Character Pro's and Con's skill system Options

[Darkblade]

Going to be starting a new RP later today or tomorrow(probably tomorrow) and I wanted to get some input on an small system I might want to use in it.

I was wondering what peoples thought are with this?

The basic idea is that there is a list of Pro's and Con's that members can apply to their characters to help define what they can do better in the RP and helps define exploitable weaknesses in characters.
Each character gets 1 free Pro to choose from, but taking another Pro means the character has to have a Con.
To be honest though, its likely only to be used regarding Combat skills and maybe a few other little things.

Pretty simple and I'm sure its been done in games of all sorts.
I remember it from Age of Wonders actually.

Anyway, an example would be:

Light Foot : Character is naturally a faster mover than others
No training : No weapon skill
Traditional Healer : can slowly heal self and others without magic

I guess this would help define characters skills which was kind of vague in the previous RP I did.

Anyway, tell me what you think, if it a good or bad idea.

[Nicsp]

Well, i don't really know much about the RP to give a proper opinion just yet but...

Sounds interesting, i think it's a good idea, especially if you want to avoid people making overpowered characters. The original Fallouts had something similar, they put it back on Fallout: New Vegas, Perks, basically they were qualities that gave some advantages to your character but also a few disadvantages of their own. (By example, Four Eyes perk, your character gets +1 Perception when wearing glasses but -1 Perception when without them.)

[Darkblade]

Its set in the same world as World of Alsta, so there wouldn't be any actual numbers to worry about unless I felt I should add stat points.
Which I... really am not against doing...

But yeah, the idea I was going for can be seen as perks from Fallout.

[Sparrowsmith]

WoA?

Count me in. I like the idea of stats, though I think I prefer Nicsp's take on it...
maybe don't make it obligatory to create a pro-con list, but require characters to develop flaws for their strengths.

Example:
Harold is a narrow minded egoist with a severe belief that his deduction skills are on par with that of Sherlock Holmes. While his skills are impressive, they are not so well that he wouldn't do well to take advice off of others. He relies heavily on his swiss army knife, and is almost powerless without it. Unfortunately for him his erratic behavior hasn't given him the stillest of hands, so dropping it has happened more than a few times. His eccentricity hasn't gone unnoticed in the world though, having built himself connections with some very powerful people around the world, though he's also made a few enemies and gambling debts - too confident in his abilities for his own good.

This can be written as:
Pros:
Deduction/Induction skills
Potent use of Swiss Knife
Powerful Connections

Cons:
Narrow minded
erratic behavior/shaky hands
powerful enemies/gambling debts.


The Pro/Con system seems strange and unnatural, it can be written in a more productive way, but I support the concept of implementing it into character design.

[Darkblade]

Yeah, that seems more realistic.
Perhaps we'll go with that instead.

The way I had thought of it is pretty random and kind of unrelated to each other.

The RP will probably be up tomorrow afternoon assuming everything goes as planned.

[Ryuga]

I remember a system like this on some other site. It was a compiled list of merits and flaws. Characters had to choose 3 merits and 3 corresponding flaws. The list was thorough enough that each merit could have multiple corresponding flaws to choose from.

Playing off Sparrow's little sample list it was something like.

Merits

Superior Deduction/Induction skills

-Choose either Narrow Minded or Unsociable under Flaws.

Powerful Connections

--Choose either Powerful Enemies or Owing favours to many people, under Flaws.