Blatantly Over-Powered Characters

[Jig]

<Snipped quote by Jig>

Just don't believe in him and the god will fade eventually. :P

@Altered Tundra

I'll give that a go next time.

When I first did it, my guy tried to punch him, except he literally broke the universe, teleported everybody to a different time and place and carried on the fight there where he'd have the advantage of surprise.

As opposed to the advantage of being God.

[AlteredTundra]

<Snipped quote by Altered Tundra>

I'll give that a go next time.

When I first did it, my guy tried to punch him, except he literally broke the universe, teleported everybody to a different time and place and carried on the fight there where he'd have the advantage of surprise.

As opposed to the advantage of being God.

@Jig

That kind of sounds like a very good Big Bad-type of character. Like, the kind that the main characters all gather together to defeat, sort of like Aizen from Bleach or Cell from DBZ. Or maybe a more fitting character example, Thanos.

[Jig]

Nah, it was just God randomly intervening on an unrelated topic for no apparent reason.

You can point at literally any RP in this Guild and insert that character and it would be just as random and out-of-place.

Fortunately, we were all pretty dreadful, so nobody really noticed or cared.

[Ellri]

We did have an RP once where one of our peskiest characters appeared... The players were either evil overlords or heroes. Because everyone were overpowered, it actually worked. That character of ours, known as Ranoch, The Lord of Eat, Still freaked out the GM more than a year later, despite the RP dying long before that.

[eagerDigger]

This sort of question comes up in my other RP, but it doesn't really matter since most of our characters are working against the environment and even the strongest fighters aren't as skilled in other ways. My tinkerer George has a lot more usefulness then my Dragonball swordsman Gloria, despite Gloria being much much better at fighting the tougher enemies. If PVP has to happen, I really would like some mechanics to back it up. Otherwise, it gets into a pretty...not-nice situation unless both can agree on something.

[ArenaSnow]

I distinctly recall a situation off-site where a Gm made an "end boss" that;

-Had a stat for health that looked like 100000000000 (player maximum was 100);
-Killed in 1 hit regardless of whatever players could do;
-Was god, so could do anything;
-and that had pretty much no lore besides "Lord of all evil".

And then a war ensued between the few players crazy enough to even enter the area and the Gm, with the Gm insisting it was OK since it was the "end boss" of the roleplay

[Ellri]

sounds like something real fun.

[Vilageidiotx]

I distinctly recall a situation off-site where a Gm made an "end boss" that;

-Had a stat for health that looked like 100000000000 (player maximum was 100);
-Killed in 1 hit regardless of whatever players could do;
-Was god, so could do anything;
-and that had pretty much no lore besides "Lord of all evil".

And then a war ensued between the few players crazy enough to even enter the area and the Gm, with the Gm insisting it was OK since it was the "end boss" of the roleplay

@ArenaSnow

"And for the end boss, you have to fight the spawn of my crippling inadequacy!"

[ArenaSnow]

Thank god i never actually had to roleplay with it.

[TJByrum]

The thing I hate most are the very young, inexperienced characters. How can a 14 year old girl, with a 'small body build' wielding a large sword hope to defeat my 30 year old warrior who uses a classic shield and sword? I don't know... this happens more often than not, but more in the past. It really irks me. I think they get these ideas from anime and manga or whatever those things are.

[Ellri]

Yes. that is often common in mary sues.

[Unfortunately]

There was this one RP where everyone had system-sized starships, so thing got pretty insane. Then one guy posts an app, gets accepted, and brings in galaxy-sized starships in. Which weren't even mentioned in the app. Needless to say, it was an immediate ban.

@Keyguyperson

Same situation.

I once saw someone build a system-sized mecha that ignored the square-cube law, could stomp and extinguish the fuck out of stars without a scratch and slapped everyone's shit with its humongous hand.

I quit after he began kicking my territory's ass.

[Anzu]

@Ellri Yeah, insanity and mental illnesses are extremely hard to handle correctly because they do have underlying reasons for their actions. Thats why its so silly when people do insanity for insanity's sake, it's not how it really works. Mental illnesses themselves when played by people who have no understanding of how the illness actually works can get stupid as well, including assigning odd properties to illnesses or just merging two together at once :/

@darkwolf687

I've never seen insanity done well, I wouldn't do it on one of my characters as I don't think I know nearly enough, and people tend to use it as an excuse to act however they want. Someone with an actual mental illness would probably be pissed that something they have to deal with is used as an excuse to do whatever, and treated as if it makes them a deranged killer.

I feel like a lot of time anti-social personality traits like being blunt, are put as weaknesses to try and 'make up' for having a really strong character, without having an actual weakness. Fairly well definied limits on what their powers can do (not super pedantically, but what sort of opposition could defeat them in a fair fight, a rough idea of how much damage their attacks can do, etc) seems to really help this; vague, open to upwards interpretation power sections are an invitation to powerplay.

[Royzooka]

I have seen and experienced many but what annoys me the most is when they say they did something without explaining what they did, how they did and how they managed to Dynasty Warriors 1000's of enemies without breaking a sweat. Normally it is a giant explosion that somehow leaves them unharmed or somehow a magic shield protects them because suddenly they are the chosen one. Even worse then that is one they one line it and cram it together hoping it is makes sense and is acceptable. Surviving something that can kill you is OK if you explain how and do it right but when done in an OP way I am like nope.

I think I remember one where the enemies out weighted the two main characters and the partner decided his character was Goku all of a sudden, before I know it his power level is over 9000 and I am like what is going on. Suddenly the other character is half an angel and half a god and it was not until this point they awoke to this. Basically things die and they write it off like it is nothing, I added more and more waves hoping they would knock it off but sadly it did not.

Another.

I remember my very first group RP, it was a gang based RP which had many gangs and also had a FBI faction as well. At first the cops were normal but half way through of sorting a map to see what gang controlled what area things went to shit. Suddenly I was the target, I was a crazy guy in a bear suit who led a gang of insane and crazy people. I had a lot of logically escape plans but somehow the police and FBI suddenly knew where I was going, what I was doing and basically controlled what I did the whole time until the breaking point happened. Basically everyone got annoyed with the FBI and started arguing and after that started to post stupid shit and within the space of 2 hours the RP was destroyed.

I have made RP's where one becomes broken but I explain how and why and usually add some negative effect to it such as becoming comatose, dying afterwards, going insane to the point they are no longer able to function without help aka needs to be locked up or whatever else I had come up with at the time. It is thought out and sometimes really thought out as well.

I do have a villain who is broken but he is not unbeatable, he is my general villain who I don't really get to use much. He is kind of like Thanos and Ultron. Thanos in terms of him needing to be gang banged or trapped in someway and Ultron in a way he keeps coming back no matter how hard you try to remove his presence. I have never written something like he blocks all attacks and strikes them all with an unblockable and swift counter. I always give chances for RPer's to counter them back though if it is for the story I may force it upon them, though it is not like I am killing them or anything.

Basically if someone just undermines everything you throw at them then you have a OP character, even worse when they know they are doing it but won't stop or write it in a very crap way. Oh when they agrue they are not broken also gets on my nerves where they won't leave and think it is cool just to write a post about how they killed or dominated everyone and everything.

[darkwolf687]

<Snipped quote by darkwolf687>

I've never seen insanity done well, I wouldn't do it on one of my characters as I don't think I know nearly enough, and people tend to use it as an excuse to act however they want. Someone with an actual mental illness would probably be pissed that something they have to deal with is used as an excuse to do whatever, and treated as if it makes them a deranged killer.

I feel like a lot of time anti-social personality traits like being blunt, are put as weaknesses to try and 'make up' for having a really strong character, without having an actual weakness. Fairly well definied limits on what their powers can do (not super pedantically, but what sort of opposition could defeat them in a fair fight, a rough idea of how much damage their attacks can do, etc) seems to really help this; vague, open to upwards interpretation power sections are an invitation to powerplay.

@Anzu

I played a character who was a bit of a deranged killer who thought all the evil he was doing was actually a case of Utopia Justifies the Means, though this particular brand of insanity was more to do with brainwashing and ideological control rather than underlying mental disorders

And yes, totally. People should remember that anti-social traits are part of personality and shouldn't be used for balance of power

.

I do have a villain who is broken but he is not unbeatable, he is my general villain who I don't really get to use much. He is kind of like Thanos and Ultron. Thanos in terms of him needing to be gang banged or trapped in someway and Ultron in a way he keeps coming back no matter how hard you try to remove his presence. I have never written something like he blocks all attacks and strikes them all with an unblockable and swift counter. I always give chances for RPer's to counter them back though if it is for the story I may force it upon them, though it is not like I am killing them or anything.

Basically if someone just undermines everything you throw at them then you have a OP character, even worse when they know they are doing it but won't stop or write it in a very crap way. Oh when they agrue they are not broken also gets on my nerves where they won't leave and think it is cool just to write a post about how they killed or dominated everyone and everything.

@Royzooka

This is kind of how we handle the Civil Protection High Command units in Half Life 2 RP on Gmod; They are tough as nails, inhumanly fast, highly intelligent and come programmed with enough packaged memories and flash training that their skills could make a Space Marine blush. CP units are told that if you have a good rper, give them chances to escape (or if you're a relatively low rank, maybe even let them win) whereas if the other player is trying to godmode or powergame you, just go all out and beat their character into a bloody pulp.

[Rilla]

<Snipped quote by darkwolf687>

I've never seen insanity done well, I wouldn't do it on one of my characters as I don't think I know nearly enough, and people tend to use it as an excuse to act however they want. Someone with an actual mental illness would probably be pissed that something they have to deal with is used as an excuse to do whatever, and treated as if it makes them a deranged killer.

I feel like a lot of time anti-social personality traits like being blunt, are put as weaknesses to try and 'make up' for having a really strong character, without having an actual weakness. Fairly well definied limits on what their powers can do (not super pedantically, but what sort of opposition could defeat them in a fair fight, a rough idea of how much damage their attacks can do, etc) seems to really help this; vague, open to upwards interpretation power sections are an invitation to powerplay.

@Anzu

People using mental illness as a weakness, like insanity, is why I specify that they need a physical weakness.

[Sana]

Superman

[Vilageidiotx]

It's a bad sign when people need to be shopping for bad traits to make their characters acceptable. You know if they started out with only good traits in mind, they are wanting to have some mary-sue-jackoff character and will only use the bad traits as the inspiration for some jacking off.

[Dinh AaronMk]

It's a bad sign when people need to be shopping for bad traits to make their characters acceptable. You know if they started out with only good traits in mind, they are wanting to have some mary-sue-jackoff character and will only use the bad traits as the inspiration for some jacking off.

@Vilageidiotx

Since more than likely they won't factor into the end product anyways.

But even then one shouldn't focus on traits really, but how a character handles certain situations and how consistently they're handled throughout; or if there is to be change in how a character acts between moments something transpires that would make someone seriously doubt the way they handle things. But listing off a character as being "Blonde, beautiful, kind but proud, also blind" isn't really organic or all that interesting to read.

And I know in the one case I had to ramble off personality traits for an app I don't think I ever really "stuck to" the character as I applied with when I started posting.

[Vilageidiotx]

Yeh. Hence why I prefer bio's and histories over grocery lists.

You can tell more about how an RPer is going to rp from a paragraph or two of bio than you can from twenty questions that require no train-of-thought.