Character Flaws

yea but thats bullshit. and its not really something you can craft a story moment around.

What a rude comment.

Well I guess my way is wrong because I don't like binary characters.

My whole life has been a lie!

its not binary.
you dont have to say "my character will always do X when Y"
you dont have to generalize
but if you make a LG paladin, he should probably have a different code of ethics than a sneaky stealing rogue.
obviously your character may develop during play but you need to know who youre playing. otherwise youll just always be playing yourself, but with different abilities

And how does that invalidate what I said?

A LG palading can still have a million different types of personality quirks. Being LG basically means 2 things. Helps others and won't break laws/his word.

The flaws I give my characters tend to appear after a few sessions when I have a better idea of who he is.

well it shouldnt be something so obvious or destructive that its immediately apparent.
never ever something chaotic randumb like"has a tendency to murder random people"
what about things like
"racist towards dragonborn"
"can be tempted by offers of power"
"petrified of heights"
"gorey scenes makes you sick"

>My character grew up past the age of 16 at the very least, and has had no development as a living being in that time period, has acquire no preferences, faults, traits, attitudes, or beliefs about the world around them
>I think it's more organic this way
Ok.

Couldn't tell you OP. I'd honestly put it down to "consistency and restrictions are a hassle". Most people want to do everything in their RPGs, or at the very least have every option open to them as often as possible. Real people probably stick to their guns on the day-to-day, making decisions, even small ones, that align with what they believe. By that thought a realistic RP character would do the same, but that becomes in a sense restrictive in what they can and can't do, to maintain that character's consistency. So to maintain "agency," they make themselves as unrestricted in their actions as possible.

Or flaws are generally bad, and I'd say many people in the hobby don't want to have to have their all important characters have anything bad or even plain negative about them. Just a hunch from experience.

>Why do some players have issues giving their character a flaw or vice?
>What gives?
Insufficient/lack of incentives. Why should I make my character worse for no reason?

>Isn't it more fun to play someone who seems like a real person?
Not necessarily, no. Why would you think that?

Some people play for a power fantasy or with self-inserts.

Many of those take great issue with their characters having even the slightest weakness or failing.

Most flaws are not worth mentioning, unless it's some sort of a disability. Also a flaw doesn't make a character good, or not a mary sue-type. Stop being fucking insecure about your characters.

Your characters sound shit and they most likely are horrible to RP with.

>At the campfire where the PC talk about each other
>So hey *user's character* what about you, what brought you here.
>Nothing really I just wondered here
>Huh, so you're a wanderer then?
>Guess so
>What were you doing before you wandered, any reason why you came here?
>Nope
>Do you at least have a reason for wandering?
>errr not really

I know what you're getting at, user. You prefer not to commit to anything out of the gate and would rather let the character emerge from gameplay.

It's arguably nothing more than a more old school approach. Not even specifically OSR.

Players don't generally like disadvantages because, well, they're disadvantageous. They weaken a character which, even if you're not in it to have the best numbers, detracts from the power fantasy of, say, playing a wizard and shooting lightning from your tits. That's why in settings where Disadvantages are a thing so many players will pile on the "free XP" of roleplay-only disadvantages, then just ignore them. So, either they're all carrot and no stick (free xp, no obligation) or all stick and no carrot (detract from the power fantasy but offer nothing meaningful in return)

There's a game called Red Markets which I think handles the issue quite well. Everyone has Will, which is a powerful but scarce meta-currency (most people will have two points to use per session). You also have Weak Spots and Soft Spots; a Weak Spot is a character flaw (arrogance, alcoholism, being a hoarder etc) and a Soft Spot is something that would have been a character virtue if you weren't in a goddamn cut-throat capitalist post-apocalypse, but you are, so it's going to get you fucking killed (so, "chivalrous to a fault", "always looks on the bright side").

The only way to regain Will during the session is to follow your Weak Spot or Soft Spot INTO TROUBLE. Not "oh, I guess I'll just make the same dick jokes in-character that I do out of character because my Weak Spot is "Total Dick" and that's infinite Will for me!". You actually have to make shit harder for yourself or your teammates - so, be a dick so hard that the merchant refuses to sell to you, or someone decides to fight you. You find some bottles while scavenging and decide to get immediately drunk in the middle of a firefight because your Weak Spot is "Total Fucking Alky". So you're making your life harder - but you're getting Will, which is REAL fucking useful.

You gotta balance the carrot and the stick.

This is shit because it promotes totally random OOC decisions. It makes it harder for the GM because he knows the PCs are going to randomly decide to sabotage themselves and it takes the PCs out of their characters.

RPGs are games. Games are about winning, even if we are talking about fighting combat after combat. Therefore optimal strategy and design is about mitigating weakness and maximizing strength.

RPGs are different and those differences often need to be exemplified in gameplay. Players are often reluctant to take flaws because they either have never seen an enriched gaming experience come from them, distrust that it will enhance the game, or else had bad experiences with them in the past. Flaws are inherently risky and many people are risk-averse.

You need to let your players take part in a game/campaign that is made more entertaining by flaws. If they see that the stories improved, that their characters are not automatically damned for having them, they will probably become more receptive to the idea in the future.

Everything is an OOC decision to some degree.

Not sure why everyone else is being retarded but I understand what you do with your characters and I agree that it is much more organic developing a character that fits the story and feels natural.

You have a tedious way of putting things.

I give my characters flaws because it's fun.

Usually it's not something that makes them particularly bad at their main jobs or incapable of problem-solving, but it tends to be an extension of their personalities that affect their lives in other ways. I try to think about well-written fictional characters and the parts of themselves that hold them back.

This helps illustrate some of the confusion on the matter. Character flaws, regardless of what the game-manual tells you, are not about having a low number or a smaller chance to win at something. They are about the imperfections in our minds that hurt us in real ways, even if they sometimes can seem helpful.

Okay? It's still shit.

This makes a lot of sense to me, provided that you are quite willing to spontaneously improvise everything as you go and let a kernel or two of initial situational wit spiral out into a genuinely entertaining character. I think it is important to start with a base motivation or two, though, or else you'll have a slow and rocky start as you try to develop a personality concurrently with the game.

Not him, but the best characters I have played involve a combination of the two. Start with some broad strokes of background and personality, then develop that during play.

>A character can't start with a personality which slowly changes through the campaign

People aren't blank slates. They're shaped by everything they experience. Inevitably, your character adapts to their circumstances and react to what they're experiencing based on what they've experienced in the past. A sixteen year old farm boy who has never seen conflict in his life is going to react differently to a jaded soldier.

In that sense, your character can't possibly be a blank slate because they had to come from somewhere, not to mention that having a personality from the start doesn't mean they won't fit the story. If your character doesn't change at all through the course of the story, you're doing it wrong.

What's worse?

>Players who give their characters no flaws or vices
>Players who try their hardest to make that flaw/vice their greatest strength, invalidating the point of having a flaw or vice
>Players who make it incredibly disruptive to play for them to have their flaw or vice. Example: The character with an internet addiction who spends an entire major encounter shitposting on his favorite imageboards because the baddie's laptop was in the room.

The entire point of it isn't to have nothing and have it develop from there, it's to have all of the develop of the past be in some kind of weird "Schrodinger's Character" field that slowly gets peeled away as things happen and the character reacts to them, or roleplay opportunities show up and you think of something.

I agree with that method.

Most characters in other media begin basic and grow deeper and more nuanced after introduction. Most creators do not know everything from the beginning but rather make stuff up about their characters along the way. TTRPG characters should not be verboten from beginning the same way. Especially in campaigns where life is short, death is cheap, and creation is quick.

I find it's fun to play with a character flaw, provided it's not overdone. I've definitely seen my fair share of people hamming up their character flaws, and I think that's cause sometimes people have a bit of an issue distinguishing between "there are good and bad parts of my character, and this is a bad part" and "I deliberately placed this here which makes it my defining trait".

Other than that, I think if it's done right, flaws can make a game really fun. It adds tension to moments that normally would be mundane. It makes the challenges more challenging, which makes the payoff more satisfying. It builds character development in ways that you never would thought without it. It's just generally a great story tool.

One of my favorite characters ever, a Brawler, was really fun to play because his character flaw was Pride. Not the type where you think you're better than everyone and want them to know it though; it was a subtle pride. Once a fight started, he refused to back down until either the enemies were dead or he was (some tense fucking moments were had from that). If someone challenged him, he found himself unable to let it slide. When someone insulted him, he'd get in fights; if they insulted his family, we might not be able to return to the town we were in. It added a whole new dynamic that, while it got tedious at times, it was some of the most fun I've ever had, and it drove the campaign in ways that could've never been possible with "Fantasy Brawler X".

Writing down flaws is both unnecessary and harmful to good roleplaying.

The most important parts of a background are what kind of place/lifestyle/ethnicity the character comes from, what their reason to adventure is, and maybe throw in something they hate, love, or devoutly believe in.

In these 3 things a player can quickly have a good idea of what their character's weaknesses, vices, skills, virtues, enemies, and allies might be.

Neither the player who plays the character, nor the other players or the GM should be expected to care about or even remember if a character is afraid of water and a dozen other things that would be more fitting for a biography or a more mechanical part of the character sheet.

By writing flaws down in stone, which in both real life and in fiction are things that often change about people the player is boxed in to a more static character, and to the other players a more obnoxious character.

All players have significant flaws anyways, whether it be recklessness in combat, rudeness to npcs and/or players, being unlucky, obsessing over a particular type of weapon even if it's not the best for the task, acting in a way that their class is incentivised to, or trying to replicate the general personality of a character in fiction they find interesting.