Forums » RP Discussion » Colorful powers

I have seen people with very basic powers, like fire, ice, magic, etc. Though they are ol' n' reliable, they quickly become stale. That's why i'm sharing this link: Power difference is here.

You're welcome.

Best Skipbab.

Problem is, quite a lot of the more interesting powers are very hard to use in an rp. Mental powers for instance, really hard. Work great in a gmed game, not so much in free form due to the power level.

I have a character who was made for Mutants and Masterminds (a table top rp) who has the power of "emotional urging", which manifests as music and lights. It means he can mess with people's emotional states, which is quite useful in a bind. But in a free form rp, messing with other player's emotions would be seen as godmoding and frowned upon, meaning I have to really really be careful about how his powers work if i'm going to write him in a freeform rp rather than a gmed one.

Likewise I have another character who's super power is actually advanced mind control which is controlled by his subconscious. So as a kid he got what he wanted a lot of the time from people, but his insecurities also manifested in people's behavior around him, and the more his insecurities happened, the more insecure he got, the more regularly negative interactions occurred because he was, on a subconscious level, expecting them.
Then some suits decided to neutralize his threat level by using this against him. Long story short, his power manifests as if he's living in a musical. He goes out, people start to sing and dance and then go back to their lives as if nothing happened. It's humiliating, it's annoying, he hates it and because he fears it happening every time he leaves the house, it DOES.
But for an rp, this isn't really playable. How do you force other pcs to engage in a musical number? lol.

I have another guy in that same setting who thinks he has no super power but actually, his power is magnetic attraction. People find him extremely attractive, he has pheramones that illicit positive reactions out of people. Problem is, after sleeping with him once it stops working and they lose interest so his life is a series of unsatisfying one night stands.
His brother has a perfect sense of taste and smell. Which makes day to day life rather troublesome as you can smell EVERYTHING.

Musical guy's mother has perfect pitch and is a music teacher. A very strict music teacher because the slightest off note is like nails on chalk board to her.

There's also a character who's whole family can talk to various things. A telepath, a technopath (talks to machines) someone who can talk to animals and a girl who can talk to plants. Problem is, plants have nothing useful or interesting to say, they just go on about water and soil moisture and growing and stuff. Eugh, and they never shut up.

I have another character who has "post cognition" but this was mostly me being a jerk. See, in the rps I kept stumbling into when I created this character there was a real tendency for other players to exposit their character's entire backstories in the intro. Never understood WHY but there it was. So I decided to have a character who could use that knowledge, for my own amusement.
Having a character who immediately knows everyone's angsty past is quite funny. But also a jerk move on my part hahaha.


I admit though, i've always been a fan of the so called "stuper powers", those powers that sound really ridiculous at first but actually can be weaponised or used quite creatively. I mean, I LOVE the legion of substitute heroes and some of their abilities are absolutely wacky.
There's a guy who can become 2 dimensional, they slide him under doors lol.
There's a girl who can create any disease in the universe and infect people.
there's a guy who can change the colour of things (very useful in a fight against a green lantern, or to alter the properties of the kryptonite you found, or as camouflage)
There's also a guy who can eat anything, in one story he chews his way out of prison.

I mean it's hilarious, but at the same time it means the writer has to actually THINK about how those powers might get the characters out of a bind and I like that. It's easy to go in all guns blazing, but when you have a power that's not really so easily weaponised, you gotta get creative.

We once did a whole campaign where the characters had like no combat ability and relied on illusions and subterfuge to get through it all. It was so much fun.

So I do rather like the unconventional super powers. Or conventional, but with a big ol' limiting factor like "they can shapeshift but it hurts" "they can use magic but can only use that spell once" and so on. I just think it makes a game a little more interesting, as you have to actually think and work a bit harder.

Purple... Are you reading my mind?

hahahah, I don't think so?