[quote=“Hyena Grin, post:23, topic:1091”]People can develop abnormal behaviors and maladaptive thought patterns that makes it increasingly difficult to reintegrate into society, but the idea of a full-blown case of psychosis resulting from stress, that’s just not going to happen. ‘Sanity’ isn’t really something that can be represented very well with a meter. ‘Insanity’ isn’t even a good word. That said, stress and exhaustion and emotional trauma can all cause profound acute hallucinogenic episodes. It’s rare but it does happen. The key is that they are isolated events; they are the result of acute stress and mental/emotional strain. It also differs from panic attacks and ‘hysteria’ which can also result from acute stress and exhaustion.
What I am trying to say here, is that a sanity ‘system’ just wouldn’t make a lot of sense. It isn’t something that you wear down and build up, per se. A lot of the conditions we ascribe to ‘insanity’ are genetic or at least biological in nature, not a result of the patient’s environment as such. Environments create abnormal behavior, and can trigger dormant psychosis, but you can’t create full-blown psychosis from a healthy brain. I guess from a gameplay point of view it might be interesting, but I don’t think we really need a whole new system to represent the kinds of psychotic episodes that you might expect to see from time to time in a horrible, lonely apocalyptic scenario.
Simply being attacked and badly injured (in a lot of pain) by zombies might result in a Paranoia effect. From time to time when your view is uncovering fog of war, you will briefly (for one turn) see random enemies. Basically you start to see zombies in every nook and cranny, shadows look like monsters, etc. You’re afraid, and your brain is feeding that fear. Certain drugs make this more likely, and some may rarely cause paranoia randomly and without cause (such as marijuana).
Too many zombies in close proximity might result in a Panic effect. This is more likely to occur when very tired, or already badly hurt, etc. When panicked you gain increased movement and attack speed, but start screaming, which obviously generates noise. Impact of pain on performance is reduced, but your accuracy with guns and melee goes down. Vision is reduced and hearing is reduced as you go into a hyperfocused, adrenaline-fueled state. Your sleep debt (whatever numeric stat is used to keep track of tiredness) increases more quickly while the panic is in effect. You don’t have to flee, but the longer you remain panicked, the worse the negative effects get (to some maximum). Panic ends when no enemies are seen or heard for some time (if you happen to become panicked and paranoid at the same time, this could mean having to hide in a closet until you calm down). Caffeine and cocaine make panic a bit more likely to occur.
Given a perfect storm of paranoia and panic over an extended period, particularly with the influence of drugs, can result in a Hysteria effect. Not exactly a scientific term, but it is the kind of thing that makes grown men cower under beds. This rare effect makes you shake uncontrollably, and you cannot move unless you can currently see or hear an enemy. The sight of an enemy will cause your character to scream, which generates noise. In most ways this is very much like Panic, just with added situational paralysis thrown in, and it comes with a heavy negative mood modifier that persists for some time after the event. It ends after a longer period than required to end a panic state.
If you accumulate too many of these events (Hysteria in particular is bad), you are increasingly likely to develop PTSD. PTSD is… permanent, but manageable with anxiety medications. PTSD simply makes it more likely that all three of these events will occur, and you will begin to have horrible nightmares that wake you up from time to time, occasionally with a zombie-drawing scream.
… doesn’t that all sound lovely[/quote]
Yes, that sounds positively wonderful <3 <3 <3
We were planning on having vision be untrustworthy at the edges, but having certain things appear as monsters rather than “unknown” is an amazing idea.
Tracking a fear or stress level is also in the cards. Though I was planning on having the fear evoked by a given monster take a large hit when you’re able to kill one, so eventually this would fade into the background, unless one were to be seriously hurt by a given monster, which would have a chance of increasing fear of that monster type again. This is part of a system I’ve been planning where the player’s likes, dislikes, and fears are semi-randomly initialized at game start, and then influenced throughout the game.
