I would like them all to be from different nations, too. Just imagine 2 Zukos convincing each other that their nations way is flawed and they need to find a better path by thinking for themselves.
I feel like DnD has been a more useful tool for therapy than almost anything else available. Being able to form a narrative about the things that hurt you is basically the end-goal of therapy for trauma, and DnD is perfect for that.
@@Jane-oz7pp Hi! Licensed therapist here. You are absolutely correct, and there's even a lot of cool research and DnD therapy groups coming out to prove it.
@@Tomyironmane Definitely! For anyone struggling with social anxiety or autism, it's a great way to learn interactions with others while having some protections since your interacting as an "avatar." It's also been shows to be cathartic for military veterans as a way to explore their reactions to trauma while still flaunting their tactical skills.
@@Jane-oz7pp When it comes to perfectionism it can take many forms. Dom could have one of the more minor forms. Edit: Also perfectionists aren't a perfectionist about everything. I'm a perfectionist about my schoolwork and art. While others are perfectionists about fashion or organization, it really depends on the person. None of them are any less or any more perfectionist then another.
Knew a girl like that once - very charming and friendly, intelligent, interesting, a social butterfly. But when the cafeteria-cashier didn´t like her she was crushed. It was kinda adorable... but also rediculous. I told her so. She was pouting. Even more adorable, but also laughable. Not everybody will love you no matter how likeable I and most people find you etc, etc.. For this kind of character, though, a nightmare +grin+
I have had a similar idea for a while. Cleric to a CN goddess of luck that keeps getting in trouble because of bad luck(deep in debt), to much good luck(broke the house and owners are pissed), or smashing up gambling houses because evidence of the house cheating was found(how dare they defy the will of lady luck)
I remember starting out a campaign and playing a shy, curious, and very unaware sorcerer. As in they would ask what a "fork" is, what does "failure" mean, and what's a "dog". The sessions where he learned about basic things were always pretty fun, I enjoyed role-playing that sense of bewilderment. But he was also extremely dense, which got us in trouble plenty of times. And everyone made jokes about how "Oh, Tater's just gonna play a well-to-do kid this campaign. Kind of basic for him, but whatever.". They didn't pick up on how he didn't like being in rooms with the windows and doors closed, or that he was always hungry even after a meal. Then that changed when our Warlock summoned a demon and my sorcerer proceeded to use magic to hold down and eat the demon's throat. He turned around after eating a sizable chunk of the demon, looked at the other party members (soaked in blood), and said "Did I do something wrong?". My party promptly derailed the campaign immediately to find out what that was. They found out that my boy was born an Aasimar, were sold to a wizard, was stuck in a cage for his entire life and got experimented on with Shadowfell and Demonic blood until they became a Fallen Aasimar and Shadow Magic Sorcerer.
Flaw: "I don't believe I'm worthy of love. I strive to always be helpful to people I want to like me because I know they won't stay unless they need me."
I like the sage background flaw "most people run when they see a demon, I stop to take notes on it's anatomy" I love the idea of a character who's so fascinated by unnatural creatures that they could end up in harm's way or not wanting to harm a potentially dangerous creature so they can study them
DUDE THANKS FOR REMINDING ME OF THIS! I've got a little tabaxi gal living in high north, as-of-yet unexplored-by-many-outsiders mountains, and her pelt is too thick for her to move closer to modern D&D societies. So, all she does is tend to her mountain sheep, hunt and gather, and a lil rudimentary cartography as she explores her dangerous home! I ALREADY wrote in her traits that she's fascinated by exotic buildings and animals, so this is RIGHT UP HER ALLY! Every few months an adventurer will find their way to her corner of the mountains, so she certainly could have been taught how to 'take notes on anatomy,' even though her notes will be useless to anyone but her XD. She's fairly cautious, but honestly, she's met a lot of races and animals that were otherworldly to her, and if she doesn't associate the demon with a cautionary tale from her kittenhood, she'll not even consider that it might want to eat her ears.
For my current bard, I went with the classic performer flaw "I once satirized a noble who still wants my head. It was a mistake that I will likely repeat." Over time, a really fun complementary flaw developed for my character: She can't help telling people her name if they just saw her do something cool and they ask. Which is something that you should not do when you are trying to go low-profile. This last session, the party got sent to the Feywild, and she knows you aren't supposed to tell the Fey your name, but gods, it is gonna be hard for her.
I made a mastermind rogue who grew up poor and had to fend for himself for most of his life. He was manipulative, hot headed, and tended to bite off more than he could chew. When he got in over his head he deflected the problem to others. After a couple of sessions I hated playing him so I made a decision that he no longer wanted to be a shitty person. Slowly over sessions he matured and even became a very responsible person.....also he became a king.
What I love about character flaws is that they give us an opportunity to have an 'arc' in the story, whether redemptive or otherwise. Being consumed by your flaws can be just as narratively satisfying as overcoming them.
I love that you responded to realizing you had an un-fun character by giving him an arc that frankly sounds like the kind of story people have been loving for centuries
me: ooh, nice, let's finally get some help figuring out what actual character flaw my character could have Ginny: think about their goals, and what's stopping them from achieving it me: oh shit what are their goals
Their flaw is that they have no life goals. Their lack of purpose causes them over compensate in all aspects of their life. They are indecisive and tend to procrastinate. Their lack of drive causes them to fail frequently in their plans even though they over compensate.
@@tylorclark3520 That is how I build all my BBEG's. The BBEG's flaw is always a weakness, a chink in their armor if the characters can figure it out. Sometimes it is the only weakness. Knowing the flaw and motivations it causes allows me to give cryptic messages and answers to divination and information gathering spells and attempts. A pyromaniac obsessed with watching everything burn to ash also suffers from pyrophobia. He enjoys the spectacle of fire, but is terrified he will be burnt, so has others set the fires so he may watch. His main weakness is his fear of fire. If the players can figure it out, they have an advantage against him. Through divination the players may receive a message like "A fear of fire removed, hell shall reign on earth."
I had a character i really liked who couldn't lie. She also didn't expect anyone else to, since that would be against gaining knowledge, witch she assumed everyone wanted most. However, she as extremely charming and persuasive, and if you somehow managed to get her suspicious, she was actually very good at seperating lies from the truth. she got into some very strange and fun shenanigans.
Due to personal reasons involving a war art brand America’s got talent but the judges were all self proclaimed diviner’s, my entertainer aasimar bard believes that every diviner is either delusional, intentionally lying , or only telling her parts that they want her to hear. Since she likes her teammates, when they do it she assumes it’s the former.
My character is similar; brutally honest and refuses to lie. To counter, they'd just repetitively say "dontsayitdontsayitdont-" or in an emergency, won't speak at all. I think brutally honest people tend to just..be rude, so I also have them *need* to complement someone if they like their outfit (or something similar).
When you mentioned the stingy generous guild artisan I immediately thought "They're that person that orders lobster on someone else's dime" so thanks for giving me an idea for a potential character.
I created a reclusive druid who was so used to having no one to talk to but animals that he was referring to himself in the second person when the group found him (instead of "I am a druid" it was "you are a druid"). Those in the party who were not confused were laughing hysterically
I remember watching something from Anna Akana about how our flaws tend to be mirrors of ours strengths. Like honesty can be seen as too blunt. Anxiety is seen as calculated risk assessment. Someone who can be controlling can both be a good leader and coordinator, but can spiral or be thrown off when things don't go their way.
My sister is playing a character who spent most of her life trying to train to be a wizard and failing miserably, because she didn't realize that she was a sorcerer and her magic didn't work like that. So far her character still hasn't realized what she is, even though she keeps accidentally electrocuting people. Meanwhile my character, who was raised in an intolerant order and was taught to be suspicious of anyone who is different, suspects that she's hiding that she's really a warlock in league with some evil patron.
I’ve found that flaws are really fun to have as a player. Here’s the flaws I’ve had. Alwin - A large lack of determination. He has to be dragged around. Halcyon - Hates taking lives (sort of a flaw because this is DnD we’re talking about) Farre - Obsessive hoarder (this was my favorite to roleplay. Also finding excuses to take useless or even harmful things) Colta - He bottles up emotions and lets them out on friends Vastithe - Lack of understand about basic morals (as you can imagine this results in tons of issues)
I like these, especially Farre, Colta and Vasithe. Some of my own favourites: Arlo - Attachment. His ability (and habit) of making incredibly strong emotional bonds very quickly is a double-edged sword, and is essentially a set of puppet strings just begging to be pulled. Shrike - Urge to fix. Their artificer skills are incredibly handy, but they see a broken object or a bad situation and have a compulsion to "fix" it, even if there's no real way to actually fix things. Magnus - An inability to leave something be that goes against his moral compass, even if doing so might help in the long run. Alistair - Lack of finesse. Once you start wielding a giant hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Do not bring in refined company. Valk - Cynicism. There's always an ulterior motive, and that's never the last of them.
My favorite flaw I ever did for a character was my thief rogue, one Doctor Alexander Hampton. His flaw was “he has to save everyone” He hears screaming of fear and pain in the distance, he’s about to full action and bonus action dash over there. It doesn’t matter if it’s a terrible idea, he can’t stand the thought of losing another patient because he didn’t try hard enough.
My top 5 characters I've ever played: 1: Inquisitor in 40K, mistrustful to the point she couldn't work with anyone she wasn't lording over. 2: Sorceress in D&D: she hates violence and never killed a soul until the BBG forced her to, after which she was scared of using any potentially lethal spells. 3: Druidess in D&D: She was quick to anger and easily resorted to violence, which was funny because the group's barbarian searching for enlightenment was the one having to hold back the tiny little wood elf druidess so she wouldn't summon a bunch of woodland creatures. 4: Exiled Jedi padawan, doesn't want to lose anyone, so when his friends were in danger, he was quick to resort to the Dark Side. 5: Cyberpunk 2020: A netrunner who wanted to become the best even if it meant betraying their netrunner allies. He got a few brains fried by leaving a back door to some police. In the end he started to make amends because he realized the fault in his ways, even though he was never caught or even suspected. I remember those characters so well even after a decade or more, whereas I hardly remember most of the less flawed/fleshed out characters I had during the years. Flaws make up the stories for characters.
#4 reminds me of a Star Wars campaign I was once in where another padawan was on the path to the dark side because she kept having to use it to save my character from her own botched combat rolls.
I’m also playing a character who never kills people, but she’s an aasimar and her angelic patron is a war angel so she’ll constantly argue with her and sometimes a fallen enemy gets the opportunity to escape because of it.
OK, I'd love to play with you!!!! All the others aside, I always had a real problem imagining / mentaly realising netrunners in cyberpunk (or shadowrun)... those "asides" always took up so much time that my fellow players just got bored... and I really didn't get much out of them. Any tips on how to enter "Cyberspace" without disrupting the game? I'm assuming this where Assistant GM's kick in? But I've tried many times... it never feels right. What is essentially a microsecond to you is 4 hours to them (I'm making those figures up) but in real life - you just spent 4 hours hacking a government database and your fellow players have gone to the local bar. I'm great at playing anything "Mage" like in any system, but.... for some reason I trip over everytime I try to play a Tech-anything.
While I'm very new to role-playing, I think I might try to have my character learn to overcome his flaws that way: Whenever his flaw spectacularly backfires (say, he ran into combat whithout thinking about strategy and himself or a fellow party member got hurt as a result), he reflects on it a little. Then next time there's an opportunity when his flaw would trigger, I make him roll whether it does or not. That way whenever he learns a bit more about how his flaw doesn't help him or the group, I can decrease the difficulty of the roll do avoid triggering his flaw.
"Damn it I just made Zuko again!" I actually just finished a Katara cosplay photoshoot when you posted this. It's my first ever cosplay so thanks for inspiring me to do this!
My character actually just got over his biggest flaw a few sessions back! He had pyrophobia, fear of fire, to such an extent that he couldn’t take up fire spells or do other things because he was so afraid. He got over it by walking into a fire. It was great.
@@cobiebentley9277 it’s a bit of a story, but luckily for you I write the session notes for my group every week, so I can get you that. (They’re more a storybook retelling of the events than normal session notes). In a moment I will post a reply with the story. It will be written from the perspective of my character, Eyeven Swiftorb.
@@cobiebentley9277 (I hope this all makes sense without all the background info) It’s the night after our trip into the astral plane, and we are in the carriage resting from our trip, though Fireball and Mythrillian were outside of the carriage driving it and keeping watch as we traveled because we had to make up for some lost time. I was meditating when the Eye (the deity he worships) came to me in voice once again and said to me “I know what you are working towards, and you have to most degrees earned it through your dedication, but the way of which you are attempting to achieve it will not work. I shall aid you along your path. Open your eyes.” Keep in mind that at this point, I had every night before going to rest been fabricating from gold to the best of my ability upgrades for my staff to replace the bronze components of my staff in order to make it more powerful as a spellcasting focus. I opened my eyes, and I was standing in an Eye shaped room. There with me stood Khoratari and Artaria. In the center of the room there was a beam of light wherein floated a singular copper key. On the opposite wall to where the 3 of us were standing was a heavy wooden door with a lock on it made of copper. Inscribed thrice over in the languages of Elvish, Common, and Infernal were the instructions, “Take a key and proceed forward. Do not backtrack or else your fate will be tainted, and do not lose your key or you will be forever trapped. Be wary for you will be on your own.” I took the key from the beam of light and when I had removed mine, another one appeared in its place, which Artaria took. I went to the door in the room and unlocked it, pulling it open. There was a swirling portal behind it, and I stepped through the portal. I found that when I emerged I was on a cliff ledge with a bottomless pit in front of me. On the other side of the room was another ledge. On the opposite ledge there was a door and behind me was a door the exact same as the one I had originally gone through. So that I wouldn’t lose my key to the pit, I put it safely inside my bag. Also floating in the air above the pit in the center of the room was some sort of disturbance in the wind, which was otherwize still. I cast mage armor on myself just in case, and then cast fly in order to get to the other side of the pit. My wings pulled into existence around me before spreading out, and I used them to fly across the pit. Once on the other side, the disturbance in the air formulated itself into an air elemental and attacked me, ramming toward me. I striked it with lightning, but the elemental seemed hardly phased by my attack. Well, that’s not entirely true. It was a LOT more mad. It caused a whirlwind that threw me twenty feet out from the ledge over the endless pit. I was getting pretty beat up at this point, So I flew back over to the ledge on the side that I wanted to be on and cast arcane fist for the first time ever, summoning up a fist of blue and lilac ethereal energy and punching the air elemental with it, dealing a bunch of force damage in the process. It was so dazed from that blow (get it? Blow? Because air elemental and you blow air? Nevermind.) that it missed on it’s next attempt to attack me. At that point I punched it one final time with my magical fist and it dissipated into smoke. As soon as it dissipated from existence, I pulled out my key and saw it change in my hand from copper to silver. The lock on the door that I needed to go through was silver. I inserted the key and unlocked the door, proceeding into the next room. The next room was simple enough, though there were words on the wall and a door on the far side of the room. A riddle. The riddle said: “You must. You can. You might. You want. Whatever I do, I decide what you don’t. You fight. You cede. You fly. You give. Whatever you try, I decide how you live. A will. A way. A soul. A heart. Whatever you are I control from the start.” when I finished reading it, I felt a sense of urgency to answer it or else fate in this instance would go against me. I thought hard. The Eye, I guessed? But no. The Eye are far too wize to make themselves the solutions to their own riddle. Or are they? Then, as I felt the time limit closing in on me, I spoke the answer. “Fate!” I cried. I felt the time burden lift off of me and the key in my hand turned from silver to gold. I proceeded toward the door on the far side of the room, unlocked the door, stepped in, and that’s when it happened.
@@cobiebentley9277 I saw the fires. Fires. Everywhere. I was in a 70 foot long and 20 feet wide hallway, but the fire made it so there was only about 10 feet for me to walk through. And I couldn’t see a door at the end. The fire overwhelmed my senses. The heat of it caused me to feel like I was shriveling. I fell to the ground, closed my eyes, and crawled forward, not looking up. But I very quickly began to hurt. I was being cooked alive. But I kept going forward. I refused to stop, for Fate had told me at the beginning of all of this that going back would inevitably be the end of myself. So I got to the end of the hallway. I was almost entirely cooked at this point, barely holding onto my own mortality. I managed to open my eyes. The fires showed no signs of dying down. In fact, I could've sworn that it was bigger. I summoned every last ounce of my will to the forefront, and managed to shakely stand up, and attempted to cast ice storm around me in order to calm the fires, but the ice failed to form due to the heat, and I was left without a wit left in my mind. But somehow, I managed to pull myself together. In the midst of something more terrifying than anything I had ever experienced, I held together and I walked forward, directly into the fire in front of me. And then I walked out the other side. Upon leaving the fire, I felt the most overwhelming and powerful sensation of cold that I had ever experienced in my life. I felt better than I ever had since the fire in the library. I felt fully healed. I no longer feared the fire. I looked down to my hands, and saw my golden key turn to platinum. And there was a door in front of me. I opened the door, and there was a portal on the other side of it. I stepped through. We had all just gone through our final portals and were now together in a room only significant in that there was a well in the center of the room, and in that well was what could only be described as liquid light. On the wall were the words, in Elvish, Common, and Infernal, were the instructions “put in your most prized possession in order to proceed forward.” I, after a second of contemplation, walked up to the well and dropped in my staff, my beloved wizard’s staff. It exploded upon contact with the liquid light. I stepped backward from the well, my fingers reaching slightly towards it. Khoratari stepped up next, and like a fool who wishes to deny the bounds of fate, dropped in an empty glass potion bottle. Her hand caught on fire and began spreading up her body. And this wasn’t some measly fire, this was fire made of that same pure light that the liquid in the well was made of. Serves her right for trying to deny fate it’s course. She very dejectedly threw her true most prized possession, her hexblade. As soon as it touched the light in the well, her hair changed from white to black, and she looked visibly weakend. I could tell she was about ready to cry if she wasn’t so stoic with her emotions. After witnessing this, Artaria stepped up to the well looking very solemn. She untied the ribbon from around her neck, and dropped in her raven pendant, her symbol, the very same I had used to recognise this group as the one the Eye had instructed me to join. I saw a look of steely determination on her face like I had never seen before. A portal opened in the room, a swirling mix of 3 different shades of purple, one slightly desaturated looking, one lilac, and one the exact tone of Artaria’s skin. We all stepped through together. Upon emerging, we found ourselves in a place I had never been before, but felt oddly at home in. The room was that of the shape of an Eye, and had sprawling geometric patterns in the floor that said words in a language I couldn’t read, which means they weren’t in celestial, elvish, common, or sylvan. In the center of the room were two statues of the deities that comprise the Eye, one of Zedes Cator and one of Astrala, each with their hand raised toward the very center of the room, where there was floating in the air without any supports a giant stone sigil of the Eye. Also in the center of the room was a literal pillar of light. The Eye spoke in our minds then and gave us our final directive. “You have done well. I congratulate you. Go to the pillar and receive your gift.” I stepped forward to the pillar of light and reached my hand inside and felt the familiar, yet somehow different, hilt of my staff. My fingers wrapped around the handle and I pulled my hand out. In my hand was the most glorious object I had ever seen. (Reference Eyeven’s Thunderous Quarterstaff sheet for a description of appearance). I raised up the staff and stamped it to the ground. All in the same insant as the staff hitting the ground, a ring of multicolored lightning erupted from the bottom of the staff and began traveling upward. The ring of lightning became two rings, three, four, too many to count. They all circled the diamond orb atop the staff before going into it and shooting upward toward the ceiling. Upon the impact of the lightning bolt with the stone ceiling above us, there was a deafening crack of thunder that were we not in the immortal sanctum of the Eye would have surely done damage to us. I stepped back, happy with my gift. I felt a bit of electricity surge through my arm and looked down on it. I had a new tattoo of a bolt of lightning on the inside of my left forearm. I smiled. (My character’s deity has a thing of giving him tattoos for momentous occasions)
My character's flaw is that she's super naive. If she can convince someone to stop for just one instant, they can just start being good. Right? 😅 Of course not, but it doesn't stop her from trying... She'll also heal the enemy because it's her job to save lives. Her philosophy is that all creatures are "citizens" of reality, not the city, and they are all bound by certain laws; one, that everything lies, but also everything tells a truth: what they are; Two, that all life is worth existing and worth saving; Three, everything has a job, a purpose for doing things for others and themselves and a purpose for existing. Her purpose for existing, her job, is healing others with a smile. "She isn't worth existing if she stopped healing" is similar to what her mother told her when she was younger. We had a break this week but I want to bring this up to the party after we're done with this ogre camp
Reminds me of when my aasimar bard dropped because she used life transference on a cultists, all while her war angel angelic patron berates her as she was making her death saving throws. The cultist stabilized her though before running away. I hope we see him again
@@Spiceodog (same person, that's just my deadname account) aww that's nice. After a harrowing battle with several cultists and running out of spell slots, I checked the fallen for any injured that could be saved. The DM said I spotted one, and I performed a medicine check to stabilize him. While I convinced the artificer to carry him for me, a cultist who surrendered said "oh, siegfried? He's an asshole." Immediately splitting the party on the position of if it was the right thing to do. While I went to sleep straight away when we got back, the rest began arguing loudly once he came to and started spouting cultish nonsense. Some said that they should have me kill him because he's my responsibility, some said that that's barbaric but they couldn't deny that he had no reason for being there. I woke up and came into the room as their argument started to circle back. I denied them when they asked for me to do something, and someone said that I shouldn't heal bad people- I denied the concept. The warlock decided to blast them then and there, but he was counter spelled and as the others got ready to hit him back I released my angel wings and shouted STOP. They did and gave up on that for now. I later released that guy and everyone got mad for a moment before I built up the courage to explain it all to them. He helped us kill the doppelgangers in a church. He told us he'd give up and culting and be a priest for that temple. That's the last thing he said to me, and the last thing I did to him was hug him. Aaaaand then we got dropped out of a dragon which the city was housed in. But oh well I'm going to take Sending and Revivify next level at the cost of Chaos Bolt
My most recent character was a slave for most of his childhood (12 years) and so his character flaw is that even though he hates being told what to do, if you command him to do something with enough authority in your tone, he begrudgingly obliges as long as it's within his abilities and isn't too ridiculous
Flaws are very fun to have, and are extremely helpful during the roleplay aspect of games. My Kobold Ranger is afraid of loss and is extremely quick to violence or sacrifice to protect another. He just wants to be a park ranger, but he can't bring himself to leave a group that might die without him.
My favorite flaw was when I decided that my character would develop a crippling fear of whatever downed him first. So when my tabaxi was downed by a dire rat it was hilarious. As for your strange Guild artisan shoemaker, you could have something like: They grew up in a failing orphanage so they had to steal from the guild to save it from going under, they were found out which is why they owe them a debt and why they're stingy with their money.
I made a bard gnome who's biggest fear was to be alone. When she's alone she'll sing songs to keep herself together. She'll cry when alone for too long. It was so bad that she found a sentient rock to keep her company.
I recently created a character (a female High Elf) and I was stumped as to what flaw to give her since the PHB describes elves as perfect beings, so this video not only helped solve my problem but allowed me to flesh out my character more! thank you ginny!
A character that I just created is a half-elf noble and she doesn't want anyone to know her family name for fear of being treated differently or being taken advantage of because she's a noblewoman
My character did the same thing for the same reasons, and her sister had been killed because of the family nobility. She doesn’t want to tell anyone information about herself and talk about her family because it reminds her of her sister, one of the only people before she met the party that really cared about her. Her flaw is that she won’t let herself warm up to people in fear of loosing someone else.
Yeah, My current Paladin has this. That and he genuinely does not really identify with his family because he was sent of to join the clergy at an early age and see's the Sisters who more or less raised him as his real family. So it adds an extra layer to all of it.
She's proud of her human side but just doesn't fit in and her heart is elsewhere. If the family doesn't support the decision, which is likely, she intends to renounce her human name and embrace her elf name
I took the "I judge others harshly and myself even more" from the acolyte background for my ex-lawyer warlock. He always to make sure justice is served, even if he has to use extra-legal methods, but he also keeps a list of every law or infraction he has committed with the intent of turning himself in when the quest is done, or when he gets caught.
My character flaw is that even though he is a Artifcier he has a problem with being creative, his goal is to be the best Mechanic in the world but his lack of creativeness is holding him back, also he has hard time of thinking about creative solutions so if he dont succeed after a couple of tries he gives up quickly
Playing a kenku artificer who can do nothing original, but dreams of building a flying machine. He “borrowed” a catalog of gnomish inventions and copies them to work his craft. I really like your idea though. Seems pretty cool to play with.
I actually have an artificer character too, they're a 15 year old water genasi who is pretty small for their age. Zye's flaw is pride. They think they can do anything as long as they have their Steel Defender with them, which often leads to Zye often ignoring the risks and putting themself in trouble multiple times.
The “stingy shoe maker” example is very similar to my cleric. Everyone says she should’ve been a rouge but I KNOW her backstory and I think she’s pretty fun to play. :) she is extremely stingy with coin- and reluctantly to pay for anything with coin- usually stealing what she needs. However, when someone asks for help, or they need something (other than coin) she’ll give it to them- even if it’s something she needs. I’m not sure the other players have quite picked that up yet and only see her as someone who is stingy, but I’m hoping if I push that narrative a little more they’ll start to pick up on it.
I generally pick from the rolling tables rather than rolling on them, I use them as examples but don't randomise it I also usually make a personality first and pick traits that either support what I already established or change it in a way i like better
I have an Air Genasi Eldritch Knight character, and he likes to be able to learn things independently and gets upset when he can't learn or do something on his own. Independence is his strength and weakness!
I have a tiefling sorcerer who, doesn't exactly understand her class. She thinks she's a cleric and the only reason she can't heal others is because her (imaginary) goddess doesn't approve of those around her. She also grew up an orphan and so she can't read either. Which makes certain encounters fun.
I like to make characters who under estimated themselves, a Bard who thinks they are unskilled. their are so many artist I know who think they are unskilled I started using it as a character flaw for bard
Both of my wizards have the flaw "I am horribly awkward in social situations", but it presents itself differently for both of them. Alich is nervous around strangers, and with public speaking, and struggles to express genuine emotion. When he has to talk to people he doesn't know, he stammers a lot and second guesses himself. He often doesn't tell people what he really thinks, because he's worried about how they'll react. Balthasar doesn't think through what he says, not considering the consequences of his words. He makes a lot of jokes and references, that just offend and alienate the people around him. Everyone he meet thinks he's weird, in the case of the rest of the party, or scary, in the case of some of the NPCs we've met
@@ChristopherKemsley it is fun! It gives a reason for why they sneak around, and why they use underhanded combat (they are an arcane trickster who loves spells like grease, tasha’s hideous laughter, sleep, etc.
I'll have a dude that just risks his life to help the rest sometimes too much in a way that just is just basically looking to get killed, not because he is brave, but because he has little self worth and is convinced he needs to do everything he can to help his group to be useful even at his own risk
LOVE this. Love flaws too haha. My fav character hated rich ppl and had a huge sorta Robin Hood kinda thing. I refused money or gave it to my party members or passing NPCs and actively fucked with any quests we were doing that my character deemed “for the rich” to the chagrin of my party. My friends and the table loved it. But their characters were sometimes a little irate with mine (all in good fun). This may not seem like a huge flaw at face value, but it meant i often missed out on cool rewards or couldn’t afford things and it added an extra layer of challenge. My DM was super kind about it and often made sure there were ways for me to still be “rewarded” even when i refused payment or gave away all my gold. Super fun.
My favorite tip from this is making your strength into your flaw, which I've actually used in my latest character. He is a warlock under a debt for a wish he made, and thus has a constant mindset of owing and debt. So, his ideal is that he will be quick to return a favor or help those who have helped him, but he'll also do just about anything for gold in order to pay off the debt he incurred.
I also like to think about how the same background can lead to different flaws for different personalities. My rogue and her brother for example grew up in a pretty strict environment that valued blind devotion to the shady family business as all cost. For my hot headed rogue this made her a pathological liar, eventually leading to her keeping bigger and bigger secrets. Her brother on the other hand embraced that mindset and just suppressed a lot of his own wishes and emotions, essentially shutting them down whenever he had to do something he didn't want to. He now still is loyal to a fault while having a hard time showing emotions or asking for things for himself.
My bard has the seemingly-simple trauma of someone she loved dying in a way she felt responsible for. The flaw that rose from it is that she no longer takes anything seriously and is constantly joking, disrespecting authority, and dismissing possible long-term consequences. It's been a lot of fun watching how her growing attachment to her party, especially the character she ended up falling in love with and marrying, has changed her jokester attitude from something covering sadness to genuine joy and an incredibly powerful protective drive. My paladin is trickier. Her flaws are also her ideals: that there is good and evil, and that her path is always where she is going. Since she is committed to helping others to the best of her ability, and the party is her current objective, her flaw shows as.... well, being really nice. She does not create conflict, she is straightforward, helpful, and agreeable, and she only calls people out when they aren't being their best selves. She is truly lawful good. But in a party otherwise comprised of chaotic what-the-fuck, being a goody-two-shoes makes shit HAPPEN. I'm interested to see if spending time in this group introduces any shades of grey to her otherwise extremely black-and-white outlook.
That's great advice. My current character, a bard named Hope, is really distrusting of the authorities and at the same time is often too trusting with other people (who are not authorities), because he likes to see the best in people and overlook the bad sides. Also recently he discovered, that he likes to deceive people to get what he wants, and id scared of this part of himself.
Flaws of my latest character: -"Bonding with humans is unnecessary, I prefer animals" - "When someone knows too much about me, I begin thinking of how best to dispose of them before they use it against me" - "I'm a compulsive liar. I lie to everybody about everything, because I don't know who's my enemy" - "I expect the worst from the people I meet" - "I do not follow the principle of fair play, in game or battle" - "Killing and stealing for my own benefit isn't anything special" - "I think my pet snake (1 meter long) is cute, so I don't realise when it makes others uncomfortable/scared" These flaws are connected to the ultimate goal of this character: "get a lot of money and avoid running into my past, then retire into rich life". Needless to say, that character is chaotic evil. My character was so careful, that on session 0 DM had to do an "you accidentally stumble upon a bandit camp", otherwise I would've never ended up where I was supposed to meet other players (He wanted to start session 1 with a fight, so on session 0 he had to lead my character where that fight would happen). I plan for the first flaw to change for just "Takes care of people close to me, doesn't care about other people", so that my character's flaws don't cause too many problems with other players.
I have a character with sound ptsd. She breaks down if anything is too loud. Last session the dm warned me that we had entered an Inn's busy hrs and I could hear it from outside so I opted to play in the snow with my character's twin instead of drinking the night away before turning in. My friend who is playing the twin, made him an injured ex athlete who is deaf.
Not to project onto your character but she basically sounds like she has autism. Many people with autism are sensitive to loud noises and in many cases can suffer from sensory overload from excessive loud noises, lots of bright and overwhelming lights, etc and have a meltdown from the experience.
@@camillecolburn9492 hmmm I never thought about that. She's a legacy character. Child of my strahd campaign character. We played a time skip to establish who we were bringing in next and the dm gave us a battle to see us fight to protect our kids. Some of us decided that the experience would traumatize our kids. My girl is also afraid of the dark cus someone in that battle cast darkness. The sensory overload is from the screams, the weapons..the sounds of battle. She was 3 during it and I thought....there's no way she's ok.
@@momosquad23 Well if you're trying to aim more for trauma and less neurodivergent coding then probably give her more specific triggers than loud noises.
@@camillecolburn9492 I've discussed her main triggers with my dm. Like crashes and screams for example. Anything that loudly brings back the battle memory.
@@momosquad23 bit late to this, but wanted to add that the symptoms your talking about can be shared by other diagnoses than autism. General sensitivity to noises and crowds is normal in ptsd, a result of the body constantly being in the fight or flight mode.
In one campaign, I play a Half-Orc Barbarian with the Soldier Background. My favorite flaw of his is that he is tone-deaf. He is also extremely patriotic to his adapted Kingdom. Whenever the party is in a place where there is music playing, the DM makes me roll to see if I mistake the song playing for the Royal Anthem. If he does mistake the song for the anthem, he will insist that everyone stand at attention until the song is finished. It has made for some entertaining interactions in taverns.
"Dangerously curious" is a great (and very fun) flaw especially for high-INT characters. One of my favorite characters was an oracle fixated on accumulating knowledge, and she had this flaw. Giant unlabeled red button in the middle of the palace? *press* Glowing orb in the dungeon that promises to grant you any wish? *poke with stick* It's extremely fun to play a kind of INT-focused recklessness. Got the whole party into some good scrapes that way.
Part of Shadowrun char gen includes taking some negative qualities which are optional but give you more points for building your character. Some of those negative qualities can be pretty punishing but they also lead you into having a defining characteristic for your roleplay later (and they can eventually be bought off, character development!).
I remember my favourite character having the flaw of the lack of forgiveness. They were a formal slave and they blamed themselves for not doing something about it, so they sacrifice their body and have some of the worst equipment as they almost gave up on life and only continued to live to fight for the sack of others. This was an interesting way to play since at the beginning my character was seen as nothing but a brute but as the story continued they saw my character as a victim and we spent two sessions trying to help my character regain some of their humanity.
Hey ginny, Ive been a fan of your videos for a while and I really love them, especially the stuff that help to make a character, keep the videos like that, Btw love your hair
My new character is a soldier background Elven healer, who had 4 of their eight sibling die to a mysterious disease before they even reached adult hood and his dad a few decades later to the same disease. He’s become detached from people and has the motto of “Death is inevitable, accept it, move on, try not to get attached to the next one”, so he’s difficult to talk to and tries to keep people at arms length, things is, he’s horribly lonely and just wants a friend, but he’s terrified of what could happen
my current character is increadibly arrogant but its due to a lack of self confidence. he basically has no confidence in anything he does or says but masks it with arrogance.
Meanwhile I have a character that's too overly confident to a dangerous degree. Her ego is as big as a mountain right now due to her standoffish attitude and dumb plans never backfiring (somehow).
I'm surprised this is the first time i find any of your videos. Well formulated and helpful thoughts. Love it! Oh and i have used a flaw from myself irl: Thalasophobia: the fear of the unknown, especially in relation to deep water. If i can't see my legs underwater, i don't want to be in the water
i currently play a lawful neutral githzerai cleric who believes she’s worshipping kelemvor, but in reality was raised in a cult of myrkul. her main flaw is that she’s had serious doubts about her upbringing and her faith, but doesn’t feel able to express those doubts safely, meaning she comes off as guarded and even overzealous. she tends to mask her own perceived failures by pretending to be more devout than she truly is, which has definitely gotten the party in some sticky situations in the past- especially considering some of the main villains of the campaign are necromancers and cultists.
My favorite take on this that I have played with was my wife's "cleric". The Red Wizards of Thay were recruiting foolish rich kids and passing off their necromancy as clerical healing...her character refused to believe that she hadn't actually brought someone back from the dead when she was raising them as a zombie 😄
@@johnathanrhoades7751 oh nice! i’m planning on playing a sorcerer from Thay for my next campaign who got kicked from her academy. yours is such a cool concept!
As always, great work! (Random FYI, I started a new DND campaign last weekend and LITTERALLY rolled up a divination wizard who is in the group because he's working on his dissertation on "predicting adventuring outcomes" thanks for the character idea! :D {Also, I credited you and suggested the other players check you out on youtube})
I made a bard that is very loyal, charismatic and well, cliche bard at the surface but when he was pure or if you know him he is the actual oppisite. He acts like an extrovert but is introverted and insucure
7:19 reminded me of my Goliath Barbarian Gladiator who has self-image issues! When they get things right they feel on top of the world! When they miss an attack or fail an intimidation, they buckle and attempt to play it off, especially if it was in front of a crowd/party. Keep up the wonderful work Ginny, I love your content!
Very helpful! All of these videos about characters are great. I have a character who i've kind of meshed with myself and this is really helping me to come up with good understandable flaws and personality, that also merges with the backstory.
legit, one of the flaws i chose, was my character seems to sneeze alot and has a cough that never goes away...simply cause it's kinda believable. and not horrible. but can also bit you in the ass. (being thief is nice) lmao.
Love this episode it is true about flaws My favorite flaw to exploit is a person who likes to weaponsmith they get distracted by looking at all the different weapons they see during the game and not focus on what their task at hand is and usually some racial flaws as in doesn't like certain species can influence a character and overcome that would be like you set You're very inquisitive and I appreciate all the information that you dealt with in your videos past and present
My character was raised in a household where the family business ( dealing secrets with criminals and finding out secrets for normal folk such as someone’s husband cheating ) was more important than emotional needs so she acts cold . When really she’s insecure about her real self since she was taught to hate that side of her . Since I haven’t played her yet little by little she’ll learn to have fun and actually show how she is feeling. She does have a brother who wants to murder her but that would be too long to explain lol . There’s way more to her personality but again too long to explain.
That sounds like a really interesting and compelling character both to play and to observe. I hope you'll have a time to play her. I love the slow and in-depth developement you have planned for her.
@@juliadubaj6558 thanks so much for your kind reply 😁 what do you want to know in particular? ( edit: I have been playing her and she’s really fun to play )
@@mystic499 I'd love to hear anything youd like to share honestly, she feels like such a unique character. I was wondering: how did she leave her family, if she didnt, what's her relationship with them like? what was the story with her brother, why does he want to kill her? And what is the rest of her personality like? You did say it's long to explain, so no pressure, you dont have to if you dont want to. It just sounds really interesting and unique to me. And you're welcome. Glad to see playing her is really fun for you 😁😁
@@juliadubaj6558 Her brother ended up killing 12 high elf men ( they always spoke badly and shamed their family because they were teiflings ) My character found him after the first killing ( a clients that paid well enough for the family to ignore the things he said ) . She thought it would be a one time thing so she forgave him but in the next two days he killed 11 other men so she told their father Her brother got fired and was kicked out of the family legacy so her brother now wants her dead The reason she left was because one night he attacked her giving her a large scar ( she kicked him in the face got her belongings than left ) That’s the basis of the story sorry for the lack of detail when I get the chance I’ll post here what her personality is like and what her relationships with the rest of her family is like 😁 and if you want I’ll describe what she looks like when I get the chance . Her name is Andrea btw
I once had each player go one by one introducing themselves explaining their characters *except* their flaw, so, after the 1st player was done, the next character had to pick a flaw based on the impression they got from the description of the character. Then the next player would do that for the 2nd character, and so on. The idea was that in the same way as we don't get to pick our real flaws, your characters shouldn't be able to select theirs either. The flaws were of course subject to approval by the player who was the object of the flaw and the DM (me). It was a super fun addition to session 0.
Flaws are my favourite! ☺️ They really make your character feel real. My bard is our group's mouthpiece. She's also dumb as a post an has a tendency to go off script. Plans always get derailed. But for some reason the other players keep putting her forward, like they haven't noticed it yet!
I made a bit of an arse know it all dwarf. Hes also a bit curious ans he couldnt helo himself use a power that let the villain know exactly what they need to progress through ice. He actively hindered the party to sate his curiousity and learn more
Nice Labyrinth shirt. Great video again. Going to follow these tips when fleshing out some more characters. Always a joy to watch your videos. Informative and smart, but not too simple or too flashy.
I play a druidess, and in one of our first adventures we fought a group of varguilles. My charecter got hit by the kiss attack and failed the save, which ment she began to slowly become a varguille herself. Fortunately, we were able to stop it before the change was completed. Since then, I decided her fear was from being turned or changed to a different form. It was fun to roleplay her thinking process of eccsepting wild shape, and it was one of the more interesting roleplay experiencenses I had.
I love getting one random flaw and one I chose without rolling, makes it fun and sometimes we even make homebrew flaws that we put on a table and roll once... or twice or thrice depending on how many there are
My character: A powerful spellcaster, with über high Charisma and Intelligence. (Pathfinder) His flaws? Absolutely incapable of rational thinking when it's about his crush/partner and unable of lowering himself to mundane problem solving ("We're saving the world here, no I DON'T have time to see lord Merkin about the new potion maker in town that put a joke on him!")
Flaws are my favorite way to make a character relatable, realistic, and fun. Currently running a lizardfolk who wants to fit in but doesn't understand subtle social interactions, currency, boundaries, manners, or taboos like cannibalism. A lot of fun but his lack of regard for fellow party members' names seems to fluster one at least.
My pfp is my first character and im so sad that the campaign i played him in fell through, he was so amazing to play and he had a lot of flaws that weren't just flaws, he was mute from birth, had trust issues due to his backstory where him and his sister unintentionally cause the extermination of their village of half orcs because they were too trusting, was a hopeless romantic, always falling in love with guys immediately and was very protective of his sister. (Another pc) all of this was just based on backstory though as we only ended up playing about 5 2-3 hour sessions in total and everyone was very new to dnd, especially the dm, which became a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game sadly
My favorite PC I have played so far, a Lawful Evil Paladin of Zariel, lived and died by her word. She put a lot of weight on loyalty and honesty, and would never tell a direct lie, only omit information that could potentially change someone's outlook on certain situations. Tiara would always follow the word she had given, even when there was no downside to breaking it. That was just one of her principles: Everything is a contract that needs to be upheld until all terms have been satisfied. In a game where people tend to get around consequences by lying, it was refreshing to just not be able to do that, especially as a character who probably would benefit from lying a lot. I guess...her Ideal also doubled as her flaw :3
Flaws are great for adding depth to your character. And as you mentioned indirectly, with flaws, as with other things when building a character, specificity is very important.
Proceeds to play a campaign of just Zukos saving themselves from their other selves.
"Zuko, you have to look within yourself to save yourself from your other self. Only then will your true self reveal itself."
@@LiveGame555 "Damn it! Even when I'm acting as my uncle I still don't understand what he's saying!"
Zuko:why am I so good at being bad!
Zuko:pshhhh if I know,
…all of my characters 😬
I would like them all to be from different nations, too. Just imagine 2 Zukos convincing each other that their nations way is flawed and they need to find a better path by thinking for themselves.
Mental health advice disguised as tabletop tips is how we make nerds sensitive and cool.
I feel like DnD has been a more useful tool for therapy than almost anything else available. Being able to form a narrative about the things that hurt you is basically the end-goal of therapy for trauma, and DnD is perfect for that.
@@Jane-oz7pp yes!! therapy around trauma often works with narratives, and dnd is perfect for creating those narratives.
@@Jane-oz7pp Hi! Licensed therapist here. You are absolutely correct, and there's even a lot of cool research and DnD therapy groups coming out to prove it.
@@gamershrinks5188 ... there's D&D therapy groups? Huh... do they have any idea what kinda things it's good at treating yet?
@@Tomyironmane Definitely! For anyone struggling with social anxiety or autism, it's a great way to learn interactions with others while having some protections since your interacting as an "avatar." It's also been shows to be cathartic for military veterans as a way to explore their reactions to trauma while still flaunting their tactical skills.
“A perfectionist who’s never satisfied with what they have.”
In other words, a perfectionist.
-Signed, a perfectionist.
Facts -Another Perfectionist
Comment isn't edited after 5 hours, I doubt your perfectionism.
@@Jane-oz7pp When it comes to perfectionism it can take many forms. Dom could have one of the more minor forms.
Edit: Also perfectionists aren't a perfectionist about everything. I'm a perfectionist about my schoolwork and art. While others are perfectionists about fashion or organization, it really depends on the person. None of them are any less or any more perfectionist then another.
Perfectionism itself can be a flaw.
I would say I'm a perfectionist about what I am (or can do), not about what I have.
“Maybe they’re so committed to being liked that when their charisma fails, they’re crushed by it” wow you did NOT need to call me out on that
Same tho.... its my only reason for sorceror over wizard
My characters don't have this issue, I think it's just me.
This is a vibe tho
As Tom Mulaney said, "it's like I'm running for the mayor of nothing!"
Knew a girl like that once - very charming and friendly, intelligent, interesting, a social butterfly. But when the cafeteria-cashier didn´t like her she was crushed. It was kinda adorable... but also rediculous. I told her so. She was pouting. Even more adorable, but also laughable. Not everybody will love you no matter how likeable I and most people find you etc, etc.. For this kind of character, though, a nightmare +grin+
I had a cleric with a gambling problem who would give away most of his winnings to make himself feel better about cheating.
Thats literally just Chaotic Good charity, damn good idea!
That is just sublime, I love it!
I have had a similar idea for a while. Cleric to a CN goddess of luck that keeps getting in trouble because of bad luck(deep in debt), to much good luck(broke the house and owners are pissed), or smashing up gambling houses because evidence of the house cheating was found(how dare they defy the will of lady luck)
I like this. Father Mulcahey from MASH....almost. He never cheated
@@evanremillard5640 Or Ted from Father Ted, he's a priest with a gambling problem.
“I just made Zuko again” hits a little too close to home
I remember starting out a campaign and playing a shy, curious, and very unaware sorcerer. As in they would ask what a "fork" is, what does "failure" mean, and what's a "dog". The sessions where he learned about basic things were always pretty fun, I enjoyed role-playing that sense of bewilderment. But he was also extremely dense, which got us in trouble plenty of times.
And everyone made jokes about how "Oh, Tater's just gonna play a well-to-do kid this campaign. Kind of basic for him, but whatever.". They didn't pick up on how he didn't like being in rooms with the windows and doors closed, or that he was always hungry even after a meal.
Then that changed when our Warlock summoned a demon and my sorcerer proceeded to use magic to hold down and eat the demon's throat. He turned around after eating a sizable chunk of the demon, looked at the other party members (soaked in blood), and said "Did I do something wrong?".
My party promptly derailed the campaign immediately to find out what that was. They found out that my boy was born an Aasimar, were sold to a wizard, was stuck in a cage for his entire life and got experimented on with Shadowfell and Demonic blood until they became a Fallen Aasimar and Shadow Magic Sorcerer.
ok I'm sold
that's really good
took a little kick for them to notice but it worked out in the end
Bro needs at LEAST 5 years of therapy 😅
Flaw: "I don't believe I'm worthy of love. I strive to always be helpful to people I want to like me because I know they won't stay unless they need me."
Careful...your playing with dangerous magic
Swap love with happiness and you have my character
it a sad truth that so many people fight with this IRL... even me. Thank you Quinn... seeing it in black and white this way... real eye opener.
STOP. _YOU ARE ALLOWED TO CALL ME OUT LIKE THIS_
Ouch!
Wait wait wait... You can make a character that isn't an awkward traumatized mess? Wow... that's wild.
Waaaaait that’s not the only option?
Remind me to tell you about Farron and Juliana D'Aubigny Le Casa De La Vega. Two characters of mine with zero tragedy in their backstories.
@@firestorm165 I want to know about them so badly now lol
@@beepboop2816 Apparently so? Sounds kinda far fetched for me though not gonna lie.
@@firestorm165 I love the names :)
„I just made zuko again!“ 😂😂😂👌🏻
Honor, Honor, Honor
That's rough Buddy.
I fail to see the problem
Could be worse
Add too much and you get RaiderDave 👽
I like the sage background flaw "most people run when they see a demon, I stop to take notes on it's anatomy" I love the idea of a character who's so fascinated by unnatural creatures that they could end up in harm's way or not wanting to harm a potentially dangerous creature so they can study them
DUDE THANKS FOR REMINDING ME OF THIS! I've got a little tabaxi gal living in high north, as-of-yet unexplored-by-many-outsiders mountains, and her pelt is too thick for her to move closer to modern D&D societies. So, all she does is tend to her mountain sheep, hunt and gather, and a lil rudimentary cartography as she explores her dangerous home!
I ALREADY wrote in her traits that she's fascinated by exotic buildings and animals, so this is RIGHT UP HER ALLY!
Every few months an adventurer will find their way to her corner of the mountains, so she certainly could have been taught how to 'take notes on anatomy,' even though her notes will be useless to anyone but her XD.
She's fairly cautious, but honestly, she's met a lot of races and animals that were otherworldly to her, and if she doesn't associate the demon with a cautionary tale from her kittenhood, she'll not even consider that it might want to eat her ears.
For my current bard, I went with the classic performer flaw "I once satirized a noble who still wants my head. It was a mistake that I will likely repeat." Over time, a really fun complementary flaw developed for my character: She can't help telling people her name if they just saw her do something cool and they ask. Which is something that you should not do when you are trying to go low-profile.
This last session, the party got sent to the Feywild, and she knows you aren't supposed to tell the Fey your name, but gods, it is gonna be hard for her.
I made a mastermind rogue who grew up poor and had to fend for himself for most of his life. He was manipulative, hot headed, and tended to bite off more than he could chew. When he got in over his head he deflected the problem to others. After a couple of sessions I hated playing him so I made a decision that he no longer wanted to be a shitty person. Slowly over sessions he matured and even became a very responsible person.....also he became a king.
What I love about character flaws is that they give us an opportunity to have an 'arc' in the story, whether redemptive or otherwise. Being consumed by your flaws can be just as narratively satisfying as overcoming them.
I love that you responded to realizing you had an un-fun character by giving him an arc that frankly sounds like the kind of story people have been loving for centuries
@@mckayleepugmire9947 honestly i thought about ditching him but I thought nah i was a shithead when I was shis age im gonna make him grow up a little.
@@Siansonea he still by the end was a hothead but he learned when to go off and when to not let your emotions drive you.
@@elib6465 Nice
Also helpful for making NPCs memorable.
me: ooh, nice, let's finally get some help figuring out what actual character flaw my character could have
Ginny: think about their goals, and what's stopping them from achieving it
me: oh shit what are their goals
Their flaw is that they have no life goals. Their lack of purpose causes them over compensate in all aspects of their life. They are indecisive and tend to procrastinate. Their lack of drive causes them to fail frequently in their plans even though they over compensate.
@@singledad1313 didn't know my therapist had a UA-cam account lmao...
*sigh*
That's a good idea, though! Thanks!
@@singledad1313 damn. That hits hard.
@@tylorclark3520 That is how I build all my BBEG's. The BBEG's flaw is always a weakness, a chink in their armor if the characters can figure it out. Sometimes it is the only weakness. Knowing the flaw and motivations it causes allows me to give cryptic messages and answers to divination and information gathering spells and attempts. A pyromaniac obsessed with watching everything burn to ash also suffers from pyrophobia. He enjoys the spectacle of fire, but is terrified he will be burnt, so has others set the fires so he may watch. His main weakness is his fear of fire. If the players can figure it out, they have an advantage against him. Through divination the players may receive a message like "A fear of fire removed, hell shall reign on earth."
@@singledad1313 can you @ me next time you're gonna call me out like that
I had a character i really liked who couldn't lie. She also didn't expect anyone else to, since that would be against gaining knowledge, witch she assumed everyone wanted most. However, she as extremely charming and persuasive, and if you somehow managed to get her suspicious, she was actually very good at seperating lies from the truth. she got into some very strange and fun shenanigans.
Due to personal reasons involving a war art brand America’s got talent but the judges were all self proclaimed diviner’s, my entertainer aasimar bard believes that every diviner is either delusional, intentionally lying , or only telling her parts that they want her to hear. Since she likes her teammates, when they do it she assumes it’s the former.
My character is similar; brutally honest and refuses to lie. To counter, they'd just repetitively say "dontsayitdontsayitdont-" or in an emergency, won't speak at all. I think brutally honest people tend to just..be rude, so I also have them *need* to complement someone if they like their outfit (or something similar).
When you mentioned the stingy generous guild artisan I immediately thought "They're that person that orders lobster on someone else's dime" so thanks for giving me an idea for a potential character.
You can always contact Fletch if you want to charge it to Mr. Underhill's card. He has the number.
See Shigechi from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable.
This is giving me strong Scrooge Mcduck vibes
I created a reclusive druid who was so used to having no one to talk to but animals that he was referring to himself in the second person when the group found him (instead of "I am a druid" it was "you are a druid"). Those in the party who were not confused were laughing hysterically
I remember watching something from Anna Akana about how our flaws tend to be mirrors of ours strengths. Like honesty can be seen as too blunt. Anxiety is seen as calculated risk assessment. Someone who can be controlling can both be a good leader and coordinator, but can spiral or be thrown off when things don't go their way.
My sister is playing a character who spent most of her life trying to train to be a wizard and failing miserably, because she didn't realize that she was a sorcerer and her magic didn't work like that. So far her character still hasn't realized what she is, even though she keeps accidentally electrocuting people. Meanwhile my character, who was raised in an intolerant order and was taught to be suspicious of anyone who is different, suspects that she's hiding that she's really a warlock in league with some evil patron.
I’ve found that flaws are really fun to have as a player. Here’s the flaws I’ve had.
Alwin - A large lack of determination. He has to be dragged around.
Halcyon - Hates taking lives (sort of a flaw because this is DnD we’re talking about)
Farre - Obsessive hoarder (this was my favorite to roleplay. Also finding excuses to take useless or even harmful things)
Colta - He bottles up emotions and lets them out on friends
Vastithe - Lack of understand about basic morals (as you can imagine this results in tons of issues)
I like these, especially Farre, Colta and Vasithe. Some of my own favourites:
Arlo - Attachment. His ability (and habit) of making incredibly strong emotional bonds very quickly is a double-edged sword, and is essentially a set of puppet strings just begging to be pulled.
Shrike - Urge to fix. Their artificer skills are incredibly handy, but they see a broken object or a bad situation and have a compulsion to "fix" it, even if there's no real way to actually fix things.
Magnus - An inability to leave something be that goes against his moral compass, even if doing so might help in the long run.
Alistair - Lack of finesse. Once you start wielding a giant hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Do not bring in refined company.
Valk - Cynicism. There's always an ulterior motive, and that's never the last of them.
My favorite flaw I ever did for a character was my thief rogue, one Doctor Alexander Hampton. His flaw was “he has to save everyone”
He hears screaming of fear and pain in the distance, he’s about to full action and bonus action dash over there. It doesn’t matter if it’s a terrible idea, he can’t stand the thought of losing another patient because he didn’t try hard enough.
Exploring flaws is often why dnd becomes so magical for people. This is the introspection that dnd helps us do that make it more than a game.
This is a fair argument for having a dump stat in your lineup, too. Glaring weakness can be an excellent catalyst for fun in the right situations.
My top 5 characters I've ever played:
1: Inquisitor in 40K, mistrustful to the point she couldn't work with anyone she wasn't lording over.
2: Sorceress in D&D: she hates violence and never killed a soul until the BBG forced her to, after which she was scared of using any potentially lethal spells.
3: Druidess in D&D: She was quick to anger and easily resorted to violence, which was funny because the group's barbarian searching for enlightenment was the one having to hold back the tiny little wood elf druidess so she wouldn't summon a bunch of woodland creatures.
4: Exiled Jedi padawan, doesn't want to lose anyone, so when his friends were in danger, he was quick to resort to the Dark Side.
5: Cyberpunk 2020: A netrunner who wanted to become the best even if it meant betraying their netrunner allies. He got a few brains fried by leaving a back door to some police. In the end he started to make amends because he realized the fault in his ways, even though he was never caught or even suspected.
I remember those characters so well even after a decade or more, whereas I hardly remember most of the less flawed/fleshed out characters I had during the years. Flaws make up the stories for characters.
#4 reminds me of a Star Wars campaign I was once in where another padawan was on the path to the dark side because she kept having to use it to save my character from her own botched combat rolls.
I’m also playing a character who never kills people, but she’s an aasimar and her angelic patron is a war angel so she’ll constantly argue with her and sometimes a fallen enemy gets the opportunity to escape because of it.
OK, I'd love to play with you!!!! All the others aside, I always had a real problem imagining / mentaly realising netrunners in cyberpunk (or shadowrun)... those "asides" always took up so much time that my fellow players just got bored... and I really didn't get much out of them. Any tips on how to enter "Cyberspace" without disrupting the game? I'm assuming this where Assistant GM's kick in? But I've tried many times... it never feels right. What is essentially a microsecond to you is 4 hours to them (I'm making those figures up) but in real life - you just spent 4 hours hacking a government database and your fellow players have gone to the local bar. I'm great at playing anything "Mage" like in any system, but.... for some reason I trip over everytime I try to play a Tech-anything.
While I'm very new to role-playing, I think I might try to have my character learn to overcome his flaws that way:
Whenever his flaw spectacularly backfires (say, he ran into combat whithout thinking about strategy and himself or a fellow party member got hurt as a result), he reflects on it a little. Then next time there's an opportunity when his flaw would trigger, I make him roll whether it does or not. That way whenever he learns a bit more about how his flaw doesn't help him or the group, I can decrease the difficulty of the roll do avoid triggering his flaw.
"Damn it I just made Zuko again!"
I actually just finished a Katara cosplay photoshoot when you posted this. It's my first ever cosplay so thanks for inspiring me to do this!
My character actually just got over his biggest flaw a few sessions back! He had pyrophobia, fear of fire, to such an extent that he couldn’t take up fire spells or do other things because he was so afraid. He got over it by walking into a fire. It was great.
I'd really like to hear how that went down!
@@cobiebentley9277 it’s a bit of a story, but luckily for you I write the session notes for my group every week, so I can get you that. (They’re more a storybook retelling of the events than normal session notes). In a moment I will post a reply with the story. It will be written from the perspective of my character, Eyeven Swiftorb.
@@cobiebentley9277 (I hope this all makes sense without all the background info)
It’s the night after our trip into the astral plane, and we are in the carriage resting from our trip, though Fireball and Mythrillian were outside of the carriage driving it and keeping watch as we traveled because we had to make up for some lost time. I was meditating when the Eye (the deity he worships) came to me in voice once again and said to me “I know what you are working towards, and you have to most degrees earned it through your dedication, but the way of which you are attempting to achieve it will not work. I shall aid you along your path. Open your eyes.” Keep in mind that at this point, I had every night before going to rest been fabricating from gold to the best of my ability upgrades for my staff to replace the bronze components of my staff in order to make it more powerful as a spellcasting focus.
I opened my eyes, and I was standing in an Eye shaped room. There with me stood Khoratari and Artaria. In the center of the room there was a beam of light wherein floated a singular copper key. On the opposite wall to where the 3 of us were standing was a heavy wooden door with a lock on it made of copper. Inscribed thrice over in the languages of Elvish, Common, and Infernal were the instructions, “Take a key and proceed forward. Do not backtrack or else your fate will be tainted, and do not lose your key or you will be forever trapped. Be wary for you will be on your own.”
I took the key from the beam of light and when I had removed mine, another one appeared in its place, which Artaria took. I went to the door in the room and unlocked it, pulling it open. There was a swirling portal behind it, and I stepped through the portal. I found that when I emerged I was on a cliff ledge with a bottomless pit in front of me. On the other side of the room was another ledge. On the opposite ledge there was a door and behind me was a door the exact same as the one I had originally gone through. So that I wouldn’t lose my key to the pit, I put it safely inside my bag. Also floating in the air above the pit in the center of the room was some sort of disturbance in the wind, which was otherwize still.
I cast mage armor on myself just in case, and then cast fly in order to get to the other side of the pit. My wings pulled into existence around me before spreading out, and I used them to fly across the pit. Once on the other side, the disturbance in the air formulated itself into an air elemental and attacked me, ramming toward me. I striked it with lightning, but the elemental seemed hardly phased by my attack. Well, that’s not entirely true. It was a LOT more mad. It caused a whirlwind that threw me twenty feet out from the ledge over the endless pit. I was getting pretty beat up at this point, So I flew back over to the ledge on the side that I wanted to be on and cast arcane fist for the first time ever, summoning up a fist of blue and lilac ethereal energy and punching the air elemental with it, dealing a bunch of force damage in the process. It was so dazed from that blow (get it? Blow? Because air elemental and you blow air? Nevermind.) that it missed on it’s next attempt to attack me. At that point I punched it one final time with my magical fist and it dissipated into smoke.
As soon as it dissipated from existence, I pulled out my key and saw it change in my hand from copper to silver. The lock on the door that I needed to go through was silver. I inserted the key and unlocked the door, proceeding into the next room.
The next room was simple enough, though there were words on the wall and a door on the far side of the room. A riddle. The riddle said: “You must. You can. You might. You want. Whatever I do, I decide what you don’t. You fight. You cede. You fly. You give. Whatever you try, I decide how you live. A will. A way. A soul. A heart. Whatever you are I control from the start.” when I finished reading it, I felt a sense of urgency to answer it or else fate in this instance would go against me. I thought hard. The Eye, I guessed? But no. The Eye are far too wize to make themselves the solutions to their own riddle. Or are they? Then, as I felt the time limit closing in on me, I spoke the answer. “Fate!” I cried.
I felt the time burden lift off of me and the key in my hand turned from silver to gold. I proceeded toward the door on the far side of the room, unlocked the door, stepped in, and that’s when it happened.
@@cobiebentley9277 I saw the fires. Fires. Everywhere. I was in a 70 foot long and 20 feet wide hallway, but the fire made it so there was only about 10 feet for me to walk through. And I couldn’t see a door at the end. The fire overwhelmed my senses. The heat of it caused me to feel like I was shriveling. I fell to the ground, closed my eyes, and crawled forward, not looking up. But I very quickly began to hurt. I was being cooked alive. But I kept going forward. I refused to stop, for Fate had told me at the beginning of all of this that going back would inevitably be the end of myself. So I got to the end of the hallway. I was almost entirely cooked at this point, barely holding onto my own mortality. I managed to open my eyes. The fires showed no signs of dying down. In fact, I could've sworn that it was bigger.
I summoned every last ounce of my will to the forefront, and managed to shakely stand up, and attempted to cast ice storm around me in order to calm the fires, but the ice failed to form due to the heat, and I was left without a wit left in my mind. But somehow, I managed to pull myself together. In the midst of something more terrifying than anything I had ever experienced, I held together and I walked forward, directly into the fire in front of me. And then I walked out the other side.
Upon leaving the fire, I felt the most overwhelming and powerful sensation of cold that I had ever experienced in my life. I felt better than I ever had since the fire in the library. I felt fully healed. I no longer feared the fire. I looked down to my hands, and saw my golden key turn to platinum. And there was a door in front of me. I opened the door, and there was a portal on the other side of it. I stepped through.
We had all just gone through our final portals and were now together in a room only significant in that there was a well in the center of the room, and in that well was what could only be described as liquid light. On the wall were the words, in Elvish, Common, and Infernal, were the instructions “put in your most prized possession in order to proceed forward.” I, after a second of contemplation, walked up to the well and dropped in my staff, my beloved wizard’s staff. It exploded upon contact with the liquid light. I stepped backward from the well, my fingers reaching slightly towards it.
Khoratari stepped up next, and like a fool who wishes to deny the bounds of fate, dropped in an empty glass potion bottle. Her hand caught on fire and began spreading up her body. And this wasn’t some measly fire, this was fire made of that same pure light that the liquid in the well was made of. Serves her right for trying to deny fate it’s course. She very dejectedly threw her true most prized possession, her hexblade. As soon as it touched the light in the well, her hair changed from white to black, and she looked visibly weakend. I could tell she was about ready to cry if she wasn’t so stoic with her emotions.
After witnessing this, Artaria stepped up to the well looking very solemn. She untied the ribbon from around her neck, and dropped in her raven pendant, her symbol, the very same I had used to recognise this group as the one the Eye had instructed me to join. I saw a look of steely determination on her face like I had never seen before. A portal opened in the room, a swirling mix of 3 different shades of purple, one slightly desaturated looking, one lilac, and one the exact tone of Artaria’s skin. We all stepped through together.
Upon emerging, we found ourselves in a place I had never been before, but felt oddly at home in. The room was that of the shape of an Eye, and had sprawling geometric patterns in the floor that said words in a language I couldn’t read, which means they weren’t in celestial, elvish, common, or sylvan. In the center of the room were two statues of the deities that comprise the Eye, one of Zedes Cator and one of Astrala, each with their hand raised toward the very center of the room, where there was floating in the air without any supports a giant stone sigil of the Eye. Also in the center of the room was a literal pillar of light.
The Eye spoke in our minds then and gave us our final directive. “You have done well. I congratulate you. Go to the pillar and receive your gift.” I stepped forward to the pillar of light and reached my hand inside and felt the familiar, yet somehow different, hilt of my staff. My fingers wrapped around the handle and I pulled my hand out. In my hand was the most glorious object I had ever seen. (Reference Eyeven’s Thunderous Quarterstaff sheet for a description of appearance). I raised up the staff and stamped it to the ground. All in the same insant as the staff hitting the ground, a ring of multicolored lightning erupted from the bottom of the staff and began traveling upward. The ring of lightning became two rings, three, four, too many to count. They all circled the diamond orb atop the staff before going into it and shooting upward toward the ceiling. Upon the impact of the lightning bolt with the stone ceiling above us, there was a deafening crack of thunder that were we not in the immortal sanctum of the Eye would have surely done damage to us. I stepped back, happy with my gift. I felt a bit of electricity surge through my arm and looked down on it. I had a new tattoo of a bolt of lightning on the inside of my left forearm. I smiled. (My character’s deity has a thing of giving him tattoos for momentous occasions)
@@JustAnotherPerson811 You are an amazing writer!
My character's flaw is that she's super naive. If she can convince someone to stop for just one instant, they can just start being good. Right? 😅 Of course not, but it doesn't stop her from trying... She'll also heal the enemy because it's her job to save lives.
Her philosophy is that all creatures are "citizens" of reality, not the city, and they are all bound by certain laws; one, that everything lies, but also everything tells a truth: what they are; Two, that all life is worth existing and worth saving; Three, everything has a job, a purpose for doing things for others and themselves and a purpose for existing.
Her purpose for existing, her job, is healing others with a smile. "She isn't worth existing if she stopped healing" is similar to what her mother told her when she was younger. We had a break this week but I want to bring this up to the party after we're done with this ogre camp
Reminds me of when my aasimar bard dropped because she used life transference on a cultists, all while her war angel angelic patron berates her as she was making her death saving throws. The cultist stabilized her though before running away. I hope we see him again
@@Spiceodog (same person, that's just my deadname account) aww that's nice. After a harrowing battle with several cultists and running out of spell slots, I checked the fallen for any injured that could be saved. The DM said I spotted one, and I performed a medicine check to stabilize him. While I convinced the artificer to carry him for me, a cultist who surrendered said "oh, siegfried? He's an asshole." Immediately splitting the party on the position of if it was the right thing to do. While I went to sleep straight away when we got back, the rest began arguing loudly once he came to and started spouting cultish nonsense. Some said that they should have me kill him because he's my responsibility, some said that that's barbaric but they couldn't deny that he had no reason for being there. I woke up and came into the room as their argument started to circle back. I denied them when they asked for me to do something, and someone said that I shouldn't heal bad people- I denied the concept. The warlock decided to blast them then and there, but he was counter spelled and as the others got ready to hit him back I released my angel wings and shouted STOP. They did and gave up on that for now.
I later released that guy and everyone got mad for a moment before I built up the courage to explain it all to them.
He helped us kill the doppelgangers in a church. He told us he'd give up and culting and be a priest for that temple. That's the last thing he said to me, and the last thing I did to him was hug him. Aaaaand then we got dropped out of a dragon which the city was housed in. But oh well I'm going to take Sending and Revivify next level at the cost of Chaos Bolt
My most recent character was a slave for most of his childhood (12 years) and so his character flaw is that even though he hates being told what to do, if you command him to do something with enough authority in your tone, he begrudgingly obliges as long as it's within his abilities and isn't too ridiculous
"I just made Zuko again"
That was by far the most legitimate laugh i have had today.
Flaws are very fun to have, and are extremely helpful during the roleplay aspect of games. My Kobold Ranger is afraid of loss and is extremely quick to violence or sacrifice to protect another. He just wants to be a park ranger, but he can't bring himself to leave a group that might die without him.
My favorite flaw was when I decided that my character would develop a crippling fear of whatever downed him first. So when my tabaxi was downed by a dire rat it was hilarious.
As for your strange Guild artisan shoemaker, you could have something like: They grew up in a failing orphanage so they had to steal from the guild to save it from going under, they were found out which is why they owe them a debt and why they're stingy with their money.
I made a bard gnome who's biggest fear was to be alone. When she's alone she'll sing songs to keep herself together. She'll cry when alone for too long. It was so bad that she found a sentient rock to keep her company.
I recently created a character (a female High Elf) and I was stumped as to what flaw to give her since the PHB describes elves as perfect beings, so this video not only helped solve my problem but allowed me to flesh out my character more!
thank you ginny!
I play a wood elf now, but I made a point to play her going against this stereotype and it's a lot of fun.
The way I use rolling tables in backgrounds is that I read the options and manually pick the "best" one
Also I modify the options a bit when necessary
A character that I just created is a half-elf noble and she doesn't want anyone to know her family name for fear of being treated differently or being taken advantage of because she's a noblewoman
My character did the same thing for the same reasons, and her sister had been killed because of the family nobility. She doesn’t want to tell anyone information about herself and talk about her family because it reminds her of her sister, one of the only people before she met the party that really cared about her. Her flaw is that she won’t let herself warm up to people in fear of loosing someone else.
Yeah, My current Paladin has this. That and he genuinely does not really identify with his family because he was sent of to join the clergy at an early age and see's the Sisters who more or less raised him as his real family. So it adds an extra layer to all of it.
She's proud of her human side but just doesn't fit in and her heart is elsewhere. If the family doesn't support the decision, which is likely, she intends to renounce her human name and embrace her elf name
I took the "I judge others harshly and myself even more" from the acolyte background for my ex-lawyer warlock. He always to make sure justice is served, even if he has to use extra-legal methods, but he also keeps a list of every law or infraction he has committed with the intent of turning himself in when the quest is done, or when he gets caught.
My character flaw is that even though he is a Artifcier he has a problem with being creative, his goal is to be the best Mechanic in the world but his lack of creativeness is holding him back, also he has hard time of thinking about creative solutions so if he dont succeed after a couple of tries he gives up quickly
Playing a kenku artificer who can do nothing original, but dreams of building a flying machine. He “borrowed” a catalog of gnomish inventions and copies them to work his craft. I really like your idea though. Seems pretty cool to play with.
I actually have an artificer character too, they're a 15 year old water genasi who is pretty small for their age. Zye's flaw is pride. They think they can do anything as long as they have their Steel Defender with them, which often leads to Zye often ignoring the risks and putting themself in trouble multiple times.
The “stingy shoe maker” example is very similar to my cleric. Everyone says she should’ve been a rouge but I KNOW her backstory and I think she’s pretty fun to play. :) she is extremely stingy with coin- and reluctantly to pay for anything with coin- usually stealing what she needs. However, when someone asks for help, or they need something (other than coin) she’ll give it to them- even if it’s something she needs. I’m not sure the other players have quite picked that up yet and only see her as someone who is stingy, but I’m hoping if I push that narrative a little more they’ll start to pick up on it.
I generally pick from the rolling tables rather than rolling on them, I use them as examples but don't randomise it
I also usually make a personality first and pick traits that either support what I already established or change it in a way i like better
same
I have an Air Genasi Eldritch Knight character, and he likes to be able to learn things independently and gets upset when he can't learn or do something on his own. Independence is his strength and weakness!
love that concept
you are my favorite "DnD advice" channel
I have a tiefling sorcerer who, doesn't exactly understand her class. She thinks she's a cleric and the only reason she can't heal others is because her (imaginary) goddess doesn't approve of those around her. She also grew up an orphan and so she can't read either. Which makes certain encounters fun.
My bard thinks that bards , sorcerers, and clerics are all the same , and that they get there powers from the gods.
I like to make characters who under estimated themselves, a Bard who thinks they are unskilled. their are so many artist I know who think they are unskilled I started using it as a character flaw for bard
Both of my wizards have the flaw "I am horribly awkward in social situations", but it presents itself differently for both of them.
Alich is nervous around strangers, and with public speaking, and struggles to express genuine emotion. When he has to talk to people he doesn't know, he stammers a lot and second guesses himself. He often doesn't tell people what he really thinks, because he's worried about how they'll react.
Balthasar doesn't think through what he says, not considering the consequences of his words. He makes a lot of jokes and references, that just offend and alienate the people around him. Everyone he meet thinks he's weird, in the case of the rest of the party, or scary, in the case of some of the NPCs we've met
I agree! That’s why I made my rogue a coward! When they take too many hit points/get in a bad situation, they run.
This is hilarious! I really want to do this! Or perhaps a rogue who has bad allergies :)
@@ChristopherKemsley it is fun! It gives a reason for why they sneak around, and why they use underhanded combat (they are an arcane trickster who loves spells like grease, tasha’s hideous laughter, sleep, etc.
I'll have a dude that just risks his life to help the rest sometimes too much in a way that just is just basically looking to get killed, not because he is brave, but because he has little self worth and is convinced he needs to do everything he can to help his group to be useful even at his own risk
LOVE this. Love flaws too haha. My fav character hated rich ppl and had a huge sorta Robin Hood kinda thing. I refused money or gave it to my party members or passing NPCs and actively fucked with any quests we were doing that my character deemed “for the rich” to the chagrin of my party. My friends and the table loved it. But their characters were sometimes a little irate with mine (all in good fun). This may not seem like a huge flaw at face value, but it meant i often missed out on cool rewards or couldn’t afford things and it added an extra layer of challenge. My DM was super kind about it and often made sure there were ways for me to still be “rewarded” even when i refused payment or gave away all my gold. Super fun.
My favorite tip from this is making your strength into your flaw, which I've actually used in my latest character. He is a warlock under a debt for a wish he made, and thus has a constant mindset of owing and debt. So, his ideal is that he will be quick to return a favor or help those who have helped him, but he'll also do just about anything for gold in order to pay off the debt he incurred.
I have also made a Zuko once. He died defending an enemy soldier during a mass battle.
I also like to think about how the same background can lead to different flaws for different personalities. My rogue and her brother for example grew up in a pretty strict environment that valued blind devotion to the shady family business as all cost. For my hot headed rogue this made her a pathological liar, eventually leading to her keeping bigger and bigger secrets. Her brother on the other hand embraced that mindset and just suppressed a lot of his own wishes and emotions, essentially shutting them down whenever he had to do something he didn't want to. He now still is loyal to a fault while having a hard time showing emotions or asking for things for himself.
Really enjoy the thoughtfulness that permeates all of your content. Always fantastic.
My bard has the seemingly-simple trauma of someone she loved dying in a way she felt responsible for. The flaw that rose from it is that she no longer takes anything seriously and is constantly joking, disrespecting authority, and dismissing possible long-term consequences. It's been a lot of fun watching how her growing attachment to her party, especially the character she ended up falling in love with and marrying, has changed her jokester attitude from something covering sadness to genuine joy and an incredibly powerful protective drive.
My paladin is trickier. Her flaws are also her ideals: that there is good and evil, and that her path is always where she is going. Since she is committed to helping others to the best of her ability, and the party is her current objective, her flaw shows as.... well, being really nice. She does not create conflict, she is straightforward, helpful, and agreeable, and she only calls people out when they aren't being their best selves. She is truly lawful good. But in a party otherwise comprised of chaotic what-the-fuck, being a goody-two-shoes makes shit HAPPEN. I'm interested to see if spending time in this group introduces any shades of grey to her otherwise extremely black-and-white outlook.
That's great advice.
My current character, a bard named Hope, is really distrusting of the authorities and at the same time is often too trusting with other people (who are not authorities), because he likes to see the best in people and overlook the bad sides.
Also recently he discovered, that he likes to deceive people to get what he wants, and id scared of this part of himself.
Flaws of my latest character:
-"Bonding with humans is unnecessary, I prefer animals"
- "When someone knows too much about me, I begin thinking of how best to dispose of them before they use it against me"
- "I'm a compulsive liar. I lie to everybody about everything, because I don't know who's my enemy"
- "I expect the worst from the people I meet"
- "I do not follow the principle of fair play, in game or battle"
- "Killing and stealing for my own benefit isn't anything special"
- "I think my pet snake (1 meter long) is cute, so I don't realise when it makes others uncomfortable/scared"
These flaws are connected to the ultimate goal of this character: "get a lot of money and avoid running into my past, then retire into rich life". Needless to say, that character is chaotic evil.
My character was so careful, that on session 0 DM had to do an "you accidentally stumble upon a bandit camp", otherwise I would've never ended up where I was supposed to meet other players (He wanted to start session 1 with a fight, so on session 0 he had to lead my character where that fight would happen). I plan for the first flaw to change for just "Takes care of people close to me, doesn't care about other people", so that my character's flaws don't cause too many problems with other players.
I have a character with sound ptsd. She breaks down if anything is too loud. Last session the dm warned me that we had entered an Inn's busy hrs and I could hear it from outside so I opted to play in the snow with my character's twin instead of drinking the night away before turning in. My friend who is playing the twin, made him an injured ex athlete who is deaf.
Not to project onto your character but she basically sounds like she has autism. Many people with autism are sensitive to loud noises and in many cases can suffer from sensory overload from excessive loud noises, lots of bright and overwhelming lights, etc and have a meltdown from the experience.
@@camillecolburn9492 hmmm I never thought about that. She's a legacy character. Child of my strahd campaign character. We played a time skip to establish who we were bringing in next and the dm gave us a battle to see us fight to protect our kids. Some of us decided that the experience would traumatize our kids. My girl is also afraid of the dark cus someone in that battle cast darkness. The sensory overload is from the screams, the weapons..the sounds of battle. She was 3 during it and I thought....there's no way she's ok.
@@momosquad23 Well if you're trying to aim more for trauma and less neurodivergent coding then probably give her more specific triggers than loud noises.
@@camillecolburn9492 I've discussed her main triggers with my dm. Like crashes and screams for example. Anything that loudly brings back the battle memory.
@@momosquad23 bit late to this, but wanted to add that the symptoms your talking about can be shared by other diagnoses than autism. General sensitivity to noises and crowds is normal in ptsd, a result of the body constantly being in the fight or flight mode.
I'm so glad to have Ginny's videos as a resource for both table top games I play & for the RPG-based and non-RPG novels I'm writing!
Thank you, Ginny!
In one campaign, I play a Half-Orc Barbarian with the Soldier Background. My favorite flaw of his is that he is tone-deaf. He is also extremely patriotic to his adapted Kingdom. Whenever the party is in a place where there is music playing, the DM makes me roll to see if I mistake the song playing for the Royal Anthem. If he does mistake the song for the anthem, he will insist that everyone stand at attention until the song is finished. It has made for some entertaining interactions in taverns.
I'm used to your videos being excellent, but that opening bit? Perfection! Absolutely hilarious.
When your motivation can be summed up with “mid-life crisis,” the flaw writes itself!
"Dangerously curious" is a great (and very fun) flaw especially for high-INT characters. One of my favorite characters was an oracle fixated on accumulating knowledge, and she had this flaw.
Giant unlabeled red button in the middle of the palace? *press*
Glowing orb in the dungeon that promises to grant you any wish? *poke with stick*
It's extremely fun to play a kind of INT-focused recklessness. Got the whole party into some good scrapes that way.
Part of Shadowrun char gen includes taking some negative qualities which are optional but give you more points for building your character. Some of those negative qualities can be pretty punishing but they also lead you into having a defining characteristic for your roleplay later (and they can eventually be bought off, character development!).
I remember my favourite character having the flaw of the lack of forgiveness. They were a formal slave and they blamed themselves for not doing something about it, so they sacrifice their body and have some of the worst equipment as they almost gave up on life and only continued to live to fight for the sack of others. This was an interesting way to play since at the beginning my character was seen as nothing but a brute but as the story continued they saw my character as a victim and we spent two sessions trying to help my character regain some of their humanity.
I love that “I just made Zuko AGAIN” implies that this happens a lot😂😂😂
Hey ginny, Ive been a fan of your videos for a while and I really love them, especially the stuff that help to make a character, keep the videos like that,
Btw love your hair
We all loves Zuko, so that why we always make him.
Who the hell is Zuko?
@@IvoryTowerPodcast Avatar: The Last Airbender. Redeemed antagonist
@@oilandwine8 What is Avatar: The Last Airbender?
@@IvoryTowerPodcast A tv show. Which by the way is broadcasted content on a television.
I always make Azula. My DM complains about murderhoboing a lot. ;-)
My new character is a soldier background Elven healer, who had 4 of their eight sibling die to a mysterious disease before they even reached adult hood and his dad a few decades later to the same disease. He’s become detached from people and has the motto of “Death is inevitable, accept it, move on, try not to get attached to the next one”, so he’s difficult to talk to and tries to keep people at arms length, things is, he’s horribly lonely and just wants a friend, but he’s terrified of what could happen
my current character is increadibly arrogant but its due to a lack of self confidence. he basically has no confidence in anything he does or says but masks it with arrogance.
Meanwhile I have a character that's too overly confident to a dangerous degree. Her ego is as big as a mountain right now due to her standoffish attitude and dumb plans never backfiring (somehow).
Ugh your opening bits always look so good, like that lighting is 👌👌👌👌 Like a dang Movie or something
I'm surprised this is the first time i find any of your videos. Well formulated and helpful thoughts. Love it!
Oh and i have used a flaw from myself irl: Thalasophobia: the fear of the unknown, especially in relation to deep water. If i can't see my legs underwater, i don't want to be in the water
Not played D&D, but enjoy the D&D media, and really enjoy listening to you talk :)
i currently play a lawful neutral githzerai cleric who believes she’s worshipping kelemvor, but in reality was raised in a cult of myrkul. her main flaw is that she’s had serious doubts about her upbringing and her faith, but doesn’t feel able to express those doubts safely, meaning she comes off as guarded and even overzealous. she tends to mask her own perceived failures by pretending to be more devout than she truly is, which has definitely gotten the party in some sticky situations in the past- especially considering some of the main villains of the campaign are necromancers and cultists.
My favorite take on this that I have played with was my wife's "cleric". The Red Wizards of Thay were recruiting foolish rich kids and passing off their necromancy as clerical healing...her character refused to believe that she hadn't actually brought someone back from the dead when she was raising them as a zombie 😄
@@johnathanrhoades7751 oh nice! i’m planning on playing a sorcerer from Thay for my next campaign who got kicked from her academy. yours is such a cool concept!
Why is this me? 😆
As always, great work! (Random FYI, I started a new DND campaign last weekend and LITTERALLY rolled up a divination wizard who is in the group because he's working on his dissertation on "predicting adventuring outcomes" thanks for the character idea! :D {Also, I credited you and suggested the other players check you out on youtube})
I made a bard that is very loyal, charismatic and well, cliche bard at the surface but when he was pure or if you know him he is the actual oppisite. He acts like an extrovert but is introverted and insucure
7:19 reminded me of my Goliath Barbarian Gladiator who has self-image issues! When they get things right they feel on top of the world! When they miss an attack or fail an intimidation, they buckle and attempt to play it off, especially if it was in front of a crowd/party.
Keep up the wonderful work Ginny, I love your content!
At this point I've made a lot of alcoholic, drugged up cripples, I think I need more variety in flaws
Divination Claric that is the town drunk and crier. The old fart with a lot of life lesson stories. Think uncle Iro before finding peace.
Lmao that intro is amazing! New to the channel but so happy i found you!
"like, you know? . . . . . .Therapy."
Aaaannnnd THAT'S where I lost it! (truer words were never spoken)
This is one of the best videos on character flaws I’ve ever seen!
My characters flaw is that he’s Italian.
Very helpful! All of these videos about characters are great. I have a character who i've kind of meshed with myself and this is really helping me to come up with good understandable flaws and personality, that also merges with the backstory.
legit, one of the flaws i chose, was my character seems to sneeze alot and has a cough that never goes away...simply cause it's kinda believable. and not horrible. but can also bit you in the ass. (being thief is nice) lmao.
I had a character who would often get sick or into coughing fits because of there awful constitution haha. It was pretty fun
Love this episode it is true about flaws My favorite flaw to exploit is a person who likes to weaponsmith they get distracted by looking at all the different weapons they see during the game and not focus on what their task at hand is and usually some racial flaws as in doesn't like certain species can influence a character and overcome that would be like you set You're very inquisitive and I appreciate all the information that you dealt with in your videos past and present
My character was raised in a household where the family business ( dealing secrets with criminals and finding out secrets for normal folk such as someone’s husband cheating ) was more important than emotional needs so she acts cold . When really she’s insecure about her real self since she was taught to hate that side of her . Since I haven’t played her yet little by little she’ll learn to have fun and actually show how she is feeling.
She does have a brother who wants to murder her but that would be too long to explain lol .
There’s way more to her personality but again too long to explain.
That sounds like a really interesting and compelling character both to play and to observe. I hope you'll have a time to play her. I love the slow and in-depth developement you have planned for her.
I'd love to hear more about her, but it's up to you if you want to share that.
@@juliadubaj6558 thanks so much for your kind reply 😁
what do you want to know in particular?
( edit: I have been playing her and she’s really fun to play )
@@mystic499 I'd love to hear anything youd like to share honestly, she feels like such a unique character. I was wondering: how did she leave her family, if she didnt, what's her relationship with them like? what was the story with her brother, why does he want to kill her? And what is the rest of her personality like? You did say it's long to explain, so no pressure, you dont have to if you dont want to. It just sounds really interesting and unique to me. And you're welcome. Glad to see playing her is really fun for you 😁😁
@@juliadubaj6558
Her brother ended up killing 12 high elf men ( they always spoke badly and shamed their family because they were teiflings )
My character found him after the first killing ( a clients that paid well enough for the family to ignore the things he said ) . She thought it would be a one time thing so she forgave him but in the next two days he killed 11 other men so she told their father
Her brother got fired and was kicked out of the family legacy so her brother now wants her dead
The reason she left was because one night he attacked her giving her a large scar ( she kicked him in the face got her belongings than left )
That’s the basis of the story sorry for the lack of detail when I get the chance I’ll post here what her personality is like and what her relationships with the rest of her family is like 😁 and if you want I’ll describe what she looks like when I get the chance .
Her name is Andrea btw
I once had each player go one by one introducing themselves explaining their characters *except* their flaw, so, after the 1st player was done, the next character had to pick a flaw based on the impression they got from the description of the character. Then the next player would do that for the 2nd character, and so on. The idea was that in the same way as we don't get to pick our real flaws, your characters shouldn't be able to select theirs either. The flaws were of course subject to approval by the player who was the object of the flaw and the DM (me). It was a super fun addition to session 0.
redemption paladin who gets depressed when they can't talk their way out of violence
Flaws are my favourite! ☺️ They really make your character feel real. My bard is our group's mouthpiece. She's also dumb as a post an has a tendency to go off script. Plans always get derailed. But for some reason the other players keep putting her forward, like they haven't noticed it yet!
I made a bit of an arse know it all dwarf. Hes also a bit curious ans he couldnt helo himself use a power that let the villain know exactly what they need to progress through ice. He actively hindered the party to sate his curiousity and learn more
Nice Labyrinth shirt.
Great video again. Going to follow these tips when fleshing out some more characters. Always a joy to watch your videos. Informative and smart, but not too simple or too flashy.
I play a druidess, and in one of our first adventures we fought a group of varguilles. My charecter got hit by the kiss attack and failed the save, which ment she began to slowly become a varguille herself. Fortunately, we were able to stop it before the change was completed. Since then, I decided her fear was from being turned or changed to a different form. It was fun to roleplay her thinking process of eccsepting wild shape, and it was one of the more interesting roleplay experiencenses I had.
I love getting one random flaw and one I chose without rolling, makes it fun and sometimes we even make homebrew flaws that we put on a table and roll once... or twice or thrice depending on how many there are
My character: A powerful spellcaster, with über high Charisma and Intelligence. (Pathfinder)
His flaws? Absolutely incapable of rational thinking when it's about his crush/partner and unable of lowering himself to mundane problem solving ("We're saving the world here, no I DON'T have time to see lord Merkin about the new potion maker in town that put a joke on him!")
This video just came at the perfect time for me! I was just making a character for a new campaign, and that's just what I needed! Love your vids!
Flaws are my favorite way to make a character relatable, realistic, and fun. Currently running a lizardfolk who wants to fit in but doesn't understand subtle social interactions, currency, boundaries, manners, or taboos like cannibalism. A lot of fun but his lack of regard for fellow party members' names seems to fluster one at least.
9:54 I love this combination! It shows he's very generous with money... as long as it's not HIS money...
My pfp is my first character and im so sad that the campaign i played him in fell through, he was so amazing to play and he had a lot of flaws that weren't just flaws, he was mute from birth, had trust issues due to his backstory where him and his sister unintentionally cause the extermination of their village of half orcs because they were too trusting, was a hopeless romantic, always falling in love with guys immediately and was very protective of his sister. (Another pc) all of this was just based on backstory though as we only ended up playing about 5 2-3 hour sessions in total and everyone was very new to dnd, especially the dm, which became a hindrance to my enjoyment of the game sadly
My favorite PC I have played so far, a Lawful Evil Paladin of Zariel, lived and died by her word. She put a lot of weight on loyalty and honesty, and would never tell a direct lie, only omit information that could potentially change someone's outlook on certain situations. Tiara would always follow the word she had given, even when there was no downside to breaking it. That was just one of her principles: Everything is a contract that needs to be upheld until all terms have been satisfied.
In a game where people tend to get around consequences by lying, it was refreshing to just not be able to do that, especially as a character who probably would benefit from lying a lot.
I guess...her Ideal also doubled as her flaw :3
Zuko:
Ideals: Honor, Bonds, Loyalty to nation
Flaws: Mai
I clicked on the video, because that smile in the thumbnail brought me joy, if only for a moment. :)
Video aside, is that David Bowie as the Goblin King on your shirt, or am I going mad seeing that sticky-uppy hairdo?
It is!
@@GinnyDi Rad! I knew I'd recognise that hair anywhere! XD
Flaws are great for adding depth to your character. And as you mentioned indirectly, with flaws, as with other things when building a character, specificity is very important.