Traits and Disadvanrages

[Creepshow]

I agree you have to be careful about giving player's too much power with the traits.

But as someone said earlier, its all how the DM handles it. I want to encourage players with real flaws. Thru the use of traits/disadvantages I hope it gives players ideas so they can write out more robust, realistic character histories. Something other than "My parents died in a raid on my village now I want revenge".

A real problem I am having is players are becoming to "statistics based". They are thinking of how powerful their characters ought to be, rather than how thier PCs would realistically act.

Some of it has to do with my DMing and I hope to improve thru my next campaign. Things like being more descriptive in combat, detailing NPCs better and writing more realistic campaigns, rather than the randomess that I feel I have run before.

-Creepshow

 

[Randolpho]

But as someone said earlier, its all how the DM handles it. I want to encourage players with real flaws. Thru the use of traits/disadvantages I hope it gives players ideas so they can write out more robust, realistic character histories. Something other than "My parents died in a raid on my village now I want revenge".

Hmm... so you're mostly just looking for character traits, rather than an actual advantage/disadvantage system, right? That's the way it sounds to me. You want your players to start coming up with better personalities and backgrounds for their characters. Good idea.

Here's how I suggest you go about it. Make a list of personality quirks that contain both "good" and "bad" traits, but do not affect the play of the game. Things like having a lisp, or a lazy eye, or being exceptionally pretty. Tell your players to pick a few from the list, and if they can't decide on them, to roll randomly. Thus a player can choose all "good" traits if he wants, since those "good" traits don't affect gameplay (the "exceptionally pretty" trait I mentioned should not affect charisma). Or all "bad". Or a mix. Doesn't matter, really, as long as the player pics a few for his character.

Then make a list of backgrounds for the characters, similar, perhaps, to the background feats in Spelljammer. Again, make them such that they do not affect gameplay at all, they simply flavor the character. Things like "parents killed by Orcs, seeks revenge", or "lover kidnapped, seeks to find her". Again, make the players choose one or two, or roll randomly.

For both of them, if the players can come up with one they particularly like but that is not on the list... by all means, add it to the list! The purpose, after all, is to encourage the players to develop cool characters, right?

 

[Creepshow]

Thats an idea Randolpho!
I'll see what I can work up.

Thanks
-Creepshow

 

[Kichwas]

The best system I've seen for this was AEG's 7th Sea. By John Wick in fact.

In that system a character got 100 points. You could choose one of the disadvantages. It cost you 10 points.
But it gave you one XP each time it came up in game. (in a system where you got around 1-5 XP per session if I recall right).


Doing that in d20 I would suggest:

Characters are built using point buy.

Have 3 classes of disads:
Minor, moderate, major.
They COST you 1, 2, or 3 points.

Each time you manage to get one to come up in play you get XP based on a CR equal to one third your level times the cost of the disad; minimum of the greater of 1 or 7 levels below your level.

The DM decides is a disad is minor, moderate, or major.

 

[hong]

The only difference is that the game-mechanical penalty is "built in" and requires no adjudication or effort to apply - it's the "lazy DM's" balancing element, so to speak.

There's nothing wrong with using "lazy DM" balancing elements. In fact, I want more of them. As a DM, I have enough work to do as it is; every labour-saving device I can get my hands on is good.

 

[Hawkshere]

That's the way it works in Spycraft too. When you buy a hunted (as an example) in Spycraft, you actually pay skill ranks for it. Then, whenever the hunters appear in game, you get bonus experience for that encounter. Further, if the GM fails to have the hunters appear within a certain time frame, the player can exhange the hunted back for a straight up exp dump.

The only advantage gained is some extra exp, thus avoiding zero-sum chargen abuse.

 

[Kichwas]

It figures Spycraft would use that system; since they published 7th Sea.

But can it re-occur regularly, or is it a one time thing?

 

[Bagpuss]

Personally I find you can get the same effect by just giving them a sheet of 20 questions to think about when designing there characters.

Why did you character become the class you have chosen for him?

Who would miss your character if they died?

Who raised your character from childhood and where are they now?

Is your character scared of anything?

Why does your character decide to risk life an limb, when most people are happy to work on a farm?

What does your character have planned for the future?


Things like that. They give you characters goals, motivations and plot hooks for adventures.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'd love it if you fleshed that list out more, Bagpuss. Then I can steal it and use it in my group...

 

[Hawkshere]

Arcady - the frequency would depend on the number of skill ranks used to buy the "background". So, the worst Hunted you could buy (5 ranks) would show up pretty often. Spycraft is a genre game, so it has specifically defined episodic campaign structure with "missions" and "seasons" and such. The frequency rules tie into that.

These campaign hooks are called Backgrounds in Spycraft. You are limited to five total skill ranks and two backgrounds at most. Players are encouraged to not max this out during chargen in case they run into an interesting villain or other NPC during the campaign. Once a background gets resolved (usually with a big finale encounter and double exp bonus), the ranks spent are freed up under the five point cap to buy a new background.

The example backgrounds in the game are Amnesia, Debt, Defeated, Fear, GM Fiat , Hunted, Hunting, Long-term Mission, Lost (or Forbidden) Love, Mistaken Identity, Nemesis, Obligation, Romance, Stolen Object, True Identity, Vendetta, and Vow. Some of this is genre specific, but in general its pretty cool, and easily adaptable.