Difference between revisions of "Shataina/VirtueFlaws"

Latest revision as of 02:07, 5 December 2010

New Solar Virtue Flaws

Just a few more alternatives to help flesh out characters.

• back to Shataina.
• back to VirtueFlaws.

Conviction

Death-Dealing Resentment

The character resents any implication that she is less than she wants to be; when her Limit Breaks, she lashes out in a fury against those who have implied such a thing. The character immediately tries to kill the person who made her Limit Break. She is enraged to the point of madness; she will not be reasoned with, and will attack any who get in her way. (If the Limit Break was set off by something besides the Limit Break Condition, e.g. the overriding of a Virtue, then the character will seek out the last person who made her Limit Break go up.) This effect lasts until she has killed her target or a number of days equal to her Conviction have passed, whichever comes first.

Limit Break Condition: the character thinks she's being patronized or someone tells her she's incapable of doing something she wants to be able to do.

Heart of Flint

As per the canonical Virtue Flaw; however, the duration is now the character's Conviction in weeks. The character is so emotionless and incapable of feeling that she may not channel through her Virtues at all for the duration of the Limit Break. On the bright side, she need not roll Compassion, Temperance or Valour for the purpose of overriding them; she may go against those Virtues without penalty if she wants. However, she is incapable of taking actions against her Conviction. When the normal rules would require her to roll Conviction and then, if she succeeds and wishes to act against it, override it with a Willpower point, she instead automatically succeeds on the Conviction roll and is incapable of spending Willpower to override it. She also does not gain Limit while Breaking, but if her Limit Break Condition comes into play at all while she is Breaking, then she must roll for it (only once) when she's done. (Thanks to Morpheus for some suggestions.)

Temperance

Irrational Saintliness

The character despises self-indulgence, and particularly hates herself for ever giving in to it. When her Limit breaks, the character is completely and utterly unable to do anything she perceives as self-indulgent. For a number of days equal to her Temperance, she will only do things for herself that she thinks are absolutely necessary. She will only sleep, eat or allow any wounds to be treated if she will otherwise faint or die; she will probably under no circumstances drink, take drugs or have sex. If she's having a good time, or is even comfortable, she'll stop and find something to do that she perceives as less self-centered (and most importantly, demands more of her). On the plus side, the character is essentially unseduceable during this time, even by means of Charms -- unless the seducer persuades her that this particular indulgence is not, in fact, an indulgence, but a necessity.

Limit Break Condition: the character gives in to temptation, or sees someone else give in to temptation, and the results are negative or particularly counterproductive.

Vengeful Pride

The character hates her own weakness, and by extension, hates those who witness it. When she snaps, she will attempt to eliminate anyone who has humiliated her, seen her humiliated or who has seen her when she considered herself to be in a weakened state. Dependent on what is important to the character in question, examples may include: a doctor who treated her wounds; a courtier who laughed at her when she dropped a fork; a servant who saw her when she was falling-down drunk. It should be noted that the character does not go into a red rage in the fashion of the canonical Virtue Flaws "Red Rage of Compassion" or "Berserk Anger"; she will be as careful and cold as necessary, but still single-minded in her pursuit of the elimination of those who have seen her weakness.

Note that "elimination" is here intended to mean destruction, but not necessarily death. The character's aim is to destroy the hopes and dreams of each target and to remove them as any kind of threat. If the character can do it without killing them, she probably will. For example, the aforementioned courtier who laughed at the character when she dropped a fork might better be eliminated by having his fortunes ruined, his marriage annulled, his friends turned away from him and his status removed. This effect explicitly will not spare those whom the character loves, and lasts until she has either eliminated a number of such targets equal to her Temperance, or her Temperance in days has passed, whichever comes first.

Limit Break Condition: the character feels humiliated by what she considers to be her own shortcomings.

Valour

The Self-Aggrandizing Sulk

The character is self-centered and narcissistic, and feels that she deserves an awful lot just for being as awesome as she is. In general, she takes what she wants and thinks that it's her due. If she is denied something, she may snap, in which case she will sulk for a number of weeks equal to her Valour or until the person that last caused her to gain Limit convinces her that he agrees to do everything she could ever possibly want, whichever comes first. While sulking, she will refuse to speak to anyone she does not respect; she may make elaborate and ridiculous demands (through proxies, of course) to soothe her pride; and she will not negotiate. She will refuse to do basically anything unless she believes it to be on her own terms, for the glorification and grandeur of herself (for example, she won't save a life because someone asks her to -- but she might save a life if she thinks it will make herself more famous, as long and only as long as she can convince herself it's not for anyone else's sake). She will insist on being served hand and foot if she can manage it and generally be in a bad temper the entire time.

Limit Break Condition: the character's desires are thwarted or she is deprived of something she wants by someone she perceives as lesser than herself.

Comments

These are great, but I think the Sulk is Temperance, too - Morpheus

Mmm ... I disagree. I can see what you mean since Temperance is so focused on pride, but I see the Sulk as coming from someone's pride in their achievements and prowess rather than in their virtue or whatever. I could be a little biased though, since it's modelled on Achilles and Achilles obviously didn't have much Temperance.
~ Shataina

I can certainly see "Sulking" or "Brooding" being a Valor flaw, but this particular sulk doesn't really seem to read that way (especially considering the LB condition). The description seems to bear it out more as a juvenile pout, when what you seem to want is a more refined reconciliation of failure in the face of supposedly unmatched prowess. It's a good idea, but it might better one to base it off of someone other than Achilles, whose hissy-fit could be seen as the noble course of action for the times. I think by changing the flavor a little (making the sulker more disconsolate and maybe less condescending) and changing the Limit Break Condition (perhaps to "failing at a task for which the character is especially suited" or somesuch) would be more in-line with a "sulk."

If on the other hand, you're looking for a hissy-fit flaw based on Achilles, I think, yah, it has to be something other than Valor. Temperance is obvious, but doesn't sit well. Compassion maybe? - EJGRgunner

Since Virtue Flaws are based on high Virtues, not low ones ... well, I don't think this Flaw works for high-Temperance characters, but it works even less for high-Compassion characters. In particular, basing it on Achilles means that it just won't work with either of those other Virtues. This whole thing is meant to emulate the Briseis-Agamemnon-lack of Myrmidons meltdown in the "Iliad", which seems pretty juvenile to me (and also to most writers / tellers of the "Iliad", as I remember; I don't recall anyone describing him as particularly noble during that little spate of brattiness) ... I don't know that I'd describe anything about it as "refined", but then maybe I'm reading you wrong. At any rate, it isn't so much about failure; it's more about people deliberately thwarting / defying you.
~ Shataina

Yea, you're probably right. - Morpheus

My vote is for keeping it in Valor... The standard anime hero has high valor, and I can see it fitting very well there. After all, the ones in the book don't always fit 100% to the virtues they're for either. - Darloth

Thanks. :)
~ Shataina

Added Death-Dealing Resentment. Unsure if it's too similar to Homicidal Pride.
~ Shataina

Small question about the sulk: you explicitly state that the character will pull out of her sulk to save her husband's life or something like that. Isn't the point of virtue flaws that they lead the character to do terrible, tragic things, thus slowly eroding their humanity and turning them into the heartless paragons of greatness that spurred the Dragon Blooded to name them Anathema? Shouldn't the flaw explicitly state the opposite? -Seraph who is reading the Second Chornicles of Thomas Covenant, and it shows

Well ... I'm torn. On the one hand, the flaw is a weeks-duration one, which means its effects should be slightly less nasty; also, unless I am horribly misremembering the Iliad, Achilles came out of his sulk in order to avenge Patroclus, and that's kind of the effect I'm aiming for. On the other, you're make a good point -- I'm not sure I should be leaving any outs here. Hmm ... consider consider.
~ Shataina who really hated Lord Foul's Bane and never touched the rest of those books

Maybe the character will pull out of her sulk not to save her husband's life but to avenge it? -- MadFreddy, staying with the Achilles theme - and besides: Achilles was rather young, so juvenile behaviour is not to be unexpected, especially when compared to the older, wiser(?) heros like Ulysses...

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Exalted, but you should really give the rest of the books a chance I hated Lord Foul's Bane, too, but a friend prevailed upon me to read the rest. I did, and I didn't regret it. And on an Exalted note, you could say that the Break has special condition that the character may emerge from the sulk, but only when he or she looses something significant. Or, rather, that the sulk turns into obsession with recovering/avenging what was lost. -Seraph

Hmm. Are the rest of the books about Mr. Covenant? Because my major problem was that I'm basically incapable of sympathizing with a violent rapist. As for the Flaw, I've rephrased it; the general idea is now that the Breaking character can be convinced to do something for someone else, but only if she's manipulated into believing that it's totally on her own terms and she's doing it only to benefit herself and not for anyone else. Thus, Achilles can still avenge Patroclus, because he's doing it more for himself than for Patroclus's memory ... if that makes any sense.
~ Shataina

They are about him, but he changes. Donaldson spends the first book tearing the guy apart, I think so he can put him back together again into a decent person in the second and third books. The main reason I think you'll like the second two is that your complaint is exactly the same as mine. AND, I like the change in the flaw, though can you imagine a whole circle where everyone suffers from this flaw? It would be crazy. -Seraph

Per the Donaldson stuff, I agree. I read them a (long ^^; ) while ago, so I don't remember a great number of the details, but I do remember throwing the book across the classroom in disgust when I got to the part about the rape. I actually spent most of the first book actively hoping for Covenant to die horribly (though, as it was obviously a western fantasy novel, I knew I'd have to wait until the end, if that was going to happen). By the end, though, I'd started to see, very much despite myself, how someone could end up like that, and feeling ambivalent to him for most of the rest of the first trilogy. That, however was my limit, and so I've never tried to read the second trilogy.
As for your Virtue Flaws (the point of this page, after all ^^ ), I love this. <Has all sorts of ideas for new NPC's...> Now to get to work on them. ^_^ -Suzume

These are really nice. I'm impressed. My one comment is that Death-Dealing Resentment and Homicidal Pride both seem WAY more severe than the others, or for that manner, than any of the examples in the book. Homicidal Pride in particular is nasty, as the characther acts normal other than stealthely killing some people. A few occurances of either of these would probably get a charachter locked up by their friends, nevermind anyone else. It's hard to see a charachter as heroic with flaws of this magnitude. Additionally, they both have a fairly long duration also(days!) and seem like the type of thing that could be triggered fairly rapidly for the right type of charachter. Heck, a charachter could reasonably come to the conclusion that they are insane after a few occurances of either. My point is that either of these makes a charachter essentially unplayable in short order, which is a shame, as they expresses some personalities so well. My suggestion would be to allow responses other than homicide(although it's still an option), humiliating the targets would seem particulary apt, along with painful but not necessarily fatal violence, other forms of punshing the targets are possible(frex: Someone with Homicideal Pride might dismiss and blacklist the servants). I suppose one would need new names also, something like Vengeful Resentment and Unbearable Pride... or something. I dunno. I like the concepts and would hate to see them relegated to NPC-only status by meta concerns. Hope this came across ok. --FlowsLikeBits

No problem, it comes across fine; I'm just surprised at your comment. Respectfully: have you ever played in a game in which one of the PCs had Red Rage of Compassion? Deliberate Cruelty? Berserk Anger? Foolhardy Contempt? If your Limit Breaks and your Flaw is Berserk Anger, then you kill anything that moves for hours equal to Valour. If your Limit Breaks and your Flaw is Deliberate Cruelty, then you torment everyone around you in every possible way for days equal to Conviction. A Foolhardy Contempt-ing character makes a deliberate point of going out and doing every dangerous thing she can think of. Red Rage of Compassion is a little nicer; then you just kill everyone that's causing suffering for hours equal to Compassion. All of these will get you killed, all of these will get you locked up, all of these will make people conclude that you are insane, and all of them make it difficult to see the relevant characters as heroic, in my opinion. If I were trying to specifically make a character who would survive and I had to choose Homicidal Pride versus Foolhardy Contempt, I would pick Homicidal Pride without even thinking about it. It's true that there are weak Virtue Flaws in canon (Heart of Flint, the biggest cop-out ever, comes to mind) but I see those as the exception rather than the rule. Furthermore, I'm unwilling to weaken those Flaws, not just because I think they're balanced against the examples I've cited, but because I don't like changing things solely for the sake of players who are unwilling to make dramatic characters because of meta-considerations.
~ Shataina

I'm sorry, I wasn't clear in what I was trying to say. On a meta level, there seem to be two types of limit breaks. Those where the characher goes insane, and essentially has to be locked up. These are short lived, usually hours. Then there are ones where the charachter mostly takes themselves out of play, but arn't really incredibly dangerous. These tend to last days. Also, most virtue flaws have the implied factor that there is a chance of being restrained by companions. (Foolhardy Contempt is the obvious example here). Finally, most really nasty flaws have feature that they are obvious derangements, i.e. they are usually vastly different from the characthers normal personality. Less nasty, but longer lasting ones tend to look more like eccentricites, rather than dangerous mental conditions. (Irrational Saintlyness is an example). For these, I assume that a charachter looking back on them has less of a 'what was I thinking' feeling.

These seems somewhat evil in that they are both severe, and long lasting. Specificly, Death-Dealing Resentment both has the charcther try to kill their target, and it lasts a number of days. Most cannon ones that involve killing things are short lived. Death-Dealing Resentment seems severe in that it basicly forces the charachter to be locked up for Conviction days. I'd change it to 24 hours, and it would seem fine.(As it's a little less damaging than the bezerker kill-kill-kill flaws).

Homicidal Pride is nasty in that, if played correctly, it's not easily detectable by others. It also isn't as obviously a mental condition. (I suppose you could play it that way, but that seems kind of like a cop-out to me). This is the one that I would suggest changing to requiring some form of tailored vengance against those who saw the characther in a weakened state, but not necessarily requiring killing them. (You could work with it in other ways, but they seem less interesting to me. It doesn't seem possible to me to shorten the duration and retain the flavor.) Sorry about not being clear before. I think this better expresses why these seem more severe than many others. --FlowsLikeBits

Thanks for the clarification. I have to disagree with your assessment of the days-lasting Virtue Flaws taking the character out of play but not putting them in danger. I think Deliberate Cruelty and Foolhardy Contempt will in fact put a character in ridiculous amounts of danger; I also tend to think that the "restrained by companions" thing is a little unrealistic -- any reasonably intelligent character with Foolhardy Contempt, for example, will try to get around their companions by sneaking out or something, and a character with Deliberate Cruelty, for example, will alienate any companions within fifteen minutes of dialogue. I think Death-Dealing Resentment is on the same level as one of those, especially since the character only goes after one person; unlike Foolhardy Contempt, the character only puts herself in one negative situation for the entire duration of the Limit Break. I think in that way it balances against the day-duration types; and it balances against the hour-duration types in that the effect attempts to kill for longer, but only tries to kill one person as opposed to an enormous category of people such as "everyone that moves", just as you noted.

I also have no problem with Flaws that aren't "obviously mental conditions", because I don't think any Flaws should be obvious mental conditions, even if they are extreme. I think that playing Flaws as "obvious mental conditions" is missing a large point of the Great Curse in general, which is that the Great Curse was intended to make the greatest strengths of the Exalted turn against them. For Solars, this means their emotions and ideals, which means that a well-chosen Virtue Flaw should complement a Solar's personality. No Virtue Flaw should appear completely out of the blue; it should, in fact, be turning a character's greatest ideals against them. So, for example, a character with Red Rage of Compassion should generally get pretty angry at the abuse of innocents, and it shouldn't appear to be anything more than a real loss of control when she Breaks; a character with Deliberate Cruelty should have a real mean streak, so that when he Breaks it seems as though he's just taking it to a horrible extreme; etc. This is all my opinion of course; I'm aware that some people, for some reason, think that Virtue Flaws should be basically completely random, but I think that goes against the intent of the system, and that opinion colours the Virtue Flaws I write. So, to wind up this paragraph with an attempt at summation: I think that playing any Virtue Flaws as "mental conditions" is copping out, and that although it's okay for a character to look back and think "What was I thinking?" after a Limit Break -- much the same way one of us would if we lost our temper -- they shouldn't consider themselves to have acted out of character or to have been completely unjustified. (And none of this is to say that outsiders shouldn't be able to register that a Breaking Solar is doing something really nutty sometimes; but an outsider who knows the Breaking Solar shouldn't see it as random or necessarily psychotic, but rather as a -- possibly predictable -- extreme of the temperament of the Solar in question.)

All that having been said: I've downpowered Homicidal Pride a little bit, and renamed it, because I do think you're right about a relevant character not necessarily wanting the death of those who've seen her weakness. The shattering of their hopes and dreams / elimination from the character's life and sphere of influence should be enough, not because I think the Flaw is too nasty but because I think it makes more sense from a personality perspective.
~ Shataina

I really like your take on the flaws. I just wanted to repeat that, as this has been pretty useful to me. I don't usually consider mass-kill flaws much more severe than single kill ones. From the POV of getting a characther in trouble, "who" a charachter is trying to kill is usually much more important than how many. I.e. killing the king, vs killing the king and 5 guards usually isn't a big diff. YMMV however. I like the new Vengeful Pride. I wouldn't entirely say it's downpowered, as this basicly makes enemies instead of corpses; I agree that it fits the perspective better too.

Personally, I never liked Heart of Flint. This version almost makes it an advantage, as during the break, you can't gain limit or have to supress a virtue. You could explictly close that loophole, but it seems hard to justify. (Why are you having to supress a virtue you can't channel? Seems odd). Also, channeling virtues is only marginally usefull anyway, unless the virtues are fairly high. --FlowsLikeBits, "who is remembering why he liked the idea of virtues, if not the execution"

I like this version of Vicious Pride even better. ^_^ I think I could make an Edmond Dantes from it. It definitely has the right feel. (You did "Nasty" things to me, so I'm going to make sure that your world comes down around your ears, and you know that it's me doing it. ^_^ ) Oh yeah! -Suzume

Hee. But wouldn't that presume that Edmond Dantes had high Temperance? Well, actually, I guess he kinda did. Hmm ... silly categories.

Thank you, FlowsLikeBits. I hope I in turn haven't come across as unpleasant or attacking; I'll admit that I'm a little defensive about this subject; I've gotten into too many arguments. True, the new Vengeful Pride isn't quite downpowered, but it does have the advantage of not necessarily making the character into a murderer. It's also worth noting that while who you kill is more important than how many, you are more likely to kill an important person if you are killing multiple people rather than just one (especially in cases like Limit Breaks, which tend not to distinguish at all for status, merely for whether or not a person set them off).

I think channeling Virtues is astoundingly useful, but I've added a few more drawbacks / etc in an attempt to make the Flaw more understandable and nasty. In fact, I've made it so nasty that I might re-reduce it to days = Conviction. Still thinking about whether a Heart of Flinted character should be gaining Limit at all; tried to address it, not sure if I like it.
~ Shataina, who really doesn't like "Exalted"'s Virtues but tries to make the best of a bad system

Actually, for a buzz on Monte Cristo try to find the Anime Gankutsuou (巌窟王 which is actually the book's Japanese title, meaning "King of Caverns"), which actually doesn't do badly by the story (though there are, of course, a large number of changes, starting with setting the story in a sort of pulp-era-styled future! ^^; ). It might be a bit of a search, but it's worth it. In that vein, what do you think the best Flaw for Mondego would be? ^_^ -Suzume

There's an anime for The Count of Monte Cristo? That's even better than "Reign: the Conqueror"! I have to see it. Thanks for the rec! As for Mondego, I don't remember which one he was ... <looks ashamed> I actually never got through the whole book. Liked the movie, though, even if it was retardedly inaccurate (I know, I should be ashamed of that too).
~ Shataina

^__^ Yup! The best place to look, if you want, is at Anime Kraze, a fansub group's bittorrent tracker. It'll take a while, but it's worth it. Alternately, you might try their IRC channel: #anime-kraze @ irc.rizon.net, for faster xdcc downloads.
Also, there's one based on Kurosawa's 七人の侍 (Seven Samurai), called, oddly enough, Samurai Seven. ^_^ But it's harder to get, as it's scheduled for release by Funimation sometime in Q2 or Q3.
Mondego / Moncerf was Dantes' "friend" that betrayed him, setting the whole mess in motion, and was one of the primary targets of the Count's revenge. ^^ -Suzume

Ah, Fernand. But he was only a childhood friend in the movie, ne? I seem to recall that in the book he was just old friends with Mercedes, and knew Dantes not at all (one of the things I really liked about the movie was that I thought it changed this, but maybe I didn't read far enough to discover their past together or something). I seem to have lost my Bittorrent program (I have no idea how -- all the application support bits are still there), so I guess I'll get right on that once I have it back. I don't suppose you know of any other Dumas books that have been made into animes?
~ Shataina

Not off-hand. I'm sure there are more. <Must look through Anime Encyclopedia like possessed woman now...> ^_^ -Suzume

For those who consider Heart of Flint a cop-out, I thought so too, until I actually hit a limit break. While the mechanical aspects are soft, remember that the character is dead to all human emotion. If there isn't a coldly logical reason to help your best friend, or to use non-lethal force to subdue your love when she tries to stop you from whatever your heartless Conviction is driving you to do, you won't. Remember how a Conviction 5 character will put a nation to the sword, if it serves his purpose? Under Heart of Flint, that's as easy to do as turning on a light switch, if a little more time-consuming. You kill people who get in your way. You kill people who look like they want to get in your way, to keep them from getting in your way at a more critical junction. And your Circle is probably the first group of people who's going to stop you. Vargo_Teras

Sure, it's nasty. I won't contend that it's not. I do, however, contend that it is not as nasty as any of the other Flaws, which is why I made it slightly nastier rather than eliminating it altogether.
~ Shataina

I'd disagree that it's not as nasty as many of the others. Compassionate Martyrdom, Heart of Tears and Ascetic Drive do damage only by omission; Overindulgence is similarly unlikely to result in serious harm except in the rare case where the character is actively denied his vices. Further, while it's not quite as devastating as the active sadism of Deliberate Cruelty, it's much harder to notice. Those around the Solar will see something's up, even if they don't identify it as a bout of magical insanity, when he starts beating servants senseless for flinching from his bloodstained visage; heartless pragmatism isn't nearly so obvious until it's too late. Vargo_Teras

Eh ... I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I also have to disagree that the heartless pragmatism isn't obvious; you do take a -2 Social penalty because it's so obvious, after all. I think you're underestimating the flaws you listed; Compassionate Martyrdom doesn't exactly only sin by omission -- you deliberately put yourself in unpleasant and possibly deathly situations? How is that omission? Heart of Tears and Ascetic Drive may only damage by omission, but it's amazingly hardcore omission. And Overindulgence, well, let's picture an undercover agent offering to have sex with the Solar under its influence but only if he sells out his comrades ... or someone giving him poisonous drugs that he literally won't stop taking ....
~ Shataina