Hat eigentlich schon jemand "Pulp-Fu" von Dan Bayn gelesen? Darin gehts auch um Abenteuer mit cthulhu-esken Horror. Dafür hat er auch entsprechende - einfache - Regeln geschrieben. Auch wenn´s lang wird, poste ich die als Anregung einfach mal:
Insanity
A nearly universal component of Lovecraft's mythology is
the idea that contact with things beyond the sphere of Man
inevitably leads to madness. These alien beings, and their
equally alien realities, are incomprehensible to the human
mind. Catching a glimpse of their power is scary enough;
experiencing them in their full glory will drive you insane.
Thus, no treatment of the pulp genre would be complete
without a mechanic for madness. If you plan to use any Eldritch
horror in your game, give each of your player-characters a free
Insanity Trait.
What's more, you can let your players pick what
rating they want, 1-5. A low score represents someone who's a
skeptic; they're not good with magic and they tend to freeze up
when faced with the impossible, but they're emotionally stable
and resistant to the Old Gods' corrupting influence. Characters
with higher Insanity scores are, well, crazy; they tend to flip out a
lot, but they're also more effective when doing battle with the
forces of darkness. Choose your poison.
You'll rarely roll against your Insanity like you would a
normal Trait. Instead, it sets a limit on the number of dice you
can roll when dealing with the supernatural. If a pair of Hell
Hounds jump you in an alley and your Insanity is only 2, you can
only add 2 Details to your frantic running away action. (At least,
you can only earn 2 dice.) This really evens the odds for twisted
monsters and spell-slinging cultists with less than stellar Trait
ratings. Need to complete an arcane ritual to vanquish a Demon
Made Flesh? You'd better hope your Insanity's higher than 1!
So, what's the down side to having a high Insanity? First
of all, there's the Insanity Check. Any time you fight a
supernatural foe, even mooks, roll a single die. If the result is
higher than your Insanity, you manage to keep a level head.
Otherwise, you have two choices: Fight or Flight. If you chose to
fight, all of your dice must be Yang (attack) dice. If you chose
flight, they all have to be Yin (running away) dice. Of course, your
Insanity rating still sets an upper limit on the total number of dice
you can roll.
The other catch to a high Insanity score is that the forces
of darkness have an easier time getting inside your squishy,
human brain. Most Old Gods are inherently telepathic; they can
read your deepest thoughts, put new thoughts in your head, edit
or erase your memories, and give you hypnotic commands.
However, their victim's Insanity score sets the limit on how many
dice they can roll for such purposes. The sane are harder to
read and manipulate than the loopy.
Going Insane:
For many games, the mechanics above are all you'll
need. However, the long spiral into madness is such a big part
of Lovecraftian horror that I suspect many GMs will want rules for
changing a character's Insanity during play. There are a few
ways to go about it. Pick the method that works best for you...
The Slowball - Every time a player makes an Insanity
check and rolls under or equal to their Insanity (ie. they flip out),
the Trait goes up by 1 point. This lets low-Insanity characters
stay stable for a long while, but their slide into madness
accelerates as their Insanity increases.
The Fastball - Every time a player makes an Insanity
check and rolls over their Insanity (ie. they keep it together) the
Trait goes up by 1 point. This causes low-Insanity characters to
increase a lot at first, and then level off as they get crazier.
The Curveball - In this scheme, players get to break the
Insanity rules by choosing to increase their Insanity by 1 point.
For the remainder of the scene, they can either ignore the dice
pool limit imposed by their Insanity or they can chose to split
their dice between Yin and Yang (if they flipped out), but they
cannot ignore both rules at once.
Whatever method you use, a character's Insanity can
never go above 5. Instead of adding a point to such a character's
Trait, you should invent a new Weakness based on the event
that caused the Insanity Check. (Only do this on a roll of 6; the
slowball would result in a lot of new Weaknesses!) It might just
be a post-traumatic stress thing that sends them into flashbacks
any time similar circumstances arise, or a phobic fear of
the dark, blood, dogs, or something else that was present at the
time. The new Weakness doesn't kick in until later on, however.
GMs gets to decide exactly when the player finds out about it!
You can also allow characters’ Insanity Traits to go down
between sessions, presumably due to some off-camera
psychotherapy, heavy medication, or their favorite brand of
spiritual affirmation. I'd only do this 1 point at a time, but go with
whatever works best for your game.
(aus Pulp-Fu von Dan Bayn)