# Stress mechanics for PCs
**URL:** https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699
**Category:** Blogs
**Created:** [March 9, 2025, 10:24am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699 "2025-03-09T10:24:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@murkdice](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/murkdice)
#### Post date: [March 9, 2025, 10:24am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699/1 "2025-03-09T10:24:25Z")
> **[The Body Keeps the Score for TTRPGs](https://murkdice.substack.com/p/the-body-keeps-the-score-for-ttrpgs)**
>
> Stress and trauma impacts on PCs
Throughout all my time with rpgs I’ve been interested in the effects of psychological pressure on player characters. I personally haven’t enjoyed giving players directives on how their character behaves (e.g. having character panic in combat or gain a phobia), though I get that’s a lot of fun for some folks! I tend to prefer behavioural changes coming from players making their own roleplaying choices.
But… I did want a mechanical framework that encodes how stress takes its toll on characters. So I cooked up [my own take that focuses on the physiological impacts ofstress instead, which just like player directives isn’t going be for everyone but I’m interested in what folks think of it.
I reckon it can be bolted onto pretty much any system, though I wrote it with NSR-y type stuff (Odd-likes and Borgs) in mind and I’d definitely use it with Mork Borg.
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### Author:  [@eeldip](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/eeldip)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2025, 6:15pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699/2 "2025-03-10T18:15:36Z")
I love these kind of mechanics; I think a source of big boringness is when say, taking HP damage is the ONLY thing that changes characters negatively.
design-wise, my fear is of the common sort: player facing negative mechanics tend to be “forgotten” by players, they kinda lean a lil too much on the GM enforcing the mechanic (adds to GM load). yours seem simple enough to avoid that…
I recently did something SIMILAR (below, for an adventure I wanted bespoke melancholy mechanics), that is still undergoing playtesting, but my theory was that the tracking mechanism for the mechanic is a physical die (in the case of my table, I use a set of big heavy stone d6s I got a gem shop) that the GM hands to the player, and the player has to roll that die every time they do a test. a little easier for both players and GMs to remember, since its a physical mnemonic device.
> **[Melancholy.pdf](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Qa46g2w_nLeo8fufwJcjMIjP-TrL3Rb/view?usp=sharing)**
>
> Google Drive file.
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### Author:  [@murkdice](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/murkdice)
#### Post date: [March 10, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699/3 "2025-03-10T22:01:16Z")
I also fear the ‘it’s get forgotten’ issue! I like the doc you posted, it kinda points to how you can take the concept and make it setting specific (which I really like).
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### Author:  [@eeldip](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/u/eeldip)
#### Post date: [March 18, 2025, 1:51am UTC](https://discourse.rpgcauldron.com/t/stress-mechanics-for-pcs/2699/4 "2025-03-18T01:51:50Z")
melancholy rules, updated slightly, and now in draft layout for the book: [melancholy.pdf - Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11J9ZU8IZpoJC_v31-Dw4qOSpEmGdO86V/view?usp=sharing)