There are many roleplays that involve characters having superpowers out there, and there is (almost) always a rule stating that overpowered characters will not be accepted. While making a character that isn't OP is relatively easy, problems rise when said character develops and grows in power, be it in raw capacity, technique, or finding new uses of the same power. Is there a way to let characters grow in power without making him/her OP other than the obvious "start low", and if there is, what is it?

The problem, in my opinion, is very rarely the power itself. The real problem with an overpowered character is both the character itself and its player.

So, if you want to prevent a character from becoming OP, play him right. Anticipate the growth when you "start low," and make him right. For example, Batman. He doesn't have a super power, but roll with me. Now this guy could easily put a permanent end to crime in Gotham City...Except he doesn't kill. He has a character trait that prevents him from using all of his potential strength. That gives this character an eternal struggle of finding balance. How boring would it be if Batman just killed all his problems? His story line would end too quickly, quite frankly. Lame.

Sometimes you don't need to balance physical strengths with physical weaknesses (but this does help). Sometimes giving a character all the power in the world, but the personality and morale to use that in his own unique way is just the way to go.

There are probably plenty of issues with this way of thinking, but it's what I think, haha. Plus, it helps it always helps to add weaknesses as well. No matter how strong a person gets, he will always have flaws. Exploit them.

Also, growth is a skill, and comes in two varieties, bell curve and flat.

A bell curve growth is one where a character grows faster the longer they live. The flip side to this for a story is that, often, a character doesn't grow too quickly to start with. So for example, farmer boy Tom needs to learn how to swing a sword. He spends several IRL months learning and perfecting sword swinging. In a magical setting, this probably isn't too phenomenal in terms of power growth in comparison to, say, becoming a master wizard and blowing up towns, or a super ninja who can turn totes invisible while wearing orange.

However, once Tom has all the basics down, he quickly learns other, demonstrable stronger techniques, faster. This usually goes under the premise that one learns how to learn faster by learning the basics of learning. As well, Tom can now likely find his way to powerful artifacts to help amplify his basic power, like a fire sword, or a lightning sword, or a sword that makes dead grandparents appear to their enemies to tell them how bad they're being today. Obviously Tom's power curve has suddenly sped up, this might all happen in the course of a couple months instead of the several it took to make Tom a competent fighter. Welcome to the Bell Curve: The stronger you are, the faster you grow, because it enables you to grow faster.

Naturally Bell Curves are better in stories with a definite ending, like rescuing the princess from a tall tower that is being guarded by a dragon. In literature and film you most often see Bell Curves in Coming of Age type stories.

A flat growth rate is exactly how it sounds and is easily the most manageable: Every "level" a character has they gain 10 points in X skill or stat. It always grows at this rate, there is nothing dynamic to a flat growth rate. However, that being said, it's very easy to manage and apply said growth rate to the antagonists of the protagonist as well. If the protagonist gains 10 "strength", then maybe the antagonist gains 10 "magic". Bell Curve can also do this but it can be harder to logically map it in comparison to flat.

Just remember: Antagonists should grow, too. If the heroes are suddenly capable of punching out Cthulhu, then the Antagonists should thusly now be capable of punching out their God. The only thing that should remain consistent at its own power level is the setting itself: If you're in modern day New York as a super hero, and you keep growing in power, the amount of collateral damage you could incidentally do to New York would grow with each step you grow. The only difference is that the villains just don't care about such things and will happily murder four million people if it means taking over the rest of New York. Growth in a super hero sense, when handled properly, merely means upping the ante. Where it gets silly is stuff like Superman sneezing destroying a dozen solar systems. (Yes, this happened.) Aside from that, go wild.

There is always the issue of what to do after reaching a certain power level.

To explain, on the site I would roleplay on before joining the Guild it was star wars themed. It started off very controlled, all gun slingers, smaller scale adventures. The power level slowly grew as they got more skilled, gain new friends and more tech. Eventually the force made it's way though, and that force starting growing very much like the Bell Curve Brovo mentioned.

This did last for a good few years mind you, but eventually when we finished our big plot we were left with nothing. We already did the biggest thing possible, saved the Galaxy. What else could we do? Save the Galaxy and it's cat? With smaller scale adventures now seeming more pointless cause if the lower power level that community ended up ultimately dying out after that epic moment.

Now, you could of considered this a successful roleplay ending since it did last a few years, but the main point being highlighted here is that we wanted to continue, but could find no real way or motivation to because the power level was so high, which is a common issue with high power levels.

Personally, I'd keep it simple.

For say, water manipulation. Blood is usually something it can manipulate. In that case, sure you may WANT to learn it. but it should either be approved as okay by the GM, or you should know it's OP and not use it. If you're going to use it, then put limits on it.

That's a problem we had in the Arena recently. A guy could, for all intents and purposes, say a word that had no requirement to hit the opponent. All it had the guy had to do was think the opponent was the target and say the word. Opponent didn't have to hear it, didn't even have to be within a set range, and they were screwed. For things like that, you need to have some sort of set up, or drastic effect. Usually, coming into contact with the person's blood, connecting to them somehow or something. Essentially establish a link.

Like in Naruto, that Immortal guy who acted as a voodoo doll, so long as he had the opponents blood. He had a pre-requisite to use his OP ability, and he had to fill it. Get their blood, make his circle thing and stay in his circle thing.

I feel like if you have a small power level at the start, and it's limited, then you should be able to use it a lot. However, if it get's really powerful, I think it should have a large reuse time or something. I know this may sound stupid, but i've seen people make it work.

HollywoodMole said
I feel like if you have a small power level at the start, and it's limited, then you should be able to use it a lot. However, if it get's really powerful, I think it should have a large reuse time or something. I know this may sound stupid, but i've seen people make it work.

Doesn't sound stupid to me. Heh... Dragonball used that idea a lot. More power you used, the longer it took to gather it. To "charge up".

Simple if you want to limit the character to fit your description of 'not being over powered' then give him or her additional challenges and or put them into increasingly difficult odds or put up additional weaknesses like illness or maiming. One person can only do so much with one arm.