It does add an element of unknown to encounters and can be a lot of fun. No one wants to be known for being the scared PC but it happens.

Whether the character is frozen in their spot for a round or two, or runs away and gains an insanity point, it provides a dynamic element of uncertainity that is a hallmark aspect of WFRP combat.

D&D could easily do the same thing.

Take a hint from millions of dollars invested into rpg marketing over decades ; )

I nearly killed interest in a campaign with a single Confusion spell – in D&D most players really resist being controlled in any way (Cthulhu players have different expectations).

When I wrote ‘The Steam Spire’ adventure for Iron Kingdoms the whole third act was a prison-break. My playtest group railed against the situation so badly I almost tore that act out.
However, when it was dumped on the web I got a lot of positive comments – moral being that you have to guage your players before you try this (I hadn’t done that with the Confusion spell).

However, however, Fear checks that /cause/ “decision points” sound reasonable – they reflect the experience of the character, but still give the player choice.

My beef with fear ‘in-game’ is only when it comes with mechanics that force the player to do something and not allow the player to play their role. It’s that which divorces me from the game; I can be interested when I have options for stuff to do later, but when my basic option is “wait X rounds and hope your buddies don’t finish combat so that you can get to do something useful,” I don’t have much love for the game. I don’t even really watch TV much these days; I know I need a certain level of interactivity for me to avoid getting bored with something, and losing that interactivity makes me very annoyed.

No logical disconnect at all. A party-driven split is apt to go on for a long time, maybe even hours of game time. Both sides are active, and demanding the GM’s attention. It doesn’t matter how well or poorly the GM handles it, this is a bigger drain on his attention than a party that stays together.

Someone running off because of fear is another kettle of fish. The PC(s) that separate are reacting. Presumably, they will want to return to the party as soon as they possibly can.

So it’s a combination of how much time the split takes and what the split off party members want to do. Of course, there are other reasons to split that are as easy and short to handle as failed fear checks, but when people talk about avoiding the split, they don’t mean such short, targeted splits.

I’m not sure about this. I love D&D, where you most often play rock stars, and I love Call of Cthulhu, where even rock stars can beat you up.

For me, the difference is that I like to have the opportunity to roleplay my character’s fear, not have it dictated to me. In CoC, I’ll run like a little girl when it makes sense and sounds like fun — I don’t need a fear check to make that happen.

a) Make a fear check and when a character runs, dump the player for 30 minutes when the “brave” ones beat the bad guy?

b) Make fear check mandatory as in “pass this check or you don’t get to fight the boss bad guy and the story won’t go anywhere if you don’t fight the boss bad guy. Make the roll or we’ll be real bored”

c) Gave no control to the player when deciding how brave the character is?

d) Didn’t negotiate a bit what the difficulty of the check would be?

e) Didn’t accept any input from the player as to the outcome of failed roll?

If you did? Why? Try replacing the fear check in the above with say spot check or carpentry check or what ever and it still wouldn’t be ok, would it?

gud gawds, yes, you have NO idea.

one’s take on fear mechanics probably correlates heavily with one’s take on gaming in general, and whether you game to be a rock star or feel comfortable playing joe nobody who runs away.

i’m a rock star in real life, so playing joe nobody who runs away does have some appeal. i don’t have to be directly involved in the game to enjoy it, i watch TV too.

This has made me rethink fear effects. Sure, if it’s magic or a critter’s weapon, then that’s fine (“Situational” above).

I don’t think I’ve ever made a player roll against fear when it wasn’t caused by a spell or critter’s ability. If I were to do so now, I think it would be a relative thing… “You failed by 1; your character is a bit unnerved. Take a -2 penalty to everything, including initiative, skills, attacks (but not damage), etc.” vs. “Ouch, you rolled a 1. Your character is hopelessly terrified; you decide what that means.”

As an aside, I use morale checks for NPCs as a relative thing, checking whenever a significant event happens (their leader is slain, they hit 50% losses, fireball goes off, etc). Roll a d20, and react to the situation, given that they’re feeling brave on a scale from 1-20. It can make the difference between ‘fighting withdrawl’ and ‘drop your weapons as you run screaming’.

Fear Points, or some other mechanic, might make sense, but they don’t really deal with the core issue: a circumstance penalty on actions is ok, but forcing characters beyond that can breed active rebellion. Even with the bennie system, very rarely will players take up the option of running away, because it’s not fun, unless you make it very mechanically attractive, and then that generally means it’s highly overpowered, because the level of annoyance incurred by lack of actions is very, very high, and therefore needs a VERY VERY VERY high benefit to accrue in order to make it work… So either way, a fear system either screws over player and serves as a crutch for GMs that possibly shouldn’t be GMing, or more likely GMing in that genre, or overpowers players and makes challenges worthless.

So I’m in the camp that fear mechanics suck, and almost universally.

that said, there’s room for mechanics to make the character resistant or immune to fear, just as there may be feats or abilities to allow her to keep fighting until she drops dead.

In my simple rules system I have a something like a circumstance bonus for ‘having the edge’ that might work for minor Fear effects. The afraid person automatically loses the edge in the fight so the opponent gets a circumstance bonus against them. You can recover the edge by victories in the fights, or by retreating and regrouping.
This encourages a certain about of tactical play, and it doesn’t seem so much like I am afraid, it is purely a mechanical decision. Of course, a good roleplayer can see it as responding to the situation. Right now the Vampire (or whatever) got the jump on us, but if we retreat and catch our breaths we can turn and face it. If we don’t we are in too much disarray to put up a good fight.