Unknown Armies:Madness
You’re going to face a lot of threats out there, and not all of them are physical. You’re going to be exposed to stresses that are beyond the normal, experiences that challenge your mind’s ability to fit them into your view of how the world works.
These stresses are measured on the Madness Meters. These are five gauges that measure how resilient or susceptible you are to different mental threats. First, let’s explain how challenges to your sanity are handled.
Stress Checks
There are five categories of mental stress: Violence, the Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. It’s quite possible to be very casual about, say, Violence, while being a basket case when it comes to The Unnatural.
Each stress has two types of notches you can mark off. Hardened notches represent stress checks you’ve beaten, and they are numbered 1–10. Failed notches represent stress checks you’ve blown, and they are numbered 1–5.
Different stresses have different power levels, ranging from 1–10. These are called ranks. The higher the rank, the more extreme the stress and the more you’re likely to suffer if you fail the check.
If you already have a hardened notch at the same rank as the stress, and in the same meter, you don’t have to roll. You automatically beat the check because you’ve faced this down before and prevailed. Failed notches don’t effect stress checks.
If you don’t have a hardened notch at the rank of the stress check, make a Mind roll. If you succeed, mark off the lowest unmarked "hardened" notch on the appropriate madness meter. If you fail, you mark off the lowest unmarked "failed" notch instead and choose one of three reactions: panic, paralysis, or frenzy; these are discussed more under "Getting Crazy". A failure may have other long-term effects as well.
It’s common to have both hardened and failed notches in the same meter. Someone who’s deep in both directions on Isolation probably has a highly ambivalent attitude towards being alone, which is perfectly in character for people who have been repeatedly exposed to that mental stress. Someone with the same situation for Violence feels little or nothing when exposed to most forms of bloodshed, but when something is so shocking that it gets through the hardened barrier, the result is devastating.