Getting Players to Cooperate

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #0665

Table of Contents:

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A Brief Word From Johnn

This is the Number One Topic Request of All Time

Players being jerks. That’s the gist of my most frequent topic request over the past 16 years of Roleplaying Tips. Everyone has a story of a troublesome player in their campaign or awkward social drama that took place at the game table one night.

It’s not just RPT readers who have problem players, it’s all game masters. When researching this topic I found the most popular or replied-to topics in forums and on rpg.stackexchange are about dealing with the tricky social dynamics of our beloved game.

Here’s one table terror player story from my past. This player refused to collaborate or cooperate with the others. He’d meta game and go out of his way to make the GM’s life difficult. He’d challenge the GM on nit picky details and break the game tempo. He’d be grumpy and difficult. He’d get bored as soon as the spotlight fell off him – and he’d be unruly when bored.

I remember one session when the hooks for the next part of the adventure were roleplayed out with some villagers the party had just saved. The villagers said the villain lived in yon mountains, but did not know the exact location. However, the villain’s chief lieutenant did know and the lieutenant laired in a nearby dungeon.

As the party planned and prepared for the dungeon assault, the wanker player wanted to go straight to the mountains. “Let’s just look around for a bit. I bet we can stumble onto it easily with some good tracking.” If the party agreed to this, then a ton of GM prep work would go down the drain. And the PCs weren’t at villain-level yet, so it would likely be a TPK. I could tell he was just bored and doing this on purpose. What a jerk.

Well let me tell you something shocking. That player was me! Yours truly. What a jerk.

Over the years I’ve learned (often the hard way) that collaboration and cooperation are skills. At least for some folks where it does not come naturally. And as skills, the first thing you have to have is a desire to collaborate and cooperate. Without that desire, it just doesn’t sink in.

So today’s article, and a couple of others in the queue for future issues, are about ways to encourage players to collaborate. Before you apply any tip, trick, or tactic though, ensure players want to work together. Ensure they play with this spirit and intention. Then be patient as they slowly and awkwardly transform from jerk-moths to amazing butterflies. Or, in my case at least, from jerk-moth to less-jerk-moth.

I apologize to all the pain I’ve inflicted on my GMs over the years. I’m constantly working on my skills to be a better player.

However, the pain I’ve inflicted on my players as GM over the years? Well, that’s the fun of GMing right?

Get some cooperative gaming done this week!

Cheers,

Johnn
roleplayingtips.com

Getting Players to Cooperate

Five Techniques for Creating a Co-operative Table Culture

From Christopher Sniezak

Getting players to work together is about setting expectations and building a culture of assistance at the table. People think this means being all Kumbaya and whatnot, but it’s really about having conversations that create guidelines and then executing those guidelines to create the play experience everyone at the table wants. So here’s a few ways you can create a culture of player cooperation at the table.

Setting Expectation

Have a conversation about what the players and characters in the game will be doing and the acceptable interactions between the characters and players. If your group plays a survivor horror game and people will be going crazy and dying all the time, then you’ve set the game but you can take this a step further by asking some questions. Here are a few you could use, but this list is expandable and customizable for the kind of game you’re looking to play or for discovering what game you should be playing with your group.

Is betraying each other on the table?
Is leaving one of us behind something we’re ok with?
Is player vs. player conflict or combat a thing in our game?
Are we good with suggesting ideas to each other?
Do we only want ideas suggested to us if we ask for them?

By asking questions about the acceptable interaction between players and characters before you even begin to play you set a precedent for how interaction and cooperation will be. Questions like, “Are we good with suggesting ideas to each other?” also let the group know it’s ok to talk to each other about what they’re doing or going to do. A question such as, “Do we only want ideas suggested to us if we ask for them?” lets players know it’s ok to ask for help from the table.

Framing the Game

You’re playing a fantasy adventuring game. The characters are part of an adventuring company working together to seek fame and fortune. They’re also childhood friends that grew up in the same town and have already had a misadventure or two together.

In a space crew game the crew is working together on jobs to get paid and keep the ship flying. They’re also working this crew because not being on the crew means the only work they’ll be able to find is planetside, and that’s worse than death.

In a cyberpunk game your team has a reputation for getting the job done, but it’s the crew’s reputation, not any individual’s. In fact, other teams don’t like you guys, so it’s a king of the hill situation and those who don’t stay on top tend to end up dead.

In each of those campaign frames I’m providing two reasons for the characters to work together. In the fantasy example there is an adventuring company already set up and the group are all childhood friends. In the space crew game they already have a ship together and not working for this crew means you’re stuck planetside. In the cyberpunk set up the team already has a good reputation, and because of that reputation they’ve made every other team mad at them, so sticking together is a matter of survival and making money.

When framing the game find at least two reasons for the group, or members within the group, to stay together. Here are some example reasons, but you should come up with whatever works within your campaign’s framework.

External pressures
Mutual benefit
Personal familiarity
Revenge
Glory and fame
It’s the job
You’re paid well
Reputation bad or good
Nowhere else to go
Owe a debt

Mutual Goals

Give characters mutual goals they can accomplish together. If acquiring the lost tear of Aquana will help Reng the Mangol heal his sick mother and pay off the debt of Sicily Burn has to the wizard Odem, then the players of those characters have a reason to work together. So what’s the process for creating these situations?

First, discover what players want to do accomplish in the game and what they care about via a conversation and some questions. This is more easily done with a campaign set up session but here’s some quick reference questions:

Who or what do you care about and why?
What do you want to see your character accomplish during the course of this campaign?

Once you find out what they’re interested in, you then take their goals or the things they care about and:

Find a way to allow a single objective in play to satisfy more than one character’s goal or
Step towards their goal or
Put the things a character cares about in danger and use that single objective to take them out of danger.

Let’s take a look at another example.

We have the Line of the Mark adventuring party consisting of Alex Devarow, Calista Farrow, Sicily Burn, and Reng the Mangol. The green dragon who has a long and complex name but is also known as Plague threatens Calista and Reng by telling them he’ll bring his special brand of plague to their hometown, where Reng’s mother and Calista’s family lives, if they don’t retrieve the Crown of Lief, which was stolen from his horde, within the month. Sicily wants the Crown because there’s an inscription on it that will lead to her goal of learning the knowledge of the planes. Alex wants to find the crown because he knows his rival Ben Talbit has it. Now the players and their characters all have a mutual goal for finding the crown.

You don’t need to reveal all this information at the same time. It could start with the party going into the swamp to find the green dragon’s lair for the riches and because Sicily wanted the crown, and Plague ended up being more than they bargained for, so the GM decided to send them after the crown for the dragon instead of killing them all outright. Good job GM.

At this point, you have the crown as something one of the characters wants, so send them somewhere to get it and threaten some of the other players along the way. If they ask where to start looking or if the player of Alex’s character is a little belligerent or needs some more incentive, then reveal the crown is now in the possession of Ben Talbit, Alex’s rival, or you can save it as a reveal for later for that extra twist and some more investment for the group to get the job done.

You also don’t need to tie every person to a single goal. It’s good to have one of those, but you can also tie other people together to other goals to create bonds between those characters like the earlier example with Reng and Sicily.

All About the Bennies

So there’s this game called Savage Worlds which has a resource in it called bennies, and those can be given out for a variety of reasons. If you want to encourage people working together during play then in Savage Worlds I would start handing out bennies to the players when they help each other. If I wanted to do this in any other game I would create a reward system that does the same thing. Here are a few games and ways it could be done:

D&D 5e: Give inspiration when players help each other in meaningful ways.
Fate: Create a group aspect with the understanding that whenever a character helps another character in a meaningful way a Fate point will go on the group aspect. Anyone in the group can spend a single invoke from the group aspect on any action if they get permission from one other person in the group.
In any other game with dice: Create a resource that allows a re-roll when spent. This resource can only be acquired when a character helps another character in a meaningful way during play.

If you use this mechanic and it starts to get a little too meta as people are always trying to helping each other get these points, limit it to one point per scene, encounter, or whatever the unit of play is in your game.

By using this ding-salivate concept through rewarding players for helping each other you’re building the habit of helping. If all goes well, after a while they won’t even think about helping each other for the bennie and they’ll just do it.

[Comment from Johnn: This also goes towards Chris’ earlier point about frameworks. By gamifying and rewarding the behaviour you want, you not only encourage more of that behaviour, but you set up expectations for it, permission to do it, and a safe way to practice and get better doing it. It’s like the dance floor at parties. Nobody dances until a couple breaks the ice.]

The Stick

You can go the other way too and hit them with the stick and punish people for not helping. It’s not my favorite method, but it will also help build the culture of cooperation at the table. For example, if some players play the game as player versus player, and everyone came to the agreement it wasn’t going to be that kind of game, then having a mechanic to reinforce that idea isn’t the worst thing. So here’s a screw your compatriot and you’ll get screwed karmic system.

Have a list with each character’s name and every time they do something overtly detrimental to the group or another person you put a mark next to their name. This mark can be spent at any time by the GM to screw the player and change their die roll to a critical failure or just put them in a terrible situation. Sure is karma up in here.

[Comment from Johnn: As Chris mentions, this approach sometimes works. I think if you are not mean-spirited about it, then it becomes an awareness mechanic more than anything else. We often act out of habit, without thinking. It’s also important to show people you follow through on the social contract (which some players will test you on) and that you take on the group referee and facilitator roles seriously. I think of this approach like a “swear jar.”]

So like I said, this isn’t something I would actually do but I wanted to put it out there as an option for people if they’re heavier handed and like mechanics to point to when they want to make a statement at the table about how the game is going to be played.

Use the Play of the Game

So while you’re playing there will be moments when the dice go sideways and someone fails a roll. This is the perfect opportunity to complicate their lives and let one of the other characters save their bacon. This is using the ongoing play of the game to help create your cooperative table culture by providing opportunities for the players to help each other. To make this happen the first thing you need to understand is failure doesn’t need to mean nothing happens.

Failure in games should rarely mean nothing happens if you can help it, but the traditional design of combat systems is you attack, you miss. The thing people don’t realize about a fight is time passes, so there is a thing other than nothing happens. Time passes when you hit too, so it isn’t obvious this is important. But when we break it down it means this:

Whenever a player attempts to do something there is the thing they’re attempting to do and the evolving situation. If you ever have an action in the game and the action the player attempts fails, then you need to find a way to make the situation evolve. It makes the game move forward.

For an example, let us take the classic locked door situation. The door is locked and Reng the Mangol tries to break it down. He fails and the door stays locked, blocking the only way forward through the dungeon. This is a failure on the GM of creating the evolving situation since the situation didn’t evolve when Mangol failed. Now here’s a list of things the GM could have done:

Succeed at the cost of resources: Have the door break and Reng hurt himself taking some damage.
Fail but make the obstacle easier to deal with in the future: Reng didn’t break the door down but it cracks and comes off the frame a bit. It looks like another couple hits will take the door down.
Succeed but add a complication: It takes several attempts but Reng knocks the door down and behind it are a dozen orcs ready and waiting for you.
Succeed but complicate the situation and give someone else an opportunity to help the character: Reng, after a few shoulder bashes, throws his whole weight into the door and blasts through it falling onto the floor in the room beyond, right in the middle of a half dozen orcs. Sicily, you’re closest to the door. What do you do?

The last bullet example above is where I’m angling at using the dice going sideways to create situations for the players to help each other. When you’re in a game with initiative it’ll be harder to find these spots during a fight. But when you’re in the exploration parts of games like D&D or Pathfinder, using the above techniques when the dice go sideways are a lot easier to implement.

Let’s take a look at something I mentioned earlier. The swing-miss situation. So Sicily Burn is attacking a foe from the shadows. A perfect situation for her but she rolls quite poorly and misses. Here’s a couple of things you can think about.

Time passes and with the fiction of the situation Sicily is now out in the open with her opponent and it’s her foe’s turn to take action. This is time passing and the standard way games usually work.

You can run this a different way if you’re playing a game like Dungeon World or something where there’s levels of success or failure.

Minor failure: Sicily misses but her foe doesn’t notice
Major failure: Sicily misses and is now out in the open to be dealt with
Fail forward or partial success: Sicily kills her foe but her foe yells out and attracts a number of their comrades and now she’s surrounded

You can also use the fail forward idea above in a pass/fail situation by giving the player the choice of failure or success with a complication when they roll their failure.

In the above examples you can also create that camaraderie and teamwork situation with those failures. Instead of Sicily missing and her foe not noticing her you can say to one of the other players, “Sicily is exposed and is about to be spotted, what do you do?” Or in the case of Sicily being found out by her foe or surrounded by her foe’s comrades, you’ve created a situation where the other PCs at the table can help her out of the situation. It’s those moments where you can push the cooperative play you desire at the table in play.

So there’s five techniques for building a culture of co-operation at the table. If you have some other techniques you’d like to share with me and the community I’d love to hear about them and maybe I can even put together a compilation of RPT reader co-operation at the table tips for a future article. It’s always better to have more ideas to pull from. Just hit the reply button.

Until then go play some great games.

Using Scars in Your Game

From Jesse C Cohoon

A grizzled veteran stands in battered armor, leaning on a long axe. His scars tell the story of many battles. The outline of a clawed hand is burned onto his face. Another scar puckers from underneath his helmet. His hands are so marked from blades even his scars have scars. A cut that winds around his muscled forearm was at one point haphazardly stitched together.

A character’s scars are often just a part of their background. PCs never earn new scars to mark their trials and tribulations. Below are 10 ideas on how PCs and NPCs might be scarred in interesting ways.

Before we begin, let’s define a scar as a physical, mental, emotional, magical, or divinely caused mark that changes the character in some way – most of the time for the worse.

10 Ways to Make Scars Interesting to Gameplay

1) Cursed by the divine: A trope old as mankind itself. Genesis talks about Cain being marked for killing his brother. Someone has done something to offend the gods and thus they are marked in some way as penance for their wrong. As in Genesis, this mark may give them some sort of immunity, but with it comes a heavy price.

This idea could be further expanded to say that, due to the actions of a few members, an entire race could be cursed by a god to carry the mark of their disobedience throughout time, thus making a new race or culture society discriminates against.

2) Scars to change race: In Tolkien mythology, the orcs were originally elves that had been tortured. The process warped their bodies and minds into something bestial, but it was later changed to suggest they were corrupted men.

In your game, dark elves might have been created by unseen emotional or physical scars that warped elves. The reason dark elves continue to exist is because those scars keep being passed on generation to generation.

3) Scars of the soul: Intense mental or spiritual trauma makes the character or NPC feel betrayed. There are several monsters that come about from such a situation, including ghosts, phantoms, liches, and revenants.

Other types trauma might cause a character or NPC to abandon their ideals, causing them to stall their careers or lose certain abilities.

4) Symbols of secret societies, cults, or political parties: A secret society of assassins could have the first joint of their left hand fourth fingers removed. Or the Iron Heart Cult dedicated to the return of the Pale King as in Mark Anthony’s The Last Rune series, which had a scar in their chest, indicating their heart had been removed from their bodies.

Maybe there was a group of detractors who fought against the King. While they aren’t a threat to the public, perhaps they were all similarly marked so everyone would know who they are and they had the audacity to stand up to the King.

5) Scars caused by medical problems or procedures:

a. Caused by surgery: In real life many surgeries cause scars. Most of the time these scars are for some sort of emergency like having open heart surgery or a C-section. But sometimes a person can try to use surgery to improve their appearance, as what Michael Jackson did, and end up looking worse for the repeated corrective surgeries.

b. Caused by accidents: In Batman, Two-Face’s face is horribly scarred by an explosion or acid, depending on the villain creation story you want to go by. The scar was physical and mental, causing him to create the Two-Face personality.

c. Caused by disease: Many things no longer a health hazard due to the advent of vaccines used to scar children for life. Certain STDs can cause scars. In a fantasy world, not all diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses, parasites, or the ravages of aging – they might be caused by magic, curses, or divine intervention.

In Star Trek Voyager the Vidiians are fighting a disease called the phage, a debilitating disease so severe they harvest organs of other sentient species to survive. In your game, if such a thing were to happen to one of the races, the players would need to try to find a cure for this malady…or be seen as a source of organs.

d. Caused by birth defects: In real life, cleft palates and deformed limbs are two types of birth defects. In the X-Men, the mutant society of the morlocks had an entire society of such people living in the sewers, hidden from human eyes.

In your game, some races or cultures might dispose of or abandon children with birth defects by leaving them exposed to the elements to die. A secret society of those who have been saved from such a cruel fate exists and is determined to enact revenge on those that left them there to die.

6) Self-inflicted:

a. To prove how badass they are: In Kung Fu TV series, Caine brands himself with the marks of the dragon and the tiger by lifting a giant pot of burning coals to signify his passing into a monkhood. In your game, you might have an enemy deliberately stab themselves to prove how invulnerable they are, even in an area that would normally be fatal. Or they might cut off a limb only to re-attach it a moment later.

b. To prove how dedicated they are to a cause: A group of elves might cut off the tips of their ears to denounce what is going on in the elven homeland and attempt to separate themselves from the race altogether. A dwarf might cut his beard off and burn his face so he can no longer grow a new one as an objection to his race’s ideals, which he no longer can be a part of.

c. To improve skill: An assassin might blind himself to become immune to light magic, increase his other senses, or so he doesn’t see his victims.

7) Caused by magic: Many spells cause damage. Who’s to say the damage caused by encounters with magic users won’t leave scars? Each type of magic should leave some sort of “signature.” Heat and fire magic should cause burns and blisters. Frost, ice, and extreme cold should cause the skin to peel. If the cold is so sudden and sharp it could even cause extremities to break off and shatter. Lightning magic might cause bolt shaped scars. Acid magic can cause flesh to melt. Concussive force or sonic magic could cause bruises and broken bones. Bladed magic causes scars in thin lines. In games where certain types of monsters drain levels, this type of magic could leave marks on the soul, which causes them to be raised as minions of the type that killed it.

The scars from magic could awaken bloodline powers the character would not have access to otherwise. But if the scars get eliminated somehow, so too the additional powers accessed disappear. Perhaps the character is now sensitive to the type of magic that damaged them, similar to how a scar might ache during a change in the weather.

8) Caused by war or fighting: War is unpleasant business, to say the least. If one is lucky enough to survive it, physical scarring is the least of the warrior’s worries. The saying “all’s fair in love and war” applies here. The grizzled war veteran might have nightmares from being a prisoner of war, seeing the atrocities of war, or witnessing his friends and loved ones conducting ruthless tactics to survive.

9) As a punishment for crime: A society with limited prison space (or even no prison system) might have criminals severely whipped, branded with a mark denoting their crime, or have an appendage cut off.

10) As a part of commerce: Think of the Mark of the Beast in St. John’s Revelation:

The beast forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. Nowhere does the bible describe what that mark will consist of. But it could show up as a scar of some sort.

10 Scar Plots

1) Replacement: The PCs get a rumor someone important has been replaced by an imposter. Unfortunately, the likeness is not 100% accurate. To pull it off, surgery was needed, and there’s a small telltale scar that gives them away. So they wear clothing to hide the scar. The PCs must discover if there’s an imposter and offer proof of identity without causing a major political incident.

2) Location revealing scars: The government has decreed a certain area off-limits due to its dangerous nature. Anyone who goes there ends up getting telltale scars, because it’s impossible to get through the area without getting so injured. The PCs just passed through the area and show up in town with these scars, and are accused of a crime they didn’t know they committed. What do they do?

3) Escaped slave: The party is hired to track an escaped slave with a distinctive brand. When they catch up to him, they hear her story that she was never a slave, and was branded falsely. Who do they believe?

4) Transformative scars: One of the character’s NPCs friends has been captured and is being tortured. The more time that goes by the more the friend transforms into a monster. Will the PCs get be able to overcome the obstacles to save him in time?

5) PTSD: A PC or NPC suffers from PTSD. It’s up to the other PCs to help them get through it and get their “head back in the game” so they can defeat a powerful monster that threatens town.

6) Scars from healing: An Outsider is healing people but leaving a mark of its hand (claw, wing, or hoof) on those it heals. The PCs must determine if these scars are just a byproduct of the healing or something much more sinister.

7) Magic blocking scars: Surgery is performed on kidnapped magic users. When they are released their magic is less potent or removed entirely. It’s up to the PCs to get to the bottom of this and find out what’s going on and why.

8) Pox spreader: A person is spreading a pox by visiting prostitutes in town. It’s up to the PCs to determine who’s doing it, find out if they’re doing it on purpose, and stop the disease from spreading before more people get infected.

9) Loyalty branding: All those loyal to the King need to be branded. Anyone not having this brand is considered a traitor. The PCs show up to the capitol unbranded. What do they do? Do they take the mark or not?

10) Magic sensitivity: a PC or NPC is sensitive to a certain type of magic due to one of their scars. Thus far they’ve never been wrong before, but to all indications they are wrong this time. What’s going on?

Scar Generator

d12	Location	Shape	Meaning
1	Face/Head: 1) right eye, 2) left eye, 3) neck, 4)nose, 5) mouth, 6) scalp, 7) cheek, 8) reroll twice	Star	Caused by a monster attack
2	Hand	Crescent	Caused by magic
3	Arm	Ragged	Assassin or thieves’ guild
4	Back	Pockmarks or weeping fluids	Branded for a crime
5	Shoulder	Burn marks	Caused by disease or pox
6	Leg	Removed limb	Divine intervention
7	Foot	Circle or “no” shape	Political party
8	Elbow	Z shape	Slave
9	Knee	X shape	Used to block magic
10	Groin	Puckered around edges	Transformative scar
11	1d100% of body	Punctured skin	Culture or race related
12	Soul	V or W shape	Indicative of location or region

10 Scar Plots

Replacement

The PCs get a rumor someone important has been replaced by an imposter. Unfortunately, the likeness is not 100% accurate. To pull it off, surgery was needed, and there’s a small telltale scar that gives them away. So they wear clothing to hide the scar. The PCs must discover if there’s an imposter and offer proof of identity without causing a major political incident.

Location Revealing Scars

The government has decreed a certain area off-limits due to its dangerous nature. Anyone who goes there ends up getting telltale scars, because it’s impossible to get through the area without getting so injured. The PCs just passed through the area and show up in town with these scars, and are accused of a crime they didn’t know they committed. What do they do?

Escaped Slave

The party is hired to track an escaped slave with a distinctive brand. When they catch up to him, they hear her story that she was never a slave, and was branded falsely. Who do they believe?

Transformative Scars

One of the character’s NPCs friends has been captured and is being tortured. The more time that goes by the more the friend transforms into a monster. Will the PCs get be able to overcome the obstacles to save him in time?

PTSD

A PC or NPC suffers from PTSD. It’s up to the other PCs to help them get through it and get their “head back in the game” so they can defeat a powerful monster that threatens town.

Scars from Healing

An Outsider is healing people but leaving a mark of its hand (claw, wing, or hoof) on those it heals. The PCs must determine if these scars are just a byproduct of the healing or something much more sinister.

Magic Blocking Scars

Surgery is performed on kidnapped magic users. When they are released their magic is less potent or removed entirely. It’s up to the PCs to get to the bottom of this and find out what’s going on and why.

Pox Spreader

A person is spreading a pox by visiting prostitutes in town. It’s up to the PCs to determine who’s doing it, find out if they’re doing it on purpose, and stop the disease from spreading before more people get infected.

Loyalty Branding

All those loyal to the King need to be branded. Anyone not having this brand is considered a traitor. The PCs show up to the capitol unbranded. What do they do? Do they take the mark or not?

Magic Sensitivity

A PC or NPC is sensitive to a certain type of magic due to one of their scars. Thus far they’ve never been wrong before, but to all indications they are wrong this time. What’s going on?

Scar Generator

d12	Location	Shape	Meaning
1	Face/Head: 1) right eye, 2) left eye, 3) neck, 4)nose, 5) mouth, 6) scalp, 7) cheek, 8) reroll twice	Star	Caused by a monster attack
2	Hand	Crescent	Caused by magic
3	Arm	Ragged	Assassin or thieves’ guild
4	Back	Pockmarks or weeping fluids	Branded for a crime
5	Shoulder	Burn marks	Caused by disease or pox
6	Leg	Removed limb	Divine intervention
7	Foot	Circle or “no” shape	Political party
8	Elbow	Z shape	Slave
9	Knee	X shape	Used to block magic
10	Groin	Puckered around edges	Transformative scar
11	1d100% of body	Punctured skin	Culture or race related
12	Soul	V or W shape	Indicative of location or region

d20 Temporary Insanity Effects

When a PC suddenly loses his marbles, roll on the table below for what happens.

PC faints and is shaken when revived
PC begins screaming (let another player choose the words)
PC’s bowels empty and then PC runs away
PC sinks to knees, weeping
PC has hallucinations
Whatever triggered the insanity turns into an intense, long-term phobia
PC becomes homicidal and attacks nearest person or creature
PC thinks he’s another PC – mimics what they do and say
PC develops weird food or drink craving
PC falls into a coma
PC performs compulsive ritual (e.g., praying, clanking shield in a pattern)
Pick a foe – PC believes they are always stalking him, about to attack
Pick a strange item – PC needs it always now for good luck
PC has psychosomatic blindness
PC has psychosomatic loss of a limb
PC can only speak in tongues
PC has uncontrollable tics and tremors
PC cannot stop high-pitched giggling
PC manifests 1d4 new personalities – create a frequent trigger for each
A limb of the PC takes on a life of its own