Term Replacement: "Sanity"

[TemporalLich]

I don't really feel this term replacement is necessary as sanities are kinda something both historical and not really used in much setups nowadays outside stuff like Grand Idea Mafia.

This feels like a solution in need of a problem.



Here is my attempt at a term replacement for the (cop) sanities, but this is not something I'd use.

Sanity - Reliability
Sane - Reliable
Insane - Inverse
Paranoid - False Positive
Naive - False Negative
Random - Random

[TemporalLich]

If we're considering mental health terms in Mafia to be lava, I'd term replace Psychologist (a Normal role!) and Psychiatrist before term replacing sanities (the latter is usually hidden from the player in Bastard games anyway).

I don't agree with this as it feels like we're on a slippery slope and I imagine the "sanities" are innocuous enough to not require term replacement even in theory.

[TemporalLich]

I think you're almost certainly right and also that there are better ways to tell if anyone is offended than just assuming, as ~20 years of site history shows. I think we broadly recognized when we did make changes that they were long overdue.

I mean yeah, this thread does have value because it actually asks the question instead of making blind assumptions.

[TemporalLich]

sorry for being dismissive but I'm kinda burned out from term replacements

I'd like more opinions as I consider this still a very open question

pedit: term replacements are intended to remove potentially distressing terminology. The L-word was burned into our minds as recalling a past of racial violence and the self-death word is a very real mental health trigger.

[TemporalLich]

I feel the need to point out the term "

Paranoid

Gun Owner" in this thread. I personally would find it more offensive than the cop sanities but ymmv.

PGO really is just a Reflexive Vigilante so actually finding a replacement for it is not necessary, more so just phasing out the term PGO.

[TemporalLich]

Still on the tangent of Paranoid Gun Owner, I think a 1:1 term replacement for it can be a Sentry or a Turret.

Speaking of sanities I still think "reliabilities" (as said by Jumble) make the most sense for cop sanities. IDK about sanities for other roles though, those can get themey flavorful replacements as sanities are something that should stay in Bastard games imo.

[TemporalLich]

Isn't a pgo like a reflexive vig or some such. Here lemme uh

A PGO is a Reflexive Vigilante, I managed to think of a replacement for the exact role itself.

pedit: Reflexive is a modifier I like, PGO (the role) not so much.

[TemporalLich]

let me know if you want term replacements for doctor and roleblocker sanities despite me personally disagreeing with this term replacement

and yeah this really needs more opinions as it is still clearly an open question

[TemporalLich]

I've posted Cop sanities already and idk how else to flavor it besides just "reliability"

[TemporalLich]

For Doctor sanities they are historical but I am not beholden to them.

Sane Doctor is just Doctor who knows their role is true
Paranoid Doctor is a Jailkeeper who thinks they are a Doctor
Naive Doctor is a False Doctor

Insane Doctor is the most interesting Doctor sanity, but even that can just be term replaced to something like Bad Doctor or 50% Doctor 50% Vigilante

For Roleblocker sanities they are something I made up and can easily be shelved and forgotten about

[TemporalLich]

Sanities are strictly in the realm of Bastard and all this arguing is starting to make me agree with the term replacement

[TemporalLich]

yeah that's another reason to term replace SD-bombers (I didn't want to mention it because I felt mentioning it would itself be offensive)

and yeah I agree with samantha - but that doesn't mean SD-bomber shouldn't be term replaced (in fact that's a point toward term-replacing SD-bomber)

[TemporalLich]

Rerailing the thread back to it's intended topic:

Should the cop sanities be changed to reliabilities? (e.g. a cop Role PM saying "Your reliability is not guaranteed." instead of "Your sanity is not guaranteed.")

Should the doctor and roleblocker sanities continue to be referred to as such?

also, should

Paranoid

Gun Owner be renamed? (I would personally like the name Sentry or Turret for this)

[TemporalLich]

If we are using "Reliabilities" even for Doc and Roleblocker:

(this list is for Doc and Roleblocker reliabilities/sanities, see 7 for cop reliabilities/sanities)

Sane = Reliable
Insane = Unreliable
Paranoid = Overcorrecting
Naive = False (Quack would still work here)
Weak = Weak
CPR = CPR

[TemporalLich]

Lover simply uses "die" - this is for purely mechanical purposes, so flavor can be filled in. It would most likely be seen as dying from heartbreak however.

Bomber was pretty much decided to be renamed Exploder - though Nemesis is a good name. Bear in mind the thread for that specific term replacement is locked however.

Psychologist/Psychiatrist feel fine to me. Psychologist is the role that determines if someone is capable of killing but hasn't yet, it is the counterpart to Detective and is a Normal role. Psychiatrist is an alignment-changing role that turns a Serial Killer into a Townie.

I'd say low instead of zero especially for the "sanity" terms which only exist in Bastard games - the cost of losing design space is a cost that should not be ignored - especially for a blanket term replacement instead of simply writing out a specific problem word or idea (the design space lost to losing the L-word is negligible (note that this is not the same thing as zero, there is a cost but it's so small it doesn't matter in practice))

Though if sanity terms are known to be distressing, the benefit outweighs the cost by a lot, and if 1:1 term replacements are easily found, the cost might actually be zero.

[TemporalLich]

Necroing this to post a proposal for parallelizing reliabilities at the cost of having the old Insane Doctor be a Random Doctor instead of an Inverse Doctor

Sanity	Reliability	Definition (investigative/non-investigative)
Sane	Reliable	Works as expected / works as expected
Insane	Inverse	Opposite result / opposite effect
Paranoid	Fanatical	Positive or incriminating result / extreme effect
Naive	Apathetic	Negative or clearing result / no effect
Random	Random	Random result / 50% chance of reliable, otherwise inverse

[TemporalLich]

For sane you don’t need any modifier at all and for insane, I think inverse is a good choice because random doesn’t convey opposite.

Sometimes you need a term for Sane. Something like "guaranteed Reliable" or some Grand Idea roles with flipping reliabilities are where a term for Sane is necessary.

Random is supposed to be 50% reliable 50% inverse.

The current Insane Doctor is defined as "has 50% chance of killing their patient instead of protecting them.". This would be called a Random Doctor under the new system, while an Inverse Doctor is a Doctor who ends up killing their patient all the time.

[TemporalLich]

Apathetic means you don't really care, while Fanatical means you care way too much.

Naive would mean overly trusting, and therefore fits as a logical opposite to Paranoid (overly suspicious) but not Fanatical.

[TemporalLich]

The current Reliabilities (not the current Sanities) suffer from a lack of parallelization (which is not the case for Sanities).

Paranoid is False Positive (always getting a positive result) for investigatives and Overcorrecting (doing too much) for non-investigatives
Naive is False Negative (always getting a negative result) for investigatives and False (not doing anything) for non-investigatives



I don't think it's a big deal to have roles named after personality traits - for Normal roles/modifiers we have Friendly Neighbor, Loyal, Disloyal, Ascetic, Compulsive, Lazy, Macho, and Indecisive.

However neither Reliable nor Inverse are personalty traits (though Reliable can be argued to be one).

Some alternate names for Fanatical / Apathetic:

Strict / Lax
Excessive / Deficient
Always Crit / Always Miss

[TemporalLich]

yeah I kinda like Strict / Lax as an alternative - fanatical is a bit much but strict gets the point across

Lax is meant to be like an opposite of Strict

[TemporalLich]

If Naive is okay (which I feel it is), we can have Cynical and Naive under the new reliabilities system, making the new reliabilities Reliable, Inverse, Cynical, Naive, and Random.

[TemporalLich]

Could Corrupt work for "Inverse?"

I mean sure but Inverse gets the point across better.

Corrupt is more flavorful, while Inverse is more clear.

[TemporalLich]

The current terms for Reliabilities:

Reliable - works as normal
Inverse - opposite result or opposite effect
Cynical - incriminating result or excessive effect
Naive - clearing result or no effect
Random - random result or random effect
Unreliable - 50% reliable, 50% inverse (used for Doctor as a holdover from the first Reliabilities system)

[TemporalLich]

but how does anyone engage with your reactionary whining if they don't already know about the game

Betrayal at the House on the Hill is not the only game with a Sanity mechanic. I am not familiar with that game however.

Pretty much anything related to the Cthulhu Mythos will have Sanity referenced in some way, an example I will list of this is Call of Cthulhu.

Tangentially related would be World of Darkness's Derangements, where losing your Humanity will cause mental illness.

The main argument that would keep the aforementioned Sanity systems as non-problematic but also say that Mafia's Sanity system is problematic is that the aforementioned systems are much more ingrained in mental health while Mafia's Sanities can be replaced with a Reliabilities system without undercutting the underlying Crunch meaning (the Fluff of "you're not thinking straight" was cut out but that's not a good take). Also I don't think Derangements are unproblematic, especially considering it has the unfortunate implication that mentally ill people are morally bad people (I am pretty sure everyone can agree that is a bad take).

and if we got rid of the entire concept of Sanity we'd undercut the entire subgenre of Psychological Horror.

[TemporalLich]

So yeah, the main reason Mafia's Sanity system is problematic are the implications known as "you're not thinking straight" and "people with poor mental health will do self-destructive or counterproductive acts".

The Reliabilities system keeps the Crunch intact (Inverse is still "opposite of expected" but no longer Insane).

Criticism is important but I think vonflare is bordering on concern trolling in 107.

[TemporalLich]

Echoing what others have said I don't think Paranoid or Naive are really mental health terms.

I'm not sure why we just don't use experienced/inexperienced to replace sane/insane. I also thought about vet/rookie but we'd have to change the other vet role that does ???? As an alternative to vet we could also use some other form of police rank.

Maybe a "corrupted cop" gets inno on scum/guilty on town.

I'm not beholden to "Paranoid" and in fact Paranoid Gun Owner (which I would want Sentry to be the term and is just a Reflexive Vigilante anyway) is the main impetus for me to have a distaste for Paranoid specifically.

Rookie sounds a lot like Novice and Veteran is kinda already used as a PGO alias (though that's

more

problematic than PGO).

I don't really like experienced/inexperienced as the term, and I think inexperienced cop makes a lot more sense for a Parity Cop (the one that can't tell which result corresponds to a positive or negative result - in Reliability terms this would be a Cop that knows they are either Reliable or Inverse) than an Inverse Cop.

Corrupt is more flavorful and less clear than Inverse. A Corrupt Cop could also be seen as a Combined Cop Vigilante that thinks they are a Cop, for example.

[TemporalLich]

what about clumsy cop?

no thanks

you'd have to justify how a clumsy doctor is a doctor who kills their patients

[TemporalLich]

Sorry I mean in terms of cop reliability if that was unclear.
Clumsy cop getting inaccurate results.

Clumsy replacing Inverse would result in that situation, unless you want to serialize reliabilities.

I still don't even think Clumsy Cop sounds like a cop who gets inverted results.

[TemporalLich]

you could probably leave paranoid/naive

The current Reliabilities proposal leaves Naive alone:

Reliable - works as normal
Inverse - opposite result or opposite effect
Cynical - incriminating result or excessive effect
Naive - clearing result or no effect
Random - random result or random effect
Unreliable - 50% reliable, 50% inverse (used for Doctor as a holdover from the first Reliabilities system)

Cynical can easily just be Paranoid if that is okay

[TemporalLich]

i do think cynical just goes really well w naive, even independent of the core of this discussion

yeah I think what we have now could work if we were replacing sanities (which I'm neutral on)