Compulsion, Dependency, Obsession, and Soft Spot

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The Reddest Mage
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Compulsion, Dependency, Obsession, and Soft Spot

Post by The Reddest Mage »

Compulsion: You have an intense need to act a certain way or perform some task, even when doing so could prove inconvenient.

Dependency: You have a deeply ingrained need for something.

Obsession: You have an intense desire to have or achieve something.

Soft Spot: There is something in this world that you cannot help but enjoy far too much.

Honestly, I find these four Weaknesses to be slightly different ways of expressing basically the same ideas, and sometimes they seem redundant because I have trouble differentiating the four of them as most ideas I think of for one could just as easily be used for the others.

For example, what if you were making a character who was an alcoholic, couldn't Compulsion, Dependency, Obsession, and Soft Spot all equally apply to alcoholism? Could someone take all four of those Weaknesses to refer to the same thing (alcoholism)?
Clay
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Re: Compulsion, Dependency, Obsession, and Soft Spot

Post by Clay »

They are a little redundant, but a lot of things in OVA are. The idea is that a character is immediately “understandable” from their character sheet, and each of these have nuanced, but very important distinctions for role-play.

Someone who has a Soft Spot for cake and one with an Obsession with cake may both be influenced by cake, but how you role-play that is very different. The former may be a bubbly girl with a sweet tooth, while the latter implies perhaps a seasoned chef, obsessively researching the world for the best cake recipe.

For another comparison, Soft Spot for cake and Compulsion for cake, the former can be easily influenced or bribed with cake while the latter won’t sit around and let you talk to them about cake, they’ll take it from your hands and eat it on the spot.

Finally, Dependency is kind of its own thing in general. Instead of being a quality you role-play, it has actual game effects with Penalties. It fills a very different role (in the same way Focus and Weapon approach game mechanics in different ways.)

Also, like the note box on Focus and similar Abilities/Weaknesses states, Players really shouldn’t be allowed to purchase the same idea twice. If something doesn’t give an additional disadvantage, but instead restates a disadvantage you already have, it’s not worth more points. You could argue that a character could have both an Obsession and a Dependency (since one limits role-play options and the other applies mechanical Penalties), but doubling up on Soft Spot/Compulsion/Obsession is not really valid most of the time.
The Reddest Mage
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Joined: Wed Jun 17, 2015 11:36 pm

Re: Compulsion, Dependency, Obsession, and Soft Spot

Post by The Reddest Mage »

I see. Thanks for that distinction. And it's really good to know that one can't take multiple Weaknesses that refer to the same thing, as I wasn't sure about that.
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