How frequently do you see these come up in a session? We played almost all day yesterday and one never came up. Am I missing something?

Not necessarily. Conditions come up as the result of some Actions, but if you're not using those Actions, or you don't happen to roll the relevant result they just won't come up. Most common standard-type attacks won't cause one. If you're using a fear/terror causing foe, or for example, corebox Daemons (which have a lot of Condition-causing results), then you should expect to see them crop up.

In addition, it's trivial to sprinkle them through your adventures as special circumstances or as Locations. If you have a spooky burial chamber just say anyone who enters must make a Discipline check or be cowed/overwhelmed/frightened/whatever, or attach Fear values to particular circumstances.

Insanities don't come up too much unless you have a specific Insanity causing Action, or the players are pushing it. If the PCs are not getting stressed (or fatigued), then it could be said that the adventure isn't difficult enough. They're effectively going through the story without (exactly as it sounds) not getting tired or overly concerned about what's happening. That might be a sign for the GM to make things a bit harder. If they are getting stressed and fatigued then temporary Insanities should crop up quite regularly, and a bit of bad luck will convert these to permanent ones. I wouldn't expect to see Insanities come up every session, though, if the players have a decent grasp of stress/fatigue management.

In 21 sessions have seen "stress induced" insanities come up three times - recovered from at end of act in all cases. These were in stress heavy situations of terror and fear triggers etc.

Given the seriousness/long term nature of insantiy, that feels about right to me. Wouldn't be concerned at a slightly higher frequency but don't feel it's too low.

Rob

valvorik said:

Yeah, ours has been similar. In 40 odd sessions we've had about 10 temporary insanities, and through a number of seriously lucky rolls, only one permanent.