Random powers?

[Robyn]

It seems to me that, every time there's a character posted whose powers do not all share a single unifying Special Effect, someone says "Oh, they must have been a random powers . . . "

 

Is it so unbelievable that someone might want to play a character with an assortment of powers that neither derive from the same source, nor "play well together"?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Random powers?

 

It seems to me that' date=' every time there's a character posted whose powers do not [i']all[/i] share a single unifying Special Effect, someone says "Oh, they must have been a random powers . . . "

 

Is it so unbelievable that someone might want to play a character with an assortment of powers that neither derive from the same source, nor "play well together"?

 

Seems like a silly complaint. Qualifying to be put into an EC framework is one thing but single sfx's can fit any set of powers. For an example take a look at the one that started it all: Superman.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Random powers?

 

It seems to me that' date=' every time there's a character posted whose powers do not [i']all[/i] share a single unifying Special Effect, someone says "Oh, they must have been a random powers . . . "

 

Is it so unbelievable that someone might want to play a character with an assortment of powers that neither derive from the same source, nor "play well together"?

 

Want some cheese with that?

 

 

though I really don't know what you mean by "play well together" because how they play at all is decide when the Player makes in game choices.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Random powers?

 

Rocketed to earth from his distant, dying planet after being orphaned by a petty criminal, Our Hero was adopted by a Himalayan monk who tutored him in the ways of the Mystic Arts and mysterious techniques of hand to hand combat until, on his 18th birthday, he was struck by lightning, gifted a powerful weapon by mysterious Guardians of the Multiverse, bitten by a radioactive wombat and bombarded by Cosmic Rays, Gamma Rays, Vita-Rays, Ray-Rays and Antimatter Rays. Building himself a suit of powered armor, Our Hero now battles for Truth, Justice and Hostess Fruit Pies...

 

Yeah, maybe a central theme isn't such a bad idea.

 

Anyone remember Golden Heroes? You rolled for your powers, but you then had to design a backstory that reasonably encompassed them. Any that didn't fit, didn't stay.

[Cancer]

Re: Random powers?

 

And here I thought this was going to be necromancy of the thread that brought us Megascale Swinging.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Random powers?

 

And here I thought this was going to be necromancy of the thread that brought us Megascale Swinging.

 

Well, isn't that just a space elevator?

[Robyn]

Re: Random powers?

 

Want some cheese with that?

 

That's my line . . . though I was too polite to say it like that.

 

If people want to be so "Noone could have wanted to play a character like that!" about it, let them step up and explain why.

 

though I really don't know what you mean by "play well together" because how they play at all is decide when the Player makes in game choices.

 

Let's say, as an example (and borrowing jkwleisemann's vision of a character whose powers are totally unconnected to each other), that we have a brilliant scientist:

 

Who ends up being able to turn into stone, unleash magical bursts from his nostrils, has super-hearing, a regeneration factor, +30 COM, and the ability to dissociate into mist.

 

Now, on the surface of it, no more than two or three of these powers will be applicable to any general type of situation. Also, abilities such as the turning into stone probably won't combine very well with the turning into mist.

[transmetahuman]

Re: Random powers?

 

It seems to me that' date=' every time there's a character posted whose powers do not [i']all[/i] share a single unifying Special Effect, someone says "Oh, they must have been a random powers . . . "

 

Is it so unbelievable that someone might want to play a character with an assortment of powers that neither derive from the same source, nor "play well together"?

Spider-Man: spider-like strength and clinging - of course. Mechanical web-shooters - okay, that fits. Spider-trackers - uh, well, okay, he has a dual theme already: spider stuff and boy genius... plus the plots really need it. Danger sense??? Uhm, uhhh... [well, i really really pictured him bouncing around like a jumping jack in combat, he doesn't really have any kind of invulnerability, he needs the edge to survive] ...Okay, triple theme: spider stuff, boy genius stuff, and jumping jack in combat stuff.

 

POWERED ARMOR??????????

 

Well, I love Spider-Man. I could only pray that someone in a game I run comes up with a character that works so well. So, I'm not going to be inflexible about this stuff... but too much of it, and it just feels... yeah, cheesy.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Random powers?

 

That's my line . . . though I was too polite to say it like that.

 

If people want to be so "Noone could have wanted to play a character like that!" about it, let them step up and explain why.

 

 

 

Let's say, as an example (and borrowing jkwleisemann's vision of a character whose powers are totally unconnected to each other), that we have a brilliant scientist:

 

Who ends up being able to turn into stone, unleash magical bursts from his nostrils, has super-hearing, a regeneration factor, +30 COM, and the ability to dissociate into mist.

 

Now, on the surface of it, no more than two or three of these powers will be applicable to any general type of situation. Also, abilities such as the turning into stone probably won't combine very well with the turning into mist.

 

So your general statement was prompted from a specific issue.

 

I'm definitely not for Random Power Generation where you roll from a list, or a are given from a hat.

 

But that's not the tone your post conveyed. Again, your grasp, or complete lack there of, of the English language has caused a miscommunication of what you intended and what you wrote.

 

There are characters with rather diversified power sets that work together, maybe it isn't a Perfect Theme and a few step outside the bounds of the Exact Vision, but nothing in life is that coherent. Those I rarely take issue with.

 

Get extremely diversified, as in Hugh's post, and really what your saying it "I couldn't think of anything." But I've personally never seen a character like that in an actual game. Maybe others have.

[David Johnston]

Re: Random powers?

 

It seems to me that' date=' every time there's a character posted whose powers do not [i']all[/i] share a single unifying Special Effect, someone says "Oh, they must have been a random powers . . . "

 

Is it so unbelievable that someone might want to play a character with an assortment of powers that neither derive from the same source, nor "play well together"?

 

No. But I still hate characters who have no thematic unity even though I quite enjoy rolling up V&V characters. Finding the thematic unity in a semi-random set of rolls is part of the appeal.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Random powers?

 

Spider-Man: spider-like strength and clinging - of course. Mechanical web-shooters - okay' date=' that fits. Spider-trackers - uh, well, okay, he has a dual theme already: spider stuff and boy genius... plus the plots really need it. Danger sense??? Uhm, uhhh... [/i'][well, i really really pictured him bouncing around like a jumping jack in combat, he doesn't really have any kind of invulnerability, he needs the edge to survive] ...Okay, triple theme: spider stuff, boy genius stuff, and jumping jack in combat stuff.

 

I often wonder how many GM's would have allowed Spider Man in the absence of the published character.

 

MECHANICAL web shooters? How did he get MECHANICAL web shooters from being bitten by a radioactive spider? Stop trying to point whore. Either shave the points somewhere else, find a limitation appropriate to the character with NATURAL spiderpowers, or drop the dice in the Entangle. hmph! MECHANICAL web shooters...

 

SPIDER SENSE! What the %#% is a SPIDER SENSE?!?! Spiders don't have special senses. Non only am I not allowing that in your Spider Powers EC, I'm not allowing it, period. Spiders don't have special senses. You can use the points to buy off those MECHANICAL web shooters (thought I forgot about those, didn't you?). And use the points left over to buy some REAL spider powers. Like extra limbs!

 

Honestly, Stan, if you can't do better than THIS, you're not playing in my game!

 

POWERED ARMOR??????????

 

Hey, after 40+ years of weekly play, anyone's entitled to a radiation accident, don't you think?

[Lemurion]

Re: Random powers?

 

Spider-Man: spider-like strength and clinging - of course. Mechanical web-shooters - okay' date=' that fits. Spider-trackers - uh, well, okay, he has a dual theme already: spider stuff and boy genius... plus the plots really need it. Danger sense??? Uhm, uhhh... [/i'][well, i really really pictured him bouncing around like a jumping jack in combat, he doesn't really have any kind of invulnerability, he needs the edge to survive] ...Okay, triple theme: spider stuff, boy genius stuff, and jumping jack in combat stuff.

 

POWERED ARMOR??????????

 

Well, I love Spider-Man. I could only pray that someone in a game I run comes up with a character that works so well. So, I'm not going to be inflexible about this stuff... but too much of it, and it just feels... yeah, cheesy.

 

Well, he got the powered armor from Tony Stark and it sounds like he'll be losing it once they finally finish Civil War. So I think it counts as just a plot device.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Random powers?

 

How about a Mystic character whose main weapon is a .38 Pistol?

[CraterMaker]

Re: Random powers?

 

Hey, one of the coolest mentalist characters I've seen had Dirty Infighting...

 

 

.... and used it regularly. Once he went after another mentalist with a broken bottle.....

 

....when they fell into a dumpster...

 

And won.

 

...and allll the other superheroes took a step back...

 

-CraterMaker

[secretID]

Re: Random powers?

 

I haven't yet written up the first character idea I had: his powers are all foci, magical and technological, collected from the trophy room of his dimension-hopping hero parent. He's a checklist, and a key element is that he's a hodgepodge who looks ridiculous (sci-fi sensory helmet, samurai armor, etc.).

[Robyn]

Re: Random powers?

 

So your general statement was prompted from a specific issue.

 

No it wasn't! Read my original post again:

 

It seems to me that, every time there's a character posted

 

I've been observing this happening for a long time.

 

I'm definitely not for Random Power Generation where you roll from a list' date=' or a are given from a hat.[/quote']

 

That was just one example - as I stated.

 

Again' date=' your grasp, or complete lack there of, of the English language has caused a miscommunication of what you intended and what you wrote.[/quote']

 

No, your grasp, or complete lack there of, of what I intended has caused a gap between what I wrote and what you presume I meant by it.

 

The "straw that broke the camel's back", as it were, was this post. No single post caused me to create this thread, nor was I thinking of any specific post, I was just tired of hearing it so often

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Random powers?

 

MODERATOR: If this turns into yet another Robyn thread that boils over, lockage will ensue.

 

Lets keep it civil, and if that isn't possible then take the high path and don't respond.

 

Thanx!

[ghost-angel]

Re: Random powers?

 

I obviously don't share the sentiment you do over the idea of mixed powers/ideas.

[Robyn]

Re: Random powers?

 

I'll make this as thorough as possible, so as to get it over with and leave nothing unexplained. This is why I posted the thread:

 

I've read a lot of old threads and the general impression I've received, from many posts, is that there's some ill feeling towards powers that "don't fit together" as being "random". I found the specific reasons why random in particular would evoke so many bad memories, there were other heroic RPG's that did it that way, but nothing to explain the association back there from powers that didn't fit together. (Hence my choice of subject line: a question mark to cast doubt on whether these really were "random" powers.) With no context, it seemed like the concept was being discriminated against, and I'm opposed to unfairness where it seems undeserved. So, at some point, I simply felt I had to speak out, and ask if it was really so bad?

 

I obviously don't share the sentiment you do over the idea of mixed powers/ideas.

 

This is, in a way, the sort of thing I was seeing. To question the idea that mixed powers/ideas were bad, means that I have sentiments for them?

 

I still don't understand how or why the baseline was displaced. I mean, if we've got to actively possess fond remembrances of it just to doubt that it's evil, why are we so sure that it's bad, in the first place?

 

[Robyn]

Re: Random powers?

 

I often wonder how many GM's would have allowed Spider Man in the absence of the published character.

MECHANICAL web shooters? How did he get MECHANICAL web shooters from being bitten by a radioactive spider?

 

This was, incidentally, one of my own initial reactions upon first learning about Spider-Man

[ghost-angel]

Re: Random powers?

 

This is' date=' in a way, the sort of thing I was seeing. To question the idea that mixed powers/ideas were bad, means that I have sentiments for them?[/quote']

 

From your initial post I gathered your sentiment was you found it "unbelievable that someone would want to play such a character."

[Zed-F]

Re: Random powers?

 

How about a Mystic character whose main weapon is a .38 Pistol?

 

I have a mystic character whose main weapon is a ritual combat shotgun. Does that count?

[Zed-F]

Re: Random powers?

 

I don't care whether a character's powers are seemingly random and don't work well together, though an EC whose powers don't flow from a common SFX is another matter (and specifically prohibited by the rules.) What I care about is a character whose background justifies those powers in a way that doesn't ask me to hang my disbelief from the neck rather than just suspending it.

 

If character A has a bunch of nutty powers because he's lifted a bunch of gadgets from his superheroic parents' trophy room, that's one thing. If he wants to have the following, purely as a result of a single lab accident:

Who ends up being able to turn into stone, unleash magical bursts from his nostrils, has super-hearing, a regeneration factor, +30 COM, and the ability to dissociate into mist.

Sorry, no, that doesn't fly. There's no story there, no reason for me to believe that's plausible. And any story I could create to justify that would reek of contrivance.

[Robyn]

Re: Random powers?

 

From your initial post I gathered your sentiment was you found it "unbelievable that someone would want to play such a character."

 

That was one of my suspicions about what common thread might be tying everything together . . . not that everyone disliked it so strongly, which I hadn't found any cause for, but perhaps that it was simply a difference in play style, where everyone's preference was for characters with a single unifying SFX or powers that worked (very well) in combination with each other, and simply couldn't imagine anyone wanting to play anything else.

 

There's no story there' date=' no reason for me to believe that's plausible. And any story I could create to justify that would reek of contrivance.[/quote']

 

I sense a story-writing challenge coming soon . . .

[transmetahuman]

Re: Random powers?

 

I haven't yet written up the first character idea I had: his powers are all foci' date=' magical and technological, collected from the trophy room of his dimension-hopping hero parent. He's a checklist, and a key element is that he's a hodgepodge who looks ridiculous (sci-fi sensory helmet, samurai armor, etc.).[/quote']

Haha, I like this. Totally works for me, especially if the player comes up with the stories about each villain they came from. Hmmmm...