Sanity Meter

A pony starts with 20 sanity. Every time they crit fail, they lose a sanity point; crit fails on their special talent are 2 points. A decrease in sanity means an increase in derpiness; losing 1 point would mean that rolling a 2 would also be a crit fail, losing 2 points means up to 3 would be a crit fail, ETC. This wouldn't stack with the Derp talent; Derps would remain unaffected until they lost 3 or more points.

Regaining points can be done in one of two ways: the character can get a good night's rest, gaining back a sanity point, or an ally could spend a magic point to exchange one of their sanity points. That is to say, for one magic point, you can raise an ally's sanity by one point and reduce your own by one.

Eldritch entities may have sanity reducing effects.

Loosing all sanity makes a pony Screwy. They cannot gain sanity by sleeping until they succeed a 1d20 check to throw off the Screwy effect. +While Screwy, the success or failure of any action is determined by flipping a coin; failed actions require a d20 to be rolled, with increasing numbers determining an increasingly dramatic failure.+

THe parts between the + I'm unsure about.

....sooooooooo comments?

Masterweaver wrote:....sooooooooo comments?

Err... no, not really. It seems pretty straightforward to me. It's just a measurement of sanity for Cthulhy-type games.
Although, I do have a question. You could theoretically make a save or check, but lose sanity. That's... allowable?

I don't understand the question.

AlicornPriest wrote:
Although, I do have a question. You could theoretically make a save or check, but lose sanity. That's... allowable?

Okay, I start with 20 sanity, right? I don't have Derp, so my critical fail is only at 1 right now. But if I lose 10 sanity points, I could roll an 11 (a saving roll) and not make the save. I guess... that's the way it goes? Insanity even eats up "successes?"
And if you had only 1 sanity point left, you can't make any saves! You'll instantly lose the last one!

Yep, that's how it works. Insanity increases exponentially, you see. The less in touch you are with the world, the more you suffer....

Masterweaver wrote:

Loosing all sanity makes a pony Screwy. They cannot gain sanity by sleeping until they succeed a 1d20 check to throw off the Screwy effect. +While Screwy, the success or failure of any action is determined by flipping a coin; failed actions require a d20 to be rolled, with increasing numbers determining an increasingly dramatic failure.+

THe parts between the + I'm unsure about.

How about "when screwy, all element of harmany powers cost 1 more magic point. In addition they gain the elemnt of discord ability that is directly opposed to their EoH."

And for the EoD we can have things like:
Element of shelfisness- can force another player to spend a magic point to give yourself a +25 to a single skill check. This is the opposite of the element of generosity. (i put it that high because 2 magic points are being spent, one against their owners will. However, on second thought, that could cause strife in a player group who wernt expecting that. But then again, their playing with sanity rules. A little from coloum a, a little from coloum b i think. And if i rember correctly, in the show twi had to put up with rarity lugging around tom for ages, and even had to carry it for a bit i think.)

Prof. Charles Hoofington wrote:

Masterweaver wrote:

Loosing all sanity makes a pony Screwy. They cannot gain sanity by sleeping until they succeed a 1d20 check to throw off the Screwy effect. +While Screwy, the success or failure of any action is determined by flipping a coin; failed actions require a d20 to be rolled, with increasing numbers determining an increasingly dramatic failure.+

THe parts between the + I'm unsure about.

How about "when screwy, all element of harmany powers cost 1 more magic point. In addition they gain the elemnt of discord ability that is directly opposed to their EoH."

And for the EoD we can have things like:
Element of shelfisness- can force another player to spend a magic point to give yourself a +25 to a single skill check. This is the opposite of the element of generosity. (i put it that high because 2 magic points are being spent, one against their owners will. However, on second thought, that could cause strife in a player group who wernt expecting that. But then again, their playing with sanity rules. A little from coloum a, a little from coloum b i think. And if i rember correctly, in the show twi had to put up with rarity lugging around tom for ages, and even had to carry it for a bit i think.)

I like this idea! Seems more screwy, and makes Sanity something everypony needs to keep track of; if somepony is about to go Screwy and another party member is at full Sanity, a few donations would be well worth it to keep Screwy from coming into play (not that a 50% failure chance is a walk in the park, but still). Plus, this gives us options for if somepony decides they want Discord as a campaign boss.

I personally think "elements of Disharmony" don't work. But the rest of the idea seems nice. And you're all forgetting the increasing crit fails that lead up to being Screwy.

Masterweaver wrote:I personally think "elements of Disharmony" don't work. But the rest of the idea seems nice. And you're all forgetting the increasing crit fails that lead up to being Screwy.

Fair enough. I was thinking that the EoD went against the principle of the game (working together and making friends), but i thought i would throw the idea out there anyway. And the crit fails do seem sevear enough that no additional baggage needs to be attached.

Awesome, a sanity system!

I really want to see something like this incorporated in every Pony RP out there, but one thing I would maybe like to see added to this is fear effects. At times in the show, ponies like Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy became greatly distressed because of their fears getting the better of them (fear of failing in front of a massive audience - fear of having to face down a dragon). Maybe in a campaign with Sanity, each player would have to choose a fear during character creation, and when that fear came up, they'd have to make some kind of check or lose more sanity?

Ah, the old "why did it have to be snakes" mechanic. There had better be an advantage to having a fear. Maybe some sort of boost after overcoming a fear, as that encourages players to face there fears and whatnot.

Prof. Charles Hoofington wrote:There had better be an advantage to having a fear. Maybe some sort of boost after overcoming a fear, as that encourages players to face there fears and whatnot.

Good point, but in that case the penalty or challenge would also have to be great enough so that the players likewise weren't always overcoming their fears either.

Maybe if they face their fear successfully, then they wouldn't have to make any more sanity checks for the rest of the day?

That would also make them have to take an extra sanity check though, perhaps?

XandZero2 wrote:

Prof. Charles Hoofington wrote:There had better be an advantage to having a fear. Maybe some sort of boost after overcoming a fear, as that encourages players to face there fears and whatnot.

Good point, but in that case the penalty or challenge would also have to be great enough so that the players likewise weren't always overcoming their fears either.

Maybe if they face their fear successfully, then they wouldn't have to make any more sanity checks for the rest of the day?

That would also make them have to take an extra sanity check though, perhaps?

Maybe just stabilize their sanity at full? If they're already full, they could refill one of their multi-use (i.e. 3/day and such) utility talents.

^ WoMF's idea sounds good to me, and I can see the justification in gaining sanity from realizing that your fears are unfounded - at least for a time.

In the show, when a pony winds up facing their fear, they usually get off something like a cutiemark critical. Rainbow faced her fear at best young fliers and pulled off the sonic rainboom. Fluttershy faced her fear of dragons and pretty much verbally KO'd it. She later managed to beat a cockatrice in a staring contest.

So maybe, facing your fear successfully allows you to pull off a cutiemark critical on whatever situation you're dealing with. But otherwise the fear itself results in penalties to stats and/or rolls. (rainbow messing up her stunts, Fluttershy's wings locking up) Additionally facing a fear once doesn't mean its gone forever, since Fluttershy is still established as being scared of dragons in "secret of my excess".

It is now time to enact reforms
Overview

All creatures start with 100 sanity. Every time they crit fail, they lose a sanity point. A decrease in sanity means an increase in derpiness; losing 1 point would mean that rolling a 2 would also be a crit fail, losing 2 points means up to 3 would be a crit fail, up to 10. This does not stack with the Derp talent until reaching the point where 4 would be a crit fail. At levels of sanity lower than 75 various mental effects occur such as hallucinations,and hearing voices at 50 and lower worse effects occur such as losing control of body parts and complete distortion of the senses at the levels lower than 25 the GM is encouraged to do what ever they please.

Regaining points can primarily be done in one of five ways: the character can get a good night's rest, gaining back a sanity point, or an ally could spend a magic point to exchange some of their sanity points upto a maxium of 50% of the giving player's current total.Triumphing over your fear(see below).Performing a favored action(see below).And useing a madness talent(see lower)

Fears
Fears come in three groupings Players are only required to pick one fear
Common things that are encountered about every day (ex ponies,darkness,flying[winged creatures])
uncommon things that are encountered about once a week (ex giving a speach, most nonsapient creatures, flying[nonwinged creatures])
rare encountered almost at intervals of more than a week but are highly unlikely to be important (ex adult dragons, the undead,giant tentacles)
The ranking of the fear varies on the the character and their backstory
The effects are as follows
Common perform all related rolls at a -5 penalty if you suceed regain 1D10 sanity
Uncommon perform all related rolls at a -10 penalty if you suceed regain 2D10 sanity and your sucess becomes a critical sucess
Rare perform all related rolls at a -20 penalty if you suceed regain all lost sanity additionally your this and your next two sucess become CMC level sucesses

Favorite actions
Once per day when character preforms an action that they thoroughly enjoy (set at creation) they can regain 1D10 sanity

Madness talents
These talents are free to use but only when the user is below 75 sanity
-I know I am doing it right interrupt
Trigger you suceed in a roll
effect turn the roll into a fail and regain 1D20 sanity
-Consulting Mister Puppet /1 day
flip a coin if heads your next roll is made at a +7 bonus and lose 1 sanity if tails regain 7 sanity
-You Can See That, Right? /3 day
dispell any hallucination or distortion while you are with an ally and regain 1 sanity
-Sanity ball 1/secession
for the next 5 minutes you are treated as full sanity
-Bored With Insanity reaction
trigger you reach 0 sanity
effect you are restored to full sanity but you maximum is 5 less than before (effect stacks with itself)

Various entities and items may have sanity reducing effects .


any suggestions would be helpful especially as to the maddness talents

What Tyger forgot to mention was our reasoning behind these changes (Then again he also didnt talk with us with the more detailed bits, we just said things like "Sanity Effects like in Eternal Darkness" and "Insanity talents"). Also not sure why its called the Xel Reform when at least a 1/3 was my idea, another 1/3 was Fury and Life's idea, and the last bit was Xel's. Really it kinda feels like you read the ideas and rushed to get them on the forum for some reason.

But anyway, the reason we were even talking about the Sanity System in the first place is because it is currently really flawed. Right now its more of a Self-Esteem meter as the only thing that lowers it is failing dice rolls and it just makes them fail more the lower it gets (As psychologically if you believe you will fail, you WILL fail). And its also ridiculous how a small stream of botches can make someone go completely bonkers (If you consider it a measure on Sanity) when realistically constant failures would just depress someone. Which is why I suggested upping the points to 100 so failures would simply nibble at ones mind instead of taking a small chunk. 1/20 is a bit more than you think when it starts to add up. Also 100 would make pinpointing ones mental stability easier AND it would make rest less a Sanity Cure-all as sanity doesnt come back to you in one chunk by just sleeping well.

I also suggested the Sanity Effects like from Eternal Darkness because there should be something the DM can do to a players character to cement the fact that they're going insane especially since the player isnt being encouraged into actually starting to act insane. With this though, when players reach a certain amount, the DM can start throwing in small creepy things that only that character sees to start showing how that character is going insane and start giving the player a bit more a push to start acting insane (Not all at once, of course). Not sure how I can explain more than that.

As for everything else, well I rather the ones who came up with the base idea explain their reasoning as the one I would piece together from our Skype conversations would probably be a mock-up of what they actually think. Im sure they would be able to explain it better than I could anyway.