Generic Terms for Character Flaws (and Gifts!)

One of my peeves in games is when the author or some new game insists on using some new term when there’s a perfectly good term that everyone already knows and uses. Example: we’ve been using the term “constitution” since 1974, but sometimes you’ll pick up a book and see that they’ve called it “health” or “endurance” or some other term instead even though it’s serving the same function.

Because of this, one of my goals for Lucky 7 is to use to most generic and commonly used term whenever I can. That’s why I have a game master/GM instead of a “referee” or “narrator” or “Luck Lord” or some other term. But when I was writing last week’s post, I was stopped in my tracks for a pair of terms.

Characters often have a beneficial trait; maybe they’re ambidextrous or they are nobility. Likewise, they will often have a problem of some sort. They might be afraid of snakes, or have a bounty on their heads.

I can’t figure out what the most generic term is for these things, though. For last week’s post I went with “Advantages” and “Disadvantages” because that’s what GURPS called them, and that’s where I first encountered them. But what should they be called?

I decided to do a survey of various games on my shelf. Many games don’t have these kinds of aspects. Some games only have one or the other. But of the games that I had that use both, these are the terms:

Game	Beneficial	Problematic
Alternity	Perks	Flaws
Ars Magica (4E)	Virtues	Flaws
Big Eyes, Small Mouth	Attributes	Defects
Conan (TSR)	Talents	Weaknesses
Fudge	Gifts	Faults
GURPS	Advantages	Disadvantages
Hackmaster	Talents	Flaws1
HERO	Perquisites (Perks)2	Disadvantages
JAGS	Enhancements	Defects
Savage Worlds	Edges	Hindrances
Simply Roleplaying	Abilities	Disabilities
Star Trek (Decipher)	Edges	Flaws
Star Trek (Last Unicorn)	Advantages	Disadvantages

Breaking that down by the word used:

Beneficial	Times Used	Problematic	Times Used
Advantages	2	Disadvantages	3
Edges	2	Flaws	3
Perks	2	Defects	2
Talents	2	Disabilities	1
Abilities	1	Faults	1
Attributes	1	Hindrances	1
Enhancements	1	Weaknesses	1
Gifts	1
Virtues	1

For the beneficial term, four words were tied for first. But those four were only used twice each compared to once for the others. There’s no clear-cut favorite.

“Disadvantages” and “Flaws” were tied for the number one spot of problems, but even then there’s not a huge difference between being used thrice versus once.

“Advantages” and “Disadvantages” mirror each other nicely, and are both on top of their lists, which is why I used them last week. But if I were to pick the ones I like the best I would say “gifts & flaws.”

What do you think? Am I over thinking it? Which terms do you like the best?

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1. Technically this was “Quirks & Flaws.” But GURPS uses “Quirks” as very low level disadvantages and I didn’t say “Quirks & Disadvantages” for that game.↩

2. Although exact verbiage in the book is “Perquisites (Perks),” I’m simplifying this as “Perks.”↩