In the Inquisitor's Handbook, there's a background package called "Mara Landing Massacre" survivor or something.

Amongst many things (like giving the character +1 fate point, 1d10 Insanity points and 1d5 corruption points), it states very clearly that the character is Unhinged.

By Unhinged, are the writers referring to the second / middle degree of a disorder?

This degree of madness is reached once a PC has collected 60 insanity points.

Is this what they, the writers, are referring to?

I can't imagine that a newly created character has 60 insanity points (rather, they begin with 1d10). It must be simple.

Or does it indicate that some other penalty?

An extra Fate point is a BIG DEAL compared to a measly 1d10 insanity and 1d5 corruption points. A character can get that many in one story session.

Seriously?

No-one's come across this?

Argh.

Well, you'll be sorry once one of YOUR players takes this awesome background package without any serious drawbacks.

You'll rue the day that you ignored my post! Ha ha ha ha!

The way I read it "Unhinged" is only a term to describe the loss of 1D10 IP (as in "Your experiences at the massacre means that you begin the game with 1D5 CP") and has nothing to do with the rulebound term of losing ones mind. Strange though elsewhere are no descriptive phrases ...

I would rule the Guardsman to have some Quirk which he has to roleplay.

However the package is even better then you stated. +5 WP, Resistence to Psychic Powers AND a fate Point for 1d5 CP and 1D10 IP is pretty cheap for 300XP.

Then again a lot of Packages are really imbalanced. And you should think about it twice letting one of your players take one as it is.

My advice: Don't let a powergamer have a look at them

I'd wouldn't take it to mean the character should have a full on disorder, but they should definitely be scarred by the experience more than a few IP or CP would indicate. They certainly wouldn't be jovial, easy going and carefree. They might have turned to substance abuse, or be plagued by terrible nightmares.

I interpreted it to mean the character is considered Unhinged even though they don't have the Disorders yet. Meaning that from the beginning of the game they get the -10 Trauma modifier from 0-79 IP until they become Deranged. I haven't read the actual description of the package, but I don't think the benefits are enough to give the player 2 disorders.

Emprah_Horus said:

You are correct, it does seem a bit extreme.

However, Unhinged doesn't mean two disorders: he/she just has ONE, but it has reached it's second level of severity. Meaning that it is harder to avoid the effects of the disorder.

***

Anyway, my friend who took this background package understands that it seems like her character is getting of easy, so she's going to play up the old "Obsessive Compulsive" personality. Meaning that her Guardsman is OBSESSED with cleanliness, germophobia and fear of food poisoning. We'll see how that goes.

Necrozius said:

I'm going to have to go back and read about disorders again. I thought each disorder was a new one, albeit they progressively become worse disorders. If its the case where they only get one disorder, it seems like that would fit the background package. A little tweaking might need to be done to make the benefits and drawbacks balanced, but not much. If I recall I think the players gets the Unquestionable Faith (not sure the name) talent that allows for re-rolls of fear checks. That alone is a very strong benefit, especially for a guardsman who is on the front line for most groups.

Emprah_Horus said:

I just did, and we're both right:

From page 234 of Core Rulebook:

"A new disorder (or a more severe version of an existing disorder) is automatically gained each time the character has enough Insanity points to increase his degree of madness by one stage as shown on Table 8-5: The Insanity Track."

So yeah, it depends on the character, I suppose.

So my thoughts on this is, give the player a choice, either one 'level 2' disorder, or 2 'level 1' disorders, and then I guess we would need an official errata eventually on whether this is correct