Sanity Decks

These Sanity Decks are a way to add a more descriptive cue to your character's typical, everyday, spiral into madness. Each character gets a deck which consists of 5 themed cards (cleverly numbered 1 through 5). Each card represents a progressive step along that theme with an associated Aspect that acts as a cue on how the character might start behaving.

Decks should be stacked 'picture up', in descending numeric order (#1 on the top), so that the Aspect is hidden from the player until he or she is forced to flip one due to a failed stress/sanity roll. I use them in my FATE horror game, so this is usually a failed Resolve roll. Unless a character starts the game already a little 'off', then none of the cards should be flipped before the game begins. When a new card is flipped, its effects replace 'earlier' cards in that theme (the deck only ever gives a character 1 Aspect).

The themes I picked work best in modern horror games, but they could probably also work in a game set back as far as the 1920s. Sound familiar at all?

If you are playing a game that already uses Aspects mechanically (FATE, Spirit of the Century, Dresden Files from what I hear), then treat the card's Aspect as you would any other Aspect associated with the character. If your game doesn't use Aspects, then just treat them as roleplaying cues.

Ultimately, these cards are just meant to inspire the players on how their characters might be reacting to the stress you have heartlessly inflicted upon them. Feel free to go off theme if it makes sense in your game. Of course, what does that even mean to you...you're insane.

Each card has:

• The name of the theme
  A number representing how far you've spiraled
  An Aspect (descriptive term on how your character might act)
  A quote from a character who might have gotten one of these cards

I let my character pick out a deck just based on the picture and the name of the theme.

If you find these cards fun or useful please drop me a line.

The cards are copyright 2008 by me, Justin Evans through SinisterGame.com, but feel free to print them out and use them as much as you want for personal use. If anybody is interested in publishing them commercially please contact me.

Printing:

There are two PDF files available. Each is 8 pages long. One is designed to be printed on Avery 8871 double sided business cards. The other has crop marks included in case you want to print the cards on regular card stock and cut them yourself.

Print order:

• Page 5 is the back of Page 1.
• Page 6 is the back of Page 2.
• Page 7 is the back of Page 3.
• Page 8 is the back of Page 4.

Make sure 'Page Scaling' is set to 'None' in Adobe Reader otherwise your cards won't line up correctly with the pre-cut business cards.