[quote=“sophmelc”]I’m also keen to hear people’s thoughts on literacy.
If there was an option to make your character illiterate, in return for another character bonus (an extra HP or bonus skill) would you take it?
It would mean that most of the science skills would be unattainable to your character until they learn to read and write.[/quote]
Personally I don’t like it. Mostly because flaws for bonuses are complicated. Why is an illiterate person more hardy or more skilled with weapons than a literate one. It makes no sense.
It makes sense that people might be illiterate, and your no science flaw is a good one, but I just don’t see how they realistically gain anything from it.
Flaws complicate things. You have a pretty nice simple system right now. If someone wants to roleplay that then fine, but you start adding flaws in and suddenly everyone needs one to get something else. I have White Wolf flashbacks where people take them and then forget about them.
So for example something that might work is having Elderly have -1 health but +1 skill. Add in a skill called Fit +1 health (elderly only, must take before getting hardy) and you can have a fit and healthy elderly person or an old one. But do you need it? Who knows.
If you are going to do that what to teens get, they should have -1 skill but what is the advantage, they can ignore their class flaw?