Character Weaknesses
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This is something that has been flagged up before but could do with a bit more emphasis, as while we have generally moved away from weaknesses that are strengths, they are still often so minor that they will practically never come into play to any substantial degree.
What is a weakness?
No one has just one weakness. What we're interested in here is an acute weakness. Something that is actually debilitating.It needs to be something which people exposed to your character's company will over time suss out. Or have the opportunity to do so.
Ideally this weakness is something which transcends game mechanics and is purely an RP aspect. A low will save, for example, is not really much of a character weakness. However, in extreme cases it can still be fine eg a fighter who is forbidden to use armour. Even so, mechanical weaknesses tend to disappear as levels and loot build up and are therefore sooner held separate. A Weakness applies irrespective of you or your antagonist's levels or loot.
What this should result in is: a Weakness which your enemies may learn of through spying as opposed to building up sufficient levels to beat you in a fight; a Weakness which, if exploited intelligently, could result in your character fleeing from victory, spilling his secrets, or even turning on his allies.
Weaknesses can be gained IG, not just at the concept stage. Is there a character who could be held hostage to ensure your cooperation? Has your character developed an inordinate fear of Fire? Of Water? Of Darkness? Wolves? Nobles? Skeletons?
Archerers? Whips??Some examples.
- fear of hanging
Character bears scars around his neck
Runs out if combat and hides in a corner if suffocated by eg stinking cloud for a few rounds
Keeps glancing at nooses if they are in sight
Babbles and tries to protect his neck if hit by a Fear spell.
Enemies can arm themselves with nooses rather than weapons to chase him screaming out of battle.
Extreme case: he will give away any information, betray any ally, reveal any plot item if he is convinced he is about to be hanged. Eg if abducted and told he has committed capital crimes, forced to watch someone prepare a noose from a tree branch, if not walked up to it, placed in it and asked for his last words.
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Fear of Shadovar
Shows reluctance to confront them
Uneasy trespassing in the ruins
Often speaks fearfully of their power when it relates to what's going on. "At least we're not facing Shadovar… they would probably sneeze as soon as remove this stoneskin."
Extreme case: PCs dress up as Shadovar. He surrenders without a fight. There is nothing else to do. -
Fear of going blind
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Consider these points if you are looking into giving your character a meaningful weakness.
Make sure it is exploitably acute.
Make sure it is possible to learn about- ideally through roleplaying.
Make sure it is not something which can be made irrelevant through levels or loot - of you or the antagonizing character.I'm not suggesting your level 10 drop to his knees and beg if a level 1 pulls out a whip, but reward people who are willing to put in the effort to learn about your character to such a degree- and then attempt to exploit it by investing time and money and effort into convincing your character he has just stepped into a nightmare scenario.
- fear of hanging
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Why?
Why would someone do that? I can think of only 1 reason, to get a deeper character development.
But to get a deeper character development you need to have a RP mindset and no fear of "losing the game",l in particular in pvp situations. And you have to be rewarded for such behaviour. Players (at least some of those I am interacting with) are constantly doing it. Refusing to participate into quests, to do particular acts, not fearing in-quest fights to defend a position. It's normal RP for me. If an additional "weakness" (exploitable) is asked for - or better - suggested, for some of my characters, I hope there will be a higher reward. And those who can give such reward, apart from other players are DMs, who need to spend more time in "observing" the character's behaviour.I always try to give my character a bit of deeper perspective, from the fighter who is scared of oozes (due to bad past experiences) who would not go hand-to-hand with the creatures, to the drunkard mentally instable who "sees" the ghost of his wife.
Apart from the joy of RP from fellow players I've never had any "tangible" reward. No particular loot set no particular DM exp, no one who (apart from the occasional player) "exploits" his weaknesses (for instance my character does not get any share of quest money, and trinkets/potions as his fellow companions give him, he also forgets to ask for potions when he is short of healing or other useful potions).
I'll make you another example related to a recent event to support my point of view.
In the Cemetary, after a pvp encounter, hostile undead spawned, another group came for pvp and my character spent a few minutes digging the grounds where the supposed "ghost" of his wife just disappeared. Completely forgetting about the critter that was mauling one of my companions of mischief. I had no armor, no weapon drawn and I was "risking" to lose a party member, just because my character was sobbing and digging with his hands the mud.
What did I get from the scene above? The pleasure of RPing (and I hope those who were there got to know my character a bit more). But "tangible" reward?
None if not for a "push" of my character's story (tied to the event and not "just for my character").So, in the end, the idea in the initial post is good and I think it's aimed to imnprove the quality of play on CoA, don't misunderstand me, but, despite trying to give more depth to my characters, I've never - never - seen this "weaknesses" exploited (DM or players). Maybe I'm out of luck, maybe there are more interesting characters outside, maybe I'm not good enough to get someting "extra" apart from my personal pleasure.
It's far easier to haste-triple-flame-arrow a character, if I want him to die rather than learn about his allergy to pipeweed and smoke it into his face.
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It sometimes amazes me how few people even pick up on rather obvious weaknesses and try to exploit them. For example my old Shadowmancer had a fear of strong lights, and could likely have been turned into a gibbering wreck with nothing but a ring of light being shined in her face, but no one ever tried threating her with light, despite the whole shadowmagic and fondness for hats…
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Weaknesses are only a prerequisite for app characters. They're there to prevent people playing out flat characters and to consider imperfections in the (quite often) killing machines they are applying for.
Otherwise you're under no obligation to attach a weakness of any magnitude to your characters. Having a weakness does by no means qualify you as a great RPer or vice versa. Some of the most memorable encounters I've had as a player were shared with no one but a few other players, however - there was no DM xp shower, just the simple pleasure of interacting with CoA players.
We can't reasonably allow people to play their characters out to a natural death on CoA, but when the realization hits that you can still play out a character's life effectively from start to finish, to read like a book with a definitive end, the goal does not become survival, but appreciation of interactions; success is no longer measured in levels and loot but in the experience itself, however intangible it may be.
Weaknesses are never going to be something we're going to enforce on anyone but an apped character, but we hope through the interactions their own weaknesses inspire, other players might in time see them as worthwhile on even standard characters.
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I like to add certain character weaknesses, although I tend to blend in mechanical with purely RP weaknesses.
One of my characters, a barbarian whose name I cannot recall, refused to use ANY magical items. This was before crafting was in, so throughout his career he did not use any armor, and only mundane weapons. He accepted only some blessings, and absolutely despised wizards. So, mechanically he was gimped, but he also had a lot of interesting RP interactions (and surprisingly, he did not die that much).
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Weaknesses are never going to be something we're going to enforce on anyone but an apped character, but we hope through the interactions their own weaknesses inspire, other players might in time see them as worthwhile on even standard characters.
I fully agree with you but as you can see you are offering a "reward" for what DM requires (apped character with the perks of the application /mandatory weakness) versus an "invite" to increase the depth of the characters based on the will of the player (so basically "we would like to see three dimensional character).
I find interesting is that the post is about "weakness" and not an increase in consistency of actions when depicting a character. undertaking determinate actions despite their potential negative mechanical effects or loss of coins, prestige, etc etc..
So, if the post aim is to increase the background of characters I'm all for it, if it is to "add" a weakness either there must be a compensation (XP, loot, particular attention) or it's totally up to players (in which case I prefer a stornger background and consistency to a weakness as described above).
Different points of view. -
All characters have an acute weakness and it's called teh gank.
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It's just one of the things in applications that have been particularly noticed recently is all, weaknesses that are actually strengths, weaknesses negated by putting on a single piece of common loot, etc.
The weakness part of an app is a really minor thing for me when I'm looking at them, what I mostly look at is what people have thought about in relation to actually creating fun events in game. Having said that, when I see a weakness that is just silly, it puts me off, and I've actually seen some really interesting weaknesses which made the app seem to work a lot better.
I read the character background last (if at all…) that might sound quite bad to hear from a DM of a roleplaying server, but I don't see the point in spending ten minutes reading the elaborate background of a character, until I've seen they might actually have some ideas of how to make some fun occur in game. In fact, I don't even read what people are applying for until I've read how they plan to go about creating interesting scenes in game.
But that's me.
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Fobia-type weaknesses are not common at all among adventurers, I would think. These are people that purposely put themselves in mortal danger many times for the mere sake of the thrill.
The only characters that I've seen without personality flaws are those that don't make enemies with anybody.
Being arrogant, reckless, proud are also quirks that that can be classified as weaknesses. Being afraid of something to the point of having a table turning effect is something I would relegate to characters of terrible wisdom scores.
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All the greatest villains in literature and cinema had a weakness that contributed to making them awesome.
Darth Vader had the love for his beloved ones, that first pushed him to embrace the dark side, and then èished him to turn against it and sacrifice his own life to protect his son's.
The Joker, in his madness, felt the need to share his beliefs with people, to guide and teach them, to the point that even when the win was certain he risked everything to open people's eyes to his truth and free them from the shackles of society he thought was binding them.
Grifis may have sacrificed all those around him, and yet his weakness is his also his own strength. His desire, his firm will to carve a place for himself in the world, is what drives him forward, and while Berserk is not over yet, I can imagine he would be willing to sacrifice even his own existence to chase his dream, that is also, at the same time, his very weakness.Good character have weaknesses as well, weaknesses that frequently spell their doom. From Sturm's righteousness to Boromir's love for his country, pain for the past and desire to build a safe world with his own hands. From Ned Stark's honesty, ingenuity and moral integrity to Obi Wan's love for his pupils.
All great characters have flaws. All have weaknesses that make them memorable. That is what we are asking for. One of the worst things with application characters is to have someone get too attached and lose the will to take risks. That's what we are asking for with weaknesses. To show us that you are willing to let it go when the time is right. Can you imagine what would have happened to Star Wars if Anakin hadn't turned against the Emperor? Or to Batman if the Joker had simply put a bullet in Bruce's head without desperately trying, at every step, to connect with him? What would have happened to his epic "you complete me"? Because a weakness is the best way that your enemies have to interact with you. When it is found out, when the flaws of your character are discovered, that is the best commendation you can receive. When someone takes the time to investigate the PC you play, to look behind the curtain and see what makes him tick. When someone spends his own time in the effort to go beyond the two-dimensional pixels, and see the character you are playing.
I cannot imagine a better ending to a story I am telling than to have someone exploit my weakness. That is what we ask in application. Because we can. But I invite everyone to consider weaknesses and flaws, because they add another dimension to the storytelling.
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Not that I had a great character or I am a great rper but wanted to tell you of this instance of a weakness that I had put for my Redhart char, a weakness of him going berserk if anybody speaks ill of his mother, that means he would kill his own Lord or Knight if they spoke anything against his mother. He will not consider what place, if its lawful or not, but basically if an important NPC or PC of this char used this switch, it would be a suicide for my char.
PN (DM) actually created a quest out of this weakness, which revolved first by a Legion Knight wandering in Kings forest meeting with my char (I pinged in the DM channel on the weakness of my char) and then engaging in a verbal abuse of my chars mother, which ended with my char killing the Legion knight and then when the Legions body is taken to the Eveningstar, The gravekeeper asking for gold to bury the knight and when refused, he then abuses the chars mother and my char then proceeds to attack the gravekeeper. I believe if not the verks char interfering at the moment, the gravekeeper would have been killed by my Knight. What ensued was a beautiful RP between the other Knights, Verks char and my char taken for a task which revolved around RH values and codes.
It can be real fun when you have such weakness, but I have not see any allied PC who shows real interest in your personal history leave alone your enemies. Such weakness can from my point can only be used by DM for an engaging RP session and during your rp session with DM or DM quest, it could be a good idea to send your chars weakness in the DM channel -
There's a lot of words with similar meanings that could get confused here - Weakness, character flaw, gimp - but I think it's important to keep the ideas separate.
I believe what Lizard and Count are talking about are basically components of a character's personality that could potentially be exploited by someone who takes the time to learn about it.
This is not something like low will saves or fire vulnerability, and to my mind doing this well involves more complexity than just being afraid of cats or allergic to kryptonite, but manifests through your RP portrayal of the character instead of on your Character Sheet.
The reward of portraying a weakness well is that it results in a more real, deep, and dynamic character that is far more fun to play and to interact with. I would suggest before resorting to the "Haste double lightning bolt" approach, take the time to see if the character you are conflicting with has a weakness like this. It will make the conflict more fun for both sides.
Just as an example from a well known source: While Sandor Clegane (Hound) from GoT was horrified of fire to the point where it caused debilitating fear (A simple weakness), he did not portray it as "Oh no you have fire, you win!", but instead his own fear came out as hostility and an attempt to keep everyone else distant or so afraid of him that they would never even try to exploit his own fears (A complicated and more in depth portrayal of that simple weakness).
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aside:
hey the count, i notice you mentioned the manga/anime berserk.
Is that one you are following? I don't remember seeing more than the first season of that one, I think.There is a neat roleplaying system called 'white wolf', vampire, mage, changeling, werewolf rp games all take place and have 'compatible' systems, mostly… and when making your character, you have points to spend on various bonuses, including character or plot, 'bonuses' that give some perks...
One of the neat things about character development in this system (somewhat like the 'guardians of order' tristat system, including the anime based rpg system, 'big eyes, small mouth')
that in order to encourage you to create a 'more complex character', by taking flaws, which gives you more points to spend... and you can decide exactly how severe phobias tend to be, or how frequently they may interfere, by how many points you spend on them... as you gain xp/ points to level, you can 'buy off' some of these, as you are working through them in rp, or also 'earn' new ones, like 'enmity of a group or faction or diety' and so on lol the books are probabaly a really good resource for this kind of thing, you can probably find some of the ebooks around... i could possibly post one on a fileshare somewhere (or if it is got live text, cut and paste the relevant character gen section somewhere) if people were interested in this... or someone could...It could be kind of informal/ optional, and maybe there could be a forum thread where you might say like 'merits' - favoured of hard castle estate ; flaws 'hated by gangs in old town' or some such, sort of as a dm resource. the thing is, if it were public, people might like metagame it... but maybe people could post in a given thread their character stat stuff with the 'spoiler' type hide tags, so people wouldn't accidentally see everything...
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my first app at the end of v3 start of v4 did have a weakness…. my second one near the end of v4 did not, the first one worked out very well and was fun to play, the second did not work out well at all, i was asked to stop playing the character and it was basically a killing machine, which i willingly gave up as it was a mistake (and frankly i was not really having fun with it), it did not suit my play style, i do know we need to expand our play styles especially for the app characters.
that is why i have decided to not go for a application, i am a one trick pony as far as the applications go what i had that worked (me apping for another fey would be rejected out of hand now), and now what i want (something i was told bioware will not support), and have a one track mind as far as what i want now (this is a sore spot for me now, and i will not go into it as it is something best left alone)
i as a player have some serious weaknesses, and this unfortunately is reflected in most of the characters i play (with the exception of the failed app at the end of v4, i did try to change, honest, and aside from the obvious failure, i did break out of my mold..sort of)
playing a intelligent character with a decent wisdom will be someone who knows how to stay out of trouble for the most part, making enemies happens, but it can be mitigated by a smart character, one who will plot the demise of people who have slighted them, all the while smiling and apologizing to their faces (unknown to most players in the past and to many of the DMs with the exception of a select few....this was something i am proud to say i did with some success with Rav in v3 and 4 arabel) the real evil mastermind is the one who survives, and smiles gleefully as most of their enemies have been vanquished by behind the scenes manipulation (something i was rather secretly proud of)
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I think weaknesses on apps is… Pretty derp.
Like u haven't pre played this guy, figuring out a personality before hand leads to static game play. Weakness do shape a characters personality for good or bad. I really dunno why it's part of an app process and not part of a phobia one must develop through situations. A DM does an event to get you terrfied of chairs? There you go. Also works with PC to PC relationships.
So, in short, other than natural weaknesses of a race, which are evident anyway. Weaknesses shouldn't belong on a pre creation app.Oh. This is an alternate B Rock account on some random IP. Might wanna ban this too or something. shrug
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Well, I may never actually get an app approved,and thats ok.
! I Usually have a background for a character, where they are
from, why they are here, etc. I've only had 3 mains, and all three were vastly different personalities, I think (god i HOPE) :-) Each had a weakness that developed IG as I got to know the character. Harry was such a flirt a Satyr called him on it. he thought wtht his heart as much as his head. Maybe a weakness, maybe not.
Artio? she had a freaking temper and I have no idea whee the hells that came from.
It was not pre-planned though at all. it just came into play as an honest reaction to IG stuff.
! Szarne has a couple that are built in, if you listen to his story of where he came from and why he is here. ( anyone ever notice how he is the last through a portal?) But the current state of affairs for him was unexpected, completely, not planned. I re-read his back ground, and realized just how damaged he could or would be.None of these are mechanical weaknesses, though all my guys are mechanically challenged because i am.
All heroes are flawed in some way, at least the greats. Arthur had his Pride, Lancelot, Lust.
Bruce is Obsesive Compulsive. Clark, Forget about Kryptonite and magic. Clark just wants to fit in. -
It makes sense to develop "fears" largely in game, but weaknesses, character flaws, and exploitable traits make perfect sense to write into a backstory or include on an app imo.
To riff on Count's Darth Vader example, Anakin's extremely intense emotions for his friends and family permeated every episode (Even the first three, which some scholars debate the existence of). This was a part of his personality that influenced his every action, and is the type of thing to write into a backstory. A piece of your character to be portrayed IG.
Being afraid of zombies because a necromancer in game ganked you with zombies is the kind of thing to develop after creation.
There is room and cause for both.