Bright Future Stability

(Optional) Hidden Stability

In general you may know how mentally stable you feel personally, but that doesn’t mean you know exactly what it’s going to take to push you over the edge. With this optional rule variant, players don’t record and keep track of their Stability scores, the GM does. This way a character may be close to snapping and even they won’t know it. It’s also an easy way to introduce the stability mechanics to newer players, one less set of numbers to keep track of.

Aspects

Detachment: The amount of indifference to or remoteness from the concerns of others.
Charisma: Detachment is associated with Charisma, your ability to connect and reach out to others increases how much detachment you have to suffer before you snap.
Trauma: The amount of deeply distressing or disturbing experiences that have affected a character.
Wisdom: Trauma rarely has logic to it, or it’s logic is strange and twisted, your willpower and ability to compartmentalize lets you experience more Trauma before you snap.
Unnatural: Things beyond reason and understood magic & physics. These experiences are completely alien, they may have their own internal logic, they may have no means of understanding them at all. Those with great intelligence find themselves drawn to study the unnatural, this usually leads to their own undoing.
Intelligence: You can apply your knowledge to try and rationalize what’s being seen, understand it’s alien means of functioning, or simply accepting that it can’t be explained just yet.

Aspect Strength: Each aspect of stability has it’s own value based on one of the mental abilities. Once the strength of an aspect reaches zero, the character suffers a snap. Aspect Strength can be recovered through downtime as well as other means.
Detachment = 3 + Proficiency Bonus + Charisma Mod.
Trauma = 3 + Proficiency Bonus + Wisdom Mod.
Unnatural = 3 + Proficiency Bonus + Intelligence Mod.

Stability Threats

Threats to stability are ranked in levels of threat.
Threat Levels:
1st Level: DC 8 | Success: No Stability loss. Failure: Lose 1 Stability.
2nd Level: DC 12 | Success: No Stability loss. Failure: Lose 2 Stability.
3rd Level: DC 16 | Success: Lose 1 Stability. Failure: Lose 3 Stability.
4th Level: DC 20 | Success: Lose 2 Stability. Failure: Lose 4 Stability.
5th Level: DC 24 | Success: Lose 3 Stability. Failure: Lose 6 Stability.
Omega Level: DC 30 | Success: Lose 5 Stability. Failure: Lose 10 Stability.
Threat Examples:
Detachment: Losing faith in the morality and reasoning of others.
1st Level: Betrayed by a stranger.
2nd Level: Betrayed by a friend.
3rd Level: Betrayed by a bond. Left to die by a friend. Accidentally or being forced to kill an innocent.
4th Level: Left to die by a bond. Willingly kill an innocent. Knowingly allow a disaster befall people.
5th Level: Knowingly allow a disaster befall people that leads to many deaths.
Omega Level: Witness the destruction of a population.
Trauma: The threat of physical harm or death, torture, and helplessness.
1st Level: Receive a threat on your or a bonds life. Watch someone get attacked.
2nd Level: Watch a seemingly random killing. Seeing a dead body.
3rd Level: Watch the act of torture. Viewing a mutilated body. Imminent Death.
4th Level: Watch a bond tortured. Seeing a friend or bond dead.
5th Level: Experience torture. Watching a friend or bond die.
Omega Level: Experience a month of demonic torture.
Unnatural: Things beyond physical or magical explanation.
1st Level: Witness Unnatural Psionic Powers.
2nd Level: Gain a Psi Talent. Experience Non-Euclidean Geometry.
3rd Level: See a new Far Realm Creature.
4th Level: Gain a Psi Discipline. Witness an Far Realm Psychic Manifestation.
5th Level: Become Psionically Awakened. Study a Far Realm Creature.
Omega Level: Witness a Far Realm Deity. Comprehend the Unnatural.

Stability Saves

Any situation that brings a persons stability into question is resolved with a Charisma Save, the strength of the characters personality. A failed save implies the lack of conviction, and a minor change in personality as a result of their experience. While each Aspect’s Strength total is set by a different ability score, all stability is resisted with Charisma. When you witness a dehumanizing experience or choose to turn your back on other living beings, you use your own Charisma to convince yourself there was nothing you could do and retain your faith in mortals. When you rationalize a stress save, you use your own Charisma to convince yourself. When you draw on your willpower or compartmentalize a traumatic event, you use your own Charisma to keep that experience from effecting who you are.

Snapping

When someone takes to much, they snap. They can’t handle the stress of a situation, mounting hopelessness, or inexplicable event they just witnessed. There are two steps to the process, when a character snaps, they choose or roll an immediate response. After the immediate cause has been dealt with in 10 hours or the first time they take a short rest, they develop a long term issue as they finally have time to try and reason their way through what just happened.
Immediate:
Bury it: Remaining calm and in control is usually the best way to survive, but the mind doesn’t handle burying a problem well, when you select a Long Term, select two Minor or one Major.
Blame: Pick a bond and lay blame for your current situation on them, they’re the reason you’ve lost faith in people, they could have saved you from this trauma, they caused you to find something that simply shouldn’t be. That bond loses 1d4 + 1 bond strength.
Freezing: Much like a computer reboots, sometimes the mind resets, ignoring any input as it tries to piece together a world it can understand and live in. Freezing results in the character being unable to act until they succeed a DC 18 Stability save in the Snapped area.
Fight: Violence has ‘solved’ problems for ages, fight anyone within melee range first, then pick the closest target. This lasts 1d6 * 10 minutes.
Flight: Escape at all cost, no one will hold you back. Run from the source of the snap, do everything you can to get away, even injure or kill those trying to hold you back. This lasts 1d6 * 10 minutes.
Long Term:
Attention Deficit Disorder / Absence Seizure (Minor): Occasionally you just space out, time passes, and then you’re back in the moment. It makes completing long term tasks a lot harder. Whenever you perform a downtime activity or a task action that takes 30 minutes or more, you roll at disadvantage.
Addiction (Minor): Some people smoke, others drink, they all say it’s to help live with the pain. You’ve taken it one step farther, you’re addicted to something dangerous, but it helps you cope so you don’t ‘have a problem’ like every seems to insist when they find out. Once per session the DM will call for you to make a Trauma Check, failure results in 1 point of Trauma if you can not feed your addiction at that moment.
Body dysmorphic disorder (Minor): You never feel right in your own body. Pick a physical form your character would feel comfortable in, be it altered species, gender, height, weight, or other factor. While the character is not physically in that form, they may suffer disadvantage on a Strength, Dexterity, or Charisma save or check, up to three times a session when called for by the DM.
SRID Stress Related Immune-Deficiency (Major): High levels of stress can be just as bad as smoking in some ways. Stress has wracked the characters body to the point of physically degenerating. Gain Disadvantage on Poison and Disease Constitution Saving Throws, lose 2 points of Constitution, and lose 1 point of maximum health per level.