Sanity

"When a nasty, wet, slopping oozed up from below, they experienced something man's not meant to know. Two men died where they stood, as their minds simply broke. T'was a merciful fate... when Cthulhu awoke."

– Dr. Seuss

Lol Dawww of Cthulhu.

Sanity, in roleplaying games, is a measure of how mentally stable a character is. In traditional roleplaying games, such as AD&D, a character's mental state was entirely up to how the character's player wished to portray them; however, Call of Cthulhu, based on the Cthulhu Mythos by writer H.P. Lovecraft, features the progression to insanity as a major feature of the setting and gameplay, and introduced the Sanity attribute to track the character's descent into madness. Players would "roll for SAN loss" every time they experienced something unpleasant or unsettling, like seeing a corpse, or reading the Necronomicon; if they failed to roll under their current Sanity, they lose some random number of SAN points, and lose a smaller number (or none at all) if they succeed, eventually becoming a gibbering and/or villainous NPC when their Sanity reaches zero. Oh, and players would automatically lose maximum SAN whenever they gained points in Mythos knowledge, such that Mythos knowledge + maximum SAN = 100 exactly. The concept proved extremely popular, and has since been modified and incorporated into a wide variety of different RPGs, either as a core part of the system or as an optional rule for gamers running horror-based campaigns.

One of the most notable updates of the Sanity mechanic (which was something like mental hit points in older games) has been carried out by games such as Unknown Armies. UA sanity works in such a way that, while it can make you more used to seeing horrible things (becoming "hardened" in respect to some horror, like eviscerated bodies), it also makes you colder, insensitive and so on (more likely to carry out violent deeds), while in Call of Cthulhu you just kept losing your sanity points until you went crazy and had to be institutionalized. Delta Green partially adapted from Unkown Armies, you can "adapt" to violence, helplessness but never the Unnatural, as every encounter is a new feeling and your brain will never understand what's ununderstandable.

Dark Heresy has an insanity rating, that functions similarly. Players start at 0 insanity and go up from there. Insanity can be gained from psyker or demonic powers, failing a fear test, or if the DM just wants to give some to the player. There is usually a willpower test in order to avoid taking the insanity damage. Every 10 points of insanity, a player rolls a willpower test, and, should he fail it, the rolls on a Mental Trauma table that imposes a temporary penalty. Upon reaching 40, 60, and 80 insanity, the GM gives the players a mental disorder, such as a phobia, visions, nightmares, delusions, etc. At 100 insanity, a player is terminally insane and is removed from play (a houserule is to allow a character to burn fate to regain sanity). Gaining insanity is not a bad thing because if the first digit of your insanity total is double or more a thing's fear rating, you are immune to its petty horrors. Dark Heresy's Corruption mechanic works similarly but is a reflection of how tainted your character is by the Warp. Adeptus Evangelion inherits this Insanity system from Dark Heresy, and Fantasy Flight Games' other WH40K RPGs use it as well (with the exception of Black Crusade, since the average servant of Chaos is barking mad to begin with).

The system has also been stolen by clueless video game designers who fail to understand that it's hard to believe your character is looking at something that is making them go insane when you, the player, are looking at the same thing and it's just kinda funky looking( altrough, to be fair, the player is watching them as, in fact, a player. Totally unable to be physically harmed by them or feel any kind of eldritch aura). A notable exception to this rule is an obscure game called Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, which let you actually see the effects of your character's slipping grasp on reality as his sanity meter depleted. This could range from hallucinations (e.g. walls dripping blood, your limbs exploding when you attempt to cast a spell) to fourth-wall breaking effects (such as pretending to delete all your save data when trying to save the game or displaying a fake "controller unplugged" message as you enter a room full of zombies). The game "Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth" also uses distortions of the player's view and experiences to convey insanity.

Sanity is used pretty well in Amnesia: The Dark Descent, mostly as a way of prolonging horror. Monsters are only encountered infrequently, and their rarity keeps their potential scare factor high. Staring at them will deplete sanity and cause the player's vision to swim and blur, making sure that the player can never get a good look at the monstrosity that is chasing them. This helps to keep them mysterious and get the player's mind filling in the blanks. Decreased sanity will also cause several changes in the environment, from discomforting insect/chewing noises in the background, to certain features such as paintings becoming more horrifying, to even phantom monsters appearing to terrorize the player further.

Fun Fact: Sanity is a legal term and not a clinical term.