The Cape versus The Normal

[Lycanthrope]

   A theme I tend to see often when eaves dropping on various RP's in the sim is power, nearly every character seems to be this "ubermensch" be they legendary warrior, superpowered ninja angel or demon or some variation on the theme of nigh unstoppable badass.

  and in some cases I see those who play the normal, the everyday guy or the plain foot soldier or yes the weakling slave all variations on the everyday type character.
   
     what I wonder is why do people want to play these types in what is esenntialy a no loss social situation, I'm not asking why you want to always win or for some lose nor why you use it as an escape after all everyone is in real life normal except for the rare exceptions.

     My preferance has always been the normal someone who is working their way to potential greatness, these always seem at least to me to be the more fufilling types.

  but I want to know what you enjoy about it, why do you play the type you do not to judge but just to learn your reasons for your characters

[Ashtyn]

My characters in the RP are a mix of OMG OVERPOWERED! and fragile little thing with an awesome ability somewhere in there.

But my reasons aren't truly legitimate "that's what I chose to play because...", my reasons are normally related to what the RP calls for in general or on a specific situation.

With exception of my plot device characters, all my characters are prone to failure, and still in a position that allows them to strive to achieve something, and to benefit from a mundane reward like a few gold coins.

Even Ashtyn, whom everybody thought was an overpowered god, had some ridiculously exploitable disadvantages that made him not only highly defeatable (ah if Gnarl had known!  ), but also interesting to play.

I don't find it fun to play a character that can do everything. I don't find it fun to play a character that never loses. I don't find it fun to play a character that isn't affected by what happens around him. I don't find it fun to play a character that always comes up on top. It's the difficulties in the RP that make it interesting.

[Lou]

I don't really know who this is aimed at since I don't know other people's characters *that* in-depth, with the exception of a sparse few. But, I'll speak for myself, I have some STRONG characters, and I have some weak ones, the only common thing between them being that they all have varying abilities and knowledge that can be put to use for combat. As for "social success", I don't consider most of mine would normally be that kind. One who has a deathly fear of being too close to others - another who has a bigoted and biased dislike for a majority of the city's population just based on what they are - another who's a slave and entirely dependent on being told what to do.

I do gear-up and kit my characters to fit specific purposes, their specialties which they excel at, but not be terribly good at many other things. A Paladin is a trump card against opponents that are unholy. but in a city filled to the brim with them, how well are they going to get along socially with most of the city? A slave that knows how to brawl and beat someone to a pulp, but is completely ignorant as to how to use a weapon, how is he going to fight against an armored soldier with a claymore if the situation rose?

Either way, I think you can't really accurately judge a character's power level(god someone shoot me for actually saying that) by eavesdropping on conversations. What you don't always learn from eavesdropping is the weaknesses the characters have, the flaws that could break them, the "skeletons in the closet" that could turn everyone in the city against them. Some very strong characters sometimes come with very big weaknesses that are right under your nose, just not immediately obvious.

[Lili]

I don't know either really because i... actually like the bad-end. Okay this likely will be long... lets see if i can give examples.

Quinn is my only really powerful character and is like this to get a deeper meaning into what i am aiming for with where she is supposed to go. Yes, she is an extremely powerful Demonhunter who WILL chop most demons in half and likely has an advantage over Demon-Characters and NPCs alike, can take awfully lot of blows without being stopped and has an ability which pushes her to an extreme level (even when it ends in a two-week shutdown when its over but i digress!). The point of this character is the development she undergoes to become more powerful for a good curse with the cost of losing everything she is. From her personality, her humanity till to her existence as a VERY devoted Hunter (She values being a fighter against "unholy, malevolent Beasts" higher then her own sake for example and isnt even sure if she doesnt even hold it higher then her own brother.) and while she will grow more and more powerfull it will end up bringing her to an edge where she either gets stopped by other people during an RP or become unplayable outside of arranged events because i *want* to see and play this (i admit) typicall downfall scenario, and if she *does* become unplayable this will lead in her being killed by others since i will not make a cheap-escape if it passes a certain level. The strength here is just means to an end because i enjoy seeing the development happening and how people react to the fact that she is entirely ignorant to what is happening to her since the source "of all evil" keeps it hidden from her even better then from anyone else. So you could say she slowly changes color and while its obvious to anyone else, she can't see it and is confused why everyone is aiming at her, even feeling offended for it even tho others are just worried.

I strongly do enjoy the starting-as-normal-situation over this too however. My beloved, dearest Kira is my oldest Lismore-Character by three years of playing her and started out as what you would expect from someone who was born into proverty but had thievery as an option to survive this in the medieval times wielding sword and dagger. I played her this way because i couldn't imagine myself playing something big, and bulky with a shield... and im not a wise sorceress anyway. |D I also liked the idea of having her be what would be described as a "supportive Character". She is not the glorious Assassin that grows up after his family is killed, protecting his weaker sibling while on his way to become a true Hero that takes revenge for his loss, which is what i think is a very common history and character... She is instead that weaker sibling! That looks up to her brother and notices his greed for revenge and refuses to follow him since she is not this way... And i liked that a lot even though i dont think anyone except me knows. |D

Kira was just a Girl that i shared a lot of my personality with and grew up in a poor situation that only knew how to keep an opponent busy with her swords till she could finally make a run for it and i liked that. From there on i had the same way you said you like to go. She developed from there. She became much faster, as good as one can become in roof-climbing and jumping from one to another, developed a quick fighting-style she is very good with by now... Not because i thought "She needs this trait" but because i thought this would be logical consequences due to what happend to her. She really grew up from a young, lost little thief that needs to steal for a living and needs help to survive into an experienced, young women who *can* watch out for herself, who got used to all of this and considers stealing that normal that she doesn't feel guilty, or bad and is actually a nice person overall. What i still do enjoy here is obviously the fact that her live left many marks on her. Some of them physiological and psychological at once (like having her large, iconic, cute fennec-ears cut off as punishment from a pirate she tried to steal something back from). The character went through so much during her playtime and had enough open ends in her past that there is *still* so much to play with her to recover from all that and just *now* after her death at the very end of "the big one"-Event and her return a big crack in her soul is closing.

All in all; She sure did get stronger and lost some of her flaws that made her character interesting at the start, but developed enough other details and weaknesses that keep her interesting and give her much more room to grow then just over abilities or towards greatness.

Currently im also doing the very thing again. I play a mute, slave-character. She is very very intelligent, can change her scalecolor due to being a chameleon, has experience as a maiden and has a beautiful hand for writing, arts, so on. Thats all she can. She is poor, she is risen as a slave for less glorious purposes after she got kidnapped, is very weak, has no abilities at all that allow her to fight and needed the slave-character Lou described to not be abused and mistreated by other slaves before they where sold in lismore, since she is that weak. She needs other people to survive and exist... She can't do it on her own... But she is owned by Sansha and Tari now, meeting Sver, Kattilina and others and they start to teach her, finding out what weapon she can use, what her talents are except that, so on... I don't even care anymore what weapon she will end up with, since i do not mind if she can fight or not! It depends on Tari and Sver, who are trying to train her! She was suggested to wield a Dagger since she is so small (i had a Staff in mind at first) so i go with a dagger. What i enjoy with her, except the fact that it is fun to see how some characters interact with her since she cant speak, is that she is basically a blank slate that is shaped by what happens around her and what people do to her. She has no direction on her own since she is - like Lou's Daniel - entirely dependent on being told what to do, but is young enough to still be pulled out of it, which is actually happening. And im curious to see what she will turn into.

[TheGreatBeatrix]

The long and short of it is actually very simple. In Final Fantasy games, do you ever want to just keep your starting gear, keep all of your characters with their rank 1 abilities, and play in their world as a townsperson? Even if you did, how long until the big bad douche swings in to take a flaming dump on your town? Then what? Bet you wish you'd leveled up then wouldn't you? >:O

To explain without the metaphor: People will make characters as powerful as they can so long as they are able to. Anyone who doesn't kit out their character to be powerful is, essentially, kneeling to the ones who are, as if they choose to assert themselves over the other characters, they are unopposed. Were everyone forced to be "commoners" then it wouldn't make a difference and people could roll whatever they wished and all be 'normal' in different ways without having to worry about accounting for people pulling magic bombs out of their ass they have no defense to.

Not preparing yourself with such failsafes  invites trouble, be it people coming to take a big ol' uninvited dump on your RP, or people taking a general hostile approach to your presence and forcing you out of RP. Either way it boils down to others MAKING your character do something or react to a situation and you can either choose to get stepped on or choose to equip yourself properly. For as many decent people playing as there is, there will always be the one or two people who just can't leave well enough alone.

For example: The Wilds had a HUGE problem with power gamers and old powers being grandfathered into new cards. In order to lay this issue to rest, finally, all characters were neutralized to FAR less magical powers, at which point the power scale diverted to more period-technological means with gear, flintlocks, skill, and other weaponry, which more or less normalized the playing field. I know that I would've been very angry if a character I'd been playing for years on end was suddenly killed off by some random nobody who just trundled in and shat out a counter-card to theirs to attack with.

I can't imagine anyone else would want that to happen to any lasting character they have either.

-Bea