The Horror
“What’s that?” asked George.
I used my most theatrical booming voice. “The Tower ... OF SANITY!”
The players stared at the tower as I carefully set it up.
“You said you didn’t want another statistic, so this is how we’re going to keep track of sanity,” I said smugly. I showed them!
So why Jenga? It wasn’t my idea. I stole it. From Dread.
I really feel that Call of Cthulhu's sanity system actually works against the spirit of Call of Cthulhu. Here's my issues with it:
- My players were not interested in yet another statistic to keep track of. They didn't like the idea of going insane as they gained Cthulhu mythos, and they play their agents as quite anti-knowledge -- far less interested in knowing the name of a particular thing vs. avoiding it or blowing it up.
- The sanity rules are not conducive to a long-term campaign. My PCs don't WANT to know anything about the Cthulhu mythos, and would rather keep themselves blissfully ignorant. I feel that the insanity mechanic encourages this sort of behavior -- perhaps more appropriate to an inquisitive scholar-type. Agents are guardians of knowledge and sometimes even brutal enforcers of ignorance. If you set up a situation where every time you learn something you go a little crazy, you make damn sure you learn nothing -- which makes you violent and often ineffective. Great for one-shots, not so great for a campaign.
- The actual insanity effect is rolled randomly, meaning that an insanity inappropriate to the situation can arise (giggling hysterically comes to mind). The lack of advice in scenarios that trigger sanity checks make me question how often people even roll.
- The investigator, if he rolls particularly poorly, becomes completely useless in the situation. He may even be a danger to himself or the other investigators, thus destroying the entire party in one fell swoop. I do not want this to ever happen as a result of a random roll. It should be dramatic and appropriate to the events at hand.
- Investigators lose sanity for seeing horrible things. Literally. This was reinforced with Tatters of the King, where investigators who closed their eyes could reduce the sanity loss from seeing Hastur or his ilk. I found this very unheroic and more than a little ridiculous -- the horror of these monstrosities is that you can't look away. Averting your eyes shouldn't make it okay. Closing your eyes should actually make sanity loss worse.
- Although the game by its nature requires cooperation, insanity only affects each character individually. Or to put it another way, there is no incentive for the group to care about whether or not an investigator goes insane -- in fact, there's a running joke that a player should roll up several investigators because they will all go nuts and die. Which is great in the retelling, not so great to play. it's a very divisive mechanic that encourages an every man for himself style of play out of character with the spirit of the Call of Cthulhu game.
- Jenga (as I like to call it, the Tower of Sanity or TOS) changes all this. My modified system requires a Will save (DC 15) whenever a sanity check is called for. Success means minimal pulls from the TOS. Failure means I roll the dice and the player pulls a number of wooden logs from the TOS equal to the number of sanity that would normally be lost. The result:
- Everyone can physically see the group's overall sanity. It's a looming presence. It freaks people out.
- From a story arc perspective, there's little chance that someone will go nuts immediately or at a moment when insanity would detract from the game experience.
- It's group sanity. Not everyone freaks out simultaneously (which is essentially a total party kill if that happens, as it's usually a monster that caused it). Only one PC at any time is likely to go crazy. This makes other players actually CARE that one of their own goes nuts.
- It also means that each PCs' exposure to insanity affects the others, since each time someone pulls from the tower that increases the odds that the next person will collapse it and go bonkers. To me, that's how a sanity mechanic should work. It should be fun and viscerally connect to the experience you're trying to create.
One criticism about using the Tower of Sanity has been that it slows the game down. In an action game with agents using guns, this is beneficial. I always play a theme song at the start of a scenario, and I play it again whenever there's a lot of sanity pulls happening. It ups the tension. So in other words, I welcome the pause -- it also helps me gather my thoughts, especially when things get really crazy in-game.
Another criticism is that the TOS relies on physical skill vs. a game statistic. I have not noticed an actual difference in any of the players, who all have varying degrees of manual dexterity. In fact, the Jenga tower makes people nervous and careful. Which is just the way I like it.
“Maybe you should put it on another table,” said Jeremy warily. Jeremy said this because he can’t even sit at the table. Sometimes he doesn’t even bother and just paces whatever dwelling we’re gaming in.
“How does it work?” asked George.
“When you lose Sanity you pull that many times from the Tower of Sanity. If it collapses on your turn, your character goes nuts with an insanity of my choosing.”
Jeremy looked at the tower warily. “What if we knock it over by accident?”
“Then the character of the player who knocked it over goes nuts,” I said with a note of finality.
“So Jim-Bean will go nuts every session,” said George.
Lesson Learned: Sanity is much more fun when the group is responsible for it.
