Generic Character Flaw Reimbursement

[System Ufera]

Hello, everyone! As some of you may be aware, I'm designing my own RPG system. The problem I'm facing this time is regarding flaws that players may choose at character creation, or more specifically, what player characters can get in return for them.

In my system, character advancements are gained by spending experience points on the advancements; that way, players have a lot more freedom in designing the characters that they want. Like in other systems, XP also counts toward leveling. That said, my first and only idea thus far is to introduce a "special" kind of experience point, which does not count towards leveling and is only gained from specific things, such as taking flaws.

Why this won't work:
[sblock]The problem with this idea is that I already have two types of experience points: Regular Experience Points, or XP, and Professional Experience Points, or PXP. Mechanically speaking, they only differ in what they can be spent on; XP can be spent on any generic upgrade, while PXP can be spent only on upgrades granted by professions or on obtaining new professions (professions in my system are like mini-classes that define your character's abilities in a modular way, in case you were wondering). Otherwise, since they count toward leveling, their totals are always going to be equal.

Purpose-wise, the difference is in the "ideal" goals of spending either. PXP would be spent on your character's "focus," or at the very least, a specific thing you'd want your character to be able to do. Say, for example, you want to play a mage; you'd spend PXP almost entirely on stuff that makes you better at casting spells. XP, on the other hand, would be spent with less focus in order to "flesh out" your character's abilities. Sure, you could spend it all on making your mage better at casting spells, but my system's built in such a way that, in an average campaign, a character who is min-maxed to be good at only one thing will be almost unplayable.

The aforementioned Special Experience Points, or SXP, being entirely unrelated to the character's level, would be granted only from such things as taking flaws, or as a reward from the GM that would only apply to a specific player character. They could be spent on anything that can be bought with either XP or PXP.

All that said, both myself and a friend of mine agree that adding a third type of experience point, no matter how different it is, would just be too much.[/sblock]

What I need, then, is an alternative approach to generically reimbursing flaws that doesn't involve adding yet another form of XP. What I mean by "generic" is that it would be applicable as a reimbursement for any flaw. The opposite, of course, would be reimbursements that are specific to certain flaws; for example, Ugliness might increase a character's Intimidate skill. While specific reimbursements could be done for some flaws, a lot of flaws don't lend themselves to anything specific; thus, a generic form of reimbursement is needed.

Any ideas?

 

[Umbran]

The idea of giving character generation build points for flaws taken seems to me to be a bit of a flawed concept these days - it gives a reward before the flaw is ever felt, and then the player can spend an entire campaign avoiding the flaw, or hoping the GM forgets it is there.

I would then suggest you reward only when the flaw becomes an actual issue in play. If, for example, you have an "action point" mechanic, or something similar, you might then award a point when the flaw becomes a notable impairment in play. The player, then, is encouraged to actively play the flaw (since he can look forward to reimbursement many times), rather than avoid it.

 

[System Ufera]

The idea of giving character generation build points for flaws taken seems to me to be a bit of a flawed concept these days - it gives a reward before the flaw is ever felt, and then the player can spend an entire campaign avoiding the flaw, or hoping the GM forgets it is there.

I would then suggest you reward only when the flaw becomes an actual issue in play. If, for example, you have an "action point" mechanic, or something similar, you might then award a point when the flaw becomes a notable impairment in play. The player, then, is encouraged to actively play the flaw (since he can look forward to reimbursement many times), rather than avoid it.

At first, what you posted looked absolutely brilliant, and it may very well still be. The problem, though, is a lot of flaws (that I can think of, at least) are inherently mechanical in nature - they give constant penalties to certain rolls, as opposed to, for example, the stereotypical "Honorable" flaw which usually involves a saving throw when the code of honor is broken. This would make the act of roleplaying the flaw rather vague in terms of whether or not however the player roleplays actually counts. In addition, the subjective nature of a GM's judgment can also effect the value of a flaw. In short, it'll be difficult to determine whether or not any given roleplaying deserves any given reward.

For example, if one has a flaw which gives a straight penalty to Wisdom, they could end up trying to maximize their reimbursement by doing stupid crap at every possible chance. This, of course, could cause all sorts of trouble for the other players, and yet, since the player is technically roleplaying an unwise character, they'd technically deserve a reward.

Or, what if the most plausible way to roleplay a flaw is avoiding situations that the flaw would cause trouble in? For example, a character who has exceptionally poor manual dexterity probably wouldn't even consider being the party's thief. I suppose, in most such cases, that a player just wouldn't take the flaw because it would likely have no reimbursement, but that would quickly eliminate the vast majority of flaws to the point where I wouldn't have enough individual flaws to justify including character flaws in the system at all.

Don't get me wrong, I think your idea of reimbursing roleplaying a flaw as opposed to reimbursing simply having a flaw is a great idea - it just needs to be refined before it can be used.

 

[Umbran]

Don't get me wrong, I think your idea of reimbursing roleplaying a flaw as opposed to reimbursing simply having a flaw is a great idea - it just needs to be refined before it can be used.

Dude, it is already in use in a stack of games in print, and has been for some time. Deadlands was using this back in 1999, for example.

You are correct that there is some GM judgement involved. But compare the GM's judgement with their memory. What's a better bet - that the GM will have good judgement when the player asks, "Does this mean my flaw applies, and I get a cookie?" or that the GM will forget to enforce a mechanical detail on a character sheet in the heat of the moment? I think the latter is more likely - the conniving player will skid by without flaws enforced, having already gotten the bennies for them. At least with my suggestion, the choice is active, rather than passive.

 

[Impeesa]

Mutants and Masterminds is another good example of a game that handles it that way, maybe give that a flip through to see how they did it.

 

[delericho]

Umbran has the right of it.

If you give extra build points for flaws selected at CharGen, you'll very likely see players selecting several extremely minor flaws and using them to pay for Moar Powerz!! And, very often, they'll then proceed to completely ignore those flaws for the duration of the campaign.

The better approach is indeed to allow players to select a small number of flaws at CharGen but not give them any immediate bonus. Instead, when the flaw actually matters in play, give either some bonus XP at the end of the session or some sort of "Advantage Token" that can be used to gain a bonus later, or trigger the use of a benefit, or similar.

The huge advantage of this is that it ceases to be the GM's job to police flaws, because the players will do it for you. If they choose to ignore their flaws then it won't harm the balance of your game... they just don't get the benefits that apply. In essence, the game makes it easy for them to make the "right" decision.

As for the distinction between "mechanical flaws" and "story flaws", I think you're over-thinking it. They're both hindrances to the party completing their task; they just manifest differently. Though they're not even that different - the honourable character simply ruling out some options is somewhat equivalent to them assigning an infinite penalty on the related dice rolls - after all, you always fail a task you don't attempt!

 

[Dethklok]

As for the distinction between "mechanical flaws" and "story flaws", I think you're over-thinking it. They're both hindrances to the party completing their task; they just manifest differently. Though they're not even that different - the honourable character simply ruling out some options is somewhat equivalent to them assigning an infinite penalty on the related dice rolls - after all, you always fail a task you don't attempt!

I don't know this system at all, so I'm hesitant to comment, but what you just wrote is not true in the general case. For example, it is better to never attempt a climb rather than to attempt it and fall.

 

[delericho]

I don't know this system at all, so I'm hesitant to comment, but what you just wrote is not true in the general case. For example, it is better to never attempt a climb rather than to attempt it and fall.

You'll note that I didn't say it was better to try and fail rather than not try at all; I said that you always fail a task you don't attempt. It's perhaps a subtle distinction, but in this case it's an important one.

 

[System Ufera]

Dude, it is already in use in a stack of games in print, and has been for some time. Deadlands was using this back in 1999, for example.

You are correct that there is some GM judgement involved. But compare the GM's judgement with their memory. What's a better bet - that the GM will have good judgement when the player asks, "Does this mean my flaw applies, and I get a cookie?" or that the GM will forget to enforce a mechanical detail on a character sheet in the heat of the moment? I think the latter is more likely - the conniving player will skid by without flaws enforced, having already gotten the bennies for them. At least with my suggestion, the choice is active, rather than passive.

Well, that's why I said that your suggestion was a great idea, and in fact, I actually prefer your suggestion over the flaw systems that I'm used to. Still, I want to try to work out any and all problems that I can before including anything in my system; that's why I brought them up.