Re: [DL] mental illness/Loco

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Wednesday, November 27, 2002, at 11:47  AM, Jeff Yates wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "carl smith" <fishhook79@yahoo.com>
> To: <deadlands@gamerz.net>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 27, 2002 9:41 AM
> Subject: [DL] mental illness/Loco
>
>
>>
>> It seems that my posse likes the idea of having everyone escaping 
>> from an
> insane asylum for the start of an adventure.  For whatever reason they 
> are
> all insane to a point and have loco hindrances.  Need ideas or books 
> with
> phobias/mental illnesses.  Anyone out there that can help would be 
> greatly
> appreciated, as I do not have the free time needed to hang in the 
> library.
>>
>> Jacob
>>
>
> WFRP (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) had some good stuff about 
> insanities, and
> IIRC the older DMG from AD&D had an insanity table.   DND3 DMG might, 
> but
> I've not read that book.

If you or one of your Posse has a copy of Call of Cthulhu around, it 
has a nice overview of possible mental problems. There's also some good 
references to psychiatric care (or lack thereof) for the last two 
hundred years or so. Like many of the CoC source books, it is almost 
scholarly in tone in parts. (I'm not necessarily talking about the 
recent CoC d20 version, of which i have no experience)

As a suggestion for getting 'in the mood' do a google search for Urban 
Exploration sites. there's some very haunting photo tours of old 
asylums that may help set the mood.

Also, an interesting point to remember is that asylums of that era, 
especially with the Deadlands influence, may be used as a way to keep 
people 'tied up.' While our descendants will likely one day think the 
same of us, mental health care of that era was incredibly primitive. 
One story on one of the urban exploration sites I've seen was, IIRC, a 
factually-based story of a girl who was basically normal but was sent 
to an asylum because she just didn't have a life, really... 
Well-mannered, pleasant, fully functional in daily life, educated even.

After ten years or so she had been made into a raving loony...

Basically, in addition to horror stories like that, there's a lot of 
potentially interesting room for 'political prisoner' types, would-be 
Hucksters imprisoned for talking about manitous, etc.

Maybe you should have a player or two that is, technically, sane but 
has been declared insane to keep him out of the way, or because he 
knows things that he shouldn't...

And of course, these political prisoner types may just be loonies with 
a particularly interesting dementia.

Oh, and don't forget to make players know that feeding the reckoners by 
being a mass-murder type is a bad thing, and won't be rewarded easily...