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Symptoms of SAN Loss in Delta Green
🕑 Added 2022-05-12 20:58:01 +0000 UTCLosing 5 Sanity Points or more in Delta Green has an obvious impact. The game explicitly says your Agent loses all self-control and either flees, goes berserk, or collapses. But when the loss is less than that, we tend to take shortcuts. "You lose 3 SAN." "Got it. OK, what do we see next?"
In my home games I have made a point of pressing players to explore those lesser losses. After all, losing even a single point of SAN means long-term trauma. It's psychic scarring that will not recover unless an Agent gets unusually effective treatment.
Handlers, slow things down. Ask the player to describe that fear.
I use the Fight/Flight/Freeze model of temporary insanity as a guide. Start with one of those three reactions.
- A loss of one or two is a distinctive response. It's usually obvious to everyone unless an Agent can fool them with a Persuasion check.
- A loss of three or four points is just this side of a complete breakdown. There's no disguising it.
My players have responded really well to this. Just taking a moment to say, "What does that loss look like to the others?" adds depth to a terrifying or horrifying scene and context for an Agent's ongoing dissolution.
Illustration by Dennis Detwiller. Delta Green is © and ™ the Delta Green Partnership.
Comments
Love it!
Christer Eriksson
Great explanation, my players usually try and make some sort of description of smaller losses but this will make things much easier.
