Insanity Bane: Pros vs Cons

Rules Discussion House Rules
1

I have been considering new campaigns that I might run with the Open Legends system and have been toying with the idea for a Grim Dark style campaign. Now typically one of the biggest features of these types of campaigns is of course insanity. The gritty horror of true reality tests the mental resolve of characters and those who succomb are driven insane. The question being is how to do this mechanically with the Open Legends system. Now the most obvious solution is to use the Fatigued bane (physical fatigue vs. mental fatigue similar in many ways). The differing levels work really well and with the correct flavoring can make your player truly feel like they are going insane. The biggest issue I am running into is that mental fatigue/insanity is nowhere as easy to deal with as physical fatigue. Listed below are some of the areas I have questions on and hopefully someone will be able to shed some light for me.

  1. Does the Special on the duration need to be altered? Should it take longer than a 24 hour rest to remove a level of this insanity? Should it be more difficult the higher the level of insanity?

  2. Can insanity still be healed with a boon? Is restoration still the best boon for this or is there another boon that works better?

  3. Also how is this bane to be inflicted? Can it be invoked with say Influence vs. Resolve? Or should it be a DC check against Will? Both?

  4. Does the Power Level on an Insanity bane need to be increased? Does it need to be invoked and healed at a higher level?

  5. Are there any alterations that need to be made to the levels of insanity vs. the fatigued bane? For example, at level two I was thinking of swapping out slowed with fear however that seems problematic in a couple different ways perhaps phantasm instead?

  6. Or am I way off the mark and should come up with a completley different mechanic to handle insanity?

Please let me know what you all think. Thanks.

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There were some attempts to explore this territory already. You can find some ideas and thoughts here: House Rules for Insanity

I will later on reply in a more detailed fashion, but I’m also working on a Horror-Fantasy campaign, so at some point I’ll have to come up with system and I have some ideas, but I need to formulate them concisely and clearly to spot weaknesses and holes.

But you can hit me up on Discord if you want and we can exchange ideas at some point.

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Taking leathal psychic/insanity damage comes to mind as another option, not gonna affect dice so much but the player will get more paranoid. Every X damage you have taken gives a level of demoralised could be an option.

Maybe change the sleep/resting leathal healed away from fortitude and over to willpower.

Taking X amount in a shot time could give a temporary insanity like fear, incapacitated, blinded, deafened and whatever more you could fit on a D12 random table