Psychlims
Some ability cards describe disabling traits, rather than skills that empower characters. For instance, players may have to roleplay characters that have an unfortunate tendency to tell the truth or display a nervous tic whenever a certain topic comes up in conversation. Such traits are known as “psychological limitations,� often truncated to “psychlims.� Psychlims may also be listed in one’s character sheet.
GMs put psychlims into a game for a variety of reasons. Some are merely entertaining; some prevent actions or alliances that would disrupt the competitive balance of a game. Occasionally, psychlims reveal an aspect of a character that a player would otherwise have little reason to disclose. This makes potentially damaging information available to the opposition of a player without having to rely on the sportsmanship or the innate roleplaying abilities of the player. For instance, one game required some insane characters to audibly declare, “Mwahaha! I will destroy the world!� every time they made significant progress towards their goals.
This sort of psychlim takes a general motivation of a character and reduces it to a simple, fixed requirement that the player can and must fulfill, whether or not it is beneficial for the achievement of one’s goals. Thus, players need not devote as much attention to their psychlims as to their other goal-oriented motivations. Although a psychlim can sometimes stand in the way of a player’s immersion in his or her character, the mandatory and simplified nature of psychlims can be useful for preserving some semblance of character traits that may otherwise be completely and deliberately ignored over the course of a game. Used well, psychlims can give players the illusion of interacting with characters that have a richer set of character traits than the players themselves care to enact through their roleplaying.
