Is being colour blind in the drab ME worth being a Flaw?
It might be a problem in some circumstances -- failing to acknowledge a fellow with red heels or belt might cause troubles in some areas. Whether that sort of thing is worth a flaw depends on the SG & saga, but it does seems highly situational.
Can you propose a story where colour blindness makes an entertaining challenge?
I was looking at illuminated manuscripts and overheard someone say colour blind.
So I wondered.
It's worth noting that there are several types of "colour blindness". Without being too technical, the one where you see everything in shades of grey is very, very rare. Much more common is one that makes you less sensitive to certain variations of colour, and more sensitive to others.
So, telling that a pair of red shoes is red is generally easy. But it will be harder to tell, from a distance, that a certain fine thread in a dress is red rather than brown, or spot a half-hidden strawberry in the woods, because the red does not "jump" out as much to you. It's more like having a poor musical ear than being outright deaf.
At the same time, it's easier to see through some camouflage patterns, in part because some colours that most other people see as very close appear quite distinct to your eye. For those colours everyone else is effectively "colour blind", and you are not. That's why "colour blind" people were often used as spotters in war, and why the trait has evolved in humans, so as to be relatively common in males (1 in 10 to 1 in 20 in many regions): the hunter group as a whole sees better with a "colour blind" person in the mix.
I'd make it a Minor Personality Flaw. Essentially, mostly a role-playing quirk (why are you always dressed like that?) with the occasional penalty (-3 to spot that strawberry, 1 extra botch die when rolling your Craft:Illumination Ability etc.) ... or bonus (+1 to Awareness rolls of any group you are in)!
"Drab" might be a bit much. Colors are muted compared to what we are used to, but the common portrayal of medieval shades-of-brown is overdone.
Magic places have brighter colors than the mundane world, as would all of the realms in their own palettes. Color blindness would be a mild disadvantage in a supernatural social encounter, perhaps, although I don't know that it would be an actual Flaw.
I'm Red-Green color blind (the common form that many males have) and happen to work in a chemistry lab. It's an issue for me occasionally because I can't read pH strips easily, or correctly judge a solution color for colorimetric titrations, for example. Medieval alchemy relied quite a bit on visual cues to tell what stage of your alchemical process you've completed.
So, I think it's reasonable that a Color Blind Flaw would give a mild penalty to Lab Totals. Maybe, -1. As this would ensure it would only be taken by Grogs/Companions, you'd either need additional penalties for other situations or make it a non-Flaw except for magi.
One character in my saga did do a fairie deal "for the colour of his eyes", so now sees in shades of grey. I assessed it as a Minor General flaw. He's a merchant, and not being able to assess colour does affect his ability to evaluate some deals. Particularly the ones for precious stones
I am glad you mention that. Myself being a chemist, I easily saw how tricky it could be in an alchemist lab, where most cues you have are visual: no thermometer, no pH meter. Odour is another one, but you might no want to smell everything...
Of course, there are go-around the mage can have, the first one being a familiar or a apprentice.
So instead of framing the question, "Does colour-blindness is a flaw ?"
You can create a new, minor flaw, matching penalty granted by similar flaw like Creative Block (-3 for inventing new effect), but because it would apply all the time, maybe reduce it to -2 to labtot.
Then, based on that, the description of the flaw is more towards the most extreme case of colour blindness.
Keep in mind as well that there will be spells to get around these issues: InIm or MuIm can shift colors into a spectrum you can see more easily. (My oldest son is blue-green color blind and has an app that does this)
I wouldn’t have a problem with it as a minor flaw.
It would impact lab work, interpreting heraldry, appraising some items, matching clothing, and more.
It’s interesting how many things we (who see all colors) take for granted.
For a modern example you can be red/green colorblind in a way that prevents you from telling the stop and go of stoplights apart. That’s fine most of the time because the top is stop and the bottom is go. However, when the stoplights are on their side, in the USA there is no national standard for whether stop is left or right, and most states in do not standardize. I’ve been told by someone with this problem that it may not even be standardized within a particular city.
No, it does not work that way. You can easily tell them apart, unless they are tiny dots on the horizon, the size of a star in the night sky. But yes, with lights that are tiny dots on the horizon, you may have trouble telling whether they are red or green, depending on the shade of red or green. Which is a problem when sailing or flying an aircraft at night. Or with some stupid phone chargers that signal they are done charging by switching their led's light from a brownish red to a brownish green...
To get a sense of how the world looks to (the most common types of) colour blind people, check out here. Then judge whether it's worth a Minor (General) Flaw, on par with say an Ability Block, Obesity, a Missing Hand or Eye, or even a severe stutter (Afflicted Tongue). In my opinion, most forms of "colour blindlness" are not worth nearly as much. Seeing everythnig in shades of grey (as @Rhodri 's character) ... that might, actually.
Based on someone I know, who has a form of red/green color blindness, it works that way for some people.
The real question if you allow color blindness to be a flaw is which kinds of color blindness qualify. If your Red Green color blindness doesn't prevent you from telling a stop light from a go light then it probably isn't worth a flaw. Obviously the SG or troupe would be the final decision, but these issues definitely need to be addressed before play rather than during.