Characterization Corporation

Someone hinted about overly powerful characters earlier so...here's a discussion thread asking: How do you balance the abilities of an OP character?

Who is your overly powerful character and how do you rein back their power so it doesn't overwhelm an RP? Or can/do you?

I suppose mine would be Lord Daren Chase, with his ability to manipulate time. Well, not exactly. He has a "re-do" power that essentially resets time back a few seconds. So if he enters a fight and is immediately disarmed, he could "re-do" the last few seconds of the fight. Not that this has happened yet. The ability is only effective about two or three times max, before he gets confused and cannot remember what exactly he is trying to prevent. Ergo, it has an expiration to it. (Heh, time, expiration--sorry, ignore the pun.)

My other character, Arien Chase (son of Daren) can teleport, but again, this is limited to physical distances he can cross in a normal time span, and to locations he has been to. Furthermore, I roll a dice to see if it is "effective". Unless it is a situation dealing with NPCs where teleporting only affects the NPC body-count--and not another player's character.

And now it's your turn! How do you balance your character's abilities? Or if you need help deciding on limits, let us know and maybe we can help!

Was it on 'hard topics to roleplay'? *coughcough* cuz then that would definitely not be me *coughcough*

I think the best way to balance abilities is to either A) put a limiting factor on it or B ) add weaknesses to the character that may or may not be related to who/what he is (ie- my clockwork character cannot swim, he is metal).

Probably my most powerful character would be Hunter Archill, who is essentially a high tech monster/demon hunter (although if you have ever been in an rp with him you would know how much he hates being called that). Hunter was designed to take down very powerful monsters so he has one tough suit, some deadly firepower, a HUD and a 'energy manipulation system'. It is the last one that makes him most overpowers. Because he can manipulate energy (kinda like a person who can make one of those semitransparent force fields), I figured it would be good to add a power bar. So he can manipulate energy through his suit, but for a very short time, and it takes longer for it to regen than he has the ability to use it (he can constantly use it for an average of ten minutes, but it depends on what he does with it, and it takes about two hours for it to be ready for use once it runs out).

Because his opponents are usually very powerful, I don't do much to nerf his armor and weapons, although he is a bit bulky and heavy, so weight has come into play before (fell out of a freaking tall tree and almost died, other player is the one who saved his life).

You have no idea how much that last part made my day. I love when things like that happen--well, the weight making him fall out of a tree, not the almost dying part. But kudos to the player who saved his life! I think those little events are what really help balance out a character! Plus, it keeps the RP entertaining and leads to great character development between characters.

I've got a few overpowered characters, most of them closely tied to each other, and the way I deal with it is to simply not play them. The only exception is in roleplays with my boyfriend, because there, it's not a problem.

But there are ways to manage things. Limiting the power or adding weaknesses are a couple ways that were mentioned. Another is to specifically get into RPs where such power isn't so extreme; be a god among other gods, not a god among men.

Among mine, I think the most overpowered is Nashyll, daughter of the character I take my own name from (both are dragons). Although the character Novalyyn is far more powerful telepathically, capable of travelling through time and space (no real accuracy on that), and runs a tavern in a carefully crafted dreamscape (in a self-inflicted coma) that spans all time and space and still manages to make sense to all who come to in... the way things played out left Nashyll as a complete mess. Long story short: in addition to being a dragon with (more limited) telepathic abilities, she is a shapeshifter that can manipulate herself on the molecular level, thereby any to become and "feed on" any physical thing; survived being exploded all over the place with only a need for some help reassembling and a lasting trauma about exploding; and under extreme stress becomes little more than a virtually impenetrable, all-devouring mass of death. The best I could do to balance that was for her to first be an innocent sweetheart, and when I couldn't maintain that, make her guilt-ridden and antisocial in a way that allowed her to better avoid becoming a risk. Because she was able to split into multiple instances, I also needed to have it more difficult to manage each one individually.

It was ridiculous.

I was going to say the same thing,about power being relative,except that I still like to have all my characters balance out somehow, at the end of the day. Power is also a very broad term- I like to think that no matter what, each thing that you gain has its positives and negatives and the trick is to be able to steer towards having the right goals to complement your positive attributes or assets or the right attributes and assets to complement your goals, if that made sense? I think that it's for this reason that most of my characters start out overpowered- because I often design their goals, assets and attributes at the same time such that they complement each other, making it so there is little challenge.

I wouldn't say I have a good example that I'm ready to talk about here, but I like to think of myself as a character sometimes, and perhaps you guys can relate to this one. I'd say I have a strong imagination- this provides me with some creativity and ideas and sometimes mathy skills- but I'm often a little too immersed in daydreaming or thinking that I miss out on reality, or space out at the wrong times, or get detailed images/scenes of things that I didn't want to think about. I'll try to think of a less obvious one later. Usually it's where a power originates that can help you find the flaws.

For me it depends on what the focus is. Since the focus of my characters is never what they are, but rather who they are, I find the balance--I wouldn't say easily, but it usually presents itself. One character I have is a member of a race of shape-shifting alien robots with intense fire-power--but the focus is one his mind, what he thinks of a war he has a growing unease and nervousness about. The fact that he can shape-shift and zoom off with hardly anyone able to catch him almost takes a back seat.

I think Danger's right in that it's ultimately about goals--an extreme example is when I played a member of the Q Continuum, basically a god. The focus wasn't the power, but what he did with it, how he interacted with people. The goals of interesting interaction, thoughtfulness, and exploring what sort of being could be a god but still have any interest in mortals kept his truly limitless power from being an issue.

I think for some people finding a "kryptonite" works, but my focus is more on letting the story create its own limitations on powers, because an interesting story sets boundaries and goals that, to my mind, "kryptonite" just can't do.

And now I'm stuck with "TRANSFORMERS! ROBOTS IN DISGUISE~!" in my head.

I'll agree, though. The main problem with someone being "overpowered" is when it either makes things boring or creates a clearly unfair situation (such as in combat, or forcing others to follow a path they don't want). If it's actually to make things more interesting and is well-played, then there's not likely to be a real issue.

I honestly don't think that balancing out an OP character with forcefully generated weaknesses is the way to go here. My character Temperance is OP as hell, but people RP with him because I approach him with a sense of fair play.

Just remember that in most novel style fiction, the powerful characters are rarely the protagonists. At least the protagonists are rarely powerful to begin with. There are of course exceptions (especially in comic books), but in general in order to give protagonists things to overcome, and to provide suspense, there are things in the world more powerful than they are. Roleplay changes things up a bit, in the sense that every character is a protagonist, but also none of them are.

But I tend to consider Temperance as a supplementary character, a support character. His story isn't my focus, my focus is helping other people with their plotlines and their characters. Most of the time he's helping folks along or balancing out events. And if someone wants to, they can get to know what he's all about, but I don't make that the focus of my interactions. This also keeps him mysterious

This. The reason I generally avoid people with OP characters is because they're terrible at playing them. Just because your character has the ability to do something really amazing doesn't mean that they should. I can't even begin to tell you how tired I am of a character who is constantly doing everything to make the story 'perfect' just to show off their abilities and be powerful for the sake of being powerful.

So I guess for me, it's not so much the character being incredibly powerful as it is the player using the powers for all the wrong reasons.