Crazy characters

Punching it into iqdb.org - the free Multi-service image search, available now - gives me sansei muramasa as the artist. Learning to use iqdb will lead to you to a wealth of related artwork.

Keep in mind that, like kinda said, insanity is a very broad statement. Mental illness takes a huge variety of forms. (Pedantic trivia: "Insanity" is actually a legal term, not a term that real psychologists actually use)

if going for a villain, then look at real life insane evil. Son of Sam, Jeffrey Dahmer, their ilk. Look into how someone's fucked up perception of reality and unstable mind can warp their sense of morality.

As for an insane player character, again, mental illness takes many forms. Decide on which one(s) your character is afflicted by and portray that. If you just say that someone's "insane" and therefore do whatever the fuck they want, you don't have a madman, you just have a fucking idiot.

pic mostly unrelated?

This

>How do you make a good insane character?
You don't unless you've got some sort of derangement you live with.

It's actually kind of a curse. Once you've got some sort of brain damage or personality defect, it becomes nigh impossible to play fully 'sane' characters. Personally, I can only really attempt hollow caricatures.

Actually, this is a good question. Veeky Forums, how do I make a good sane character?

You know how you generally play your character as being this great and powerful adventurer?

Don't. Play him/her as some person who doesn't know what the hell they are doing, because in essence, you don't, and almost likely never will. Have your character have a legitimate fear of death, and other fears. Maybe distrust your companions more than you trust them, because they're all murderhobos (like you) and they could maybe turn on you. Hell, why did you start travelling with them at all?

>how do I make a good sane character?
nobody knows, chummer
There isn't really a check list for "sane character" outside of CoC (either)
try to make a good character and maybe you'll make a sane character on the way

Establish how their mind works differently than an ordinary persons and then consistently abide by those rules you've established for how their mind works.

You look up actual traits of mental illness, and what they do to a person.

E.G. Had a fighter with PTSD over losing his men to war and horror. He drank heavily, blamed himself for everything, no longer believed that right/wrong existed, and was unafraid of death.

There was a dialog by him where he said something along the lines of: "I'm tired. I'm tired of drinking myself to sleep because I'm scared of my dreams. I'm tired of waiting to hear familiar voices and footsteps to confirm this was all just a false memory."

I also played a character with severe hallucinations who responded by only interacting with things other people did. This often lead to an NPC/PC trying to speak to him alone while he ignored them.

It's subtle things like so that make a good insane character for me.

>Diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic
>Only person who knows that is the DM
>Pretty sure the other players think something is wrong with me, but really only get treated like a sperg

As far as I can tell, the secret is to not care.

At least, that seems to be all I can gather from one of the other players, who can't make a solid character to save his life and no one adopts that placating bullshit tone when he acts weird.

You really should tell the group, you literally have the only mental illness that makes you a danger to other people, they should know that you could snap at any second and murder everyone in their sleep.

>they should know that you could snap at any second and murder everyone in their sleep.

I don't know if it's funny or sad that you might actually believe that.

Give rules to their insanity and then follow their rules, is simple

It's a statistical fact that paranoid schizophrenics are the only type of crazy that is more likely to be violent than other people of their demographic. It's not their fault, if my brain was telling me everyone was plotting to kill me and making me see and hear things that weren't there I'd be pretty on edge too, but understanding doesn't mean I don't see that they are a obvious danger.

Actually, for the most part, I just keep to myself. Most of the things I see and hear are just disorienting or static, for lack of a better word.

When stress grows too high, yeah, I get thoughts from outside that run along the "They're after you" line. Longtime exposure to it mostly makes me tired, not violent.

As for telling them, absolutely not. No one would benefit from that. The only reason the DM knows is because I had to explain some absences and he wasn't buying the "My cat is sick" routine.

I'm here to add a second opinion and say it's the exact same excuse that's used over and over by people who are actually, legally insane.

>How do you make a good insane character?
Spend 15 minutes on a medical website, and ignore the fact tvropes exists.

I remember making this thread concerning this problem
suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/48430929/

That's probably got more to do with the general cognitive scater-brained thing that Schizos have rather than anything else.