THE TRAUMA SYSTEM
Your Spirit is the first line of defense against the horrific, soul crushing terror of a zombie apocalypse. Certain situations will challenge your character’s resolve and cause them to make a Fear check (a Spirit roll). A success means the character manages to ‘keep it together’. A failed Fear check requires a roll on an Escalated Fright Table. But, what happens if you critically fail?
A natural 1 on the Spirit die results in a literal battle to hold on to your sanity modeled after the standard damage system..
Humanity Humanity is a new derived statistic that acts like “moral armor” to protect your character’s Sanity. It is an abstraction of the Freudian concept of the psyche as a container for the three major components of human personality and behavior; the Id, the Ego, and Superego. If your Humanity starts to slip, you become detached, isolated, and less human; leaving you vulnerable to derangement and psychosis.
Humanity is +4 unless you have Edges or Hindrances which modify it. Humanity defines the TN of Sanity attacks. A positive Humanity adds +1 to all Spirit rolls. A negative Humanity subtracts -1 from all Spirit rolls. It is maintained by following your character’s individual ethics, or eroded through neglect (more on this later).
Sanity
Sanity is a new derived statistic that represents a character’s psychological toughness; their capacity to endure emotionally traumatic events – looming death, personal loss, inconceivable horror, etc. Should an event exceed your limits, you either become Shaken or gain Trauma (a mental wound) depending on the degree to which you succumb.
Sanity equals 2 + (Spirit / 2). Sanity is a character’s psychological damage threshold. It works like Toughness, establishing a Target Number (TN) to determine your extent of the Trauma (mental wound) and possible derangement or psychosis. Sanity may only be gained through advancement. Each die step grants a 1 to the permanent Sanity score.
Trauma
Severe emotional stress not only traumatizes the psyche, but can physically damage the brain. The aftermath can include a variety of behavioral and cognitive symptoms – nightmares, vivid flashbacks, anxiety, irritability, difficulty concentrating, etc. An endless onslaught of trauma can eventually lead to permanent psychosis and insanity.
In the same way that Savage Worlds uses Wounds to represent physical damage, Trauma is used to represent psychological damage that threaten your sanity. Some traumas simply heal with time; others may become permanent if left untreated.
Sanity Attacks
A natural 1 on a Fear check or relevant Spirit Test is considered an attack against your character’s Sanity. Your character is both the victim and attacker; you make all applicable attack (Spirit) and damage rolls using your Spirit as the skill.
The Target Number (TN) to hit your Sanity is equal to your Humanity and Severity Modifiers based on the event that forced the check. The base TN to hit for Mundane events is your Humanity. Moderate events subtract 2 from the attack roll. Extreme events subtract 4 from the attack roll.
Bonus Damage: If the Sanity attack hits with a raise, add +1d6 to damage total! The d6 may Ace like any other damage roll.
Humanity Status: If the character’s Humanity is greater than 0, add -1 from attack roll.
Sanity Damage
If you hit, roll damage as a Melee Attack (Spirit) + Severity Modifier (Mundane: 0, Moderate: 1d6 Extreme: 2d6)
Damage Effects
If damage is up to three points greater than your Sanity, you are Shaken. If you gain a level of Trauma and weren’t previously Shaken, you are Shaken as well. If you were already Shaken, you gain a level of Trauma; but this isn’t cumulative (Wild Cards only suffer one level of Trauma per raise whether they are Shaken or not).
Your character suffers one level of Trauma for every four points of damage greater than their Sanity. Each level of Trauma imposes a -1 penalty to all Spirit rolls up to a cumulative penalty of -3. The Human psyche is incapable of taking more than three levels of Trauma without shattering – a fourth level of Trauma causes Insanity.
Trauma Soak Roll
If the survivor spends a Bennie immediately after taking one or more levels of Trauma, he may make a Smarts roll to attempt to ‘rationalize’ the event. This is the character’s attempt to rewrite reality, reducing it to a less terrifying experience.
Each success and raise eliminates one level of Trauma.
Insanity and Psychosis
Your survivor risks insanity whenever he takes more than three levels of Trauma (after Rationalizing). An insane hero must make an immediate Spirit roll (with all applicable modifiers). If they fail the roll, they must immediately make second Spirit roll
Raise: Shaken and suffer a temporary Psychosis that fades after the encounter.
Success: Shaken and suffer a temporary Psychosis that lasts until all levels of Trauma are eliminated.
Failure: Shaken and suffer a Permanent Psychosis.
Critical Failure: Permanently lose 1 point of Sanity and incapacitated for d6 hours (or until successfully healed). If this reduces your Sanity to 0, there’s no coming back. Hand your sheet to the GM (expect to see the character again as a Wild Card NPC).
I have the Temporary and Permenant Psychosis tables. If you'd like to see them shoot me an email.