Disadvantages
Character is not a discount. It's an investment.
The Two Rules
First: disadvantages are worth 0 points. You take them because they are true of your character, not to fund your sword arm. Zero to three meaningful disadvantages is the healthy range; none at all is legal and says its own thing about who you've made.
Second: played disadvantages pay. When your disadvantage genuinely shapes a session — costs you something, steers a scene, makes the story better — the GM awards bonus character points for it. A Code of Honor that never inconveniences you was never a Code of Honor.
Choosing Well
- Vows, codes, and duties are the load-bearing kind: they generate decisions every session (a Speaker's oath to raise nothing; a showman's code to never maim).
- Fears, compulsions, and honesty interlock with the Stability rules — a failed self-control roll for a mental disadvantage is itself a mental disturbance that costs SP, and choosing to give in instead can restore it. Your flaws are literally how you stay sane.
- Social truths (enemies, obligations, reputations) belong to the setting's ledger — in a world where every village remembers whose casting soured the milk, a mage's history is never private.
Self-Control and Stability
Stability rules adapted from Pyramid #3/103, "Mad as Bones" (p. 4).
Fail a self-control roll for a mental disadvantage: lose 1 SP per 3 points of your margin of failure (critical failure: LSP instead). Waive the roll and give in willingly: make a Will roll and regain one-third of your margin in SP (minimum 1). See Stability.