Henry Fitch wrote: 1. Merits and Flaws are a priority, so you can take a high priority for great big Merits or a low one for freat big Flaws. Can you have some of each?

That would be a middle priority :-)

From memory, it goes like this:

A - 2 major gifts
B - 1 major gift, 1 minor gift
C - 1 major gift, 1 minor flaw
D - 1 minor gift, 1 minor flaw (or nothing, because they cancel out)
E - 1 major flaw, 1 minor gift
F - 1 major flaw, 1 minor flaw

Several of the people on here seem to also go on the theory (based on priority D) that they should be able to be cancelled out further, so I have seen priority C expressed as "major gift less minor flaw = minor gift" and E as "major flaw less a minor gift = a minor flaw". That's not canon, but seems to be what many people do. I have not decided yet, but it sounds reasonable to me.

There's no way at character creation to get more than what's above though (unlike say Storyteller, you can't choose to gain an extra major flaw to gain an extra major gift etc), but they can be picked up in play, and I guess it all depends on your Seneschal anyway. For example, in my games I always give a little boost at creation time for players who commit to doing session logs or personal stories/diaries (see my homepage, url below for examples, there are some VERY good stories from the various characters). In a game like D&D that means extra XP, in a game like Vampire, more freebies. In tRoS? Not sure yet, it will probably mean one priority below C raised a rank, but I may instead give out major/minor gifts instead. Not sure yet.

Brian.

For example, in my games I always give a little boost at creation time for players who commit to doing session logs or personal stories/diaries

I've been considering something like this as well for my campaign. Anybody who does a public log/diary or something else that significantly lightens the GM's load will get a luck point per instance.

-Jeff