For your latest character, what is their biggest flaw/shortcoming?
My character's is that he is a massive racist towards monstrous races and is somewhat intolerant of anything that isn't a human, dwarf, or elf.
>>43611704
>Fighter
His paranoia, a trait he shares with his brother.
>Bard
She's a bit too materialistic/shallow for her own good.
>>43611704
I don't really think racism against monstrous races is that much of a shortcoming in a setting where "monstrous race" often means "murderous rapist". If your games are generally lighter in tone it might be, but you still get money and experience for killing them and fir the most part they don't form or fit into large societies, so dealing with them rarely needs to be peaceful.
>Tiefling Magus
He's obsessed with becoming more powerful but doesn't realize his demonic sword is trying to possess him.
Thankfully the demon tapped within said sword is kind of an idiot.
>Sons of Antaeus space marine
He refuses to retreat and find other marines too weak, when his advantage is unfair, since it's his geneseed.
In short he's a litteraly massive twat.
>>43611704
Faith.
>>43611704
>Shadowrun Face
He's a somewhat lazy coward.
>Dark Heresy II
Psyker
>>43611704
>Paladin who fights Undead
>Undead
Well take a fucking guess
>Swashbuckler
Never feels like she's earned her place among a long family line of swordsmen, so goes adventuring to make a name for herself. Has no composure in battle when shit hits the fan.
>Druid
New to society and the concept of money in general, so he's constantly in debt.
>>43611704
>Tradesman
Loyalty. He cared to munched for his leader that their death left him aimless.
>wizard
Overconfidence, though it waxed and waned. He would do something stupid, think he learned his lesson, and proceed to overestimate how much he had learned in a different direction
>Alchemist
Love. He cared so deeply for people he would gloss over or outright ignore their faults. The most egregious case of this was his brotherly relationship with a dark cultist.
You could also say that love is what made him go insane eventually, but that's more just the natural outcome of living through several TPK/near TPKs.
>>43612246
He's an actual vagina? A 50 foot (however tall marines are supppsed to be now) vagina in power armor?
>>43612379
>Love. He cared so deeply for people he would gloss over or outright ignore their faults. The most egregious case of this was his brotherly relationship with a dark cultist.
>You could also say that love is what made him go insane eventually, but that's more just the natural outcome of living through several TPK/near TPKs
I think it sounds like that BBEG Elf that was cockblocked for six months of game sessions.
>>43611704
>Virtual Adept
It's a tossup between his obsession with adding to his 500gb hentai collection, his disdain for "primitives" (which really just means anyone without dots in either Computers of Technology), and his strict adherence to the creed of "do not suffer a Technocrat to live."
She's too pretty.
>>43612520
You mean played by a teenager.
>>43612409
Exactly. She don't need no man because she's a strong independant muhreen.
>>43611704
Mama Jenka, a Pathfinder Witch I designed specifically to creep out my fellow players. She's an old crone with a raven familiar and a flair for the macabre. Most of my fellow players lack my experience with the system and specific spells and whatnot, so I specifically took all the spells I knew would creep them out, things like vomit swarm, skinsend, and so on. She's been a blast to play so far. I've played her three times, though only for a good amount of time the second time. The first time, the game ended quickly, and the third one just got started. This latest game is a pure hack 'n' slash dungeon crawl, though, so I've had to cut down on some of the spells that I chose solely for their creep factor, and focus on the ones that will actually help us survive. It's not the kind of game I prefer, but it's the one that's available, so I suppose I'll just have to put up with it for a while.
I'd say her biggest flaw is her amorality. It's not that she's evil, she's just very fickle, and doesn't much care about anybody other than herself and her current goals. If you get in her way, she has no compunctions at all about bestowing a nasty curse or throwing out a baleful polymorph to get rid of you.
>Black Mage
He's too realist for his own good, he doesn't know how to make himself or anyone else happy. He's very good at social situations, but rubs people the wrong way and even if they agree with him, they end up not liking him. He doesn't know how to trust anyone really, he spends a lot of his time on extreme paranoia and prepares for almost every eventuality, but this usually severs the few connections with other people he has.
>High-Elf Fighter
He's a braggart of his own culture, but has achieved nothing on his own and is considered a failure by his people. He deeply loves the thrill of battle, but tries to hid it since his Knighthood deems it "uncouth". He's basically a Barbarian stuck in a Knight's armor.
Aside from OP and one other guy, there doesn't seem to be any actual flaws here.
Current character is pretty stupid, and naturally servile.
Another character I have belongs to a reviled, generally poor ethnicity, suffers from depression, and is hardly able to actually enjoy anything in life, or relate to people. Combined with a gambling addiction and an inability to find legitimate work, it all adds up to a shit life.
She's extremely wasteful and used to having limitless wealth, however her careless business style doesn't work now that there's an expensive project going on. Doesn't understand or care about methods or the middleman, just throws cash until she gets what she wants even if her suggestions are unrealistic or impossible.
Basically Ronald Reagan plus William Casey as a sociopathic space baron.
>>43612423
Hah, I remember that storytime.
It was more of a "nothing you do can save anyone" kind of thing; the first group died partly to demons and partly to war, and left my character inheritor of a lot of items and plot lines, which He spent a lot of time doling out before semi-retiring.
He only came back because of the threat of a person sealing a god in their body dying. He failed to save them too because the whole thing was a trap, and they died later necessitating the creation of horribly evil artifacts to stop it.
Things were always going wrong in this manner; love interests dying off screen due to things that I could have but didn't from foolishness or lack of foresight, being out on a task when murdermachines rolled in, letting people go out underarmed to trap diplomatic meetings (the gm loved those).
The end state was a mix of paranoid recluse who forced horrific artifacts on people because he'd rather see them turn into monsters than die, and a disillusioned mad scientist who would more or less take any commission because he was desperate for interaction.
He could have gone BBEG if he hadn't died from an experiment poisoning his soul.
>>43611704
I honestly don't really like designing a flaw or shortcoming. I kind of feel almost any trait can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the circumstances. I mean sure you can have a ton of hubris and it cause you harm but it can also be a major advantage when you wind up spreading legends of yourself though raw bullshit and bards over the years.
I always think it is better to just make a personality up then figure out what their flaws are in play when the personality hits his environment.
Any way now with that out of my system the last guy I had biggest issue was probably that he was too caught up in the past and that he was way out of his league. He was a competent and powerful fighter but he tended to try to get involved with inhuman monsters which bit him in the ass a lot.
In the same game I also played a high class princess that tended to be too untrusting and paranoid. An advantage in court life but not so much in a war.
I don't have a character at the moment because I'm DM so let's do my party.
>Emperor Lore the Swift, elven rogue
Ruled by his vices. What's worse is he's powerful enough, both physically and politically, to take anything he wants. Luckily, he usually doesn't.
>Aquilius, eagle man white mage
Doesn't assert himself. Just sort of goes with the flow.
>Marloss, fungus-human hybrid warrior
Likes killing a bit too much. Also is going to take over the world fairly soon. He might even be successful. Hopefully my players aren't reading this.
My bard runs from problems by getting high. Despite knowing that she will or already has developed an addiction, and that her party sees her as the stoned lunatic and not much beyond that.
>NG Human Cleric
Accidentally secretive, forgets to tell things to the party he deems unimportant. Accidentally caused a shit load of distrust in the party when they first noticed when the humans they were fighting lost their right hands. He had a reason for his strange obsession though, he was good to a fault and though that everyone needed to be redeemed and remembered, so he outlined their hands into a book he kept and wrote down their physical description in it. Buried the hands when he had a chance.
The other players were meta shits about it though and the game didn't last long enough.
>>43613306
OP here. Both is good. I've been trying to work a flaw into the characters I create these days. The way I look at it, you're creating a character's past to inform what the are moving into the future (in your play sessions, that is). And people all have baggage they carry. It gives a little tension and something that allows your character to grow.
Flaws that emerge in play are great too. I had a ranger once that I ran a DMPC since I had a small group. The group found this prisoner, a scantily-clad elf woman, and the material I was using said specifically that she "latches on to whoever frees her from her shackles". So she wraps around Sarkev, my ranger, like a boa, and I think, "You know what would be interesting? What if Sarkev freezes up and just cannot deal with this situation?" And thus Sarkev gained a flaw: He is cripplingly shy around attractive women.
>>43611704
>Fighter/Paladin equivalent
An overbearing sense of not only duty to protect, but outright arrogance in believing he has to shoulder everything and protect EVERYONE. To the point of viewing others subtly as useless protectees.
> Alchemist
Nervous and unstable. Nervous tic of mixing chemicals when stressed. When he gets too frightened his magic aura activates the chemicals and forms a bomb which he throws.
>>43617473
These characters are fun when things start to go really bad. Our fighter was like this, my wizard enjoyed subtly agonizing him over his perceived failures.
>>43611704
>War Cleric of Torm
He is obsessed with justice and is very quick to anger, and often acts out solely upon his dogma when angry, without rationalizing first, causing others to keep some things in secret from him. He's once taken the party's wizard to the court for destroying the coffin lid of saint's grave.
>Homebrewed Wild Mage
His endless hunger for knowledge, and obviously his proneness to wild surges. He doesn't know when he needs to stop. He's gone and read the thoughts of an Old One Warlock, to post an example. Pdf related.
>>43611704
He's a huge fucking hippie who tries to save anything that lives, even things like plants or livestock.
>>43611704
My latest character's biggest flaw is pride. He thinks he's the only one who can actually do things for himself, everyone else needs help. Weapons. Armor. Familiars. Pets. Power armor. Mecha. If you need to use a hammer to break a boulder, doesn't that mean that YOU can't actually break it?
My last monk character had the worst traits of your cliche gang enforcer -- prideful and aggressive. Any sort of 'tough guy' was automatically a challenge. Maxed out perception and intimidation skills to best survey a situation and bully whomever was nearby.
Not really murderous though. Non-lethal damage was applied to most non-monsters. It was the combat high that was important, not killing.
>Noble
Faith in authorities and systems that failed her time and time again. It's beginning to crack, but reckless abandon and a potential superiority complex are not going to be good replacements.
>Face/Gunbunny
Assuming that people who worked towards a common goal would share the same moral worldview and then not standing up for her worldview.
>>43611704
Extra small and very weak.
It's a mouse.
