Using Personality Traits

[timm meyers]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

I would rather see traits come in pairs that can be good or bad.

So if you have Cautious/Cowardly vs. Brave/Overconfident, then you might have to roll both high or low depending on what is being tested. So when you want to do something brave you need to roll under, and when you want to be extra cautious you need to roll high.

The same could go for generous/frivolous vs. Miserly/Prudent
So when a beggar ask for money you might have to roll high or you give away more than you wanted, and if you want to help a friend or bribe a guard you might have to roll low to not say no or give them too little.

Shy/Discreet vs. Charming/Attentionseeking.

Sensitive/Overly Sensitive vs. Coldhearted/Logical

This way there is no optimal value, just a choice between two good things or two bad things depending on how you look at it.

Maybe not super easy to implement or find good personality pairs, but I think they would be used more.

I like the idea of these "flip-side" traits. I think many traits can or could be interpreted with a single topic/metric such as "generous" you roll under, and you give away something but when you roll over or miss you withhold the donation and are in essence being miserly?kinda?maybe?
Character traits are definitely squishy to interpret. Either way the more traits listed the more interesting the character (barring giving 7's etc.).

The best result from your suggestion I think, is just encouraging a player who chooses to portray a 10 factor "Bravery" to then list a qualifying trait like "cautiousness" to better define themselves.

Now how often we need to use these factors is up to the player and GM. They should be far and in-between if the player is a good role player. The session zero discussion of who the character is might be the only time for most traits?

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by timm meyers

I like the idea of these "flip-side" traits.

Me too!

The best result from your suggestion I think, is just encouraging a player who chooses to portray a 10 factor "Bravery" to then list a qualifying trait like "cautiousness" to better define themselves.

I think I'd have Rash/Cautious be the poles there, with Brave matched by Cowardly.

Now how often we need to use these factors is up to the player and GM. They should be far and in-between if the player is a good role player. The session zero discussion of who the character is might be the only time for most traits?

Ideally they'd never need to be used outside Session Zero, because the player is just a non-stop roleplaying master. Realistically, the GM would probably invoke the trait once in a while as a reminder that it needs to be paid attention to. And, importantly, a player could choose to use it to subvert approaches to character action that might have more to do with what the player knows than how the character might act.