Viewpoint Favorite and least favorite powers?

[Laix_Lake]

Most people got over the "take offense" stage long ago. You can despise and insult my character, or attempt to destroy them emotionally or murder them — no problem. The issue is OOC as stated before, because people get forced into writing posts of a certain style and/or outcome.

I can get the part about player....or in this case writer agency. It was already stated how this tends to fall apart due to the lack of communication and compromise. Your average rp that might be joined out of interest will not be suitable for someone with mind control powers/mind reading unless given some sort of twist like the whole puppets idea mentioned above.

And what you said in your quote, unless that guy is being overly persistent with the mind reading, the only changes I could see most making is just putting out their formost thoughts. No need for every little tick that goes on in the character's head.

Doesn't mean you're a Buddhist monk who's ascended past the ego. And as you listed these powers as your personal favorites, it stands to reason you are the one using them to control everyone else's writing experience.

A bit much? I seen the guys posts and and the very least he is pretty disgruntled, get what he is saying but he comes across as some what angry at times. The guy would have probably mentioned something about useing such a power as making no sense. That would actually be power playing if it was used as an escuse to control everything in a rp. What would be the point?

Might as well mention my picks as well. Respective elemental manipulation, possession (given that it's done fairly) and shadow manipulation.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I really can't stand any power that's clearly intended to be as versatile and cover as many bases as possible. Usually powers that can shape or control matter in some way, including most elemental powers (water and air being the main culprits), solid light, and my favorite, producing/turning into some kind of viscous substance that the user can control the properties of. Of course, this is a pretty broad category, and I've seen these done well plenty of times. It's more of a problem with the approach.

Less common but way worse is any power that revolves around a metaphysical concept, like life or weapons or angels.

As for favorites, any power that fills a specific niche is swell, but I particularly like ones that are straightforward and flashy. Like lasers. What ever happened to lasers, everybody.

 

[CecilDMMasters]

Any power that is just a blatant cry for taking care of someone's character or a reason for the character to be one dimensional helpless.

Basically the power hurts them or is destructive or has a horrible, horrible side effect. I'm all for a power with downsides and that needs training or to be careful. But I'm talking about people who like the PTSD obsessed players have no real intention of the character overcoming the problem or learning to deal with it. Because they like their character being rescued or comforted or depressed.

If these characters were in a TV series they would be a one shot in the horrible depressing episode of the season. Because after trying to help them they would either self destruct or in a hardcore show be put down by someone to save innocent civilians.

 

[Laix_Lake]

Basically the power hurts them or is destructive or has a horrible, horrible side effect. I'm all for a power with downsides and that needs training or to be careful. But I'm talking about people who like the PTSD obsessed players have no real intention of the character overcoming the problem or learning to deal with it. Because they like their character being rescued or comforted or depressed.

So basically another extreme that should be avoided. There are good ways to inducing those kinds of stresses and risks to a character without turning it into something with a lack of dimension or any kind of growth.

 

[CecilDMMasters]

So basically another extreme that should be avoided. There are good ways to inducing those kinds of stresses and risks to a character without turning it into something with a lack of dimension or any kind of growth.

You mean like making working on the issue an character growth part of the story instead of the issue literally going in circles be the plot? Actually sticking to plot ideas and points instead of "OH NO! My character is having trouble AGAIN!" Or actually having actual triggers for the problems that can be avoided for story purpose?

Or how about actual communication with your partner about where the story is going and respecting they may want their character to do things other than being stuck in a weird self made disaster hurt/comfort story.

 

[Laix_Lake]

You mean like making working on the issue an character growth part of the story instead of the issue literally going in circles be the plot? Actually sticking to plot ideas and points instead of "OH NO! My character is having trouble AGAIN!" Or actually having actual triggers for the problems that can be avoided for story purpose?

I was mostly talking in the context of a group rp. But the same applies to either format. No one wants to babysit someone who is repeatedly acting out without any sort of consequence or some sort of progression. Even with a factor like... let's say stress or emotions, not exactly something you can avoid in most RP scenarios. But given that it's not blowing up in people's faces out of nowhere, it can actually add to the story. Currently playing in a crossover RP where Necessity4Fun (sorry for the unexpected mention by the way.) is playing as someone who basically does this pretty well, despite the fact that there was supposed to be more long term development put into place for him.

Or how about actual communication

This. This may as well be the best tool you could ever have for rp's may as well be a necessity to at least talk about the plots and clarifications on certain in character subjects. I honestly had no clue why I did not consider the use of a discord server in this way before.

 

[CecilDMMasters]

I was mostly talking in the context of a group rp. But the same applies to either format. No one wants to babysit someone who is repeatedly acting out without any sort of consequence or some sort of progression. Even with a factor like... let's say stress or emotions, not exactly something you can avoid in most RP scenarios. But given that it's not blowing up in people's faces out of nowhere, it can actually add to the story. Currently playing in a crossover RP where Necessity4Fun (sorry for the unexpected mention by the way.) is playing as someone who basically does this pretty well, despite the fact that there was supposed to be more long term development put into place for him.

This. This may as well be the best tool you could ever have for rp's may as well be a necessity to at least talk about the plots and clarifications on certain in character subjects. I honestly had no clue why I did not consider the use of a discord server in this way before.

If it's not taking over literally everything power issues, skill issues, and emotional problems can really add to a story. I have a long term going now where power and emotions are causing a lot of trouble for both our characters. But it's falling well into the plot and not hitting at moments that derail scenes and plot points one of us was looking forward to. And we have a channel in the RP server for talking in general. So plenty of communication. So the issues are adding to character development and the characters understanding one another is a comfortable and fun manner. And on that note the issues the team are having are all reasonable and in understandable character.

On a different end I've had RPs totally freeze up due to people not knowing when to quit with RPing only to their interest. Even going so far as to being accused of not wanting them to play mental issues realistically. Like seriously, I'm not going to keep writing several lines of my character doing everything to get through to your broken character and getting back 3 to 7 words telling me it didn't work. How about bringing back one of your other characters for awhile while the only person your character wants to talk to (also their character) deals with them either off screen or in a story you write. And when they make plans for plot points for him to work on the problem and then "OH NO RELAPSE" I literally lost my (censored)

They also found ways to keep their OP portal making characters from being able to teleport people back with a convoluted reasoning of 'realistic' that completely went against previous ability. Just so the only person they had around was the broken guy and exhausted characters who they made needing to sleep all the time.

Then again, realism is selective in RPs. Have someone try to come up with why their character can have three powers from three species of alien (I wasn't arguing with him, he just volunteered to insist I understand) then tell me why my character can't have the eye color he does after reading his parents bios. ROFL

 

[Necessity4Fun]

Since I've been summoned, might as well add my two cents to things in this page >3<
Starting byyyyy:

I really can't stand any power that's clearly intended to be as versatile and cover as many bases as possible. Usually powers that can shape or control matter in some way, including most elemental powers (water and air being the main culprits), solid light

As someone who keeps coming to manipulation powers, I thought I'd add to this. Yes, just like something like Telekinesis (which I remember a fellow member of AEGIS having a pet peeve with), these can be pretty versatile. However, It's more fun when they're not, at least not in the start and it's more interesting with added limitations or mechanics. That goes with saying, I don't like having OP-esque characters that are not balanced out in some way, they annoy me. Anyways, here's some examples of my own OCs~

Cecilia, my first AEGIS character, has Air Manipulation, but here are the physical limitations. No, she can't fly with it, no riding tornados for her. There's also a range of 10 meters and everything beyond that area just fades entirely. But what I like more it's that like Sage (the character Laix is referring to), she's an example of 'limitation by personality'. Cecilia is an Italian country girl, she's very simplistic and modest and suddenly being able to make A GODDAMN HURRICANE has her terrified of her own ability to extremes. It took her 5 Episodes to start getting used to the idea and that progress got a little push after their school was attacked by terrorists. A little push towards proactiveness though wouldn't make for the lack of experience and the lingering fear would still get in the way of everything for a while longer.

I haven't done water yet, so can't talk about that, or seen it done similarly, but, Malikai 's own AEGIS character did solid light constructs and was limited by literally him not knowing how to do anything with it. Heck, JJ (Jeremiah Johnson) knew that he had a power in there but wasn't able to use it at all until a bit later, having a crucial scene during that same attack (light lance projectile ftw) and then losing the ability to do anything with it yet again, now with it locked under heavy trauma. Juliana, my character that ended up with the same base power (Light Manipulation) in a huge coincidence, was meant to be very weak with that and as far as solid light goes her gimmick was pushing people away with practically non-damaging light blasters.

I'm just a believer that anything can be an interesting, not super versatile that it's annoying power if you write it that way. Húna has Telekinesis, but it makes her suuuuper tired afterwards (which is fitting because Sin of Sloth), also she's like 6 lmao, her train of thought it's normally about pudding and similars XD

Currently playing in a crossover RP where Necessity4Fun is playing as someone who basically does this pretty well, despite the fact that there was supposed to be more long term development put into place for him.

And back to Sage so. He's a special boy, in many ways, first, he's what I call a 'Dream Concept' for being literally made up by my brain while I slept, yep, I'm not joking it's a concept that has gone through many many tweaks and much much thought. His and, every Descendant's thing is a lore mechanic, and was always thought out to be a defence mechanism with a huge detrimental edge. Like Cecilia, he is limited by personality traits, unlike Cecilia, Sage is also limited by lack of experience and being incredibly simple-minded, so much that uses for his fire-constructs that would be obvious to most characters don't even pass by his mind most of the time. That's what a life of marginalization and isolation does to a person, there's a lot he doesn't know and a passive nature will still make most of them unknown. It's being at the doorstep of adulthood without having been a proper child or anything in-between.

Back to the power though, I love emotion-based powers, with an ardent passion and Sage is a homage to that. It's Empathic Fire Manipulation (yep, more elemental powers), but the point is that emotional states and even more intention are very intrinsic here. During chapter 4 he had been put through so much that it had eventually begun 'breaking' the rules of facets of his Ability, with fire-wings that had stuck around and even started reacting like real ones due to that fight or flight instinct never easing. Hesitation or lack of self-confidence, or something else that messes with focus can cause creations to flicker in and out of existence as if the battery is running out, until they can't sustain themselves anymore. Objects spontaneously combust with a frequency under stress, but there's a subconscious 'targetting system' that goes for the safest thing to burn in an area. (Not during the Take-Over though, because Fire doesn't care for what it burns, nothing is 'important' to It). The very temperature of those constructs can be burning to the touch or just a safe, pleasant warmth depending on intention (attack vs protect) and even what is fire and should burn does not if he's focused enough on it, people keep reaching through the fire-aura around him and not suffering anything.

But yes, he was meant to have experienced some things already, and since he didn't everything was stressful and new. As a result the team almost ousted him from it for 'not making any progress', which is a fallacy. There was progress, there were tons of lines of thought that were altered or tweaked but internal progress can't be seen unless you're very close to a person. And with this kind of power-set, you first need solid internal progress that can support itself against the many happenings that will only then reflect externally. Though, fewer objects have been set on fire lately, which is a result of getting used to certain new concepts and situations. What Sage has always needed was patience, and a space to experiment. Of course, not everyone has that to share and thus almost getting booted from the group : P

Sage's power-set, IS the most versatile of the others, I'd say, but that was always the point. It's something that demands huge creativity and thinking out of the box out of someone who well, isn't very smart to have and do either of those things. It's a constant learning experience. The only time I can say that Sage has 'relapsed' wasn't even with his powers, it was a pseudo-regression that resulted from a huge lack of confidence and destruction of most of his progress and the interesting part is that this didn't make him more unstable, at least not externally, due to him going numb and passive it seemed actually more stable than it had been. And internally there was just all sorts of self-deprecation; The external and internal voices were in constant dissonance.


And since I'm already here, hi, I like manipulation powers, as in the manipulation of anything, it's like more focused telekinesis? (Unless it's something like Bijou's Self-Time Perception Manipulation), But you can be sooo creative with the intricacies of them! My whole thing is taking very simple powers in concept and making them more complex/gimmicky either by how they work or how they're used (Toy Manipulation depending on bonds, Chemistry heavy Ink Manipulation. It's fun to pair them with gestures and motions too, where specific motions result in specific reactions of the power). I do have a fondness for fire, which is why every time I do a new OC now I try to avoid it, ahahahaha! XD Oh, and then I also like having them react to emotions because that's always an interesting time and the psychology of everything is very intriguing to me. Animal traits are greeeeat for body language like that! >3< (Or just play an animal, that works too. I sure had fun playing a pokémon)

As to what I don't like... I don't think there's anything like that. As long as it's well-written it shouldn't be suuuper OP and annoying, I think everything has the potential to be good, it's more of a matter of time and care being put into it. Or like, it can be OP-esque, if it still makes sense and has a reason for it. I think the 'being powerful for the sake of being it' is just incredibly lazy. Like the whole 'this works because it's magic', it depends on the system of magic, lore stuff and it can still make sense even by Physics while still being magic. It's a lot more fun if you have a theme and adhere to it, work around it.

 

[Brytunn]

Super strength. I can punch things. Grr.

 

[Malphaestus]

I dislike power negation.

 

[Laix_Lake]

I dislike power negation.

Any context to this power?

 

[Malphaestus]

A power that negates other powers.

 

[Laix_Lake]

A power that negates other powers.

My bad, I mean did you have any bad experiences with someone who used some form of this power? It can differ depending on the context, is it like anti magic field from dnd or is it more like some sort of high pitched noise that weakens super powers?

 

[Malphaestus]

I just don't like the concept.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I just don't like the concept.

Enlightening.

 

[FoolsErin]

Favorite would probably be any creative type of manipulation. Paper manipulation, architecture manipulation, vehicle manipulation, toy manipulation, that kind of thing. It's broad enough that you can get creative with it, but it's specific enough that it's not the equivalent to hitting the win button. I think it's a nice middle ground, honestly. I also really like powers that allow for creation of magical/supernatural items, mostly because of a certain book series involving dragons, but also because having a library of cool magical household objects is just fun.

For powers that I love when done right but hate when done badly, shapeshifting and illusions. There's a lot of ways you can use either of them to make a character feel sneaky and manipulative, and there's a lot of ways that it can be frustratingly underwhelming. I'm also iffy on underwater survival, mostly because if the setting doesn't really have a need for it, it can seem really pointless.

Powers I outright dislike? I don't particularly like powers that are based off of space and abstract concepts related to space. It’s typically just a dumb excuse to make a power that’s been done to death sound fresh and exciting. Just say it’s pyrokinesis that requires the sun, unless you’re chucking full-sized stars at people and decimating the planet in the process. You aren’t allowed to call it solarkinesis, you pretentious cracker. It's not lunarkinesis, it's light manipulation with extra steps. This isn't even getting into stuff like aether manipulation. Aether is just a fancy word for stuff that space is made out of before people knew what space was made out of. How the hell do you even manipulate that?

 

[SP3CT3R]

Favorite would probably be any creative type of manipulation. Paper manipulation, architecture manipulation, vehicle manipulation, toy manipulation, that kind of thing. It's broad enough that you can get creative with it, but it's specific enough that it's not the equivalent to hitting the win button. I think it's a nice middle ground, honestly.

*sharpens gun*

 

[FoolsErin]

*sharpens gun*

*unsharpens gun*

 

[SP3CT3R]

*unsharpens gun*

*Wins trial by combat because my gun is sharper*

 

[Laix_Lake]

*sharpens gun*

*unsharpens gun*

So you both have the power to sharpen anything? But how long would a sharpened gun last? What would a sharpened gun look like? Questions, questions, questions.

 

[Jannah]

There's a few I like, but currently I'm in love with the idea of a character gifted with omnilingualism who, because of the ability, is a master hacker and such. I already have such a character developed and I picture her more as an anti-hero type who uses her computer hacking skills to sabotage operations against mutants. Oh, and her best friend and companion is gifted with pyrokinesis.

 

[Laix_Lake]

There's a few I like, but currently I'm in love with the idea of a character gifted with omnilingualism who, because of the ability, is a master hacker and such. I already have such a character developed and I picture her more as an anti-hero type who uses her computer hacking skills to sabotage operations against mutants. Oh, and her best friend and companion is gifted with pyrokinesis.

So basically a character that can understand any form of written or verbal communication. I could see how this could apply with codeing, being able to read and edit even the most basic of coding languages as if she was editing an essay.

 

[Jannah]

So basically a character that can understand any form of written or verbal communication. I could see how this could apply with codeing, being able to read and edit even the most basic of coding languages as if she was editing an essay.

Precisely. Computer codes are language too.

 

[Hallow]

I dislike any form of magic that requires no components. At the very least I need the somatic components of the bend in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

 

[Laix_Lake]

I dislike any form of magic that requires no components. At the very least I need the somatic components of the bend in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Guessing something comparable to telekinesis or esper based powers might fit the bill of something that doesn't use component in the normal sense?