Character Flaws
Everyone wants to be the hero, and that’s ok. We are playing a fantasy game, so why not be the hero when you get the chance. Very few of us have a chance to embark on an epic quest, and the best we can hope for is to slay the proverbial dragon once or twice in our lifetimes. This is why we build our characters to be mighty and powerful with fists of fury, the ability to kill the mightiest of creatures with a single stroke of the sword or cast reality-altering spells of unimaginable arcane power. We rush our primary stats to 20 as fast as possible, take feats to overcome disadvantages and the occasional bad die roll, and attune to increasingly powerful magical items every chance we get. We are the most powerful creatures in the campaign, and nothing can stop us from saving the world.
Shouldn’t we have to overcome more than just a dragon or lich to become such a hero? If we want our characters to be well rounded, shouldn’t they have a flaw or two?
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I started playing in the days of 1st edition, and life was brutal. It seemed like for every bonus you got, there was an equal if not greater penalty somewhere else. Before you could vanquish the evil monsters, you had to overcome your character’s own limitations. Now, there is no such thing as a detriment or negative quality to a character, or at least one with any actual consequences. Now I know some people will immediately say they don’t want their characters to have flaws since they play specifically to be an overly powerful hero. That’s fine with me, and I’m not going to argue with you if that’s how you want to play the game. You can pick a character flaw from the tables found in the PHB, but “I turn tail and run when things look bad” isn’t a flaw that has any real impact on your character. There is nothing to overcome, just an opportunity to roleplay being a coward when you feel like it.
There are a couple of reasons why WotC went this direction. While they are understandable, detrimental or negative qualities and modifiers have been removed from the game throughout the editions. The final blow was delivered with the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Players now have the ability to place lineage bonuses as they see fit, but more importantly, any negative lineage modifiers were removed. Whether you agree or disagree with the reasoning behind why they did this is not the point of this article. They missed out by not replacing these items with something that was an obstacle for players to prevail over but wasn’t offensive to people.
An important distinction that needs to be addressed is determining what a flaw is a sensitive subject. I am using the word flaw since it is used in the official Dungeons & Dragons text. For this article, a flaw results in a negative modifier, disadvantage, or a similar effect. I tried to stay away from any categories that people may perceive are offensive. I had originally included a flaw where the character had an addiction of one sort or another. As someone in recovery, I personally did not see any issue with this. I thought that many others could relate to this issue and work on having their character overcome their addiction. I did not consider that for people still struggling with this issue, it could be a sore subject or that someone in a group could take the flaw and play it so that others found it offensive, so out it went. That said, I may use it as a flaw in an upcoming campaign, but only after talking about it with my DM and table.
So, since there’s no way I will do anything relating to racial flaws, how about class flaws? If you spent time training to become an expert in one field, it stands to reason that another skill set suffered. Do they play on old tropes and stereotypes? Sure, some of them do, but there are plenty of options that a generic enough could be used for multiple classes.
Having to deal with negatives can sometimes be positive.
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