Just some thoughts that I'd like to hear opinions on from those with some experience with the game. Let's talk about stress and insanity.

From just a reading of the rules it seems to me that mostly spell casters really have to deal with stress. Unless you're running a lot of extended social encounters (I plan to feature this as much as possible) I don't see many characters having to draw upon mental skills in a way that would accumulate stress in a significant manner.

Even if you do use a lot of extended social encounters and stress accumulates, most of those situations aren't really going to be Insanity worthy. Right? So is insanity something that you mostly see spell casters having to deal with?

Or, do fear and terror play large roles in your games, making stress and Insanity a concern for everyone?

In my games i have to plan a bit and go from my normal free style of game mastering to the "director" to get stress, terror and fear to work in the mechanics. The Atmosphere of my sessions is dark and dirty, but getting the stress to the chars requires a bit planing and railroading. But some terror/fear effects and actions from my NSC´s and monsters that create stress and the player are on the edge. In there second career with 15 xps in one grupe there is only one player with a permanent insanity, it is not that difficult to get rid of the temporary insanity, but in my other group i used corruption points to make the WP and Temp insanity tests more difficult and that works well.

One rule I like to use is to have the penalties for the exertion symbol effect the player, depending on the characteristic that they used, as either Fatigue or Stress. So for an example if Lukas Haas is trying to recall information about the history of the Eldritch Order of the Unblinking Eye and he generates an exertion symbol he suffers a stress. This is due to the Intelligence base for the Education / Folklore test required to recall the information. For the counter point if he were attempting to climb and he generated the exertion then he suffers Fatigue, due to the Strength base for the Athletics check and so on and so forth.

I do believe that the RAW state that exertion is suffered only in the form of Fatigue. However I feel that to really help bring the dark and gritty world to life that insanity needs to play a tangible role.

Fear and Terror are both highly important if you are trying to have Insanity really show through. I also allow my players to take an insanity at character creation as a sort of "flaws" mechanic. That is one thing I really like about this game, the fact that it is modular and easily tinkered with.

The Strolling Bones said:

No, the way you are doing it (fatigue for physical actions, stress for mental) is actually how it works out in the RAW.

The Strolling Bones said:

"Exertion: The task was more taxing than expected. If at least one exertion symbol appears in the results pool, the character performing the check suffers 1 stress (if it was a mental task) or 1 fatigue (if it was a physical task)."

The Rulebook back cover page.

Cheers!

The Strolling Bones said:

Hey Lester, yeah I totally agree with you on applying stress like that. The problem though, well not problem so much I guess, but the issue Im struggling with is the fact small plinks to stress here and there in story mode are ultimately irrelevant for two reasons.

Stress is refreshed to the tune of willpower after every encounter and after each nights rest. Doesn't that pretty well make up for those handful of story mode stress plinks since the last encounter?

How often do the insanity descriptors ever actually match the stressing event in story mode? Even if you use extended social encounters to drive up the opportunities for stress accumulation, most of those situations dont really match an insanity descriptor (i.e. recalling most facts, debates of persuasion, interrogation).

So yeah, I'm just having difficulty figuring out how to make stress meaningful for my players. I can appreciate the importance of Fear and Terror for just this reason, but how many times a session do you even feature those components?

Again, we haven't played yet and we're just gearing up for our game in a couple weeks. So maybe the issue resolves itself in play. I'm just having trouble seeing what the relevant sources of stress would be, in regards to Insanity threats.

Stress is a funny thing and it only, in reality, leads to insanity when applied to a person over an extended period of time or in an instance of extreme mind~fudging. I've yet to try and drive my players characters Mad, although I do have a player who is playing his character with an Insanity from the get go, however I feel like the traits will match more than you expect them to. Enigma is a good one and can be used in an almost wildcard sense. I also usually make my players pass a discipline check to recover their stress over a night of sleep, especially if they are in a stressful situation such as a siege or stuck in a cave after a landslide has trapped them.

Also never forget that the party tension meter is a great tool. It can add that small extra amount of stress needed to put a character over the edge. 4 points of stress is actually quite high if you compare it to the average mortal in the world (3's on every characteristic). One of these average mortals, suffering from 4 stress, takes a misfortune penalty on all mental actions. Remember that players suffer stress if they wish to shift stance any more than the free one per turn. And if your players are trying stressful actions, such as staying in a combat that seems doomed to fail (even if fear isn't an "ability" of Goblins, if there are enough of 'em it'll scare the b'jesus out of most mortals). I usually also add stress as a cost to trying things that may cause stress. For example if the thief is climbing along the gables of a 3 story mansion and knows that if he falls, not only will he most likely be broken, but the Witchhunters who guard the building will most definitely put a painful end to his life. If that is the case I have the player take stress everytime he doesn't pass the test by at least two successes.

So if you are trying to create a situation where stress plays a factor it is quite simple to do so. I think that the Fatigue and Stress mechanics are something sorely lacking from many other RPG's.

Alright, good stuff. To be clear, I'm not looking to drive my characters mad but I do want to understand the ways in which stress is important and meaningful. I like most of what you mentioned Lester, especially using Stress as ad hoc threats in situations that call for it. My interpretation of Enigma is a little different than yours but that's all good.

I really like what you said about stress over time though and I think that's the key. Yep, thats how it works in reality and now that we've hashed it out here I expect to find the mechanics supporting that in the game as well. I anticipate that most stress loss situations in my game won't match up well with Insanity descriptors. But that's sort of the point, not that insanity lurks within every social interaction and stressful situation. A lot of that is mundane type stress. But if you live that lifestyle, on a regular basis, youre putting yourself at risk. You never know when that truly mind bending event is going to pop up. Those that manage their stress well will hopefully be of sound enough mind to cope with the event. If you stay stressed out though, and then the unthinkable happens, you may just find that you don't have the mental stamina to see your way through it intact.

I like the way that feels now.

I think you just summed it up very nicely dunbaloo! Have fun with the mind~bending world of Warhammer