Flawed Flaws

[NomadGaia 924]

 

Flawed Flaws

“Perfection has one grave defect: it is apt to be dull.” – W. Somerset Maugham

To have defects is to be completely, essentially, wholly human. Everyone has them, good guys, bad guys, in between guys. It’s what gives us our humanity. And when you’re creating a character, no matter how powerful, benevolent, evil, or normal, they must have flaws. They help add depth, humanity, and conflict to our characters, so we can relate to them better. The perfect character, as Maugham states, is dull, boring to be around. This is no different in roleplay. Without imperfections, your character can be annoying, irritating, even frustrating . So how do you avoid this problem? You give your characters flaws, that’s how.

But not just any flaw. It needs to be something deep seeded in the character. They can make or break a character. Most weaknesses are just superficial failings, or bad habits. Sure, in small doses, these can bring a lot of detail to your character, but they are no substitute for a true character flaw. So what sets apart the good flaws from the bad flaws?

A Good Flaw...

• Is a deep seeded emotional or physical defect

• Adds depth

• Gives us, the players, empathy towards them.

• Impedes the persona in their goals

 

The Origin of Our Flaws

We are shaped by the moments of our lives. Our infancy, our childhood, our teenage years, our adulthood. Every moment of our lives, the world is changing around us, and so to do we change. And so must our characters.

Can you think of an event in your life that really changed the way that you think about the world? Maybe you had to move away, meet all new friends. Or perhaps you were fired from a job. These large events shape who we are. And your character shouldn’t be any different. Think of a character’s backstory like a seed, or the roots of a tree. They’re the foundation for the rest of their lives. It is here that your character’s faults should originate.

The Anatomy of a Backstory Flaw

The key to creating a good backstory flaw is to understand where the flaws meet the character. Let’s take a look at an example.

“Jane Doe’s family was mugged when she was a child. In the process, her mother was injured by the thief.”

So, has the flaw developed yet? No. That is merely a character event. It’s an action that either the character does or something that acts upon the character. Flaws are not developed in actions, but in your character’s reaction. You, as the creator, have the ability to decide how you want your character to react to any given situation. With every situation, there are many different ways your character can react. Let’s take a look back at that example, but this time, we can add our character’s reaction.

“Jane Doe’s family was mugged when she was a child. In the process, her mother was injured by the thief. Jane Doe believed she caused the problem, and blamed herself. Around the house, her parents noticed she started to put herself down more.”

Can you identify the character flaw that Jane Doe’s backstory has revealed? She’s grown self-depreciative. It didn’t exist before the mugging, nor during. It developed afterwards, when the persona has had time to develop with her reaction. These backstory flaws should coincide with how the character is played, and be present throughout their whole lives. This creates conflict, and gives the character an obstacle to overcome. Perhaps they try and overcome their failings, and succeed, or try, only to fail and grow more flaws. Let the consequences that the flaws bring echo throughout the character’s story. Let’s take our previous example, and see what way Jane Doe’s flaw could get in the way of her life.

“Jane Doe, now grown up, has decided to join the guard force. She is strong, and a good fighter, but never can seem to summon the courage to make decisions due to her self doubt and depreciation, and she is never able to progress through the ranks.”

So our Jane Doe is stuck in a cycle of not being able to progress in life. She has hit a wall caused by her backstory flaw. How is that a good thing? Well, because of this wall, we now have a conflict for the character to overcome. In RP, conflicts like these are great because it provides the character with a goal to work towards. Jane Doe doesn’t want to be stuck where she is forever, but first, she needs to get past her self-depreciation. This creates roleplay for yourself and the other plays to participate in. She may ask people for advice, she may struggle. It helps strengthen the relationships with other characters in the world around Jane Doe.

 

The Great Responsibility of the Villain

“Villains often move the story along, while the heroes react to the villain, so the villain becomes the engine of the story.” – Michael Scott

Villains could be the heroes of LoTC. But they aren’t, not yet at least. A lot of villains i’ve seen on the server are villains for personal gain, or for simply the sake of being evil. However, in the story of Lord of the Craft, villains should be held to a higher standard than most players because, as Michael Scott said, the villains are the engines of our story. Their characters should be more complex, with deeper flaws that can create roleplay for all sides of any encounter, in order to drive the personal character development of other characters in the world.

What makes a villain? Is it a curly mustached man who turns around in a chair whilst petting his cat, only to reveal his diabolical plan to us as we’re tied down? Not really, no. Villains can take a multitude of forms. It can be a villain that presents himself as such, though that sort of thing is usually frowned upon. A villain is anyone that tries to impede your character's goals. In Jane Doe’s story, her villain could be an officer that won’t give her the chance to prove herself, or even a fellow guardsman that keeps sabotaging her attempts to take the lead. My point is that villains range from people you know in your everyday life, to the most terrifying antagonist. Everyone, hero or villain or average joe, has flaws.

Villains are

• Normal characters with flaws that impede themselves in their goals, and may likely harm others in the process.

• Normal characters with flaws that impede other characters in their goals.

• Real people with wants, needs, desires, and motives. They can win, lose, live, die. They are simply people.

• The hero of their own story.

Villains should not be

• Wholly Evil Characters (Save that for the Antagonist)

• “Minas or die!” 5 4 3 2 1 Go!

• People that only commit villainous acts for the sole purpose of ooc gain.

 

The Problem with Polar Traits

“Good-Bad” flaws or more properly known as Polar Traits are traits that become negative when they are acted to the extreme. However, the problem I often see is that people like to use these solely instead of other flaws, simply because it sounds better when describing them. And because of this fear of making your character undesirable, people often fail to play the trait up enough to make it an unmistakable flaw. For example, you may say that your character is “Organized”, but what needs to happen is to take that trait and ramp it up straight past organized, through control freak, and make them downright manipulative.

And no, “too selfless” or being “too kind” are not flaws. The more extreme these polar traits are, the more interesting the character. Instead of selfless, your character is at the point where they’re patronizing or condescending, extending their help to anyone and everyone, regardless of if they don’t need it. Instead of kind, they’re blissful, and can’t even differentiate between good people and bad people.

When roleplayed properly, these polar traits can provide an immense amount of depth. However, they can be very difficult to portray.

 

Flaws Don’t Last Forever*Some Restrictions Apply*

“We all change when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives, and that’s okay, that’s good, you’ve gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.” – The Doctor

The Doctor couldn’t have put it any better with this one. We, as people, constantly change throughout our lives. We change with the people that come and go, with the big events in our lives. Personas must reflect such. But how?

Look to your character’s flaws. They don’t have to last forever because, as your character works through certain things, they learn, they change (constantly). This is called character development. Thus, you’re allowed to take flaws away from your characters, so long as they earn it, through some struggle or event, when the chance is presented for your character to make a choice. Sure there will be some internal conflict, but they might be able to push past the flaws that they hold. It’s moments like these that make characters so interesting to play.

Let’s look back at our Jane Doe example;

“During a battle, Jane Doe’s commanding officer is gravely injured. With no one to lead the group, they have grown disorganized. However, in his last moments, Jane Doe’s officer gives her some inspiring words, and asks her to try and pull the group together.”

Here we have the opportunity and motive for growth, where your character is presented with the ability to move past their flaw. In our example, Jane is held back by her lack of confidence and her self depreciation.But because of her officer’s words, she has the confidence she needs to pull the group together. She just has to take the initiative.

Now this is a vague example, but you get the picture. In the event, there is something to push Jane forwards to make her move past her flaws. And afterwards, she is a changed person. We’re no different than characters.

[Sky 0]

Nugget emplores people to have flaws, despite Nugget being- Flawless.

[monkeypoacher 6993]

nice! idk how long it's been since someone posted a writing guide on this forum. I'd love to see more of this.

[ski_king3 0]

2 minutes ago, char-char~ said:

nice! idk how long it's been since someone posted a writing guide on this forum. I'd love to see more of this.

 

 

[Fawb 557]

This is a great post. I don't understand how people can play these morally superior and faultlessly immaculate characters in a universe like LotC. It would be like role-playing as a piece of blank paper. 

[Remyy 952]

Yes.

[Kvasir 1118]

Good boi +1

[sidmmvv 201]

[MamaBearJade 2088]

Love this. I always made it a point to have 3 flaws with my characters that they can either get over, or becomes part of them.

 

1 physical

1 fear

and 1 mental

[ThatGuy_777 218]

Absolutely agree with this. You did such a fantastic job with writing it too. Couldn't put it better if I tried. +1 in spirit

[Vaynth 2965]

Wonderfully done.

[Detective 101]

Come on, where's the +1 button?

[Nekkore 641]

Minas or die.

[PraiseTheLord 868]

In my opinion, running around as a greedy bard is always funner than being 'perfect'.

[gameingg 603]

I've made a really flawed and weak character(coward,barely any combat experrience,allergic to kha etc.) and let me tell you,this is the most fun I've ever had on Lotc,I don't know why.So to everyone who's bored,try making a weak character and try to develop them,I promise you it's fun.