WHAT'S IN A POWER?
So when you pick your "powers", or your special abilities, what do you look for? Do you look for something that will make you almost invincible, impervious to enemy attack? Do you look for something strong to flatten your enemies with, the medieval equivelant of nuclear weapons? If you're like most people, then just nod your head and say "yes". And that's a shame. Those types of abilities [ like ULTRA HELL-BLAST or something ] will help you in combat, sure, but what happens when you're up against someone who picked their "powers" the same way? Easy. Lots of arguing about the effects and who's killing who ans why their shields aren't breaking. Then people accuse other people of god-moding, and nobody has any fun. So what's the solution? Simple. Variety.
"Variety?" you ask, "What do you mean by variety?" Well, I mean take a bit of time when you pick your "powers". Make them more interesting, and less like weapons of mass destruction. One of the best examples of a carefully chosen ability came from a friend of mine at the Green Dragon Inn. Amon her powers are the following: she's very agile, she's a cheap drunk, and she can steal [ mostly daggers ] from anybody, anywhere, at pretty much any time, within reason. Sometimes she doesn't even do it on purpose. To me, that's a great choice. Should she ever need a knife, she just says, "I need a knife," and there it is. Very practical, and very unique, but it also has limitations, so it makes sense, and is fairly easy to roleplay well. She doesn't spew some undefined "energy", and she doesn't raise some vague shield.
Another example is a character I played at the GDI myself. He has one "power", and only one. He could take any physical thing [ gas, solid, or liquid, anything with a physical structure ] and he could transmutate it into any other physical thing of equal mass, or alter it's physical properties. He had no effect on magic, or fire, or "energy", or anything of that nature. So this means he could solidfy air, turn napkins into knives, and that sort of thing. The harder it was, the longer it took. And it was practical. He could take what he needed from what was around him. Part of a table could be turned into a loaf of bread and so forth. Plus, it was cool to roleplay.
Remember, be different.
- fish sauce
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