Using Personality 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.

[David Bofinger]

There are broadly two, well maybe three, ways you could make these traits work:

1. Who knows what effect they have, roll them randomly.
2. High numbers are good, low numbers are bad, and you have to pay to get high numbers: examples might be Attractive vs. Repulsive or Courageous vs. Cowardly.
3. High numbers are good sometimes and bad sometimes, low numbers are the reverse, choose whatever value you think best: examples might be Rash vs. Timid.

(1) is so unTFT and 1970s that even though it's RAW I'm going to dismiss it.

(2) is possible but these sorts of abilities can probably be represented by talents or attributes so maybe it's not a great idea to introduce a new system.

(3) would probably be my preference. Any time you do something which might be difficult to force yourself to do you can roll against the relevant trait. So if you have a Rash of 8 and want to do something rash (attack the troll) then roll 2d6 looking for 8 or less. On the other hand if you're trying to do something timid (e.g. sneak away) then roll 2d6 and try to get 8 or more. If you haven't succeeded then probably you can still try to do the task - this is an RPG, after all, and it's best not to trample on player agency too thoroughly - but it's harder or comes with some increased chance of disaster because the tension between what you want to do and what you're actually doing distracts you.

But the most important thing is not to let these kinds of trait mix together.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

I am all for option 3.

One shouldn't need to roll often, but there definitely could be situations where a player might want to do something, but their character might not be up to the task mentally or emotionally. The most common would be bravery. The player wants to do something really brave, but is bravery really a free agency choice for a character that is a coward at heart or just normal? Sure they might surprise everyone and be brave now and then, but most people want to be brave but can't pull if off consistently.

Another trait, like Attractiveness. Everyone wants it, but it might be better to combine it with something that might also be seen as positive. In this case it could be Forgettable, a good trait for murder hobos and thieves.

So either the pairs should both be bad, or both ends should be good.

That is why I would rather see Rash vs. Timid, both are basically bad. But I don't want to see Brave vs. Cowardly because there is very little upside to being a coward. Or Brave vs. Cautious because both are good and most people have one but not both.

But you could also have Brave/Rash vs. Cautious/Cowardly. Having a high or a low value comes with both an advantage and possible disadvantage, so they are still balanced. One extreme is not necessary better than the other. Sure there might be people who are both brave and cautious, but it is not that common. But if you have such a character just set the value at 7.

A 4th option is to have 3 mainly good parameters like Brave, Attractive, Disciplined, and then 3 bad ones.
And when you put out your values you need to balance the total so you have as many points in good ones as you have in bad ones. But that is little bit more complex.

[timm meyers]

I think as "gamers" we all tend to get caught into the tactical relevance of any rules. i.e. "does this help me or hinder me in winning contests/encounters/combat"

Personality traits are options for "Roleplaying". They are there to help define and remind a player of "who" their PC is. Yes there is a small % with obvious combat input or situational advantages/disadvantages but other than "Appearance" they have zero Physical manifestations.

My original thought experiment was for those players who enjoyed fleshing out or creating more colorful characters the traits suggested on p.14 are a great aid. These then become a guideline for the PC. Anyone who assigns an "average" value (7 on the 2-12 scale) to a personality trait is saying in effect that this trait is the same as generly everyone else = no need to list such normalcy. The traits listed are going to be the pronounced, more visible, aspects of their PC personality. That means these meaningful traits are going to be more extreme to either end of the spectrum (2-6 or 8-12).

Playing a character with chosen traits and values is more about the gamer putting guard rails up for themselves to help keep their use of a PC authentic. So beyond just a value metric to remind me what level of "Braggart" my character is I thought why not have some guidelines of how to test against them. Thus, the original succeed/miss by increments of 2 left the results minor to major, player controlled to GM controlled etc. All more of a prompt to story action than combat results. The second aspect of trying to codify the possible results of a personality is helping the player and GM give a small level of input to the game from our inanimate PC creation. In essence a low low low level of AI or sim.

So far, my takeaway from these great posts is most of our PC's are normal well-adjusted personalities and the need for personality guidelines are minimal. This kinda makes me chuckle at the possibility that we could all be quirky unbalanced personalities that have gravitated to RPG so we can try experiencing an alter ego who is more normal. I mean why play as the Anger-11, Humble-4 Wizard when I already do that every day in real life?
(well not the wizard part....)

[David Bofinger]

Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

Another trait, like Attractiveness. Everyone wants it, but it might be better to combine it with something that might also be seen as positive. In this case it could be Forgettable, a good trait for murder hobos and thieves.

I'm against this for multiple reasons.

• It is possible to be unattractive and unforgettable. For instance, horribly disfigured and repulsive.
• Some characters are going to care about one aspect and some about the other. So characters will gravitate to one end or the other and we'll have no normal people.
• It's basically an artificial decision made for game balance reasons and not inspired by reality or fiction.

you need to balance the total so you have as many points in good ones as you have in bad ones.

Which creates a new currency for PCs, which can't be traded off against other abilities. Probably not a good idea unless there's a really good reason for it.