Where do this you only can have one social flaw/virtues come from that some group enforce without having it specified as house rule and is it part of the official rule?
I wondering because I recently got refused the Outsider flaw for a magus because the other player was on the point that 2 social flaws/virtues is against the rule.
OK somewhere I also remember that there should be only one social f/v but giving that RoP:D und der Outsider minor flaw even special stated that magus should take the major flaw and I current unable to find the place where it say you can only have on social f/v I'm confused. (I only found where it say that you need to have at last one Social status)
Ave Sodales,
Main core rulebook, p. 35
I would allow more combinations as long as it is well-explained. Even if nothing authorize it RAW, I would authorize The Gift + Outsider combination. This make sense for arabic or sarracens Magi.
There isn't any problem in taking The Gift + Outsider, The Gift isn't a Social Status virtue. The problem would be wanting to get Hermetic Magus + Outsider, which I wouldn't allow, mostly because nothing is lost: you can always define the same character taking existing virtues like Hedge Wizard, Infamous Master, and/or some Story Flaw like Enemies or Black Sheep.
I always thought that you can only have one social status virtue because even when you can fit in many social roles at once, you must pick the one who defines who you actually are.
Silly example: let's say there are two social status virtues named Millionarie and Superhero, and then we have a character named Bruce Wayne. Despite being nauseatingly rich, his social status would be Superhero, because that's what actually defines the character, because nobody thinks "oh, yeah, Bruce Wayne, the millionary dude", but "Oh, yeah, Batman".
Ouroboros and here RoP:D says the opposite of what you saying.
Under Outsider Minor, Social Status (RoP:D 136)
And no there is no errata for this part! So at last from my reading it means the Outsider Major Flaw is one of the Flaw that is official allowed even without special group decision to be taken in combination with Hermetic Magus.
I personal also think the Major Flaw is to much because a Hermetic Magus have different way to disguise the appearance but the writer of RoP:D apparently thought different.
@Cathelineau thanks for pointing to this part in ArM5 37, I missed it when I looked earlier today.
You're welcome, Sodale.
I disagree. Social status states what most of the people think about the character. Most of the Gotham inhabitants see M. Wayne as an indecent millionar. Nobody know who is the batman.
I would say a Sarracen Maga would encounter a lot of problems during her travels in Mythic Europe. Outsider is relevant. Hedge wizard is only a pain when hermetic wizards are around. It is neither a common situation, nor the generic society in Mythic Europe.
How much do I hate RoP:D. And from now on, just a little bit more!
Anyway I just re-read the Virtues & Flaws rules on p.37 of the corebook. I like to do that once in a while because I think I tend to think that there are some clear limits, but some of the conditions actually allow some flexibility. Like social status virtues & flaws: the line regarding them says this:
So if RoP:D mentions the example of magi being Outsider, then that's one of the few ways two social status can happen.
That's a dangerous road. If the social status virtue / flaw reflects what most people think of him, and because most people are mundane, then the Hermetic Magus virtue would be quite uncommon, if only because most people had never heard of the Order. Also many Jerbiton magi should have as their social status virtue (or flaw) something related to their usual noble origin and / or status, for example.
Most of the Magi are laboratory rats and don't mess with mundane people. The Gift is here to assure it 
Why not indeed ?
I had this debate in a play by post campaigns here.
Apparently there are no Jewish Hermetic Magi, nor Persian Magi... just kidding.
I think it's good to ask:
Does a troupe give flaws that are appropriate to a character based on a historical frame of reference and realism?
Or does a troupe select flaws for a character based upon the interactions with the plots and stories they wish to tell?
Sometimes a Storyteller wants accuracy of setting, maybe for the type of stories they want to tell. In this frame of reference all Jews in the setting will have various levels of anti-Semitic struggles to face. I do believe “female” was a flaw in an early edition. By having it as a flaw it is something to struggle against. Some storytellers/players like harsh realism and grit.
By applying flaws to characters based on setting for immersion, every member of the Outsider ethnicity has the flaw, because it will be something all the Outsider characters will struggle with. The Storyteller and troupe are saying they want this as part of the setting. However in this perspective a troupe needs a little leeway for flaws. Ironically it is this perspective in which too many of the same type of flaws makes characters near unplayable.
The problem with this comes when the assertion of the flaw happens even when a character doesn’t have the flaw. If a troupe enforces realism of the time period, then they must grant the points for the flaws.
If a troupe interprets flaws as the way the character interacts with the story, then being part of an Ousider group without the flaw is character background etc. However it then should never (directly) be a story or plot for that character. That character for some reason doesn’t bear the full harshness of persecution and is overlooked, which can be pretty interesting to play.
Maybe being a Hermetic Magi trumps all other social status, in that mundanes don’t care about the ethnicity of a Magus, they care he’s a Magus. A Magi is distrusted being a Magi, full stop. The Gift being mostly to blame. If one has a bad reputation because they are part of a social group, it would be Magi and not their ethnicity for which they are ostracised. Magi are outsiders already.
The reasoning I’ve seen for the limitations aren’t only for immersion issues. There is also a problem when flaws are how the character interacts with the story. Certain combinations can make a character too disrupting,
and/or constantly stealing the limelight if played properly, which is unfair to the other players. If the flaws are downplayed, they are simply free points which can be a bit unfair.
I think the rules can be broken (multiple story flaws, grogs with story flaws, etc) if consideration is given to the above concerns.
I agree with pretty much everything there. Small "but", still:
But that is not rule breaking, and the reason I have to re-read the V&F rules from time to time. Our memory translates as hard prohibitions what actually are mere recommendations. That small sidebox in page 37 don't forbid magi picking 2 Story Flaws or grogs getting one, it just recommends avoiding that, and argues why in the main text: to avoid a magus take a more prominent role in the stories, or to give too much importance to a frog. But if you are running a saga where one of the magi is the trigger of stories or a grog will run that part, then there is actually no prohibition on doing that.
My predictive keyboard doesn't stop replacing "grogs" with "frogs". My predictive keyboard is a playful Tytalus.
As the person doing the original objecting, I'll chip in.
I read the the intent of RoP:D as introducing a new minor version of the Outsider flaw for grogs (as they can't take major flaws), and then specifying that it should only be used for grogs, not Companions and Magi, (without the author twigging that magi couldn't take it anyway), not as a deliberate expansion of the remit of the Outsider flaw. Ideally it would be errated, but I'm not sure the errata is still being updated?
Obviously, that's an interpretation which one can reasonably disagree with, so I'm not saying that the alternative approach is invalid (although I do feel that Outsider is not in general going to be much of a Flaw for a Hermetic magus).
However, in the specific case of Adauli's character, they wanted to play an arabic magus with the Major Outsider flaw in the lands of (locally-Muslim) Kipchaks, so I made the point that even if Outsider were to be allowed for magi in general, it didn't really qualify in this case - whilst not native, they were less of an Outsider than most of the other magi (2/3 of whom are originally from the Stonehenge tribunal).
Arm pg 22
“Grogs should have only Minor Virtues and Flaws. In addition, grogs may not have The Gift (having The Gift makes you an important character), and may not have Story Flaws, as those Flaws make characters central to stories, and that is not the role of the grogs.”
I usually ignore the part about story flaws, because I use grogs as story hooks. Also pg 37 says grogs shouldn’t take more than one personality flaw, but also says grogs commonly can be exception to this.
Sorry to digress. My point is really to encourage using judgment calls on flaw combinations.