It is your chance to flesh out your character by defining the weakness that you want to have. If you pick "Irrational fear of Frenchmen" you can be sure there will be French NPCs in your future.
Also remember that flaws are just abilities, albeit less generally useful than regular abilities. Your fear of frogs might actually be a bonus when uncovering a conspiracy involving stinky cheese. YMMV.
> 2- If the heroe's abilities ratings start at 17 for one and 13 for the rest, what's a typical denizen's average?
It is too hard to answer that one. There are too many variables. If your PCs start off average, then "regular Joe Schmuck" should be 13-17, just like the PCs. If the PCs start below average, then Joe should be 20+. If the PCs start off as exceptional individuals, then 6 is a fine number.
One of the innovations with HQ2 is a mechanism to slide NPC ratings relative to the PCs and how well they've done lately. That means that there is no fixed scale: they get whatever numbers they need to keep the story interesting and moving along. It is controversial and has been discussed to death on the mailing lists, and basically you'll have to play around with it and see if you like it or not.
> 3- On page 10 in the Keywords box is a example:
> Londoner 15
> Know Local Accents +1
> Stiff Up Lip +2
> Does that translate into:
> Londoner 15
> Know Local Accents 16
> Siff Up Lip 17
Londoner is the keyword, and the other two are abilities within that keyword with bonuses. Numerically you are correct: just sum them up.
> Answer I got:
> 1. Purpose of flaws. Based on how I play it, there is no purpose other than having a well rounded character. Nobody is perfect, so what flaw will make this character interesting?
> Everybody starts with at lease 1 flaw.
1 flaw sounds reasonable to me.
> 2. Not sure, but I normally put unimportant people at 6 or so. Translates to a 30% chance.
As I said before, it depends. If the PCs are exceptional, then 6 seems OK. But if they start off everyday and rise to the peaks of Heroism, then 6 seems low.
> 3. Yes.
>
> Then I asked:
> Clarification on the 3rd question, please:
> Londoner 15 = cost 2 points (13+2=15)
> Know Local Accents 16 = cost 3 points (13+3=16)
> Siff Up Lip 17 = cost either 0 for the most important or 4 points (13+4=17)
> Is that correct?
>
> The answer I got was:
> No. That would be the correct cost if they were bought as separate abilities. As Know Local Accents and Stiff Upper Lip are bought under a keyword the cost is like this:
>
> Londoner 15 = cost 2 points (13 + 2 = 15)
> Know Local Accents +1 = cost 1 point
> Stiff Upper Lip +2 = cost 2 points.
Yes, assuming that keywords don't cost double. There is a sidebox on p57 (IIRC) that mentions keywords may cost extra. That has always been the case in the previous editions.
> So now I ask:
> Any ability under a keyword that is related to that keyword is cheaper to buy?
Kinda. Abilities always cost one HP to increase. If the ability is part of a keyword, then you don't have to start from the ground floor (aka 13) and work your way up. They become offsets to the keyword to which they belong. If your keywords are low, this doesn't make much of a difference. But if you've invested a lot in a keyword, it can help out.
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