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

[Badbru]

I've just finished reading "Sniper One" by Sgt Dan Mills formerly of The Princess of Wales Royal Regiment, Y company, sniper platoon. I was struck by how he describes everyone, enjoying (perhaps not the best descriptor) the combat.
The universal feeling was finally as professional soldiers we get a chance to do what we were trained for, and they loved it.

Also in the book he makes passing reference to a particular attack in which a civillian was (most likely, he never confirms it) killed. The local chap was riding a bicycle past their compound as it was under attack and was caught in a mortar blast. The blast threw him from his bike and when he picked himself up, Mills describes him as having caught several schrapnel wounds the worst of which had completely severed a leg. The guy hobbles over to it, picks it up, and is last seen hobbling off down an alley with his leg tucked under his arm leaving a dreadfull blood trail.
Quite an horrific thing for most to see I'd imagine. I can write about it but I'm personally not sure that's an image I'd want to witness. He states he noted at the time that it didn't particularly bother him. Later when he mentions it again it's when he talks of phone calls home and he's wondering how you tell someone so far away, (in every respect) that you saw a guys leg blown off the other day and what's more you weren't particularly bothered by it.

This aspect of the book, that the men there revelled in the experience reminded me of a doco I have on Afganistan called "Restrepo". In that, some of the troops are asked about the adrenalin high of combat. Most refer to it as the ultimate drug. I recall one guys expression totally changed, he went all somber as he thought about it and asked the interviewer something like "How do I go home from this?" "What can possibly come close?"

In contrast to this alot of what I see on boards like this one, and past discussions with T2K players is the old war is hell, the war's over and everyone lost, it's dismal, bleak etc etc everyone is downtrodden and broken.
No-one is going to be gung ho we all just want to go home etc etc and now I'm left kinda wondering which is more apt. I'm currently playing in an online game and one part of char gen is to describe aspects of the characters personality such as Loyalty, Sanity and Piety etc. Most players apear to have pegged those last two fairly low but I'm wondering if there is not still the likelihood of soldiers still getting off on it all, so to speak?

So to those who still play or GM this game, How do you play it?

[95th Rifleman]

There is a reason tours of duty are relatively short.

Contrast the tales from Afghan vets with those of WW1 and WW2 veterans who saw continous action for, sometimes, years at a time. Every now and again you'd be pulled off the line for rest and refit, however that time was never long enough. In modern combat we send our guys out for around six months before they are pulled back to home soil.

Sure action may well be a high, our soldiers are psychologicaly conditioned to fight, to fall into training and many of them feel a sense of relief, even joy to be doing what they have trained so hard to do.

The T2k war represents years of constant, grinding, attritional warfare far from home and with little to no chance of relief. After the first year or so any sense of enjoyment has gone, war isn't a drug anymore, it's a cancer eating away at your heart and soul. I think there are few comparisons to the T2k war and Afghanistan, it is far more akin to the two world wars.

[simonmark6]

I was thinking something similar. For the individual Soldier in the World Wars there was a gradual degradation in their efficiency the longer they were in combat as constant stress and strains wore them down. Experience only seemed to count in situations where elite units had the chance to be deployed for short periods of time with long periods in between of training.

Add to that the fact that there's been a nuclear war, huge devastation and home is gone...I'd guess that combat would be losing its charm and insanity would be pretty regularly. You might get some whose psychosis made them relish battle, but many more will be a couple of steps away from breakdown.

[Medic]

It all depends on the character history, really. If the story requires, the character might have some (or numerous) psychological problems from some sleeplessness to (nearly) suicidal behavior. This said, the Twilight:2013 system implements these things rather nicely, if you ask me.

[Eddie]

Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman

In modern combat we send our guys out for around six months before they are pulled back to home soil.

Six months. Fifteen months. Who's counting?

Well, fourteen if you take out left seat/right seat rides...

Not all branches of a nation's military, much less different nations, have the same deployment cycles. It's been a point of contention for a while in my country.

[pmulcahy11b]

Being mentally ill with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, borderline personality disorder, and PTSD, I can usually do pretty well with properly portraying most mentally-ill people. (I can usually manage a person in chronic pain as well.)

[Webstral]

There are going to be characters who can't cycle down from the high of combat. Some or many of these people are going to get themselves into the units of stormtroopers we discussed a few posts back. Twilight: 2000 will offer the combat addicted plenty of opportunities to get back into combat. It's hard to imagine that the beleaguered leadership of NATO and Pact formations in 1998 and 1999 are going to refuse a volunteer the opportunity to go on the next patrol or the next raid regardless of how often he’s been out lately. Equally, it’s hard to imagine that there are going to be a lot of investigations into war crimes after the nukes fall. What would even constitute a war crime to the survivors?

The adrenaline junkies are probably the easiest characters to play in many regards. The people who are more subtly damaged who present a bigger challenge. Many survivors will have semi-functional coping mechanisms. They’ll go along passably until the coping mechanism reaches its limit, and then all bets are off. Survivors will “nut out” on a regular basis—so much so that soldiers within a unit will watch each other warily for signs of imminent breakdown.
I’ve been thinking about this in regards to Thunder Empire for years. Even though no nuclear weapons fall in Arizona, the impact of the end of American civilization as we knew it in 1997 will cause many, many suicides. I suspect that the stress of coping with the cataclysm of major urban areas collapsing and emptying out across the countryside would function much like the accumulation of exposure to radiation. Just as a number of modest exposures to radiation can equal a single major exposure, characters who have survived tolerably up to a given incident may find that the accumulated stress overwhelms them during an otherwise manageable incident. A lot of the MI troops at Fort Huachuca during the Thanksgiving Day Massacre would be junior enlisted soldiers who signed up for MI to get a job that wasn’t combat arms. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the Exchange, they find themselves playing MPs throughout southern Arizona. The well-armed Arizona population shoots at the troops, and the troops shoot back. It doesn’t take too much of this American-on-American violence before the young men and women of the 111th MI Brigade suffer ill effects that have no direct connection to physical injury. Savagery damages everyone who witnesses it, and there will be plenty to go around as hundreds of thousands of civilians try to flee the Valley of the Sun following the TDM.

Ironically, the war with Mexico will give the MI troops something to focus on. Hard-won victories during the main campaign season of 1998 will galvanize the remaining troops and civilians by giving them a tangible, manageable threat on which to focus their energies. Thomason’s insistence on rotating the battalions into rest cycles at the expense of controlling more territory gives the battle weary a chance for recuperation that won’t be available in a lot of other locations. The relative availability of food won’t hurt, either.

The Shogun in Nevada deals with the negative psychological effects of stress in two ways: he keeps the Gunryo on the move and he provides his troops with symbols for cohesion. Both factors help unite the troops by underscoring what they have in common and making them distinct from the general population of Nevada. The Shogun nipponizes his troops by dividing them into samurai (the officers) and ashigaru (the enlisted men) and adopting a host of highly visible Japanese symbols. The troops, also known as gunryo, wear black jingasa and even wear sashimono (small banners) when they have the opportunity to prepare for battle. Quite by chance, the Shogun found a taiko ensemble that travels with the Gunryo. The ensemble performs or practices every time the Gunryo stops, serving as a reminder to the locals that the Gunryo is present while reminding the troops that wherever they go they are unified by their distinctness. Personal honor is stressed. Physical fitness and discipline are hard and demanding. Unit cohesion and esprit de corps have the effect of mitigating most of the worst effects of survivor stress. Anyone can leave his past behind by joining the Gunryo; all that matters is what he does once he swears allegiance to the Shogun.

[Targan]

One of my players is a clinical psychologist and wrote an excellent set of insanity rules (usable in any RPG system). I believe they are available for download at General Pain's Big Book of War website. I recall that that a sizable minority (maybe even a majority) of the PCs and NPCs in the PC's group in my last campaign had one or more psyche problems.

I agree that the long periods of time that soldiers would have stayed in the front line in the Twilight War would have removed any joy of combat for most of them. Having said that, there were PCs and major NPCs in my last campaign that were combat junkies. The players of those PCs portrayed them pretty well, I think. The only trouble is, if you enjoy combat too much it is likely that you'd start to lose some of your self-preservation instincts and that would reduce survival rates. Fear can be a very useful tool in helping you get home outside of a body bag.

[Tombot]

The attitude & sanity of a character can be a critical part of a "serious" postapocalyptic rpg.
We use the old "Central Casting - Heroes Now"-Rules, a universal rpg-book to help you create detailed backgrounds for your character (there was a "Heroes of Legend" for fantasy, and a "Heroes for tomorrow" for SciFi).
It gives you an attitude and many, very detailed, traits for your character, and the events in his past, which led him/her on that trail.

Whatever system/game-mechanic you might use to "simulate" that - today, with my grown players, its a key-element (like the combat-system) for providing suspense and drama within our campaign.
In my beginning teenage years, rpg´ing was about bodycount and cool stunts. At that time, i would´nt appreciated that kind of game-mechanic.
Today its still about that, but with a more detailed view on the longterm effects on the psyche of our "heroes".
Look at "Mad Max" - starting out as a young, freshly married and naive (but aggressive) MFP-Officer, to the burn-out loner he portrays later.
Or the poor father trying to protect his son in "the Road".

A lightside character (with f.e. an "ethical" alignment) wants to leave a group of helpless civilians to starve ?
Sure, he can do that... but its going to shift his morals (attitude/traits) spiraling downwards...
With an adult group of gamers, i never experienced tough discussions about that. Actually some of my players are pretty self-critical and they are continually rolling the dice, to check if their characters "really allow themselves" this deed or that sin...
They even go so far to do stuff, which they dont like to much by themselves, but "my character would do it" !
So its not a "cattle-prod" i use as GM to limit the players. Its more like a "personal history, which leads to a certain personality"-Script.

Once we had a pc which was desperate enough to eat from a human-corpse.
Since he was a "good person" in the beginning, he got insane beyond repair (oh boy, the exotic traits he developed..)some month later, when he realized what he´d done to survive. There were no witnesses, but the player always
reminded us, "that you NEVER forget shit like that!"

Now he´s a lurker in the shadows (respectively ...in the hands of a nasty GM) .. But the player accepted the psychological demise of that character, pretty well. It was like a cool " real bad ending" for a good character in a gritty comic or film. Awww, love me players and that hobby!

PS: Apart from sanity, finding out what kind of attitude a certain NPC has, is a common task for every pc from time to time (the difficulty depends on how long the pc and npc´s know each other, and what kind of experiences they had with each other).
My players usually like to distinguish the "mad" from the "tough", a distinction, which should be often hard in a world of insane marauders and desperate do-gooders. Sometimes its not obvious if, f.e. a
group of npc is just trying to discourage potential attackers of their village, or if they really appreciate human skulls on spears as a part of their furnishings. Knowing that, sometimes makes a difference.

[B.T.]

Originally Posted by Tombot

We use the old "Central Casting - Heroes Now"-Rules, a universal rpg-book to help you create detailed backgrounds for your character (there was a "Heroes of Legend" for fantasy, and a "Heroes for tomorrow" for SciFi).
It gives you an attitude and many, very detailed, traits for your character, and the events in his past, which led him/her on that trail.

Whatever system/game-mechanic you might use to "simulate" that - today, with my grown players, its a key-element (like the combat-system) for providing suspense and drama within our campaign.

Funny, this could have been written by myself
Using the "Central Casting" stuff is a great help. We use it a lot in "Call of Cthullhu", but it's been a good tool for T2k, either!

[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..