Wisdom of the Masters: Madness and Insanity
This article was first broadcast in Episode Fifty-Five on 2nd January 2019. Lennon: Hi…Ryu? Ryu: Hi. Did you think I’d left? Lennon: No, but…given the subject matter I thought for sure the Killer DM would show up. Ryu: Oh, yeah, she knew about it but she said *ahem* Killer DM: If I want my players to lose their minds and start crying in a corner I hardly need game mechanics to help. Ostron: That…impression of her you do is getting uncanny. Lennon: Anyway, Madness, right Players’ mental state is not usually something D&D focuses on. There are a number of spells that can directly affect it, like Confusion or Crown of Madness that describe spell effects altering creatures’ mental states. Various adventures also have deranged or mentally altered NPCs for the characters to interact with, but very rarely does anything deal with the mental health of the characters. Unless players actively try to roleplay it, most of the…