One of the appeals of previous editions of WHFRP is the concept of characters starting out as the low man on the totem pole; gutter trash trying just to survive in a very unforgiving world. IMHO, 3e makes the PCs a bit more heroic and less the underdog. One thing I would love to see in addressing this feeling is the introduction of a "flaws" mechanic, such as is used in games like GURPS, Ars Magica, and even the Decipher LOTR RPG. It seems that something detailing physical, personal, and background flaws & problems would be a natural fit for WHFRP.

I can just imagine the gimpy-leg-in-bad-weather card, the black-sheep-of-the-family card, the gag-inducing-bad-breath card, the can't-help-but-insult-royalty card... and so on.

Thoughts?

The simpleist way that I can see of doing this is to expand the condition cards and making some of them permanent or exhaustabile. You would need to include both positive and negative effect cards - or at least cards that can both benefit and hinder. It was suggested in these forums that a revised "drunken" condition giving both a fortune and a misfortune die to rolls showed how some one who was inebriated was both lucky and uncoordinated at the same time.

There is also a fantastic article on distinguishing marks in Leiber Fanatica VII (a fan based supplement well worth using), available from http://www.liberfanatica.net/

This article may go some way to introducing the flaws that you would like to see in your games.

Alp

I've been looking into the Mouse Guard RPG to play with my kids, based on the Burning Wheel system.

I love the concept of Beliefs, Instincts and Goals from that system, and traits would be a welcome addition.

Another possible idea would be to integrate flaws with the Talent system.

A flaw would be permanently slotted into one of the career talent slots, but could be moved from one to another slot just like changing out a normal Talent.

There could be a variety of flaws that way, and they would definitely make a character more challenging. You could eventually "buy off" the flaw with experience.

One way to do it might be to have Flaw cards like Talent cards, but with deleterious or problematic effects, and if a player uses one at a moment when it causes the most difficulty or plays right into the story, they can "exhaust" it by taking four markers from their other recharging actions or talents and moving them to the Flaw card.

Why do have Flaws to be Cards.

n our WH Group we use Flaws and Advantages, too. You can buy Advantages with Character Points and you get Character Points for taking a flaw.

But only at character creation.

For example my Gambler has take the flaw "Bet Addiction" (did I spell it right?) for 2 Points and I took the advantage "Handsome" for 2 Points.

But I thinks It's unnecessary to create cards for it and why should Bet Addiction block a Talent Slot? Even when I'm addicted to Betting Games I can for example use my Talent "Connected".

Lautrer said:

I think you mean gambling, but I get your point.

I suspect the reason people have suggested cards is because of the heavy card use the game has already. I completely see it working the way you have described though, with it giving or costing character creation points (though, IMO, a 2 point flaw/merit should be pretty powerful, considering what 2 character creation point actually gives you). Personally, I would love to see merits and flaws in Warhammer. I've always felt they add colour and character to a PC (especially flaws), and they are great for giving the GM plot hooks too.

I made a list with flaws and advantages, only seven so far but I try to translate it to english and post it tomorrow. Maybe you can use them or tweak them for you own custom.

Ever since I played GURPS and was introduced to the concept of the flawed hero in rpgs, I've loved the idea. Some of the best role-playing moments came from role-playing disadvantages. One of the first house rules I brought to my WFRP game was the concept of Flaws.

I have experimented with a variety of approached and finally settled on this one as working the best in the context of the game. I note that some commentators were complaining about having another card at the table, and personally I quite agree with those sentiments. I only have put them on cards (thanks to Strange Eons!) to facilitate the random drawing process and created a spot on the character sheet for the players to note their flaw. Since, as you will see, only the name is really of importance (since the flaws are more of concepts than direct game effects), this is easy enough and also allows me to make a quick reference on my GM's screen of who has what flaw, so that I can remember to activate them at least once per session. However, if you do like the cards, you can certainly use them in that manner.

As noted, none of the flaws included have a direct game effect on dice pools or characteristics. This is intentional and the result of play-testing experience which showed that such flaws, common to many game systems, prove boring in play and add little to the game other than a modifier here and there.
Also, flaws that were passive in nature (such as Abundantly Cautious) were found through playtest to not add any fun or excitement to the game, despite being well role-played, only flaws that had active consequences to the behavior and interactions of the character were kept. This means that every character in your game will have a flaw that is fun to role-play and adds to the story.

I’ve linked to the file on google docs which has the rules and cards necessary for play. I hope you find this useful and it adds some extra fun to your game. Let me know your results as it’s still a work in progress.

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Sorry, it seems to have not worked. I'll try again with this link:

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Waxfire

I've been using flaws in my game (though not as cards). Each character has one flaw, and when it significantly hinders the character I toss a fortune point into the party pool. That gives the players an incentive to work it into their characters, but also allows them to judge how much they want it to affect them.

If FFG were to implement flaws, I hope they wouldn't do a Champions-style, "squeeze every last point out" system.