Wither disads/flaws?

[MerricB]

The game has flaws built-in: low ability scores.

Work out an explanation for each. Low Dex? You're lame in one leg.



Cheers!

 

[Buttercup]

Exactly, MerricB. If I had a player who wanted to be disabled in some way (blind, missing a leg, etc) I'd drop one of their ability scores below 10 to represent that. But because I'm a hard-### DM, I don't allow a character to have an ability score below 8 without a *very* good explanation anyway. No way will I allow a Half Orc fighter with 18,18,18,3,3,3. This isn't a computer game.

 

[Aloïsius]

Half Orc fighter with 18,18,18,3,3,3.

Kss ! Poison ! Poison !

Several poisons, diseases, and undead, among other weird stuff, can drain ability scores. An allip could butcher that half-orc in one single attack, provided it get initiative, whatever the level of the half-orc.

 

[shilsen]

Exactly, MerricB. If I had a player who wanted to be disabled in some way (blind, missing a leg, etc) I'd drop one of their ability scores below 10 to represent that. But because I'm a hard-### DM, I don't allow a character to have an ability score below 8 without a *very* good explanation anyway. No way will I allow a Half Orc fighter with 18,18,18,3,3,3. This isn't a computer game.

This is exactly my approach, and for the same reasons. The lowest score a PC in my game can have (before racial modifiers) is an 8. And that's also why I don't like disadvantages/flaws as a system. It's much easier and satisfying for me to implement them in the game itself, on an individual basis.

 

[WayneLigon]

I dunno about that. Any system worth its salt will emphasize that "a disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage" isn't allowed. E.g., I think HERO works just fine.

Exactly. Anything else is just lazy DMing or the inability to say 'No'.

 

[Psion]

I dunno about that. Any system worth its salt will emphasize that "a disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage" isn't allowed. E.g., I think HERO works just fine.

In HERO, as in most games that give you bennies for drawbacks, it's not a question of how many drawbacks you take, but how you are going to fill your disadvantage point allotment.

I think HERO works in some settings because hero disadvantages are typically appropriate for the genre. For example, the main venue for HERO is supers, and HERO gives you points for genre appropriate behavior like "code versus killing" or suchnot.

Other games that use similar schemes (or hero in the wrong setting) is like a train wreck. I have seem the most senseless combinations of abilities in some such games, and some games give you entirely too many points for drawbacks.

And *D&D is one of them. I remember what is, to this day, one of the most rued book of mine published for *D&D: unearthed arcana. Merely by accepting a bad attitude about certain things, you could play a super-fighter (a cavalier or barbarian), and your bad attitude seldom amounted to anything. In 2e, kits theoretically balanced with disadvantages, but often really did balance, or balanced with a disadvantage that never really meant anything.

Of course, we still see this today in d20 system products, like Mongoose's kits... er, character concepts, which (much like Happiest_Sadist mentioned) trade off advantages in your specialty for disadvantages in something you would never bother doing. Only with the Mongoose books, you don't even have to bother dredging up an abuse; they do the work for you.

And don't even get me started on how bad I think the anti-feats are in Kenzer's Villain Design Handbook.

After playing games for years, I have come to the conclusion that for disadvantages to work right, it takes either or both a good amount of GM ajudication and a good system. In some ways, I really don't think it's worth the hassle. If a player really wants to role-play a disadvantage, they will do so without much promise of compensation. If you do promise compensation, players start fishing for points.

 

[buzz]

The game has flaws built-in: low ability scores.

Work out an explanation for each. Low Dex? You're lame in one leg.

I do realize this, but low scores don't accurately depict certain types of impairments.

One-eyed: Low Wis, right? Okay, but because I'm one-eyed, I stink at resisting command spells? And I should suck at ranged combat as well, right, so my Dex should also be low. But why would I be terrible at tumbling becasue I'm one-eyed?

Hand missing: Low Dex? How about reflecting that you only have one hand to use in combat? Maybe you're extremely ddextrous, you just can't weild a shield and a sword at the same time.

I dunno. Just using stats is a bit iffy, imho. To be "realistic" you have to tack on other penalties, adn then, once again, balance is out the window.

 

[buzz]

Re: Re: Wither disads/flaws?

If you like, flaws can be thought of as integrated into the class system. If you're a fighter, you have the implied flaw "can't cast magic spells". Similarly, if you're a wizard, you have the implied flaw "doesn't know how to swing a sword".

SNIP

The only flaws that really fit into D&D's design philosophy are those that impact your ability to kick butt and take names.

As usual, hong provides a sage answer.