t see the game in any more detail because I’m not really that into Lovecraftian mythology (there, I said it, sorry guys).  However I have seen similar mechanics in other games (for example Dark Heresy 40k RPG) and it’s usually presented as insanity being a penalty you incur as you get more powerful.  What I will say is that in this kind of horror setting, I do think that insanity is quite an important aspect of the lore, the idea that there are things so horrific and terrifying that even just seeing them can leave you mentally and emotionally scarred.