Ok, I know what they do, I'm just not seeing where they add much to the game. It seems like something the players really can't control.

See, Corruption points are great. I use them constantly. To me, they're partially a measure of how well a character is holding onto their humanity. When they stop showing compassion for others or start to do blatantly sadistic or evil things, they earn corruption points. Pursuing forbidden knowledge, they gain corruption points as well. These things all require a decision on the part of the player and the player almost always has a certain amount of control in the matter. They can steer their character in a direction they want to go.

Insanity points don't seem to follow that. They seem to be arbitrarilly handed out to characters for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Something which, face it, Acolytes are supposed to be doing. The player doesn't seem to have much of a say in the matter or have any way of controlling or directing things. "Ooh! Scary monster just popped out of closet, here, have some insanity points."

Am I missing the point to them? Is there perhaps another way they should be used?

Actually, it's been my and my players experience that corruption seems a lot more arbitrary then insanity. The whole monster jumping out thing, that's usually a cp or two and maybe, just maybe some insanity. And looking at that strange painting, oh, that's a cp. And being too close to that psyker when he gets the wrong kind of 9, that's corruption, and being bound and gaged and held up as a sacrificial offering to the Dark Gods, oh, that's a bucket of cp's!.

Of course I use insanity the way you use corruption, but only until they reach 20. After that, they are jaded to normal horrors and can perpetuate them until they are blue in the face without any further rule mechanics interfering. The official stance on corruption points now is that they are only gained from exposure to the warp (or things of the warp, the warp talking to you, the warp possessing the corps you are having sex with, what ever). Insanity should cover mundane horrors and mundane monsters.

As fr the arbitrary nature, arbitrary is just the nature of the 40k universe. Planets are doomed because of clerical errors. Whole populations are purged because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something they shouldn't have. It's a cold unfeeling universe. It's got spikes, it's metal, it's brutal ;-)

So, to answer your question, you indeed are missing the point of them as you're overworking corruption and using it in insanity's place.

Meh, I give rocks if the universe is unfair. The game is supposed to be fun. There's nothing fun about having your character go insane or grow mutations without you having even a tiny bit of say in the matter.

I'll keep running it the way I am now, generally only awarding CP for actual actions and decisions the players make. I might switch out insanity points for stuff regarding knowledge though.

You want to be an evil bastard and torture civilians for fun, that's corruption.

You start chasing after knowledge to help you create demonhosts or something similar, that's insanity.

I figure that should cut it, unless anyone else has ideas?

mostly players can avoid insanity points with a will power check, or avoid corruption with the appropiate willpower or toughness check, or the this feels bad do you wish to continue reading the mysterious book?

You want to be an evil bastard and torture civilians for fun, that's corruption.

No, that's insanity. If it was corruption, half the leadership of the Imperium would be drooling mutants by now.

As Graver said, corruption is handed out for interaction with the warp.

Corruption being gained from being an evil bastard is a load of tripe. If that was the case then the criminal underworld would be filled with mutants, as would certain posts within the Adeptus Terra and the Ordos. The guy who's partly responsible for this whole mess talked on the matter a few weeks back.

img3.imageshack.us/img3/5554/dhcorruptiontsluikart.png

Corruption isn't moral degradation, though that might be a symptom of it. Corruption comes from having your mind, body and soul tainted by the touch of the warp and the works of the Dark Gods. Insanity, now that's fine. I'm with Graver on it's use; people who kill without a thought, commit horrible atrocities and the like have minds that work differently than the average Imperial citizen. In other words they're insane. As for it being arbitrary, players come into DH knowing that their characters won't just face adversity in battle. They're struggling to keep their minds and souls as well as their life. That's part of the fun, for me at least. Insanity and Corruption are no more arbitrary than character death or some of the more horrendous (if less fatal) results on the Critical Hit tables.

About the original post and "or do I miss the point"?

I would say "somehow". The average DH pc will be into that kind of a mess most imperial guard members do not see in there life times (unless in a spot like Tranch during the Insurrection, for example). This whole "hit-them-with-the-insane-stick" is (to me!) an in-game mechanic to represent the fact that the things the pc are up against are about the twisted, mind-f**** things a servant of the imperium can nightmare about. And worse.

So, the IP simply reflect that the majority of acolythes simply go over the edge. Yes, this is along the lines of "the universe isn´t fair". But more so, it is along the lines of "you play an rpg in a dark, unforgiving and insanely sinister and brutal game world... and the rules have mechanics to show and make you never forget". Just like a game/story about the Lovecraft "Acient Ones".

That said, I can´t wait for my players allocating there first IP. And starting to suffer from it They will be "mad" about it... but I am sure it will put the "grim" into play. Even if it is for some moments of character rp =)

Read the rules as written what Insanity Points actually do-Page 237 of the base book "Only the Insane will Prosper"

If the first digit of a characters insanity total is double or more of a things fear rating (page 325) the character is unaffected by it and does not need to make a Fear Test.

No modifiers to something you don't have to take.

So, by about 20IP's your kind of flakey PC really doesn't give a stuff about Mr Daemon Host in terms of how affected they will be by his fear factor of 4. That in of itself also cuts down on the amount of extra lunacy and CP's they will earn later on if one turns up with failed fear rolls. I'm steadily driving my players characters up the wall for their own good (as much as they hate it, hehe)... but by the same account I also house rule that when the game is in play, anyone saying Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh or Tzeench at the table gets 1 Free CP even if they're saying it out of character. Tends to cut down on the amount of out of character 'guessing' chatter and abstract conversation about in game events.

So, by about 20IP's your kind of flakey PC really doesn't give a stuff about Mr Daemon Host in terms of how affected they will be by his fear factor of 4.

You're misreading that - it's the insanity that has to be two times (well, twenty times) the fear rating. You can ignore the Fear 4 as soon as you have 80 insanity points, though you'll be ignoring a lot of things by then. However, considering how many things have a Fear 1, those first 20 points still are a real breather.

MKX said:

Nice one. Does this apply to the "describtive names" (The Changer of Ways, The Father of Plaques, The King of Skull) as well?

The Father of Plaques, monograms and inscriptions a specialty...

oops I did misread, that'll learn me for posting at 2:30am...

But yep, they are allowed to refer to them by the descriptive names provided they have the correct forbidden lore to do so, course I retain the GM's right to bring its use to the respective entities attention in some subtle form or another.

MDMann said:

[Laughed for ages - just so you don't think it went unappreciated. Double CP if you read 'Simply the Best' on the side of his van; retire char from play if it's 'You've Tried the Cowboys, Now Try the Indians' Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhh!!!!]

I take a Call of Cthulhu approach to Insanity Points.

Insanity, from a Lovecraftian perspective, is the blinders the human mind throws over itself when the veil of our percieved world is pulled back and ignorance is removed in the face of the obscene nature of reality.

From that standpoint, you can see Insanity Points as something of a "defense" against the horrible, terrifying, and obscene. Humanity breaks down things into the rational and irrational philosophically (according to the Greeks, Plato, Aristotle, and all the golden oldies). The rational is something that can be perceived as part of normal human existence, whereas the irrational is something that "exists" for lack of a better term, outside of human perception. Pi, being an irrational number, is something that you or I will ever experience in the physical world. There is no such thing as "pi number of apples". This is a gross simplification, but the idea is still valid. When a human mind is exposed to "things that can not be", that go against all our expectations of reality (note this can come from mundane, albeit horrific sources, such as war), our mind starts to doubt not just the horrific thing, but *all* stimulation and sensory input. It isolates itself to save itself, and in doing so warps in upon itself and the result is insanity. Again, this is not "the way insanity works", but more of a Lovecraftian approach to the mind.

Any time my players encounter utter atrocity or obscenity (obscenity meaning an affront to the very fabric of our perceived universe, such as non-euclidian geometry), they are in danger of gaining insanity in order to prevent their mind from completely snapping and breaking down. It's a small price to pay compared to the alternative.

Corruption points, in my game, are a measure of the taint you've taken into yourself from exposure to the Warp. The whole "when you dance with the Devil" bit. While Corruption pretty much comes from the Warp, not all Insanity comes from the Warp. For example, say you find an ancient, evil, chaos tome of unspeakably dark sorcery. Even *posessing* the book on your person in my game will give a few corruption points (not many, but enough to remind you this book is evil). Reading it but stopping once you realized what it was will give more, but probably spare you insanity. Reading the entire book would assuredly grant both corruption and insanity, as you sacrificed both your soul and your tenuous grip on reality in exchange for power.

Plastic Rat said:

Of course it is! It adds tension and another way for your character to slip up than just die. I love the Lovecraftian concept of the big scary universe where the heroes sometimes stumble upon things that mankind was not meant to know, and that these findings make the characters image of the world go topsy-turvy.

In fact, our group loves this so much that we see it as a good thing when we suffer insanity points.

I have a character that went over 50 points before he had to be "retired" (which in our campaign-story meant that he got promoted to be an Inquisitor).

Sanity is for the weak! Only the insane shall prosper! In an age gone insane look to the madman to show you the way! etc. etc.

If a character doesn't want to risk going insane or suffer mutating effects then that character should hide in a hole somewhere and not be roaming about the universe exposing him or herself to all the awful things that lurks in the shadows...

Plastic Rat said:

Au contraire...

Some of the most fun RPG experiences I've had have been caused by characters going off the deep end. In WFRP1, mostly, but not exclusively. KAP 4E as well...

Most of the insanities under WFRP and DH are quite playable. In GURPS terms, most are 5 or 10 point, and many are 1-2 point stuff. You're not badly broken until you've gained two that directly conflict.

In WFRP, I had a player whose character gained Agoraphobia AND claustraphobia, and Narciscism. To be in anything smaller than 5'x5', or bigger than 30'x30', the others would just hand him a mirror... and hope he failed the correct roll. (He was Cl 30 and WP 50...) He still managed to fight, and be part of the story... and they took him for branding... which removed the Agoraphobia and Claustraphobia, and added a delusion that he was Karl Franz's bastard Brother. (He WAS a nobleman...)

It takes an additional level of maturity to play a badly demented character... but the story rewards are great if you do.

The mutated character is less appealing, but can be, if the player is willing to play it, a rewarding experience as well. How do you hide it? Whom do you serve?

And for Charles, who played a mutated halfling, "Two Arms, my friends, Two Arms"... as his hideous Khorne-worshiping Chaos Champion ripped the arms off his opponent at the start of a battle.... 18 years later, and still we remember her...