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Good to hear about the Love/Hate rules thing for Mongoose Elric. Are you restricting it to "just" the 2 passions, or also things like Envy, Jealousy, Anger, etc? Somehow I get the feeling that Passions are more manageable and less pedantic in play than Traits - they feel less like "character micro-management", if you know what I mean, and more like broad-brush character "powers" (to overuse the word). The fact they have to be targeted (ie Hate (Lunars) rather than just "Hate") whereas Traits don't to me deepens the role-playing aspect rather than attempts to replace it (which I often get the feeling Traits can do - they can get in the way, anyhow).
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I think that traits, in general, can get a little out of hand. HQ frequently suffers from augment-fests, so the rules on Love/Hate are focused squarely on these as passions, without muddying the waters with similar mechanics for jealousy, envy, and the such like. Things of that nature are actually handled under the game's Compulsions and are designed to be roleplayed rather than boiled-down to a percentile roll.
However, Love and Hate are such extreme emotions, and so fundamental to the Elric saga, that I think they have a solid place. You can argue that jealousy is a sort of sub-trait of hatred - I mean, if you have Hate (Elric) at 25%, do you
really hate him? Or is it more likely you're just jealous of his sword?
So no, I deliberately avoided a whole Traits mechanic because it can get in the way, and can detract from roleplaying too. Love and Hate, though, are such strong drivers that, in the Elric saga, they trigger the destruction of entire cities.