Stress Mechanisms

[Vile Traveller]

I thought this might be the place to ask, given the plethora of experience with all the different Fria Ligans stress rules (Aliens, Twilight 2000, Blade Runer, any others?). My own experience is limited to pre-7E Call of Cthulhu's sanity rules (which I find a bit pants if I'm honest), and the stress rules in the Blake's 7 RPG. I don't have the Fria Ligans games, so other than one Blade Runner game at a convention I don't know much about them.

Anyway, what I'm looking for is some examples that would be easy to adapt to a more traditional party than Space Marines, ex-military survivalists, or Blade Runners. Sort of like Blake's 7, really, just a bunch of ne'er-do-wells always one step ahead of the authorities.

Thoughts and amusing anecdotes appreciated!

 

[Acmegamer]

I actually liked how you go insane with more knowledge in CoC, as an aside. I ran an Alien one shot earlier this year and the stress mechanic worked well. I'll post screenshots for you to read through.

Edit: BTW "a bit pants" means bad?

 

[Vile Traveller]

I actually liked how you go insane with more knowledge in CoC, as an aside. I ran an Alien one shot earlier this year and the stress mechanic worked well. I'll post screenshots for you to read through.

Edit: BTW "a bit pants" means bad?

Thanks for that look behind the Alien curtain, that mechanic looks interesting. I didn't realise it had a permanent aspect (potentially). I guess I'm looking for something that has both short-term and possible long-term effects in the game, so this may be something to build on. I quite like the idea of stress making you more competent - that whole 'performing better under pressure' thing?

I just never liked the CoC system in play (this would have been 1/2E), it seemed kind of clunky and all-or-nothing. The more modern stress systems I've read about seem to have a bit more gradient. I suppose the nearest out-of-UK translation would be "a bit meh"?

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, so the FL stress systems tend work like the Alien one above, with rolls and specific results that get worse as you get more stressed. Once you've seen one or two the idea of rewriting the mechanic to serve your particular genre interests starts to seem like a pretty trivial exercise.

 

[Acmegamer]

Yeah, so the FL stress systems tend work like the Alien one above, with rolls and specific results that get worse as you get more stressed. Once you've seen one or two the idea of rewriting the mechanic to serve your particular genre interests starts to seem like a pretty trivial exercise.

Exactly. It was one of the things I quickly noted while running it that weekend. It would be a breeze to adapt to your needs for any other game. It really was a game changer in my opinion, in a good way.

 

[Telok]

Huh, I hadn't seen the details of the Aliens stress mech before. Very similar, and rather smoother looking, than DtD40k7e. Of course DtD dropped something like 13 years ago now. I'm starting to wonder where that style of mechanic originated.

Core is the same. Some sort of fear/stress/pressure roll is called for and failed. Then depending on how bad the fail was roll on a chart & apply a "loss of control" effect. Generally has some sort of "snap out if it" clause too.

In DtD it's based on fear checks and put on top of a CoC type sanity system. Since nothing in that game straight up does sanity damage the failing a fear check and getting a bad result on the table is the main way to lose sanity.