I think taking the mental trauma isn ' t as bad as a lot of people here think it is . Compare it to , say , the Necronomicon . Clearing the Necronomicon costs you three actions and three horror , and it eats a hand slot when you play it . Choosing not to clear it doubles the chance of autofailing skill checks , and robs you of any chance at all of triggering your elder sign . In contrast , choosing not to clear Cover Up costs you 1 horror . Next game . In the bestcase scenario , clearing Cover Up costs you only three actions though of course in the worst case it cannot be cleared at all . Now , now I hear you say , Roland with his 5 sanity really doesn ' t want to take horror ! The important thing is that it doesn ' t reduce your sanity by 1 . It makes you start the game with 1 horror . In First Aid , Guardian has the best access to sanity healing in the game . Best of all , you ' re handling that sanity at the start of the game when you have a little room to breathe , not at the end of the game when you ' re teetering on the brink and the table is covered in monsters . Best of all , if you draw it during scenario 3 , you can just ignore it entirely . By and large , paying a cost later is better than paying the same cost now . I ' d much prefer to e . g . take 1 mental trauma during scenario 2 than suffer 1 horror . In longer campaigns with cluesparse early scenarios . sure . It ' s going to be a bigger drag . But in core , I think actually this is one of the more benign weaknesses .