Player characters attitudes and sanity, How do you play it?

[Tombot]

Yes, it is a great help for players and the GM (for NPC´s) alike.
It goes beyond attitude. With it comes stuff like hobbys, traits like alcoholism, reasons why your stepmother killed crazy uncle harold, etc.
Good times with these books. I use´em for most of my games, and the players always liked it, when their character-stats & the "Heroes"-background suddenly "unfolded" a real character.
Apart from the title ("Heroes of.."), the content is toned down enough, to make it fit for convincing personalitys. Nice to hear that you use it too!

[headquarters]

we play v. 2.0 with our own tweaks.

inititative plus intelligence is added up for a total of sanitypoints.

Any serious wound is a minus one. Critical wounds minus two. Bad situations, mental trauma,extreme fear stress and committing heinous acts -even if involuntarily is gms discetion. In a mannr of a few sessions you can whittle it down to zero. Once there the gm pulls an appropriate disorder out of his black book and hands it to the pc on a note ( sort of like an old ad n d curse)

I tend to be mean and give people ptsd like drinking to self medicate or sleeping disorders that give penalties because of intoxication etc.
The sanity points then go back to full again

Next time around a new disorder is aded or an existing one worsened. In the end the PC will be a pill chewing unstable machine gun toting psycho and normally ends up endangering everybody etc etc .

For eefect - bad cases are handed hastily scribbled gm notes with what the voices in their heads are telling them to do...heheh

good gaming fun

[kcdusk]

I'm playing in a game on rpol at the moment. I inherited the character. He's young, likely war shocked, overcome with everything. He's also frightened and perhaps not the coolest under pressure.

I think most of the other players have picked up i am deliberatly playing the character with flaws, rather than being an insecure player.

Some examples of how i play him? He fires single shot when he should be providing covering fire. He fires lots of bursts when friendlies are nearby. Basically he's trying hard, but not always getting it right. Sometimes he's passive in a corner (thumb in his mouth?). Othertimes he's "snapped" and burst into rooms unannounced. I guess he's unpredictable. I think its up to the other players to realise he's not a bad person, just a young guy doing his best, and they should interact with him to account for that.

Again, for instance - one of the Sgts has realised he needs to give specific orders to my character, and they'll be followed. If specific instructions are not given, my characters likely to have to improvise and that may not always end well.

[Adm.Lee]

My $0.02

Of course, this is one of the issues we skipped over way back when we played a lot, and when I play at conventions now. Now, if I had a group that were to play consistently, I think the players would pick up something like PTSD all around, but still downplay it. That seems like one of the issues that would make the game very grim and not so fun for the players and GM.

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

My $0.02

Of course, this is one of the issues we skipped over way back when we played a lot, and when I play at conventions now. Now, if I had a group that were to play consistently, I think the players would pick up something like PTSD all around, but still downplay it. That seems like one of the issues that would make the game very grim and not so fun for the players and GM.

PTSD is of course grim in RL.

In game - however - you can always try to make it a signature incident that keep on happening with one or more of the PCs.You can lay it on with all sorts of penalties, disability and wacky stuff.

Having a player extra jittery with a loose trigger finger ( you DO hear something in the bushes !!!) Hand him a few notes time and again., you will have him strained like a taut wire or getting sloppy in no time..

Having someone trying to spiritt their demons away ( I am not drinking! I have just had a few beers to keep my buzz going!! No get out of the way so I can get my APC to the CP!)

Having someone in the group with a sleep disorder and then letting them take the wheel in a firefight after 84 hours with no sleep..

the list can be expanded on..