I stumbled across this myself after having jerry rigged my own sanity system for a Tyranny of Dragons campaign I was running, before being told by a DM friend of mine that sanity was already in the game XD
While most people read the PHB or Monster Manual, because the former is necessary to play the game at all and the latter is needed to run one, the DMG gets overlooked much more frequently. Which is a shame because, while not as well put together as it could have been (development on it was rushed, by the designers' own admission), it's got a wealth of useful material beyond just the magic item descriptions.
Nothing, its just cosmic ooze that only exists in the farthest realms of the universe that was created in the domain of Cthulu that leads anyone who even looks at it descend into a realm of madness incarnate
Having characters make sanity saves after some of the more questionable actions that they do could help them come to terms with the reality of what they just did, or can be a way to change an alignment like after a killing spree roll a save and if they pass it and feel nothing over it their alignment slowly changes over time
ReallyBurntToast When FINALLY get to DM I’m going to make my players make a sanity check every time they do something like kill/steal/betray, things like that, these checks will not amount to much but I’ll have a threshold for these where if a player pushes past one they will have a mental break, where they do something like stop responding to things, enter a trance like state, or develop extreme flaws, or potentially become so distraught by their own actions that their character kill themseves. Because most campaigns have you killing, lots and lots of things, wich would make them wonder, did those goblins have a family, were they just protecting loved ones or trying to survive, or Mabey they steal food from a family of humans in the woods, only to come back to it later and see sights of caniballisim and a single dried out corpse, because the family starved.
@@notyetdeleted6319 oh, mechanical penalties for assholery? Remember, any class proficient in wis saves should have proficiency in sanity saves, it just kinda makes sense
Oh god... the first time I played Darkest Dungeon, my 6th or so adventure ended up with 3 consecutive heart attacks and only the Man-at-arms getting out of there. Although, trying to fight your namesake was a sanity test for me.
This can be used on demons too Expecially the stronger ones, the most ancient After all, being made of CHAOS I think is a good substitute for Eldritch absurdity
I think it can work on anything rare too. If no-one's ever heard of a chimera and then BLAMMO! three-headed flying lizard goat! That's gotta be a little taxing to the ol' noggin.
@@pretsal4955 not...THAT much At least a chimera while heavy magical in nature, still fly with wings, eat, sleep...it's body work like one would expect it to more or less
How to make new players leave: "Roll a sanity check" being said in a game that sanity never came up during anything up until that point. How to make vet players lean in: "Roll a sanity check" being said in a game that sanity never came up during anything up until that point. How to make the one other person who read the whole DM's handbook laugh:"Roll a sanity check" being said in a game that sanity never came up during anything up until that point.
Thank you for the videos, voice-forging bird-man! I think SAN as a stat/roll can eb fun when done properly, and deters some 'players' [you know the type] from being allowed to do whatever they think of with no regards to others. Since it's both a condition and a *treatable* condition, they can't blame madness when it's just malice or apathy, and when they truly go insane, they LOSE control and combat effectiveness, ruining low to moderate attempts to brute force puzzles or encounters.
I recently had an interesting idea for a role-playing campaign. Let me know what you think. Basically, the DM creates the player characters and distributes them to the players randomly. The characters are all dead, murdered by someone who is trying to achieve immortality or something. They don't remember much and have a limited time (I was thinking 1 month, but I don't really have any experience to properly guage a good limit) to solve the mystery of who killed them and foil their plans. Additional aspects, being undead grants the players special abilities BUT prevents them from interacting fully with the living, each character may have a Nemesis they need to take down and get a temporary super powerful buff or transformation when facing them, and the party get short bits of memory back as they find clues. Maybe the area has a special form of trade amongst the undead that the living are not privy to.
Is there something you’re trying to tell us, Kanekou? As fitting as this is for spoopy month, no-one wants you to burn out! Another fantastic video, but you come first!
What noise? That one coming from the basement?! What's this strange, green fog? Why are there so many prison cells, and it's all so... wait. Where did that door go? Why is it so dark and what's that thumping sound in my ears!? The whispers, they're calling to me? No, get out! I won't look at the painting! That's not me!! Someone, anyone!? Why is it so cold... Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah-nagl fhtagn!
im a new recent subscriber, ive now binged all of the videos on here and have loved ALL OF THEM. i was SUPER HYPED when i saw a new upload, but... i gotta say... IT WAS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC, EXCELLENT ART, WONDERFUL NARRATION, AND A GREAT IDEA!! absolutely love your stuff!! thank you for putting it out for us to watch! :D
That spider eye assassin at 1:48 is rad! I love your videos for the interesting spins you create, like the alternate goblin subraces. Keep up the good work!
I greatly appreciate this video. I never really understood the rules for Madness and Sanity before, but now that I do I'm realizing it would be the perfect fit for my campaign (where monsters are horrifying, magic is visceral, and every death is described in gristly detail).
One of my players wanted to make a character with a fairly typical horribly sad backstory, they were orphaned by a house fire. I didn’t think Much of it until they brought up that this person would probably have horrible ptsd triggered by fire, bright light, and extreme heat. I remembered I had watched this video a while back and gave it another watch and this was just what I needed! Thanks for making such a great video!
I like making sanity and madness a recurring thing depending on the situation and what the characters have been through. When that shit pops up randomly in an encounter or a crucial moment, it can make things so much more intense.
The way I handled Sanity saves is that, for every 5 points you roll below the DC of the Sanity save, the table you rolled on got worse. It was a low magic modern horror campaign based on 80s horror flicks, with some eldritch inspiration to boot. The party's Warlock blasted a panel that was covered in maggots and rotten flesh, sending a molten mess of both flying at the faces of him and two other party members, forcing a Sanity Save. Each member failed, and there was only one set of Anxiety pills between them. With a DC of 15, one rolled 14 and got Short-Term Madness. One rolled around 10 or so and got Long Term. The other rolled a 4 and got Indefinite Madness. It was a blast watching the Sorcerer deal with his brand new phobia of maggots as they were crawling all over him, while the Witch was desperately looking for a sink to wash her hands in
The DMG also has a different set of optional rules on p. 266, for "Fear and Horror". The latter has a character make a Charisma saving throw to avoid gaining a short or long term Madness. It can serve as an alternative to the Sanity score, if your campaign doesn't use it (usually because madness isn't a central theme of the game).
Something i'd also recommend is to take a look at Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. In DnD 5e terms, Sanity is a health like score dictated by your Wisdom x5. Experiences that would chip at ones sanity require a wisdom saving throw to determine how much sanity one loses. sanity can be regained over a long period of down-time allowing for them to recover from the things the experienced, though it will never exceed it's starting score. One of the more interesting parts of it is that in a situation where they lose a large amount of sanity, the PC must attempt to **FAIL** a Intelligence saving throw where if they succeed, they will grasp the horror before them and begin to go mad, it is one of few times where ones intelligence works against them, and where the less intelligent PCs who can't fully grasp the cosmic horrors can weirdly shine.
amazing as always! I've wondered how implement this into my games but it never worked. But not i'm gonna see about using it in my Saltmarsh game. Thanks!
The fighter in my group accepted a bagpipe from a forgotten Fey King, and playing it makes everyone dance and he cannot stop playing, and now he sees the moon as a dancing elven woman, the sun as a dancing human man and stuff is just beginning!
You made me realize what the optoinal Honor and Sanity scores are for. If the party is stupid but the DM can't stop them without meta-gaming or railroading can instead to opt to use the Honor score to let them know that they are being goaded into trap or that offering elven ambassadors meat from a creature they've slain would be a BAD IDEA. Players breezing through your encounters and complain that its too easy? Introduce Sanity Score to see if they can withstand what they've seen or done mentally. (This should probably only be used on experienced players) And be used after they see something legitimately scary like a beloved npc dying, some new form of monstrosity. Seeing a holy relic of a god (not necessarily eldritch in nature) that mortal eyes weren't meant to see. Seeing an Astral Dreadnought restrained. They could have specific effects for each one like the last one making them run away as fast as possible for the duration. Or The holy relic of a deity causes those who gaze upon it to go blind or if its a way of talking to a god directly without spells or prayer they have to roll Sanity to see if they can comprehend the majesty of a god with their own facilities.
This vid gave me a great idea for a story line and I'm currently organizing my first DMing session ever. Very excited, my current DM said he'd help me practice DMing by creating a one shot for the group
My group likes to play sanity like stress in darkest dungeon. Its fun to see them purposely push themselves to the edge for the small chance of a triumph and the amazing effect it offers, but if they fail and fall into disrepair the negative effects can be devastating.
One of my players made a character that already started in a state of being clinically insane, so what I did was give them two (homebrew) indefinite madness effects and told them to lower their sanity score by 1 for every indefinite madness effect
3:26 It’s been a while since I’ve seen him. Last time I saw him, we played a game of Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth-Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip Poker! Good times... good times...
I guess you could say checking into that research foundation was a bit... perilous! (wasn't expecting Perilous Storytelling's theme music for that endcap, nice!)
I use sanety as a secret pool of hitpoints without the players knowing. Time between events replenishes a bit of it and you can get temporary sanity points from certain thing like drinking your pain away. If you reach 0 sanity, the madness starts. Works quite fine, but if a lot of bookkeeping behind the screen.
I'm going to rework Madness a bit in my games, but here's what I have so far, inspired by Call of Cthulhu: When failing a madness roll, the player loses 1d4 or 1d6 (or even more) Sanity, depending on the severity of the cause. Losing 3 or more Sanity at once causes them to be afflicted by Minor Madness, giving a phobia or nervous tick. Losing 6 or more gives Greater Madness, such as addiction, new flaws and obsessions. Having your Sanity score reduced to 0 causes complete insanity, which I'm yet to work out. Either way, sanity can only be recovered when you're away from the source of madness, and slowly.
One thing we plan on doing for a Changling wild sorcerer from Limbo is to use this insanity table as the effects and influence of chaotic Limbo takes over their mind. It'll be an interesting campaign!
I love the sanity rule in games. Adds a whole new element to it that can be surprisingly suspenseful and enjoyable. My friend was DMing and wanted to add this rule to his campaign because it was more of a Darkest Dungeon Style campaign and it was a blast.
I like a lot of the examples here, really brings out a Lovecraftian vibe. But, I find that sanity can also be an element in even a normal campaign without those themes. For example, the first time the PC's witness something truly horrific - certain undead, or fiends, or aberrations, things that are truly twisted and unreal - especially if they are starting out low in level. Or perhaps as they find seens of particularly sickening murder or decay.
My last campaign was a grim, western with low magic (cant level spell caster classes beyond 1, you get archtype at 1 and spell slots require consumables to restore) and lotsa guns and horrors. I don’t tell my players about the sanity ruling and I secretly have their sanity stat written down. Whenever I mentally scar their characters I tell the players to roll wisdom but I secretly apply sanity instead. Took some time for them to figure it out but it was the end of the campaign and they had fun.
Gotta be honest, the idea of assigning a score to very real, very harmful mental illnesses rubs me the wrong way. It takes a VERY good GM and a group that knows each other well before I'd want to be in a game that used this. That being said, if I WERE going to use it, this was an incredibly informative and respectful look at it told in a way that keeps your attention. A+
@0:32: "Do your best to ignore the whispers from thee basement; there's a leak." Agh, I hate that! Those times when the pipes start trying to brainwash you to brutally murder your family and friends or summon an unholy beast and incite the apocalypse... I just want to sleep, dang it! This is why I always try to get someone to invest some points in the plumber subclass. So, I came across your channel not that long ago - around the time the Pit Fiend video came out - and I gotta say... your stuff is good. It's informative, entertaining, the stories that you come up with are engaging, and all with some dang fine art to boot. So... yeah. I like your stuff. Is nice and cozy.
I saw the sanity stat, and how to roll for it and I instantly thought that instead of adding the wis. and int. bomus to it, you should take those away from it. Why you ask? Because of a quote from the father of eldritch horror himself, H.P. Lovecraft: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” So essentially the dumber a PC is the less they can corralate the contents of their mind, so to speak. I would keep the roll 4d6 drop the lowest, then subtract the modifiers. Also consider that your PC’s with high int/wis are likely also magically atuned, so that may make them more susceptible. Consider that irl those that are smarter report being less happy overall. A home brew idea that I’ve been toying with is a sort of sanity meter, or like a cache. Essentially even these seasoned adventures can only take so much gore and violence, and seeing their friends getting nearly or completely torn apart by savage beasts, possibly having died or lost a limb. It would be a sort of hidden number, one possibly nearing the hundreds that’s it based off of int/wis, how exactly I would get the total value for each PC is unclear to me, but there would be a value that decreases as int/wis increases, only very minimally though for this latent system. Essentially it would be a number that ticks down by a flat amount based on perhaps how many innocents they’ve seen dead, how many monsters they’ve killed that have human like traits ((intelligent)) and wich aren’t brutal savage creatures. Essentially if you can reason with a foe you’ll take some points of sanity damage. You can slightly raise your meter through short and long rests, but the fastest was is to get some R&R be that praying to your deity, getting absolutely trashed at a tavern, whatever it may be that a PC would enjoy. As the sanity meter lowers at certain benchmarks they may get passive negative stat effects, this includes but is not limited to lowering things like charisma, but also dex or any other stat, up to you. It could also reduce movement speed by 5 or make saving throws that rely on mental faculties even harder by taking on a -2 or even 3/4 depending on how far gone they are. If the PC reaches 0 they have a break and have to release all the pent up horrid, either through some vile act or outburst, or Mabey it takes them completely and they become more self-serving, or any number of things, perhaps it cause means a permanent debuff that can’t be removed with a “mind rewind”. Setting the PC’s memories back to before they lost it, also setting their current sanity points to what they were at the time that the rewind goes back to. This would also be extremely disorientating and take a long rest to shake the discombobulation. Changed my mind while writing this players should be able to see the stat,, so they can both RP it and so they can fix it
I'm a new DM, so I'm kinda experimenting with a little homebrew. My players and I have accorded on a "phobia/filia" pseudo system, it kinda resumes to advantage/disadvantage on sanity saves, but the fun is on the specifics. In my campaign, my players can gain a Feat from the beginning of the game in exchange of a phobia/filia of their choice. They get a little boon an I get permission to screw them up to my leisure. A total win-win
The 5 ways to tell that you are insane! 1. You have green hair 2. Your partner is mentally broken 3. You record people’s dead faces 4. You have the power to create mold 5. You’re a stand user
This is really cool. Those rules might fit well with the demon lord my players will be facing. It warps reality around it and can cause all sorts of nasty things. So adding sanity checks will work great
Damn I wish I would have thought to inclement this in Decent to Avernus. There were some messed up things and I thought about making them do charisma saves but I didn't know what I would do of they failed. However we found tables about addiction when one of the party members found a Smugglers Root and got addicted
Maybe use it like Call of Cuthulu where it’s a type of HP score. Where the more you know and see the more you lose yourself. 8+Wis+Int+Lv? And when it hits 0 you gain a insanity, being a small one. And your insanity score goes to full, but when happening again it’s more severe until it’s where you gain flaws from permanent insanities and if you having to many, become unplayable until cured. Maybe lesser restoration heals 1d4+Casting modifier on insanity if chosen. Greater restoration healing to full, and if one is fully insane, erasing one’s memories might be the only option.
i actually added to this to my campiagn because im running Cruse of Strahd (with some minor tweaks of my own here and there) and addignt he sanity gives me a reason to actively scare people, and reminds my players they are awesome badass heroes but also..still incredibly fucking mortal.
I'm running a Halloween oneshot this...well, Halloween, and thanks to your video, I now have a new way to torture my poor friends! Mwahahahahahahahahaaaa!
We never really played with sanity but my elven rogue was almost eaten by a mimic, for the rest of the campaign any chest/ jewelry box was to be smacked with my wacking stick before opened. Just to see if it was a mimic or not.
This system kinda reminds me of the stress gauge from darkest dungeon where if a memeber of the group you have recieve enough stress it's a make or break situation. Sometimes characters become rightous and other times become selfish or even develop a need to inflict pain on themselves which stresses out the rewt of the group, somtimes if that charavter survives the dungeon that moment becomes a flaw or buff for that character until it is fixed through a few means. Considering the nightmare fuel the characters have to deal with it makes sense that they would become a little unhinged when the journey is over and for me this makes sense for dnd in some situations considering what the DM throws at the party, wheather it's a mind flayer entering the mind of a cleric pretending to be their god whispering lies into their ear to give them a crysis of faith or the party coming into contact with an other worldly eldrich god like an aboleth it really messes with the party one way or an another. Either way i enjoyed this episode perfect for the month of october and dark/scary campaigns.
Just is time, I'm running Curse of Strahd, and Descent into Avernus after that, and Tomb of Annihilation after that. Madness will suit those adventures just fine, though I'll home-brew it a bit (inspired by Call of Cthulhu)
