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View Full Version : [NewWod] Crash course in brain surgery



Calicanto
2010-09-26, 04:55 PM
Hi people,
I'm game master in a home-made-version of World Of Darkness. One of my players had just botched a morality check and has gained a derangement too.
His character is an ex soldier and now is involved in illegal weapons trading. He is used to violence, and has a paranoid habit that granted him, until now, his survival (the other players are more normal guys: one is a nurse, one a mason, another an informatic engineer, and one a detective).
The act that caused his derangement was that he cutted, with a pair of scissor, a finger of a unconscious woman, only to get the thing that she was firmly holding in her hand.
Now I find myself in doubt: which kind of madness could he have obtained thanks to his action?
I thought about an obsession for the women (he is going to meet her again in the developement of the chronicle), or a self-destruction desire that will bring him to scare his own skin, but I'm not presuaded by neither this option.
Has anybody any hint to offer?
Thanks.

Psyx
2010-09-27, 10:56 AM
Phobia of blood?

Fear of sausages?


I always look at how a PC has been playing a character and the derangements he's steering towards in roleplay... then go the other direction.

A 'goon' player typically steers towards insanity spectrums such as paranoia, psychotic behaviour, sadism and sociopathy. None of those are of any actual disadvantage if your PC is a nut-bar maniac who likes killing things. So you need to give the player something that IS a disadvantage, and makes them roleplay differently.

Maybe an anal retentive disorder. Or a obsessive compulsion regarding security. It was basically a security issue at heart: He took something that was being protected (held). Coupled with the paranoia, that could turn into a compulsion regarding security: They need to check doors constantly to see if they are locked, perform elaborate rituals to increase their security (putting hairs on doorframes and that kind of thing).

Or you could go the other way: The woman had her finger severed because she had something he wanted. What if other people want his stuff? Of course they do, because he's paranoid. He doesn't want someone cutting his finger off to get something he has. How can that be stopped? Not having anything, of course. The character could easily develop a severe phobia to possessing anything of value or that might be desired. If a passing person compliments his jacket he might hand it to them so as to be rid of it.

...Or such comments could cause immediate violent response in that he assumes they will cut the jacket off him if they like it. But that's playing into how the guy is already playing a psycho already, so I wouldn't go that route.