Ive played lots of White Wolf games over the years and I always loved the merits and flaws system. This is something that always brought characters to life for me. Especially when a player or I managed to take a flaw, use it as a boon for mechanics and role-play gold, like my large size, 7 foot tall former viking Gangrel. Has anyone thought of trying to implement a similar system to DnD 5e? If you have, how have you done it, how did it work? I'd image ranking feats or allowing certain feats and making anti-feats would be the best way to do it. Thought?
I’ve honestly never been a fan of the way White Wolf does flaws, because it conditions players to think of them as inherently negative things you take only for mechanical bonuses elsewhere. Many good role players I’ve seen in D&D take flaws and roleplay them, sometimes hurting their character in the process, just to bring that character to life!
That said, don’t let me dissuade you from your idea! I do think the Feats system would be a really smart way to implement it, since it’s already optional.
See I've never seem the flaws in the White Wolf system as negatives, ive always used them to do as you said "bring a character to life", or un-life lol. All this popped into mind because of a video speculating on the next D&D book being the Dragonlance setting and my fav character being Raistlin with all his physical tradeoffs to gain arcane power and it got me thinking about the flaws and merits of WW and how it could be cool in 5E.
I agree with Lyxen. I am currently playing a Vampire: the Mascaraed game and a Mage: the Ascension game and I love the merit and flaw system that they have (even if the are unbalanced with what gives/cost how much, I mean why are being a child and being blind the same points of flaw?) but that sort of system wouldn't work very well given how 5e is set up. Dnd is not set up to have negative abilities with players, most status conditions are just incapacitated plus other stuff or they are temporary. Having a permanent detriment would be insanely massive mechanically, unenforceable in RP, reductive from class and racial abilities, and otherwise limited because of the way the system is set up.
I was going to make a list of some example merits/flaws from the books and try to translate them here but the more I worked on it the more I realized the Flaws were either noneffective or deadly and the merits were just class features/feats. Dnd 5e just isn't set up to allow this sort of system within it. You would have to reword the entire character creation phase, including classes and races which at that point it might just be better to play a World of Darkness game but set in a Dnd fantasy setting.
All of that said, I would love to be proven wrong. I know I would be interested in this sort of thing if it was balanced.
Ive played lots of White Wolf games over the years and I always loved the merits and flaws system. This is something that always brought characters to life for me. Especially when a player or I managed to take a flaw, use it as a boon for mechanics and role-play gold, like my large size, 7 foot tall former viking Gangrel. Has anyone thought of trying to implement a similar system to DnD 5e? If you have, how have you done it, how did it work? I'd image ranking feats or allowing certain feats and making anti-feats would be the best way to do it. Thought?
I’ve honestly never been a fan of the way White Wolf does flaws, because it conditions players to think of them as inherently negative things you take only for mechanical bonuses elsewhere. Many good role players I’ve seen in D&D take flaws and roleplay them, sometimes hurting their character in the process, just to bring that character to life!
That said, don’t let me dissuade you from your idea! I do think the Feats system would be a really smart way to implement it, since it’s already optional.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
See I've never seem the flaws in the White Wolf system as negatives, ive always used them to do as you said "bring a character to life", or un-life lol. All this popped into mind because of a video speculating on the next D&D book being the Dragonlance setting and my fav character being Raistlin with all his physical tradeoffs to gain arcane power and it got me thinking about the flaws and merits of WW and how it could be cool in 5E.
I agree with Lyxen. I am currently playing a Vampire: the Mascaraed game and a Mage: the Ascension game and I love the merit and flaw system that they have (even if the are unbalanced with what gives/cost how much, I mean why are being a child and being blind the same points of flaw?) but that sort of system wouldn't work very well given how 5e is set up. Dnd is not set up to have negative abilities with players, most status conditions are just incapacitated plus other stuff or they are temporary. Having a permanent detriment would be insanely massive mechanically, unenforceable in RP, reductive from class and racial abilities, and otherwise limited because of the way the system is set up.
I was going to make a list of some example merits/flaws from the books and try to translate them here but the more I worked on it the more I realized the Flaws were either noneffective or deadly and the merits were just class features/feats. Dnd 5e just isn't set up to allow this sort of system within it. You would have to reword the entire character creation phase, including classes and races which at that point it might just be better to play a World of Darkness game but set in a Dnd fantasy setting.
All of that said, I would love to be proven wrong. I know I would be interested in this sort of thing if it was balanced.
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