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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 1388077" data-attributes="member: 172">Erm... I thought I explained it pretty well in the linked post you quoted. I'm not sure exactly what to add. Let me try again.Some of the penalties AREN'T very abusable. As stated, an initiative penalty is pretty telling for most characters the way the game is played.That said, many of the penalties are weak and are not really a balancing detriment despite the fact that they are larger in magnitude than the associated bonus. Why is minmaxing. You are not going to take a penalty in a skill you are expecting your character to use a lot. Rather, you are going to take a penalty in a skill you will never use. That being the case, disadvantages become point-mines vice adding character flavor.This approach has struck me as wonky ever since I first saw it in ars magica "anti-skills" or whatever they were, for this reason.As also stated in the quoted link, I think the only way to really handle disadvantages viably that don't have direct and telling impacts on the game (like the initiative penalty flaw, or the way flaws work in Kult) is to reward the character on a per-incident basis, so the character is only rewarded if the flaw actually comes into play.Or, another alternative is to simply allow the player to take whatever disads they want to actually play and not give any kickbacks (or, at best, roleplaying XP bonus). IME, making disads point mine only invites wonky characters that the player really isn't that keen on roleplaying.</blockquote>

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