Disadvantages: Good or Evil?

[Bjorn]

Many point-based systems (HERO and BESM are examples that show up on this system) allow characters to take Disadvantages (or Limitations, whatever) -- extra points with which to build the character, as a reward for taking some backstory/fluff which limits the character.

It's pretty obvious this is meant to be a reward for good role-playing during character creation.   Characters should have weaknesses to go with their strengths in order to be more than two-dimensional stereotypes, and Disadvantage rules are meant to encourage this.   To my understanding, at least, the extra points are supposed to balance out the penalties of the chosen Disadvantage, making it essentially a zero-sum game.

In principle.

The reality, though, is that every game I've ever played in with this sort of system, almost every player has taken the maximum amount of Disadvantages, which should immediately set off warning bells.  Not only that, but players that don't max out Disadvantages produce characters that play appreciably "weaker."  And, honestly, the characters with less Disadvantages are more likely to be interesting, consistent characters.  In other words, Disadvantages punish good role-playing, in my experience.

Personally, I think a large part of this is because it's very difficult for a GM to consistently make characters feel the consequences of their Disadvantages.  Sometimes they just don't come up, like "distinctive appearance."   Others are hard or unpleasant to enforce, like codes of conduct (who wants to have a philosophical and ethical debate as a regular part of their game?).  And then there are those really aggravating ones, like rivals or dependent NPCs, that require the GM to actually build part of the story around them.  The short of it is, even if you only have three PCs with two flaws apiece, that's six vulnerabilities that you, as a GM, have to try to exploit on a regular basis.  If you don't, then those Disadvantages were just free points.

So how do you, as a GM, deal with this issue?  An obvious answer is to be careful during character creation, but this only goes so far, and encourages arguments with your players during creation.  For the campaign I'm thinking about starting, I'm actually granting no points for Disadvantages; partly for the reasons above, partly because of the nature of the game, and partly as an experiment.  

Thoughts?

[Anastasia]

This is some rambling about ideas to this, I'll hit on the underlying theory later. - Edit.

One idea is to limit the number of disadvantages to a sane number. A cap, which I'm trying in my next game, is one part of the solution. The second is to let go the 'I have to use the disadvantage all the time for it to matter' mindset. I'd rather use it a couple of times in game, but dammit, make each time count.

For example - Fear of Thunderstorms, 1 BP

The character has a moderate fear of thunderstorms, etc, etc.

In the first gaming arc, it only comes up once, when the PC is inflitrating the enemy stronghold, a vicious thuderstorm hits. The booming thunder freaks out the PC, further setting the tense mood and piling on both gaming pressure on the IC front and enjoyment on the OOC front. Getting away from what you hinted at with the 'have to always worry about using it' itis helps, and lets you focus on using those to enhance the gameplay without working them into the ground.

Another idea is to deliniate certain flaws as only giving partial or no points, if you feel it won't come up in the game. Distinctive Apperance could be one if not a soul would bat an eye at a twenty foot gigas with bat wings walking to the town armory, or if Poverty means nothing since any corner mage worth a salt could conjure basic cloths and food for the PC. They can keep the character aspect while not cashing in a boatload of points.

Which, really, if they're in it for the RPing and not a twinking powerup, is that a bad thing within reason?

[Dracos]

I guess this was brought up from my blather on the whole issue as applies to Hero in specific but also draws across a whole list of point based games.

My logic here is kind of simple.  In a point based game, give the players the number of points you want them to use and no more.  Merits, feats, stats, whatnot, these generally are balanced reasonably well and you can gm overrule any really bad ones and it's a lot easier to keep everyone balanced by saying "Okay, you have 82 points to spend.  Spend them wisely".  

Extra points comparatively to your fellow players is almost universally going to cause unbalance no matter how you swing it and working in a reward system that encourages a lack of balance for taking disadvantages is just asking for trouble.  The whole logic behind rewarding players for role playing in that regard is stupid.  Dune hits on this slightly.  He's right, players should be in it for the role playing.  Taking on rewards for taking disads is not a good way to do that.  It encourages twinking.  The only way it tends to be 'balanced' is reducing the effect to almost negligable.  But this itself misses the point.  It's still a reward system for taking penalties and that's how a great deal of players would see it, even if the rewards are small and they are normally reasonably focused on role playing.

On the GM side, it encourages something that's just as disruptive to good role playing.  Punishing the players for their disadvantages.  That's retarded on an equal level.  Let's face it, role playing is a group experience.  You can't punish just one player.  Why?  Because the other players are almost certainly relying on them.  So if their disad is a disad, it's usually not going to harm them, but them and all those other players who aren't getting points for it.  You can blather about how if it isn't a disadvantage it shouldn't give points and be RIGHT about it, but that doesn't get at the core of the issue that the events that let a disadvantage not be something unique to just the player it's 'balancing' are rare and the more 'painful' the disadvantage the more rare it gets.  You simply can't balance a disad of rival for one player when almost inevitably that rival is going to be a thorn in the entire party's side.  Trying to balance on the individual level is doomed to be inappropriate.  On the obvious note, setting up a system that demands the GM punishes the players is masochistic at best.  Most don't play to go through getting punished and an environment in which we're focusing on the 'oh you took a disad so we're going to smack you around with it' isn't a good one for role playing in my opinion.

What should be done instead of a point based reward system is a more subtle GM approval system.  Work with your players to build characters AND to include faults in them.  I know I normally do this anyway, but it's a pain defining it in some sort of reward based scheme.  It's far simpler to sit down with the GM, talk out what kind of environment the world is in, consider what player you are playing and come up with some weak points.  Don't 'number' them.  That's pretty silly too.  Do you number your faults?  Do you get advantages because you are unatheletic?  No.  You don't in almost all cases.  You are a person.  A person consists of capabilities, talents, emotions, and faults.  This is what should be encouraged.  You want to limit the capabilities of the players and keep them somewhat even so that no player feels impotent in the gaming environment and no player is overwhelmingly powerful.  You want to encourage detailing out personal weak points NOT for 'points' but for role playing specifically.  It doesn't work well if you are tying advantages to role playing 'faults' (which tend to give players more to role play and thus are BENEFITS, not faults in the gaming sense).  You need to pass along that this is part of a well rounded character and make it part of the character design process.  A part of it where you ask: "Okay, the character is cool, but what are his weak areas?  He's damned good at shooting, but what did he give up along his road to get so good?  What problems trouble him?"  Most players will be happy to try and detail out when faced with such questions.  Players who, I do find, are not so good at detailing it out within a reward/punishment system.  Especially not when it gets placed in the context of "You need those points to compete so damn well you are going to try your hardest to get them."

How it should be: First you come up with concept.  Then you come up with what are the benefits of the concept.  Then you come up with what are the weak points of the concept.  Then you see how the benefits can be created in the point based system.  The weak points are shared with the GM, who, since no points are TIED to this, is free to use or not use them, and generally has no incentive to abuse them since there's no 'balancing' obligation.  The player is happy since through this method, whether or not he or she would normally produce a deep character, the GM has walked the player through accomplishing just that through simple questioning and encouragement.  The GM is happy because no player has been unbalanced in the course of events, he has an easier control what goes in the game and no players who are going to be bickering over trying to get extra points since everyone has the same.

In other words, all the benefits dune described can be accomplished without tying point benefits to them.  The creation of tension from having a minor phobia, personal flaw, and whatnot can be done without mandating points for penalties.  Note, mandating a set type of penalty for players is just as bad as giving them points for penalties.  I've seen GMs do this in a non-reward for disads type system and the end result was painful.  Work with the players and not against them and things turn out better.

Dracos

[Brian]

There is yet another way to assign limitations.

Which is actually a good one, as it involves the player and requires them a bit more effort.

Now, the premise behind a limitation is, "This is a component of my character; it is an attribute or aspect or social limitation that defines who my character is."  At least, in theory.  In practice, it usually gets pronounced, "This is a component of my character's point value; it's an attribute or aspect or social limitation that awards me more points for other stuff!"

Ideally, any GM who's up for the extra paperwork, and either doesn't fully trust his PCs (or just wants to be more proactive and involved in the character generation process) can do this:

Don't allow any limitations whatsoever, and explain that extra points are going to be awarded based on the character's backgrounds.  If someone goes into detail about how their character is marked by a scar he got from the duel he lost (which also got him banished from his home village), then the GM can decide to award points for this limitation.  Normally this would be a social limitation, but this time, the GM doesn't have to listen to the player try and justify why he should get point value X, he gets points assigned by the GM.

This allows the GM to pretty much have control of the limitations, without actually modifying the PC's concept.  After all, he's just assigning a point value to a limitation that the PC already described his character as having, right?

Doing it this way means that players aren't going to be tempted to design their characters around their limitations, and thusly, try and get as many points, because it's no longer mathematical.  It's all subjective and must adhere to the GM's aproval or disapproval.

This is good for the PCs, because it lets them choose pretty much whatever background and limitations they want ... but they can't just say, "Oh, yeah, I've got a, um, 50 point enemy.  Yeah."  They instead need to provide the background that explains, "Greg and Eric fought together back in WWII, and were good friends, until they returned to the UK.  Greg became a member of the SoE, while Eric was moved into MI-5.  The rivalry began innocently enough ... until Eric spotted Greg during a covert mission in a place he shouldn't have been.  After an unpleasant accidental 'shoot first and ask questions later' exchange that left Greg shot and two of Eric's men dead, the two men have always hated eachother ... especially since the operation was so covert, no record of the incident is left.  Except for the two men's memories.  Due to his wound, Greg no longer serves in the field, but his keen mind and access to various covert military forces makes him a threat to Eric any time that Greg is aware of him."

Then the GM can say, "Well, that's a good explanation, it's a big limitation, as the campaign is going to be about a secret mission into Russia to infiltrate the KGB, and there are a good number of British double-agents in Moscow.  I'll say it's worth 30 points because of Greg's rather extensive non-combat influence, as the agents can't openly act against Eric.  But he'd better watch himself in dark alleys."  Or conversely, "That's a fascinating bit of background, but since session two of the campaign is going to be crossing through the one-way portal into an alternate dimension, I'm going to give this PC 3-5 CP for creativity and attention to detail."  Or even, "This is a blatant dig for points -- no experience here since he's already got powers for mind-control and invisibility.  Unless Greg is a psychic, which according to the notes, he's not."

That's just my idea, which is not actually the way I approach the situation (I'm lazy, and generall (not naming names, here) trust my PCs enough).  I think it's something to consider, though.  If a PC approaches CHARGEN as, "I have 75 points to work with," instead of, "I have 75 points, and need to come up with 75 CP of disads."

Also, since I realize I didn't cover this point before: If a PC designs his background to suggest or imply massive limitations which seem to be just digging for points, they can be disallowed.  Or maybe it'll be something like, "Yeah, that rivalry would have been cool ... but Greg was wounded worse than anyone thought, and a few years ago an unnoticed piece of shrapnel ended up nicking his aorta.  The wound worsened, and by the time they correctly diagnosed it, it was too late ... so he's dead now."

[Dracos]

That's still though giving points for having faults which tends to provide at least a subtle balancing issue for GMs.  An example from personal experience, I recall a long game in which one GM gave a single character point to a player over the exact average everyone else had to work with.  I forget the original reason why, think it was good background, but what it did was end up pushing the player up a level category in combat capability.  From the very beginning on, that player hit easier and did more damage per blow than anyone else playing a combat character.  This subtle unbalancing meant that more often then not, that player slightly outclassed the other players and took center stage from it.  Does this happen always?  No, of course not.  But it's something to look out for.  It's why, when I do run point based games, I tend to favor giving every player the same amount.  There's enough room for players to take point and such without giving what is usually the most creative players even more abilities to be creative with (and thus take center stage more often, run the show more often, not such a bad thing except it means that the others are running it LESS often).  I often think the reward for creative backgrounds and such is a better understanding of the character you are going to play.  It's intrinisic to writing them.  It is not something requiring extra reward.  It is not bettered when a price tag is placed on the act of writing a great background of the tune of five CP.  A player who writes great backgrounds has a chance to have that background incorporated into the game itself.  That is a great reward as well.  It is a reward that does not need to be belittled by having a different reward tacked upon it to make it more tasty looking.

Going on what I said earlier and using Brian's example here (sorry Brian ^^), let's say you gave Eric his 30 point disad.  First off, 30 points is huge.  Ridiculously huge.  It's going to place Eric a good margin above other players in pretty much every type of Hero game.  The magnitude of the numbers though aren't so much the issue.  It could be a small bonus just as easily.  That's all well and good, right?  He's got this vicious deadly rival out there with tons of connections.  But...He's not playing alone.  He's playing, inevitably, as a part of some larger group of players.  Players that:
A)Tend to have their fates tied to him just as he has his fate tied to them.
B)Are likely to be around to be endangered by just the thing he's getting points for.

Is that, on face, very fair?  From a player position, some other player got points for putting the group second.  The same series of events, not in context of extra points, generally doesn't bear that type of connotation, but with the points tied to it, it gets it.  The GM has rewarded a player for setting up circumstances that endanger the rest of the group.  Players, on the other hand, get to sit there being somewhat less 'cool' and 'capable' than this guy which is a persistant effect in games and a perception effect in games.

Admittingly, I come from the school of thought that says: Give people the chance to be unique, but not at the cost of the fun of other people.  I tend to believe that when certain players start getting extra rewards (on top of the fun they are having and separate from the group) it tends to create a separating effect rather than a uniting effect on the group.  And that's not good.  Role playing groups have enough of a trouble sticking together without encouraging a "Well, I'm just Mr. Nobody as Jessy has more points and can do most of what I do better alongside some other set of skills."

Players like playing distinctive characters, in my experience.  They rarely need extra points to encourage them to be.  Faults are part of being distinctive, and so those usually show up.  They don't NEED the extra rewards to be there.

Dracos

[Brian]

Before I get to anything else, Drac, I would like to say in a completely subjective argument 30 is a randomly chosen completely arbitrary number.  It has no relevance.  I could have said 'cheese' for the number, and the point of the argument shouldn't be diverted by '30 is huge'.  Though, in a proper HERO game, yeah, it is huge.  It's also assemblable within HERO, but implies that every footstep your PC takes he's going to be dodging SIS and SOE agents who want him dead.  It's also entirely not the point.

As an aside, what the hell system became terminally unbalanced by a single CP discrepancy?  Because our campaigns end up more unbalanced than that all the time since PCs who don't attend tend not to earn EXP for that session.  And I've never seen something that came in that heinously unbalanced.

Now, a disad that is a limitation for one player should be a disadvantage to that player.  For whatever reason, the SIS/SOE operatives don't care about the other PCs.  And probably never will, unless the other PCs earn their own disad by killing off spies that attack Eric, thus earning the ire of Greg's forces.

And yeah, I do suggest giving players who invest more effort and care into a game better roles, more stuff to do, and paying more attention to them.  Why?  Because making Ginrai the hero of a campaign isn't going to move it anywhere.

Sure, this can result in some players sitting quietly, and not playing the game, and then, not having anything to do.  But then, they never tried, did they?  And hey, it's not like I don't try to include everyone, and give them all something to do.

I believe that storytelling is a cooperative effort between the GMs and the PCs.  And what you get out of it is directly proportional to what you put in.

[Dracos]

It wasn't terminally unbalanced.  It was just a noticible difference in the mechanics.  It simply was an observation over the course of a lot of sessions, that the small advantage tended to roll over into being a visible bit better than the rest of the characters in the party.  It was in D&D 3rd ed though, and the ability of an extra point here and there to push a player into a slightly different category of being able to do things is fairly high.

I 'agree'.  But at the same time, I may be mistaken, but I don't recall getting more points to start than Ginrai.  I'm pretty sure we all started with close to the same amount and the enjoyment we garnered was gained from the working with the GM to play the game.  There wasn't a need to add extra reward because half the time, virtually anything we picked translated into more opportunities for us to play.  I'm all for rewarding players who put more into the game with more importance, more fun, and more stuff to do, but you see, I see THAT as the reward.  I don't see the real need to say 'okay, aside from allocating more focus to your character because you made something cool and we'll pay attention to that'.  They are already going to have more fun.  Of course, I'm also not a big fan of retributive xp penalties for folks that don't show up aside from warnings and just 'okay, your out'.  Because in my mind it tends to have the effect of: "Okay, I missed a couple of sessions and now everyone else is kickass and I'm a level or three behind and lameo.  Bleh.  I'll probably put even less effort into this as I feel out of place and soon drop out."

It's a balancing act there, I won't dispute that at all.  I just am philosophically opposed to really tying points to disadvantages and the like.  I'd rather see players make deep characters and be rewarded by the fact that the deep characters are more fun to play and get more attention then give them a point based reward for it.

Edit:
As you may note, there was a sentence indicating a 'okay, what if we tone it down to a small reward though?  Then that's all right, right?' and working the rest of the logic off of that.  It doesn't matter whether the reward is big or small.  It's that it's far better to reward in the story sense then to reward in the point based sense.  One encourages good role playing.  One encourages twinking for points.  At least in my perception.

Dracos

[Brian]

I find your statements to be at great odds with my experiences with your performance in games I've run before.  I can't really understand why, and am thus withdrawing from this discussion.

[Edward]

I was first introduced to the concept of Disadvantages over a decade ago at a gaming convention, when someone described their Fantasy Hero character and I thought "Wow, that's really cool, but there's no way you can do that with D&D."  Since then I've favored systems with Disadvantages and I haven't looked back.

And neither has the game industry.  In addition to Hero and BESM, which Bjorn has mentioned, there are also Gurps, Shadowrun, the various games from White Wolf, and Alderac's D10 titles.  It's even there in lesser form in the D20 System.  For example, dwarves in that system have certain penalties to some stats and they can't run as fast as most other PC races.  These are Disadvantages, though on the racial as opposed to individual level.

The only major roleplaying game I recall at the moment that doesn't use them is RIFTS.  They probably never will, since their management seems to operate under the belief that their system is perfect, not realizing that the title of a recent release "Dinosaur Swamp" is a rather good description for the system itself.

As a player, I have enjoyed them, because Disadvantages gave me a reward for detailing my character, making them more than just a collection of stats.  Many systems also allow for this in play, by giving additional experience for playing in character.

As a gamemaster, I've preferred systems with Disadvantages.  It gives me a handle on the characters, so I know the characters should act in certain ways.  This allows me to create logical story hooks that should draw the characters in.  It also helps me to determine if certain characters will be unsuitable for the campaign.  This is somewhat similar to Alignment Systems, except with more flexibility for both player and game master.

To my understanding, at least, the extra points are supposed to balance out the penalties of the chosen Disadvantage, making it essentially a zero-sum game.

My understanding and experience has been it is not fully a zero sum game.  After all, if we want to encourage players spend the time and effort to take those Disadvantages there should be some tradeoff.

Players who take a coherent set of Disadvantages that match the character concept will gain slightly more than they lose.  Players who try to twink the character by just taking the biggest Disadvantages end up with more problems than they gain in power or ability.

For example, the recommended Disadvantage Limit in Gurps is 40 points.  One GM allowed unlimited Disadvantages.  Some of us took 35-50 points in Disadvantages.  Some of them took 80-100 points in disadvantages.  The second group was slightly more powerful, but they also died a lot, pulled down by the weight of their own disadvantages.

Not only that, but players that don't max out Disadvantages produce characters that play appreciably "weaker."

My experience has been that taking too many Disadvantages is far worse.

And even if the character with Disadvantages is weaker, that was a player choice.  I prefer that to random character creation, where luck of the dice can ensure my character is appreciably weaker than someone else's character.

And, honestly, the characters with less Disadvantages are more likely to be interesting, consistent characters.  In other words, Disadvantages punish good role-playing, in my experience.

IMO, Disadvantages can only be said to punish good roleplaying if the characters with no Disadvantages are the most interesting, consistent characters.  In my experience, players who take no Disadvantages in a system that allows them come in a few categories.

Players who are too lazy to create a background for their character.  This is the stereotypical 'Fred-the-Fighter'.  If the character dies, expect to see Fred II as the next character, with identical stats and personality, if there's any personality at all.

Players who want no ties to the game world, the other PCs, or the plot.  In most cases, they're a useless bunch that shouldn't be gamed with.  The exception is players who got burned by GMs who abused previous attempts by the player to interact with the game world.

Players who have no desire to play a consistent character.  In D20 terms, they change alignments at the drop of a hat, based on personal whim or profit.

Now let me attempt to address some of your specific concerns.

Sometimes they just don't come up, like "distinctive appearance."

I'm not understanding this example, because Distinctive Appearance always comes up, at least if it is distinctive.  One of my Shadowrunners is going to have a great deal of problems with this.

But I think I understand what you're driving at.  To quote Champions, "a Disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage is worth no points".   If a GM let a PC get points for  'Cannot Swim' in a campaign set on Dune, that's the GM's fault, not the system's.  If a player tries to get points for 'Cannot Swim' in a campaign set on Dune, that's the player's fault, not the system's.

Others are hard or unpleasant to enforce, like codes of conduct (who wants to have a philosophical and ethical debate as a regular part of their game?).

Most codes of honor that I've seen are clearly and concisely stated, with little room for debate.  Alignments, the other popular method for predicting character behavior and determining if actions are in character, are prone to a lot more debate.  For example, some people consider Chaotic Neutrals to be independent free spirits while others think they're amoral sociopaths.  Some people insist Lawful Good = Lawful Stupid.  If player and GM hold differing views, there will be problems.

And then there are those really aggravating ones, like rivals or dependent NPCs, that require the GM to actually build part of the story around them.

As GM, I'm going to be building a story anyway.  Bringing in a properly designed rival or a dependant requires trivial effort, makes PC involvement in the story more credible, and makes it more personal for the player, which helps them interact with both setting and NPCs.

The short of it is, even if you only have three PCs with two flaws apiece, that's six vulnerabilities that you, as a GM, have to try to exploit on a regular basis.  If you don't, then those Disadvantages were just free points.

This is a legitimate concern, but I find it less of a problem than you do.

Some Disadvantages don't have to be exploited.  If the character is blind or in a wheelchair, for example, those disadvantages will be felt unless the campaign is very unusual.

And good players will be playing their Disadvantages.  Actually, even smart points-mongers will be playing their disadvantages.  After all, you generally get more experience for acting in character.

In my case, I find a simple sheet listing Player, Character, and Disadvantages perfectly adequate.

For example
Nate – Echo
Disads – Distinctive looks: Elven catgirl with cybertail, Day Job: Stripper, Mild Phobia: Spiders, Mild Allergy: Sunlight, Mild Compulsion: Treasure Hunting, Hunted: Pirate Family

James – Shortbow
Disads – Day Job: Charter Boat, Pacifist, Mild Phobia: Underground

Note that the 1st player is a twink-wannabee.  I told them that Distinctive Looks, a Day Job (where they're at a predicable place at predictable times), and a Hunter was a bad combo.  ^_^

So how do you, as a GM, deal with this issue?  An obvious answer is to be careful during character creation, but this only goes so far, and encourages arguments with your players during creation.

In my experience, it doesn't encourage arguments, except from players prone to arguing with the GM during the game anyway.  That type of player, if they didn't have arguments over Disadvantages, would have arguments over stats, skills, powers, or equipment instead.   Actually, they normally do anyway.

Frequently, logic is enough.  Besides, someone who won't accept that 'Cannot swim' is not a disadvantage in a Dune based campaign is someone I don't want to play with.  If logic doesn't work, the Evil GM Smile and comments about how much fun you'll have with the Disadvantage can.  ^_^

For the campaign I'm thinking about starting, I'm actually granting no points for Disadvantages; partly for the reasons above, partly because of the nature of the game, and partly as an experiment.

That's an interesting idea.  Please let me know how the experiment went.

[Edward]

Extra points comparatively to your fellow players is almost universally going to cause unbalance no matter how you swing it and working in a reward system that encourages a lack of balance for taking disadvantages is just asking for trouble.

For contrast, let me note that systems with random character generation inherently cause imbalance.  Nor do disadvantages in point based systems inherently cause imbalance, presuming the characters all have approximately equal amounts of disadvantages.

What imbalance I've seen with point based systems has occurred when characters took too many Disadvantages.  That tended to produce powerful, but fragile characters.

The whole logic behind rewarding players for role playing in that regard is stupid.  Dune hits on this slightly.  He's right, players should be in it for the role playing.

I find this no odder than rewarding people with experience/karma/whatever for roleplaying during the game.  After all, they should be in it for the roleplaying, so why should the GM reward them for actually roleplaying?

Let's face it, role playing is a group experience.  You can't punish just one player.  Why?  Because the other players are almost certainly relying on them.  So if their disad is a disad, it's usually not going to harm them, but them and all those other players who aren't getting points for it.

I understand where you're coming from, though I feel you have overstated the case.  Personally, I've had far more problems from fellow PCs doing stupid or impulsive things, than from their characters' Disadvantages.

But while Disadvantages can affect the whole party, they affect the character that has them more.  To pick an extreme example, the Justice League will be minus one of their heavy hitters if the villain has kryptonite, but Superman is toast if the others don't do something.

But that doesn't mean they whine about Supes letting the team down.  In fact, it can help build a relationship between him and the rest of the team, as he knows there are times when he must depend, not on his powers, but on the rest of the team.

And besides, he knows Green Lantern's going to need his help next issue when the villain has a yellow costume.

As I said, that's an extreme example but it has applications.  Used properly, Disadvantages can build team unity.

Not that they can't be misused.  A GM that throws every disadvantage at the party at once is definitely misusing the system, unless he has specifically planned weaker opposition.

Players can misuse this too.  We had a Shadowrun PC who got a lot of points for being Hunted as well as having an associated Dark Secret.  The player was making no effort to deal with the problem.  Further, due to the PC's actions on the last run, he'd almost got the whole team killed multiple times on the last run.  We chose to solve the problem by selling the PC back to the people hunting him, thus maintaining our PCs health and freedom.

On the obvious note, setting up a system that demands the GM punishes the players is masochistic at best.

First, I feel the word punish is an overstatement.  The player voluntarily took this flaw.  Having occasional thunderstorms in a setting where one PC is afraid of them is no more punishing the player than insisting that a blind character can't read the scroll, or pointing out the D20 dwarf will be left behind if the party flees from the monster.

Second, I'm not aware of a system that doesn't do this.  Any system that rewards PCs with more experience for acting in character or punishes them for acting OOC by giving less experience is as system that demands the GM punish the players.  Any system with the concept of alignment violation is a system that demands the GM punish the players.

What should be done instead of a point based reward system is a more subtle GM approval system.  Work with your players to build characters AND to include faults in them.  I know I normally do this anyway, but it's a pain defining it in some sort of reward based scheme.  It's far simpler to sit down with the GM, talk out what kind of environment the world is in, consider what player you are playing and come up with some weak points.

While I think this is an interesting idea, it requires more time for character creation from both player and GM.  It also requires more experience with roleplaying and more maturity.

And it doesn't eliminate many of the complaints leveled at Disadvantages.

Don't 'number' them.  That's pretty silly too.  Do you number your faults?

Roleplayers do it all the time.  My Dwarven Cleric's base land speed was only 20 feet.  My friend's ½ Orc Ranger had a –2 to two of his stats.  My brother's 1st Edition Dwarven Fighter had a Wisdom of 4.

Face it, we number everything about our characters – stats, skills, powers, advantages, levels, experience, damage.  It's a tool used to quantify our characters so we can have rules to the game.

Do you get advantages because you are unatheletic?  No.

Admittedly, this is less realistic.  In a points based system, even without Disadvantages, choosing to spend less points on Health/Constitution/Body means you have more points to spend on Intelligence.

But this kind of tradeoffs are present in all RPGs.  In the D20 system, if I choose to play a Wizard, I will gain powers he can't have, but I won't be able to take as much damage, which is a tradeoff like the one I just listed.

But it's not a realistic tradeoff, either.   Hit Points represent the ability to take or avoid physical punishment, and can include divine favor or luck.  Obviously, only so many Hit Points can credibly be considered ability to take or avoid punishment.  So why do the gods like high level fighters more than high level wizards.?

The answer, of course, is game balance.  If a character takes a weakness in one area, the game system gives them more in another area, whether that be Disadvantages giving extra points or Elves getting +2 Dexterity to make up for their –2 Constitution.

A person consists of capabilities, talents, emotions, and faults.  This is what should be encouraged.  You want to limit the capabilities of the players and keep them somewhat even so that no player feels impotent in the gaming environment and no player is overwhelmingly powerful.  You want to encourage detailing out personal weak points NOT for 'points' but for role playing specifically.

Excellent advice.  While it can be abused, I find Disadvantages a useful tool for both player and GM to achieve this, by quantifying the process and making it explicit.  Maybe you have a better bowman than the other PCs, but it cost you something.  Perhaps you got the training by joining a specific organization (Duty, Vow, and/or Code of Honor), perhaps your social skills have suffered because your focus (Obsession: Be the best bowman in the world), or perhaps circumstances have forced you to become that good to maintain your freedom (Hunted: Sheriff of Nottingham)

You need to pass along that this is part of a well rounded character and make it part of the character design process.  A part of it where you ask: "Okay, the character is cool, but what are his weak areas?  He's damned good at shooting, but what did he give up along his road to get so good?  What problems trouble him?"

This is excellent advice for multiple reasons.  The most interesting characters, whether in literature or games have both strengths and weaknesses.  And IMO the weaknesses are more important, as they both make the character more sympathetic, and give them reasons to depend on and interact with other characters.

How it should be: First you come up with concept.  Then you come up with what are the benefits of the concept.  Then you come up with what are the weak points of the concept.

That's one of several methods of creating characters and it's definitely a good one.   Once I have a concept, I look at the system's Disadvantage list first, looking for ones that fit the character.   Then I'll figure what advantages and skills fit the concept.

Regardless of method, one should also consider weak points that aren't inherent to a concept.  Robin Hood being hunted by the Sheriff of Nottingham is central to the concept.  Indiana Jones being afraid of snakes is not.

Those Disadvantage lists can also prove useful, whether you're using points or not, as they can spark ideas.   One GM ran a pulp era GURPS game with a touch of horror – three parts Indiana Jones one part Call of Cthulhu.   I was stuck for a character concept, so I read through the Disadvantage list, and spotted One Arm, a Disadvantage I hadn't taken before.

Obviously, that's not the most promising start for character creation.  But  I asked 'Why is this character missing an arm?, 'How would that effect them?, 'Why would a one armed man be adventuring?"  Answering those questions helped create both character backstory and goals and provided reasons for other disadvantages, skills, etc.

Note that I was able to do all that without spending time with the GM to work out all the character's strengths and weaknesses, because there was an explicit system for Disadvantages in the game.  Instead, I was able to present him with a complete character, including background and goals, which he could then examine to see if it would fit in the game as is or needed modifying.

[Edward]

It wasn't terminally unbalanced.  It was just a noticible difference in the mechanics.  It simply was an observation over the course of a lot of sessions, that the small advantage tended to roll over into being a visible bit better than the rest of the characters in the party.  It was in D&D 3rd ed though, and the ability of an extra point here and there to push a player into a slightly different category of being able to do things is fairly high.

Based on my experience with D&D, I'd be quite happy to have a character with only 1 less point in stats than the other characters.  That's noticably less imbalancing than any game of it I ever played.

Of course, I'm also not a big fan of retributive xp penalties for folks that don't show up aside from warnings and just 'okay, your out'.

My impression was he was just saying players only got XPs for sessions they attended, not that they recieved additional penalties for not attending.

Because in my mind it tends to have the effect of: "Okay, I missed a couple of sessions and now everyone else is kickass and I'm a level or three behind and lameo.  Bleh.  I'll probably put even less effort into this as I feel out of place and soon drop out."

I'm not used to a game progression where a character could be that badly behind after only missing a few sessions.   Do you go for very rapid character advancement in your games?

[Bjorn]

Edward has made some very good points.  Certainly, I have no desire to go back to randomly-generated characters (even grand old Method V), and it would take a lot to bait me back to a class-based system over a point-based system.

Perhaps the question I should have asked, then, is: what, exactly, are Disadvantages supposed to accomplish?  As far as I can see, there are two possible answers.

1) Disadvantages provide free extra character points.  I think we can safely agree that nobody will claim to hold this viewpoint (even if, of course, they secretly do. ;)

2) Disadvantages encourage/reward good role-playing. This is almost certainly true, from the designer's viewpoint, and it is, generally speaking, true.  The problem I have with it is that it implicitly suggests that good role-playing is the same as crippling your character.  I can (and like to think I have) write well fleshed-out, interesting backgrounds, perfectly in line with my character's concept, with hooks for the GM to take advantage of or ignore at his discretion, that do not suggest any Disadvantages (or only a small one) whatsoever.

Now, it's all about role-playing, so I should be happy, right?  As Edward said, it was my decision to choose not to use Disadvantages, or to use very few.  At the same time, though, it might mean that my character was built with, say, 10 points less than everybody else in the group, simply for the way I chose to roleplay (rather than a lack thereof).

(And to clarify a point, I never meant to discuss the case where a player takes too many Disadvantages.  That's obviously a self-resolving issue.  I was thinking more of the case where one player chooses to take less Disadvantages than the rest of the party; to use the numbers from your example, imagine a player who had only taken, say, 15 points of Disadvantages, compared to the 35-50 range of the "good" players.   This is also what I mean by Disadvantages "punishing" good role-players; not that good role-players do not take Disadvantages (which can happen, but admittedly rarely), but that good role-players will take Disadvantages according to their character concept, which may well be less than the maximum cap.  Conversely, a twinking player will always choose Disadvantages up to the cap.)

As a player, then, I have problems with Disadvantages because it forces me to choose between roleplaying the way I like, and having a character comparable in power to the rest of the party -- perhaps a munchkiny sort of attitude, but I'll be frank: part of the fun in a game for me is playing an effective character.

From the GM's perspective, what this discussion has made me think is that Disadvantages are more or less useful depending on the genre.  In a superhero campaign, for example, which is episodic in nature with high-powered characaters, Disadvantages are key -- they're really what the plot tends to focus around.  On the other hand, Disadvantages have much less of a place in a fantasy epic, where the broad strokes of the story tends to exist independently of the background of the characters, where base power levels tend not to be so high to begin with, and where serious hero limitations just aren't really a bit part of the genre.  And in Wanna-Be Overlords, with a pretty clear likelihood of PvP, it's just flat-out not something you want in the game, unless you're sure that it will be zero-sum.

It still leaves you with the problems I pointed out before -- making sure that Disadvantages come up during play, and making sure that points for Disadvantages are reasonable given their effect on the campaign, but these are comparatively minor, and choosing a Disadvantage cap appropriately makes them less of an issue.

But what this discussion hasn't done is help me resolve what I see, both as player and as GM, is the major issue of Disadvantages: that it only rewards one type of roleplaying.  The only alternative I see -- awarding points for good backstories that aren't covered by Disadvantages -- is pretty biased and qualitative, and the sort of thing I'd generally prefer to avoid.

[Bjorn]

As a player, I have enjoyed them, because Disadvantages gave me a reward for detailing my character, making them more than just a collection of stats.  Many systems also allow for this in play, by giving additional experience for playing in character.

As I said, the problem I have is that they only reward a particular way of detailing a character, which can be kind of counter-productive.

To give a particular example, in a fantasy campaign I played in once, I created a character for whom I purchased the power "ages at half normal speed."  He was an orphan who'd never known his parents, who had been wandering from city to city as long as he could remember -- he didn't know why he aged slower than everyone else.  

I like to think it's a pretty good concept, and it provides an open-ended hook for the GM (which, as a player, I prefer, because then it means the GM gets to surprise me).  But it's detailing through a power (and not a very useful one at that), not a Disadvantage.

As a gamemaster, I've preferred systems with Disadvantages.  It gives me a handle on the characters, so I know the characters should act in certain ways.  This allows me to create logical story hooks that should draw the characters in.  It also helps me to determine if certain characters will be unsuitable for the campaign.  This is somewhat similar to Alignment Systems, except with more flexibility for both player and game master.

These are both very good points.

Players who take a coherent set of Disadvantages that match the character concept will gain slightly more than they lose.  Players who try to twink the character by just taking the biggest Disadvantages end up with more problems than they gain in power or ability.

For example, the recommended Disadvantage Limit in Gurps is 40 points.  One GM allowed unlimited Disadvantages.  Some of us took 35-50 points in Disadvantages.  Some of them took 80-100 points in disadvantages.  The second group was slightly more powerful, but they also died a lot, pulled down by the weight of their own disadvantages.

My point is perhaps summarized by the question: were there any players who took 15-20 points of Disadvantages?

That's really the crux of the issue.  My gut feeling is that if players, regardless of roleplaying ability, are always choosing Disadvantages up to the cap, then the system is failing as a method for rewarding good role-playing.

And even if the character with Disadvantages is weaker, that was a player choice.  I prefer that to random character creation, where luck of the dice can ensure my character is appreciably weaker than someone else's character.

I don't know that I agree.  If the cap is 40 points, and my concept/background has only led to 25 points of Disadvantages, what are my choices?  Have a weaker character, modify the concept to come up with another 10-15 points of Disadvantages, or start from scratch.  

As a, say, 1st Ed. AD&D GM, if I see two fighter characters, one who has stats well below the other one, I can give the weak fighter a chance to reroll, to allow him to be "competitive" with the other fighter.  If I'm a Champions GM, and I see two brawler heroes, one of who has another 25 CP in Disadvantages over the other one, what are my options?  I know that the weaker character is going to have problems with not being over-shadowed by the other player, but the only option I have is to tell the player that he'll need to change his concept, one way or the other.

Now, I'm obviously playing Devil's Advocate here -- the situation is rarely as bad as I'm making it out to be.  Character overlap is probably the fundamental problem in the cases above, rather than Disadvantages.  But I think a big factor in the growing dominance of point-based games is the fact that they let players all start off on an even footing, and that Disadvantages work contrary to that goal.

IMO, Disadvantages can only be said to punish good roleplaying if the characters with no Disadvantages are the most interesting, consistent characters.  In my experience, players who take no Disadvantages in a system that allows them come in a few categories.

Again, I think it's not the issue of "no Disadvantages" so much as the issue of "less Disadvantages."  There is a balance here -- as you say, 100 points of Disadvantages is a huge problem compared to, say, 40.  But on the other hand, 40 isn't much more punitive than 20, but you've got those extra 20 points.

Your assessment of "players who take no Disadvantes" is spot-on.  The contrast, however, is this.   Bad role-players, in my experience, either take no Disadvantages (your given categories), or they take the cap (twinks) -- and in my gaming experience, there are far more twinks than there are Fred the Fighters.   Conversely, it is *never* a given how many Disadvantages a good role-player will take.

The only players who might think of taking, say, half the cap in Disadvantages are good role-players.  That's why I say good role-players are punished by the Disadvantage system.

But I think I understand what you're driving at.  To quote Champions, "a Disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage is worth no points".   If a GM let a PC get points for  'Cannot Swim' in a campaign set on Dune, that's the GM's fault, not the system's.  If a player tries to get points for ?Cannot Swim? in a campaign set on Dune, that?s the player?s fault, not the system?s.

This is all very true.  The problem is the examples that are not so clear-cut, like a code of honour that says, "Must always behave as a proper British gentleman" for a policeman in a campaign set in Victorian England.  By the guidelines given by the book, it's quite a large Disadvantage.  On the other hand, given the setting, while it is limiting, it's not that big a deal -- policemen are supposed to act that way, regardless.  So how many points is it actually worth?

Being judicious with Disadvantages can even, in extreme cases, spoil the plot.  Let's say you were creating a campaign about space pirates, and one of your players chose Distinctive Appearance -- a valid Disadvantage.  But the main plot of the campaign that you'd planned involved stranding the players on a low-tech world that had never seen humans before.  In that context, the Disadvantage is meaningless -- but telling that to the player at creation is a bit of a spoiler.

Others are hard or unpleasant to enforce, like codes of conduct (who wants to have a philosophical and ethical debate as a regular part of their game?).

Most codes of honor that I've seen are clearly and concisely stated, with little room for debate.

Then I obviously need to be more strict with my players, which is a valid criticism.

And the Alignment system sucks, by far and away.

As GM, I?m going to be building a story anyway.  Bringing in a properly designed rival or a dependant requires trivial effort, makes PC involvement in the story more credible, and makes it more personal for the player, which helps them interact with both setting and NPCs.

As I said in the post above, I think this depends greatly on the nature and genre of the campaign.

I don't think Disadvantages are anywhere so flawed a system as my arguments probably make it appear.  On the converse, I think it's a step above the older systems -- I just wish I knew how to deal with the problems I see with it.  

Out of this discussion, then, I think these are the general policies which I'm going to try out:

1) Greatly reduce the maximum cap on Disadvantages for most genres.  Not only does this help remove the imbalance for taking less than the maximum, I suspect it will tend to lead to more interesting character concepts.  To use one of your own examples, Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes, and memorable because of it.  Would he have been as interesting if he'd been afraid of snakes, had claustrophobia, lactose intolerance, a compulsion to go look at any historical artifacts, and a job as a University professor that he couldn't blow off at will?

2) Vet the proposed Disadvantages carefully.  I try do this already, but perhaps I need to be even more careful.

3) Insist that Disadvantages are *bonus* points, not base points.  Therefore, players have to submit a version of their character using only the allocated base points before discussing with me what Disadvantages they're going to take, and however many points that will provide them with.  Being forced to come up with a viable, workable concept before Disadvantages will, I hope, help discourage the habit of taking Disadvantages simply to get the character they want.  (This is also a habit I should strictly enforce upon myself as a player.)

[Dracos]

Well, Bjorn responded in a more eloquent and diplomatic way then my tongue is able to and I agree with pretty much everything he said.

I'll just chime in that I agree quite strongly with the notion that one of the larger strengths of point based systems is getting most characters off to a pretty even footing.  The lack of this is one of the great weaknesses of D&D and such, no matter how they word it on 'role playing' wise (I tend to be pretty ridiculously lucky with stat rolls but I can't count the times I've watched fun players just get annoyed at the fact they are totally outclassed by one or two folks on the time from the initial stat rolls on or that they write a concept and then find the dice rolls for stats disagree with it).  Bonus points may be one way to handle it, but having a variable number of points each player gets (especially in the situations bjorn referenced for example) tends to play more against this strength then for it.

Dracos

[Ranmilia]

Eeevil.

But I think a big factor in the growing dominance of point-based games is the fact that they let players all start off on an even footing, and that Disadvantages work contrary to that goal.

This statement pretty much sums up my feelings on the issue.  Consider an example:  Two characters, both spellcasters, one of whom has a character concept that calls for having only one arm.  In a system with Disadvantages, this character will certainly get points from this, which he can spend on spellcasting abilities.  And then... all other things being equal, the healthy caster can never be as good at magic as the caster with one arm.  While this might make sense from a pure game balance perspective, it's just absurd when looking at character creation and advancement.  If a player wants their character to be good at something, it doesn't matter how hard they roleplay it or what proportion of their points they sink into it - they will always be outclassed by any other characters who do the same thing but have taken more disadvantages.  In a nutshell, a disadvantages point system heavily penalizes players who want to play characters without disadvantages (or with very few of them).  Look at it the other way around - if the system gives you 30 points to spend, and you can get 30 more from disadvantages, the real base is 60 points, and players who do not take disadvantages are being penalized - for every single disadvantage in the book, they're essentially paying X points to not have it, up to the cap.  
While this system sends the message "You should take some disadvantages and flesh out your character" to people who wouldn't otherwise, to experienced RPers that message turns into "You must take disadvantages or your character will be weak."

Course, the real question is what to do about this.  I've yet to run a game in a point-based system myself (and this is part of the reason why), but if I did... I'd probably just not give points for disadvantages, period.  Encourage the players to take ones that fit their character concept, but don't give them anything extra stat-wise for it.  Yes, this can lead to character imbalance the other way around - but I find that the real issue with character imbalance arises when the imbalance is positive.  Players tend to get mad when their characters get heavily overshadowed by someone else's, regardless of how many disadvantages the overshadower is packing - but they don't get nearly as upset when their character gets hit hard by several disadvantages when other characters aren't packing as many.  At least, not in my admittedly limited experience with such systems.