Merits and flaws a forked thread

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, on another thread we got side tracked to talk about merits and flaws in 4e, or a theroy of 5e, and how they may or may not work, the best thread I copied here:

I sometimes feel that the designers of DnD don't trust DMs. In Shadowrun you take flaws to get edges and it is left up to the GM to work the flaws into the game. And in the 15 years I have been playing Shadowrun I have never seen them abused by either the players or the GMs. I have played with a lot of different GMs and I never really saw it being a major issue on the Dumpshock forums.

Yes the flaws have some mechanical applications someone with the flaw drug addict starts having issues if they don't get their fix and they take penalties to their rolls. Having a dependent means you have to support them and their lifestyles.

I remember using flaws in a 2E DnD game my character had the flaw phobia of undead and I had to make a will save every time we encountered them if I failed I tried to run if I couldn't run I found a corner and cowered. It lead to some interesting encounters.

I think that balance is sometimes highly overrated because I don't believe you can ever truly balance the game there are to many factors involved. And while I can see and agree that in some games flaws might unbalance or be to vague the flaws I read in the SRD are just plain downright boring and don't really do anything to enhance role playing. Again it is all crunch and no fluff.

When I made my first Shadowrun character the flaws I took helped define her and inspired her background which came into play. It was from the flaws that I built her entire past.

I took flashback , claustrophobia , police record, dark secret and dependent. From that I made a character who was born human to humans who were involved in human first groups, like a lot of adolescents she changed into a metahuman at puberty. Her father tried to kill her by smothering her with a pillow. While she was struggling she could smell the scent of night blooming jasmine wafting in the windows. Hence she got flashbacks that crippled her if she caught the scent and she could not stand having anything over her face. In Shadowrun they control mages by putting a skin tight hood over their heads.

She ran away from home got involved with a gang was arrested and ended up with a record which made it hard to function in the corp run world so she became a Shadowrunner. Her dark secret was her affair with a member of an Atzlan cartel and the birth of a daughter she keeps hidden from them and their blood magics.

All of us playing in that game had interesting flaws that the GM wove into the game. Some of the flaws had mechanical applications some more role playing. For example because of my phobia I would never let my character be arrested again being a mage she would rather die then have that hood put over her head.

I know that good role players don't need a codified system I always give my characters some flaws when I make them and I play them with them even if no one really notices. But I do think they can add so much to the game and can encourage a more three dimensional character.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Ok, so i have a love/hate relationship with the concept of merit/flaw...the same one I have with point buy in general. Read my screen name and you might get a clue, but I have delt with more then my share of power gamers over the years (even been labled one once or twice)

1) White wolf, my first experance with the idea of flaws. I remeber when we started it was all about characters... then we learned how some DMs ran. We use to joke that in a larry game everyone had 7 more freebies for free. He always had his plot and NPCs set before seeing your sheet, so enemies, dark secrets, hunted all had a good chance of never showing up. I remeber a game where I as a PC finaly threw a fit when I found out that another PC had a 5pt enemy the prince, and Clan enemity Ventrue (The prince's clan) but in game 1 the prince went missing and so did the ventrue primagin... By the way I was a Ventrue and told that if I wanted to play I had to stay more or less with the group and PvP was not allowed...

by the time I was runing white wolf I tried to stop it, but trying to balance 4 or 5 sets of backgrounds and flaws is alot (and I think I am a darn good dm/storyteller) and I know even in my games not all of them got what they should.

My fav was in the LARP where players with glasses took bad sight, and smokers took addiction smokeing...

2) Gurps...where I learned why I hate math. I only played a few times, but people who knew how to game the system. I could derail my own thread if I go into it too much

3) Deadlands, where the rules taught you to cheat. Flaws that should never be allowed made my first few (non house ruled) games un fair, then the suggested house rule made it almost unplayable...
the old ways shaman who would never touch a gun or loose powers, has 3 flaws that give penelties to shooting guns... by the way suggested by the book.
then a flaw Grim Servent of Death was all RP, and worth max pts...it said people you care about die around you. We all pictured the lone gunslinger who;s wife, kids, side kick, best friend, dog, new girl...all die, but that is hard to pull off, so the suggest house rule was when you used fate chips to negate damage a memeber of your party took the damage... after a month of game half the party felt WE should get points for him having the flaw...

4) the 3e flaws are not much better. Your swordman is 'shaky' -3 ranged attacks...um but he gets weapon focus sword for that...and he didn't plan on buting a bow.
I will say it was funny when the dex 8 fighter took the penelty to initative flaw...and in one fight rolled a nat 1.. calling a -4 or 5 intiative.


I like the idea of flaws, and I can make just as many examples where they worked perfect, helped me build my concept, and round my character...but I think you need the right DM/Player set to make them work most times... if some 5e came out and used the idea, I want suggested rules and limits to avoid atleast most abuses.

 

[AngryMojo]

My favorite system for character flaws is being used by DC Adventures from Green Ronin. Each player is required to take at least two "complications", and will receive a hero point whenever those complications make the story, well, complicated. They only grant a bonus when they come into play, and I really appreciate the self-regulating nature of them. Combine that with the fact that hero points in that game are really freaking amazing, and you've got a recipe for a very interesting mechanic.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I think flaws are a critical part of the game; one of 3e's biggest flaws was that the core rules didn't include them. The UA flaw rules are okay; I use them. It is generally players trying to penalize rolls they won't use for extra feats, but any 3.X player needs more feats and I think this is a fine way of granting them. My players often take few to no flaws despite their availability; I suspect one of them got spooked after I abused his flaw-induced negative will save bonus. I certainly have never seen them abused.

That said, they aren't as flavorful as feats.

I like the BSG (or more generally Cortex system) way of handling what they call assets and complications. Complications are flaws in character; the player is rewarded with plot points (action points) for playing out those flaws in a way that enhances the story. It encourages players to accentuate their characters' flaws rather than min-max them.

Bottom line: real people are a mix of good and bad, so character statistics should be too. As with everything, it's on the designers to make it work.

 

[Wycen]

I've always like the flaw system in Champions. The Hero System uses Disadvantages to essentially give character more points to create their character with, at the expense of these flaws.

I consider it a fine art to come up with creative Disadvantages that are flavorful, not-debilitating, and hopefully going to be interesting to the story at some point down the line.

 

[Argyle King]

I actually like the GURPS take on it.


I highly enjoy the idea of advantages/disadvantages, but I'm not sure that I feel the concept would fit into the current D&D game model. If 5E is a further extension of the ideals which 4E is currently built on, I am not convinced a flaws system should be something which is a core part of the game.

 

[Hussar]

If I did get into flaws, I think I'd go with the FATE system. You can act in accordance with your flaw and you are rewarded for doing so, or you can ignore your flaw and not gain any benefits. (Ok, that's a REALLY simplified version) but where I like it best is that the DM can invoke your flaws or you can.

I'm not a big fan of the point buy flaw systems where you get a more powerful character if you take this or that flaw. Too vanilla and I'd rather not bother. If flaws are going to be part of the system, don't make it a 1:1 ratio of good thing to bad thing. Bad things should be fun and invoking them should make play more interesting.

 

[amerigoV]

I like the BSG (or more generally Cortex system) way of handling what they call assets and complications. Complications are flaws in character; the player is rewarded with plot points (action points) for playing out those flaws in a way that enhances the story. It encourages players to accentuate their characters' flaws rather than min-max them.

Bottom line: real people are a mix of good and bad, so character statistics should be too. As with everything, it's on the designers to make it work.

I'll echo this from a Savage Worlds perspective (both systems handle it the same). Both systems have many flaws that are roleplay based and this approach really brings out some great roleplaying moments. So from my perspective, flaws cannot just be an "add on" or a build option. It has to be part of the core system and have real impact other than just -n to a roll in certain situation.

That said, there is something very "unD&D" to me about a character having Phobia(Goblin) and having to play through Sunless Citadel. I would have no problem running/playing that in a Savage Worlds campaign, but it just not sit right that would happen in D&D. Its a pure mental block, I know, but it is what it is.

(heh, I guess I prefer all the flaws to be in the system instead of the character when it comes to D&D )

 

[frankthedm]

The first problem with Flaws is that they either make the GM look like the 'bad guy' when the flaws come into play (and likely require more work from the GM) or they wind up being free character points.

The second is they make point buy characters even MORE lopsided than they often already are. While I'm not that big on rigid class systems, at least d20 melee characters can't sacrifice saving throw bonuses to get more BAB [usually]. In Point buy you often can do similar things and then with a flaw you can worsen your defenses for even more attacking potential.

 

[Stormonu]

I was first introduced to flaws with the Vampire game; I very quickly learned you could take Dark Fate without ever worrying that the game master would even consider offing your character down the road. It took a very alert and astute storyteller in that system to keep flaws from just becoming freebie points. Even I've been guilty of missing or ignoring some flaws in that game (though I did kill off the guy who took Dark Fate in the 1st session I ran to prove I wasn't about to let things slide).

However, with games like Serenity and Savage Worlds, I found the flaws of those systems to generally be done better.

Like amerigoV, D&D has been so long without flaw options in the core rules that it feels alien to attempt to introduce them now, and I feel there would be a very strong attempt to "game" them nowadays. I imagine reaction to them in D&D would be very similar to how the Fortune/Misfortune cards have been received.