insanity

[dyneortega]

Ok, so I'm going to be in a game soon where our characters are all from our world. We are all high school students and have never experienced things from that world. Is there something to help me and the other players with the trauma of what that world would be like for a teen from our world? I mean how do you handle things like killing someone at 16 or so if it's not common place?

[SuperUberGeek]

Start with small things like house pets and work your way up. :O

[MeanMutton]

The closest ruleset is this: GM's Guide - Sanity And Madness

[Rub-Eta]

dyneortega wrote:

I mean how do you handle things like killing someone at 16 or so if it's not common place?

Speaking from... not experience... yes... You appreciate the adrenaline surging through your body and the power that comes with taking a life!

Honestly, the set-up seems too ridiculus. You probably don't need to "deal with trauma". Else you'll never get to the good parts of the game (the game it self, you'll be busy doing teen-drama-stuff). But if you want to play "even more confused than a normal high school kid"-the game, go ahead. I really don't have any input.

Though it could be funny to play as a stereotype nerd who gets a bit too excited about how everything is like in their favourit books and games. He probably wouldn't have a problem accepting his new reality. Later he becomes some kind of Austin Powers character, when he's fully into the setting, trying to score with elves at any opportunity he gets.

[Qaianna]

The basic assumption is that your character knows basics of how the world works, for a given educational level. A peasant from downtown Egorian is not going to know the full details of the myriad planets, but will at least have heard of the concept, knows what to call the two closest ones, and understands that there are creatures one can call on and bargain with to get that knowledge. (And to do whatever they're told by the ones who do that sort of thing, of course.) Dropping an alien into this (and Earth folk count as aliens here) will be its own thing.

Although it may be fun to find out their first reaction to Golarion's general technological level as far as plumbing is concerned ...

[Pizza Lord]

They have this game for preparing you for how to handle such things. You should have started younger so that when the portal opened and sucked you in, you were ready.

Practice moving in 5 foot increments and brushing up on your diagonal distances. You don't want to be 'that guy' when you're attacked by a three feet tall, scrawny humanoid whose body is dwarfed by its wide, ungainly head (make a Knowledge Nature check.)

Alternatively, you don't have to 'kill' anyone unless you're really careless or trying to. Yes, if you hit someone with a sword, they might bleed out (you're unlikely to send them straight to dead right off the bat.) At least you can make the effort to 'save' them. If you do fail, well... that's kind of a consequence of your actions and how you deal with that is probably an indicator of your alignment and your rationalization of the situation; self-defense, me-or-him, he was going to sound the alarm, I needed his boots more than he did, etc. Pretty much the same things you do when you kill people in this world.

If you want a mechanics aspect (and I would recommend trying to just keep it RP), keep track of (horrible events) and every week or so or immediately after a traumatic one (say that night), make a Wisdom check DC 10 +1 per instance that week or up until that point (Yes, Wisdom, not Will just in case some of you get classes with higher Will saves. This should be based on your inherent mental strength coming into the game world from elsewhere, not your class's bonus, at least for purposes of this mechanic.) Really bad stuff can add more. On a failure, you have bad dreams, you can't eat or basically keep anything down. Suffer effects similar to being sickened (but not necessarily because of illness) just lethargy or a mental refusal to face the world. I wouldn't go into mental illnesses specifically unless you really want to have the PC become split-personalities or schizophrenics or traumatized.