These are not improvements, they are straight-jackets.
The absolutist statements are the straightjackets.
The flaws that ban good alignment are more straightjacketing than my revisions (excepting the cases where there are multiple revisions presented where one is clearly intended to not be used for good alignment characters).
Flaws that aren't flaws aren't straightjackets, necessarily, but they're not flaws either.
You are simply removing the players' ability to interpret the vague suggestions into your own personal interpretations.
Untrue. Absolutist statements are excessively specific.
Reading over the list again. They're not very good examples. I was just being nice.
That's nice.
You litter strong writing with vague, weak descriptors, like "very", "sometimes", and "often".
Hmm... I thought your complaint was the opposite of this one? Remember the awful straightjacketing? Now, you're complaining that the flaws are too loosely-written. Hmm...
Then you include your own personal motivations, like "Because I grew up in a violent environment", or "I won't because it is considered evil". That is taking away the player's ability to define motivations for his own unique character.
The violent environment comes directly from legitimate psychology, such as the Bobo Doll experiments. It also grounds the character, giving them a reason to have this excessive violence problem. You're misusing the term motivation here. It's not a motivation. It's an explanation.
The "I won't because it is considered evil" clause was clearly added to make the flaw compatible with a good-aligned character.
Your complaint that the flaws restrict the player's ability to define their character attacks the flaws list itself. As such, I consider it frivolous. The point of the flaws list is to give characters flaws. Those flaws need to be clear and they need to be workable.
For example, the one you wrote about wanting to kill to be a noble. What if the character's home was ruled by corrupt and evil senate? He knows killing one or several would only make room for others ready to take his place. It won't change anything. But to become part of that government and bring change from within...? Now that is an interesting motivation,
Your example isn't relevant to the flaw as originally written. The point of the flaw is to say that the character desires a noble title so much that he/she will readily kill for it.
but you can't impose it on every character.
Nor is it even present in the flaw as written.
Let the players expand on the ideas.
I want to see a list of four of my revisions that so terribly straightjacket players. These revisions must have counterparts (the flaws as originally written) that don't have serious flaws, including the straightjacketing.
I hope this is viewed as intended, as constructive criticism.
Regardless of intent, the result is erroneous. The claim that my revisions are more straightjacketing than the originals that had things like absolutism in them is just false.
I have asked people to present specific revisions to fix any alleged issues but instead people are just content to make sweeping generalizations that often aren't factual.
For those who truly believe that the original list has no flaws then my hat is off to them. However, I don't think engaging that point of view is constructive because I consider it completely inaccurate. There are some flaws that didn't need to be revised. Those don't appear in the opening post. However, my opinion — which I have provided strong evidence to support — is that most of them needed some adjustment. Sometimes this was as minor as putting in the word "usually". Adding the word "usually" to a statement to get rid of "always" is the opposite of a straightjacket. The opposite.
The constructive thing to do would be to revise specific revisions I've made or present alternative revisions to the flawed flawed. That would be actually constructive. I've asked people to do this and no one has so far. So, I will assume that my revisions are good enough.
