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Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen
Yeah. I was unhappy about the suggestion to decople mental disads from Will, initially, because it didn't feel at all realistic to me that a high Will character should have a high likelihood to succumb to his foibles.
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These days I tend to think to the extent that's a problem, it's one of character design more than mechanics. If you think your high Will character should be good at resisting his mental disadvantages too, buy them with the same Self Control number as your Will score. You could require that in the rules if you considered it really important. It's essentially the FUDGE argument for decoupling skills and attributes - if you think they should be linked for your particular character concept, buy them to the same levels - and if you have a concept where they aren't linked, the mechanics don't force them to be.
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I'm more inclined to make it a kind of roll with multiple outcomes. If you Fumble real bad, you die. If you Fumble less badly, you're bedridden and delirious. If you merely fail, you're in Chronic Pain or something like that.
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I don't care for disadvantages that can do nothing until you suffer a bad roll, and then you die. The problem is there's almost no in game effect - nothing to role play, no resource management trying to work around your problem, nothing, until you suddenly have to generate a new character. Anybody can fail a roll and have to generate a new character, but at least they get a tense scene first. I half suspect this is a lot of the reason that GMs allow characters to buy off Terminally Ill even though they shouldn't - at least the quest for the whatsit that will save you brings the disadvantage into play *somehow*.