The Flaw in Flaws

I very much dislike the idea of the merits/flaw system. The idea is that you can select a flaw to gain a merit or a bonus feat (this variant is found in Unearthed Arcana). However, the premise as written is ridiculous.

If you are building a character that focuses on one thing, a flaw will almost never have an impact on your character. If you are building a character that only does melee, then taking a penalty to ranged attacks is meaningless. Penalties to skill checks are negligible to fighters, since they have so few skills to begin with.All the player is doing is accepting a worthless flaw for a free mechanical benefit.

Even if you are not min/maxing or specializing, flaws are pointless. From a roleplaying perspective, if I have always been terrible at ranged attacks, why would I bother to focus on ranged attacks later on in life? In everyday situations people employ the skills they are good at and don't worry about the ones they aren't so good at; people tend to hide their flaws or weaknesses. So mechanically and thematically, flaws are terrible. If you want flavor to your character, just play it out; there's no reason you have to take a flaw to play a flawed character.

But what if a player wants to take a flaw? First, ask them why. If they're doing it for a bonus feat, you may as well just give it to them and tell them not to worry about taking the flaw. If they're doing it for flavor, they don't need a (mechanical, rule based) flaw for the flavor, they can just do it.

An alternative to this system is to allow players access to bonus feats for flaws, but that you assign the flaw. From a thematic standpoint, the flaw shouldn't hinder what they're good at too much; if the flaw is too severe they wouldn't have specialized in that from the beginning. Make the flaw something that affects the player in situations.

If someone specializes in ranged attacks, perhaps they're almost neurotic about it. Give them a minor penalty to Will saves when they miss, reflecting a brief moment of doubt that overwhelms them. It shouldn't be crippling, but the players should feel it. This also requires that you work with the player to find something fair and equitable. The last thing you want to do is to make the character no fun to play.