McSpazz

I'm late to this one, but that's something that can often cause people to butt heads because different people often have different standards for what qualifies as a creative work. Basically... Also, FYI, it's not even aliens turning humans into themselves. It's humans that turned themselves into aliens turning humans into aliens. CoH lore is WILD.

I honestly encourage people to not get caught up in semantics as far as these terms go. There's no rulebook for roleplay and online roleplayers can shift between communities so rapidly that you could have to change up your lexicon constantly. Hell, I once apologized for ninjaing and someone was confused because we weren't in anything even close to a dungeon. I was talking about going AFK without prompting and they were thinking about claiming loot in a dungeon when you don't actually need it. It might sound stupid to you, but that's the word they've tied to the bad behavior based on the communities they've been in. Powergaming, godmodding, power playing, and RP min/max are ALL terms I have heard used to describe behavior that includes what you are describing as god-modeing. And it's not hard to see where these words can come from. Powergaming refers to the power level of a character being too high, godmodding can be short for god modification which comes with implications of someone playing god, power playing brings to mind a heavy focus on playing for the power fantasy more than anything else, and RP min/max is piggy backing off of the practice of maximizing your character as much as possible to be the best at the game (without any interest in the actual RP aspect of the RPG). What ultimately matters is that bad behavior is given a label and, thus, can be more easily communicated (even if it has to be defined once to someone new). Heck, in my consent write-up, I explicitly say as much when I start defining common means consent can be broken in RP. Getting into semantic arguments over which is the right term to use is honestly not helpful unless the term would be confusing for the pre-existing nomenclature of the community. And, to be frank, considering you understood what they meant when they said the toxic person was godmodding, it doesn't really matter that the word modding is also used in another context. It got across the meaning that was intended.

Going to post some on the entirety of @DrunkFlux's story up above (not going to quote simply because it's a LOT and right above this post. Just scroll up!) People like this are not exactly unheard of in RP communities. Though, to be honest, you should consider yourself lucky that this individual was so blunt force with their manipulative, toxic, and downright hypocritical outlook on things. When someone acts like that and also carries enough charisma to back up their claims, things can get far more complicated and less obvious in the moment. I need to expand on this in the OP, but another issue that roleplay can attract people who are almost exclusively interested in the escapism that roleplay can provide. While escapism is great and all, pouring all of your attention into it can lead to disastrous results. The ultimate reason this becomes a problem, in my opinion, is that you always need to have one foot "outside" the metaphorical door. You can't get so wrapped up in your own story that you forget there are other people around. But if all you care about is your escape, nobody else's enjoyment lands high on your priorities. Expect a full expansion on this in the OP via an edit. Thanks for the story, Flux!

WOHHHH BOY! This one might be a doozy. As has been mentioned in my previous write-ups as well as in the classes themselves, most bouts of drama in RP tend to come from breakdowns in communication or a violation of consent. This does not, however, explain why online roleplay communities in particular get a reputation for being huge vortexes of drama. While some degree of exaggeration is at play, from my own experience, there is definitely truth to this. There are many factors at play here that all come together to make this the case and I want to outline my own theory as to why. I hope that by pointing out some factors that can make drama more likely, you being aware of them could help you better manage your interactions with others. 1. It's Online MMO roleplay is, by its nature, an online experience. Online interaction is complicated to say the least. While the internet is capable of improving our exposure to other frames of mind and people (thus improving our ability to empathize with them), it can also dampen our empathy towards others. The latter, from my experience, is often down to the limiting nature of text based communication. Without voice and facial expression, there are a lot of assumptions that have to be made about a person's intent. Basically, every issue that can arise from a community being exclusively online also applies to us here. Be it toxic people being able to more easily blend in or take on new identities or rumors spreading like wildfire, RP communities are no exception. Least of all here given we are literally playing an online game. 2. Who Roleplays This is mostly coming from my own personal experience, but I find that the people most likely to enjoy roleplaying are neurodivergent, othered/outcasted by society, and/or have some aspect of their life that gives them a reason to want an escape. This is not universal, of course, but there is definitely an over representation of these kinds of people in roleplay communities. What does this mean? Well, there are a ton of roleplayers that have something going on about them that can make them sensitive to certain topics or even fail to recognize a problem even exists. I am sure there are many autistic roleplayers who have stories of people getting angry at them for not picking up on "subtle" hints or trans players who worry that people will treat them differently if their status as trans became public information. None of this is aiming to justify toxic behavior, mind you. If somebody is behaving badly, some IRL difficulty they are experiencing is an explanation and, more than likely, not an excuse. But if communication is going to be difficult as it is (as this is all text based), the number of issues a person can have IRL that goes unsaid or unnoticed which could cause an issue are numerous. For example, I have pretty severe ADHD and, by extension have pretty bad anxiety and an even worse short term memory. I've caused issues in the past because I failed to inform someone that an event was going to be happening, over analyzed something someone said and thought it was the worst case scenario, the list goes on. I've also had people not respect the limitations I am working under as a result of my condition and, as a result, treated me poorly. I want to emphasize that this is not intended to place blame on marginalized groups. The reason why RP communities having such a large number of people that carry with them their own considerations can yield more drama is just once again pointing to the medium we are on (the interwebs via text based chat) and how not taking a minute to ensure every concern is being communicated can make things break down pretty quickly. Which can only get more intense when you consider that people that fit what I described above can have difficulty trusting people where their own condition/identity is concerned. 3. Creative Minds Don't Always Think Alike Roleplay takes a lot of heart. If you aren't someone who has stories to tell or at least a love of hearing stories, you likely aren't going to enjoy roleplay. For better or worse, people who love stories often have a lot of opinions on the stories they grow attached to. It's not hard to find instances where artists go their separate ways over "creative differences". Art requires passion...and sometimes passionate people can have some pretty severe disagreements. That old joke of nerds getting into an irrational and heated fight over if Han shot first or not has a pretty firm basis in reality. When people are passionate about a story, they can really go ham on defending their outlook. In an RP setting, literally everyone has their own stories that they will without a doubt defend from detractors. No matter if it's reasonable or not, if someone is defending their concept or vision as to how things should go, things can always escalate quickly. That's why one of the most common sources of these kinds of squabbles (as far as RP goes) seems to be that not everyone made their intentions on the path forward clear. If three people all agree on a group being mercenaries but one guy wants it to be vigilantes, another wants them to be villains, and the other wants to make them edgy mercenaries with a score to settle...well, even if they agree on the core concept, eventually the implementation of the vision is going to diverge and sparks are going to fly. 4. The Small Town Effect Roleplayers often create communities to make it easier to find other roleplayers. It could encompass an entire server, but it can also be as small as a discord server of a few dozen. For whatever cliques might form, there are going to be fewer degrees of separation than might exist in other communities simply because of how many roleplayers are bound to exist in an MMO in proportion to literally everybody else. If you cut someone off in a city, you might get a few moments of anger thrown at you. Do that in a small town, however, and some random guy you've only spoken to twice might have the juicy details in a matter of hours. Word can travel fast and news of drama can spread like wildfire. If you take everything I mentioned above into account, this can turn a simple interpersonal squabble into something widely known. It can only get worse if the subject of the drama is also a well known member of the community since that could end up creating entire factions at war with one another over who was in the right. 5. Escape for Escapism's Sake I want to thank @DrunkFlux for sharing a story in the comments below that made me realize this was something I had left out. While there are certainly sadists out there that just get a huge kick out of ruining other people's fun, the ability to indulge in escapism in roleplay is something that can lead to interpersonal conflict. Worse, if someone cares so much for their own escapism that the enjoyment of others is secondary, it can lead to absolute catastrophe. As I have said in other write-up's, roleplay is a cooperative project that doesn't just require everyone's consent and communication but also requires everyone to be considered. Consideration and consent do go hand in hand, but it's entirely possible to both respect someone's consent while at the same time not giving them the "screen time" they deserve. You always need to have one metaphorical foot out the in-character door so that you are not just aware of your actions from an OOC standpoint but also aware of how they affect others.i f you only care about your escape, you'll only care about your enjoyment. People who only care if they are having fun are more likely to be toxic if not just outright break someone else's consent. Since escapism is such a huge draw of roleplay, you are both going to have people that, intentionally or not, get too absorbed in their own enjoyment to recognize the faults of their own writing. Assuming they care. It's not that escapism is bad, of course! You just have to make sure that you don't go so far down the rabbit hole you forget you're supposed to be playing with other people. And now some comments that were posted below that I felt were really insightful takes on the topic! Why risk them getting lost in the back and forth when they can be immortalized here in a section of the original post? 1. @TwoDee: The Narcissism of Minor Differences I'm sure there are other reasons, but these are the four that have stood out to me the most. In case you didn't notice, nothing in this list had anything to do with roleplayers being different than everyone else. There are other communities online that all of these things apply to and drama is also very common in. But my overly long posts are focused on the roleplay community and how we can improve ourselves. Just because other communities can in fact have the same issues as us doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. Did I miss something? Have an issue with my thoughts? Let me know below! I'd be interested to hear other people's takes on this. This is tangentially part of a series of tutorials regarding roleplay! You can find the full list of tutorials here!

Hey all! It's me! Spazzy! Here to throw down another post because I felt inspired and wanted to share some thoughts. In earlier posts, I talked a lot about power level management. I wanted to expand into an element of that which goes well beyond character creation. Chapter 1: There's MORE?! Yes, as a matter of fact. While character level is important to manage at character creation, a common mistake is for people to get so caught up in their roleplay that they lose track of what helped keep the character grounded and/or balanced for interacting with others. The longer a character is played and the more wild adventures they end up in, the more likely you are going to pick up some new traits you might not have ever planned for that bolster your character's power level. Let me put it simply: nobody cares that your character went through a multi-month character arc to gain the power to make people's eyes explode by looking at them. Sure, the people involved in that story arc might care, but they're invested. They have a reason to find it to be a totally legitimate acquisition. Everyone else, though? Not so much. Hey, maybe you did work hard and earn it through legitimate roleplay! Don't get me wrong, I highly encourage reserving major character developments to actual story arcs. Likewise, I encourage people that want to change up their character to do so! The trick, however, is that new people aren't going to have your level of investment. While character creation might be long behind you, your character will always be new to a stranger. They might be balanced for the group they come from, but that doesn't mean they're balanced for every setting. This goes both ways, of course. You shouldn't feel obligated to accept a character's presented strength simply because it was earned through roleplay. Hell, this even applies to characters you are on story arcs with. If your roleplay partner is aiming the roleplay to make their character unfairly or overpowered, you have every right to be uncomfortable. It doesn't matter that it's happening in roleplay and not in character creation. If a character is poorly balanced, they are poorly balanced. Chapter 2: Knowing When to Stop The only person that can know when to stop buffing up a character concept is likely going to be you. If you want to stop yourself from falling into power creep, you should always keep a few things in mind. First, what kind of roleplay do you want them to be involved in? In CoH terms, what kinds of enemies are they fighting? Are they a street level crime fighter or a galactic threat stopper? The most common power drift that can occur is when a character that was created to be a street level mutant finds themselves fighting alongside knockoff Superman to stop an eldritch abomination. Not that this can't happen, but this usually comes with the expectation that your character is powerful enough to fight alongside Superman and isn't just kind of there. If you aren't careful, you could find yourself in a situation where your once street level mutant is now far more powerful and it just doesn't make sense to describe them as street level anymore. It can be nye on impossible to unring that bell. Second, you should identify key weaknesses of a character that make them accessible to others. If your character could obtain power that would overshadow that weakness, remove that weakness, or significantly reduce its importance, you need to make a decision on how you are going to implement the change. I'll go into more detail in the next chapter, but in short, if you are going to accept this growth of power for your character, what are you going to do to rebalance them? Third, never forget the concept you are trying to play with. What draws you to the character? Why are you even playing them? This might seem like an odd thing to ask, but it is entirely possible to "fix" a character to the point where they're no longer fun to play. While this can come in the form of a conflict of theirs being resolved, it can also come in the form of how powerful they are. If a huge reason you enjoyed playing a character was how weak they were compared to their allies and how much they have to work to achieve the same results, giving them a BFG and power armor might screw up that whole vibe. Chapter 3: How to Maintain a Character's Balance This is where things can get very complicated. It's one thing to recognize when increasing a character's power in some way is going to cause problems, but it's another entirely to figure out how to prevent it from doing so. Character progression and growth just happens. If you push too hard against every change that comes their way, your character is going to appear to be very stagnant and unmoving in an ever changing world. There are a lot of ways a character can overpower their initial concept in bad ways, so don't expect this list to fit every situation. As always, if you have other ideas, please post them in the comments! I'll be sure to credit you! Keep it Temporary: Find a way of making the changes temporary and fleeting. This one is EXTREMELY situational, so the means you do that is up to you. New Weaknesses: If you want to keep a new level of power in check, it might require adding on new limitations for the character. This can prevent them from leaping into a weight class you never intended for them. Just Don't: Not every ending has a major reward at the end beyond a sense of accomplishment. You don't have to give your character a new shiny every time they pull off some amazing feat. This is part of a series of tutorials regarding roleplay! You can find the full list of tutorials here!

Please note that the workshops will continue! @CrystalDragon is picking them back up! Once again, thanks ya'll!

Hey all! If you're reading this, you're probably only reading this because you recognized my title format and wonder where I've been. Well, I'm taking a break from CoH. That means a break from my bi-weekly workshops too. However, don't think I'm totally out of the ring! If ANYONE needs help with ANYTHING regarding roleplay and if anyone in the community wants to add to my tutorial list, I'd be happy to host it (after proof reading it of course)! As always, my ultimate goal has always been to help give people the tools not just to improve their own roleplay but also to offer words to unspoken rules that people might struggle to explain to newcomers. My direct messages will remain open as will the threads of my various write-ups. Please don't hesitate to reach out! As always, here's a link to the master list of tutorials. Stay awesome, heroes and villains!

For what it's worth, I think the effective nerf to defense here isn't drastic enough to make specific support types necessary. It just adds more value to there being one.

Okay, first of all, I wouldn't compare this game to Dynasty Warriors. This became a mob wrecker in the vein of Dynasty Warriors as power creep set in and even more so as Incarnate content was added. Because that's what this is, Crim. Power creep. The reason why this is a fundamental flaw and not a feature is because the game's combat mechanics were never designed for you to play the game like Dynasty Warriors. If you want an MMO built around that idea, look at Black Desert Online. Even Dynasty Warriors wouldn't let you go AFK in the middle of an enemy of mobs above your level without any risk of defeat. And the reason I know it's power creep and not a design decision is because, even setting aside how the game was originally designed, it's clear that the devs were struggling to keep the challenge going in Dark Astoria. I remember my Super Reflexes character getting absolutely wrecked by attacks that went right at what we are all talking about: his defenses. And I want to point to something you said that REALLY points out the issue I was getting at. City of Heroes was not always a tank and spank as you are describing it. You weren't always able to run into a mission at +4x8 as a blaster and mow through it nor was it a situation where you were all powerful. This changed when invention origin enhancements with set bonuses were added to the game. It became far more feasible to build a character that could be the hero of a Dynasty Warriors game where you just walk through mobs. Except without the game design to back it up. When AE was introduced, it became far easier for people to make builds which meant making a crazy powerful character became far more accessible to everyone. The Incarnate system just added to the power creep which left only enemies explicitly designed for incarnate content any threat to you since they were designed to face up against people who had broken defenses. A band aid. As I said earlier, there's currently no solid reason to play a healer. The fact that there is a powerset entirely dedicated explicitly to healing (empathy) which sees little traffic points to a fundamentally flawed system. And...I feel like you might be missing the plot a bit. There are mechanics at play here beyond button smashing. The recent changes to sonic, several sets having extra affects if you do certain things (like dual blades, street justice, energy melee, etc), and there's probably other things coming down the pipeline. Heck, literally the ENTIRETY of the new Aeon Strike Force utilizes custom mechanics to make the enemy groups and bosses more interesting. Lastly, one last last final point? When you say that the team composition doesn't matter, don't see that as necessarily a good thing. If no healers are needed, why would you build a healer? If no control is needed, why would you build a controller except to serve as DPS? Literally the only support set I see people get hyped to see in their team right now is a kinetics and that's because it increases everyone's recharge time and, thus, their individual damage output. The fact that right now everything is just a different shade of solo DPS in the eyes of many is part of the problem. Again, it doesn't even look like the changes are going to affect things in a major way. But in what little way this might change things, giving people a reason to be something other than some form of mindless DPS can only improve things if you ask me.

There's been a few people that have said things similar to this and I want to make an argument against it that doesn't simply rely on telling them to try the beta. First, the fact that you could min/max by focusing on just two stats (smashing/lethal) was part of the problem. This isn't just a question of defense characters getting access to capped smashing/lethal defense, this applies to all player characters. A defender can get the survivability of a scrapper by focusing entirely on smashing/lethal because that's the defense that is currently checked the most. If you are really into end game +4/x8 content, you should REALLY consider this a problem because it means that any new end game hard mode content is going to be fundamentally flawed. They are going to be looking at the +4/x8 madlads, see how they are building, and be left with only two options: higher to-hit or higher debuffs. Either way, it's not an actual solution. You aren't fixing the actual problem. If the only way the devs can introduce a fun challenge to players is by nerfing defense via enemy effects, you are basically doing this but worse. And I kind of find it amusing you'd say this makes squishy AT's useless because...well. The exact opposite is true!!! The hard mode TF's ALONE gave powersets like Empathy more purpose because people were actually suddenly in need of heals and even revives. Defense and resistances OTHER than smashing/lethal becoming important actually gives all squishies more reason to exist. Forcefield defenders will actually have a reason to play in teams, additional resistance buffs from /sonic controllers now have a clear role to play. Hell, it gives tankers more reason to actually be tanks, scrappers a reason to focus their efforts on picking off random enemies that change their focus to squishies, brutes more reason to do both. Stalkers....well, they just do whatever they do. Stalkers be stalkers. And all of this is under the presumption that the end effects of the change are having a HUGE impact on gameplay. Which, based on feedback, doesn't seem to be the case. It just means that you can't focus everything on smashing/lethal, makes squishies actually live up to their name, and gives support archetypes more reason to actually support. The new meta, if this does force a new meta, is going to encourage people to diversify their roster and builds. Plus. Let's be REALLY real right now. +4/x8 is intended for EIGHT people with enemies tailored to be FOUR levels higher than you. The fact that anyone can do better than +4x4 is impressive enough.

Yeah, basically. It's easy to get into the mindset that Crey is evil top to bottom, but the company is MASSIVE. For every one illegitimate operation they do, they likely have two that are totally on the up and up. They make a ton of products over many different industries. I think Umbrella from the Resident Evil games is a great comparison myself. While Umbrella did create the zombie virus, that was just one branch of the megacorp. The people who made cosmetics for Umbrella were likely just as surprised as everybody else. As my link said, Paragon Protectors are basically set from the ground up to be loyal to Crey. Convincing them otherwise is a huge undertaking. And, yes, it would make sense for a Paragon Protector line to be capable of duplication, but I would advise you to make it a prototype or in the trial phase. Write in an explanation as to why you don't see it widespread.

Sure! In order... Yes and no. Different projects are going to call for different kidnappings. What's more, any Crey operation working out of Paragon is going to either try to be careful who they kidnap or be sure that they actually need the person they're kidnapping. Remember that Crey is generally portrayed as being seen as a normal company by the general public. They have segmented their operations enough that when one of their bad doings gets found out, it doesn't travel far to the top. So steps are likely taken to reduce exposure. It wouldn't surprise me if someone who was kidnapped by a different group was literally purchased by Crey and taken off their hands. I don't believe that is ever shared. I'm rusty on my Praetorian lore, but I'm pretty sure that Neuron would narratively take over the role of horrific genetic experiments and Anti-Matter would be doing the weird computer stuff. The Crey Protectors origins are not known to the public. As far as most are concerned, they are an independent org made up of men and women acting anomalously to protect Paragon. They just have a preference for Crey for whatever reason. The reality is that: Remember. It might be obvious to US that Crey is a villain group and horrible, but the game goes out of its way to show that between manipulating PR and an army of lawyers, most people are unaware. Hell, you might be buying products produced by a Crey subsidiary and not even know it.

You know what doesn't make much sense to me? Branching paths in MMO's. The four most notable ones I am aware of are Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and, of course, City of Heroes. Why is this a problem in my eyes? Well, it's EXTREMELY hard to do in an MMO, in large part, because of the multiplayer aspect of the game. The ways they can be messed up are pretty obvious, but it seems like nobody's really cracked the code to implement it well in an MMO setting. The core thing that writers try to avoid when doing this is conflicting narratives with other players and giving everyone a feeling of influence on the world without creating completely different "alternate timelines" that make the canon confusing. City of Heroes was actually extremely guilty of this later in its lifespan. Not only is there no clear answer as to which Who Will Die or Pandora's Box arc actually happened (Hero/Villain), but some of the choices you can make in Praetoria leave massive questions as to the state of the world. For example (spoiler for CoH lore), While the game seems to be capable of tracking decisions you made in previous story missions, the actual capabilities of this are likely (at least as of now) extremely limited given that the two characters that the game tracks your interactions with throughout Dark Astoria between arcs are pretty much inconsequential. World of Warcraft has also attempted this to some extremely mixed results. I don't remember the exact circumstances of this, but my sister mentioned to me that, at one decision tree, one choice you select actually gives you a prompt warning you that the path you are about to take is entirely non-canon. In other words, you might as well be playing a fanfiction written by one of the developers. Not only does poor handling of branching story paths bring about a great deal of confusion as to what is happening in the wider canon or just highlights how pointless your choices actually are, but it can actually lower the quality of random parts of the story. My favorite example of this is Guild Wars 2. Generally speaking, I remember the game having a pretty good record of tracking your decisions and making them matter. But there were a few issues that always hung with me. For example, the branching paths limited who the writers could bring to the forefront. The farther back in the story you go, the harder it gets. The only characters that are the exception to this are, of course, the characters that persist regardless of what actions you take. But this necessity heavily limits the actual importance of characters you might have grown attached to up to and including them completely vanishing from the story until they get a short little cameo at some point down the line (which might even be their final mention). The more you notice this, the less important your decisions even feel. But I did mention lowering quality and, again, I bring us to Guild Wars 2. There's one particular path you can take as part of being a human that involves discovering your sister who was KIA might actually still be alive and being held prisoner. Long story short, you save her. But do you know what I didn't experience during that? I didn't experience a moment of giving a shit. Which is screwed up! It's your character's sister, why wouldn't I be invested? Well, it's quite simple. While the game did take record of what stories you would be experiencing in character creation, the game developers, be it out of laziness of time constraint, never added any moments leading up to where you would experience the missing sister arc that made any mention to your sister. As far as the game is concerned, she doesn't exist until that story arc starts. And do you know what happened only once after that for the longest time (if ever)? Her being brought up at all. And the above issue was pretty much an issue for all stories. Some more than others. And, keep in mind, GW2, as far as my memory goes, had a pretty good branching system going on. In an MMO setting where you can't have the game canon do whatever the hell you want because there's people sharing the same world? It told a pretty fun story. It just made sacrifices in the process. SWTOR's branching system, as far as I recall it, really only works because the branching that happens is primarily self contained. Early into the game, anyway. I know they went a little crazy later on, but the base game was really good about making your decisions feel important and actually show them as being important. The issue, of course, is that it is an MMO and one problem SWTOR had was that it mainly felt like a single player experience up until some random player ran by and reminded you of the game's nature. Because most of the story you interacted with that had impact was your personal story and your personal story was kept isolated enough to not threaten the stories of other players, it ended up becoming like a silo. But branching paths in video games that are meaningful is entirely possible. Mass Effect for the vast majority of the original trilogy made every decision actually not just stand to change the world, but come up later. Hell, one decision you could make in Mass Effect 1 would literally alter if an NPC you negotiated with in Mass Effect 2 was from the first game or a new introduction. But, as I said, MMO's are a shared universe. You can't make huge world shattering choices in an MMO without confusing the state of the entire game world. It's possible to give players choices that don't really matter but feel impactful for your playtime. For every major choice you made in the world, there were a ton that never got brought up again. But, because of the excellent writing, it didn't matter that the world didn't dramatically change. But it still felt like you made a difference. Those are the kinds of decision trees that, if an MMO writer is going to make, they need to implement. END RANT \o/

I added a new section talking about respecting the lore of other players. Really shocked me that this was a problem, but it doesn't surprise me that it could be. Keep on keeping on, everyone! :3

First of all, no hard feelings. 🙂 Second of all, this is actually a great point I hadn't considered! Psionics are really kind of a non-magical magic in the grand scheme of things. If anything, they operate on fewer rules. With psychic powers, you can do all sorts of things! Not just invading someone's mind, but also setting things on fire, levitation, and more. While the same expectations of obeying consent are generally expected, I actually think I've seen fewer people demand explanations for how psychic powers work than magic. In fact, I actually think I myself am guilty of that to some degree. If I had to guess for why, I think it's because there's kind of an assumption that the reason it works is because it's coming from yourself. Reading too much into how your psychic powers work is difficult to do without writing in reasons for other characters. There is definitely room for abuse with psychic powers and, in hindsight, it is kind of wild this is the first mention of it here that I have seen. I feel like telepathy is in large part why psychic powers get such a bad rap. There's not exactly a solid explanation of how psychic powers work in the game. How do they interact with others, what is it like to fight against it, how much can you get away with, etc. I think the closest we got was the mind battle found in the Who Will Die arc, but I could be wrong. As a result, you kind of have a push and shove effect going on. One side that wants to intrude on other people's minds because that's part of their concept and another side that wants nothing to do with it. Pretty sure that could result in an over correction on every side imaginable. But as Crystal said... Again, the room for abuse isn't the issue and I feel like the people arguing that magic is somehow special are missing the point. No matter how easily a concept can be exploited to become overpowered, the issue isn't and shouldn't be the ease at which it happens. What matters is the actual act itself.

I'm very sorry this was your experience. If my post gave you that impression, I am dreadfully sorry. While magic has special considerations that many overlook, I certainly don't want to give anyone the impression that magic users aren't welcome. I'm not sure what pushed you away previously, but it does upset me that the sentiments I shared could have been a contributing factor. So, if you will, allow me to give a counter example. There are two kinds of well written magic. Magic that is clearly explained and doesn't break those rules or magic that is vague but internally consistent. Believe it or not, most of my stories about the worst power gamers and godmodders I've encountered don't come from magic concepts but science and technology. While magic is theoretically limitless, most magic users that aren't bad actors will have the good sense of at least trying to give their magic rules to go by. There's usually at least an attempt to put in some equal exchange. Tech and science based characters, however, can be far worse if they start treating their concepts like magic. The thing about magic is that, even if it breaks the laws of physics, the writer generally still puts together some sort of way the magic works. Most magic concepts, even the overpowered ones, try and utilize some kind of limiting factor be it component cost, element limitation, etc. But tech/science based characters are working under the pretense that they follow the same general rules as we do IRL. So when you have technology that is so scifi is basically becomes fantasy, the writer has no real life analogue to tie themselves to. What you get as a result is technobabble. There's nothing wrong with technobabble, per say! Star Trek used/uses it all the time! However, it can get people to lower their guard and end up giving bad actors all of the expectations of tech based concepts with the clean slate of a magic concept. All of the freedom of magic concepts without the expectation of following any of the rules found in a scifi. As I said before, the issue here is not magic concepts and I'll happily push back against anyone saying that magic concepts are bad at their core. Magic has considerations that often go unconsidered and that's the real core of what I was saying. If anything, I'm saying that more eyes need to be turned towards tech/science based characters for the exact same behavior people are ascribing to magic concepts because, even if magic is easier to break on the ground floor, it's not that much more effort to break everything else. I sincerely hope this clears the air some.

Hey, you aren't alone. If anything, I think actual god characters are generally the easiest to mess up. In large part, I attribute this to the Abrahamic religions giving many people in the modern West the impression that "god" always translates to "all powerful" because that's what the Abrahamic God is supposed to be. Ironically, the only good god characters I have encountered are either generally designed not to be heavily utilized or are limited in their power by some means. Either being the "god" of something means that the character is more so a player controlled NPC or basically carries "god" as a title. The only way you are going to play a god character as most people understand gods is by breaking the number one rule I shared in my post on power levels: if your character starts invalidating stories by existing, you might be doing something wrong.

Well yes, but actually no. You are correct that most people pull from the two powerhouses of Marvel and DC and that they have a plethora of godmode characters. However, as those two companies themselves very often draw from Western fantasy or tropes generally found within western fantasy (mainly the characters that have been around the longest), it stands to reason that many magic based characters are going to be doing the same regardless of if they get their queues from comics or IRL mythology. Not that it really matters. Comics have the same issues that I brought up earlier. Magic characters have less push to explain themselves until they absolutely need to while still being taken seriously. As for science based concepts...I mean... Of course! Don't you know anything about science?! (google it) As roleplay is a collaborative project and, thus, no matter how powerful a character might be, everyone should be given the chance to contribute. Just as an individual author needs to find a way to make Green Arrow just as important to a scene as Superman, so too must two different roleplayers in a scene. I mean....sure. Way ahead of you. But as that is a way overly long post, here's the short version: a character's power level determines how much they can contribute to a scene. You need to determine what kind of roleplay you want to take part in and how your power level is going to impact it. But all of this is on the personal level. Nothing can be done from a community standpoint outside of calling out characters that behave badly and asking people with characters you find flawed if they are open to constructive criticism. What is the purpose of that power? Why do they need to be that powerful? Do you intend to roleplay with weaker characters and, if so, how do you plan to ensure they can contribute?

I'm not sure this is the best way to determine origins for RP characters. For example, one of my characters is a mutant who uses a lot of tech. Do I give her the tech origin or the mutation origin? These kinds of questions can go many ways. It is true, however (at least from my experience), that magic origin characters tend to be magic based concepts. I'm not sure where the census is so I can't actually check myself, but for the purposes of this conversation, you would need to compare magic origin with science AND technology with the natural origin also taken in consideration. The reason I point this out is because, of the origins, science and technology are similar enough that even if you ignore crossover in origins, the two are still nearly the same thing. But there's one last thing I want to bring up here: I don't think that magic is easier to write poorly in a way that shuts other players out. It is indeed easier to write magic concepts more lazily than others in terms of how powers are handled (for reasons I mentioned before), but it is most definitely not uniquely bad in terms of writing it in ways that shuts others out. For example, as I mentioned in my original post As most people don't understand what goes into hacking, it is often treated much like magic and a hacker character can be just as intrusive to a roleplay as a technomancer even if the latter is theoretically less "realistic" than the hacker. I've seen so many people misunderstand what goes into hacking I wrote an entire diatribe on it. I'm not really sure it's fair to break out statistics on how many characters exist of certain origins when magic-like technology is definitely a thing and doesn't even necessarily need to cause any issues. I also don't want anyone to take my post to mean that I think magic origins are the problem here. They aren't. The issue here isn't a character's origin but the player's behavior. For example, that Fae queen (or whatever), as a concept, isn't necessarily overpowered. The problem had nothing to do with magic. As has been mentioned, they could have been a mad scientist with a pocket dimension in which they were a minor god and the same problem would exist. The issue is that the player didn't consider the implications of their character and it didn't seem to occur to them that they were invalidating a narrative. This goes well beyond concept origin. It's not that this occurs more with the magic origin that this seems to be more of a problem for them but, instead, because the lower bar to screw it up means that it's often easier to spot. Most of the screw-ups related to magic concepts tend to boil down to unthought of implications. Not necessarily powergaming. Just because it's easier to mess something up doesn't mean most of the people messing up are doing it maliciously. (Not accusing anyone of thinking that, just making sure my position's clear) TL;DR: Magic is often written poorly and is more obvious when it is broken, but the problem at play is more so based in a player's behavior and less so their concept. Even a super powerful magical character that could invalidate narratives does not make that happening inevitable.

Interesting you say that. I used to avoid magic at all costs in terms of concept explicitly because of this. However, as @ZeeHero said This is ultimately the potential issue with implementing magic in a concept that brings us to the core of this thread's topic. It's not that technology/science is somehow less exploitable than magic, it's just harder to do without sounding stupid. Sci-fi, even if it's technobabble, is generally grounded somewhat in reality. It's easy to look at an outlandish concept based in mad science and ask questions like what powers it, where are the materials coming from, etc. Basically, for sci-fi, you go into the situation expecting that the laws of nature are going to be, if not followed, referenced. Concepts that use sci-fi and treat it like magic are usually concepts that revolve around ideas that are not well understood or non-existent (portals, time travel, nanites, hacking, etc). What makes magic different is that there are no rules. No matter if you believe magic is real or not in reality, different groups of people have different ideas as to how it works. If you go into a situation not looking to how IRL occult groups believe magic works, you can basically do whatever you want because basically all magic exists in a space that portals and time travel do. People are often far more willing to accept poorly written fantasy/magic concepts than they are sci-fi be it from an audience or writer's perspective. But, keep in mind, this doesn't just apply to magic characters. This basically applies to supernatural non-scifi concepts in general. The more things that are referenced that the audience understands as fact in the real world, the more things need to be established to explain why that doesn't apply here. As magic as a concept sort of messes with how things work at the very foundation of reality, it's almost like skipped past the uncanny valley. But this isn't to say that I think magic/supernatural characters are more likely to break roleplay. As the core of the issue are concepts that utilize powers with poorly defined rules, magic is by no means more likely to do this. Magic is just easier to do this with be it by accident or intentionally. You have a lower bar to jump over with that suspension of disbelief and people are more likely to accept "it works because magic" than other concepts. However, in broad strokes, the actual behavior here is just as readily found in any poorly designed concept. What's the difference between a poorly written hacker and a poorly written technomancer? What's the difference between poorly written medical nanites and poorly written magical healing? What's the difference between a poorly written Fae queen with a dimension they rule over like a god and a poorly written mad scientist that rules over a pocket dimension like a god? Not much. I think the biggest issue is that people seem less likely to think about what rules dictate their character's abilities in magical concepts than others for the exact same reason people are more likely to accept a lower standard of explanation in magical/supernatural concepts.

Wohhh! Someone pointed me at this post and there's a TON to go through! First of all, there are some things about your initial post that I want to address. Not true! First, while as far as the game is concerned you are on the path to become an incarnate, there are two major things you forget. The first is that MOST people are not and never will be incarnates regardless of how naturally strong you might be. As far as we are made aware, the Well of the Furies responds to "Strength"...but we don't really know much more than that. What draws its attention to you? Is it just pure raw physical strength? Strength in the form of wit and intelligence? We don't know. If there were a huge number of incarnates compared to normal heroes (ie: incarnates are inevitable), the Praetorian invasion would have been far easier won. They wouldn't need to haul you from Kings Row to Steel Canyon during the invasion because, if they were in great number, every district could be afforded a squad of incarnates. Heck, we should remember that, in the canon, there ARE gods! There are Fae! If all it took was strength, why isn't the world crawling with Incarnates? Put simply: it's not inevitable. And ALL of that is ignoring the fact that, back on live, you couldn't even participate with incarnate content unless you were a subscriber (or perhaps if you had a high enough vet level but I don't remember exactly). If it really was inevitable, it sure as heck wasn't on live. And now we get into the second part of that initial sentence. One of the most powerful beings to exist. I mean...yes? But you're looking at the ultimate end result. Incarnates are more powerful than they might be without that incarnate influence, but the only way you start as an incarnate being one of the most powerful beings in existence is by diving head first into the well and effectively losing your free will to it. While the slow method exists, quite frankly, we don't know what a fully powered slow-growth Incarnate looks like because...we never got there. Hybrid, if I remember correctly, was the last incarnate slot to be finalized before sunset and was only half way to the top. What I'm saying is that, in canon, we weren't Statesman yet. Who knows if we ever would have been. So! With those two things in mind, it kind of...negates the entirety of what follows. If a character is already powerful out of the gate, that does not necessitate they become an Incarnate. If anything, the issue you are concerned with here is not the strength of a character but instead power creep. This drive to just keep making a character stronger and stronger with each advancing roleplay plot. Excellent questions! Well, on the offset, figuring out why your character is getting involved is a legitimate question one should ask themselves. If anything, it is also a concern characters likely have. The question of "why are they getting involved" was likely asked in reverse to Statesman who then had to explain to people that he has bigger threats to battle; all the while they look on as the pain of the crimes done to them weighs on their minds. It's a very Superman sort of dilemma. In fact, it might very well have been something Paragon Studios could have explored with future incarnate content! Something that might escape people's notice is that, as the game progresses, you are actively working alongside NPC heroes less and less until, once you're in Peregrine Island, you're mostly working alongside people like Penny Yin or Manticore. You've become a big boi and now you play big boi games. By the time you get into Dark Astoria, you aren't even fighting alongside the big names anymore. Your only equals are your fellow Incarnates and Incarnate level threats. HOWEVER! This is where I have to slam my foot on the brakes because you seem to be missing the point of levels. Your character's level only mechanically determines how strong you are to your enemies. This is because this is an MMO made in the mid 2000's and the idea of an MMO without a simple level progression system had barely been considered (CoH was released months before WoW to put that one into perspective). Your level, as a matter of fact, is not actually how strong you are. It determines your capability of taking on a certain level of threat. This isn't as clear now, but back in the day it made it very clear that your level blue side was your "security" level where as red side had a "threat" level. Basically, as you leveled up, you were proving that you could handle bigger threats. We might not be fighting Skulls at high levels, but your question of explaining why an ultra-powerful ancient evil dragon struggling against a level 2 skull gets kind of confusing when you consider enemy groups like the Snakes exist at very low levels, disappear for a while, then are a threat again in Grandville arcs at level 50. And that question itself begs the question of "why is your ultra-powerful incarnate struggling against non-incarnate scalies?" And NONE of this is getting into getting leveled down for taskforces. Why is your Incarnate getting wrecked by Vhazolok in that Positron TF? Like...let's separate IC story from OOC mechanics for a second here. You're asking legitimate questions about why certain characters are getting involved with certain threats, but bringing game mechanics does not accomplish much beyond muddying the waters. I'm going to come off as a little cold here, but while you did certainly clarify later that you are not saying that all gods/vampires/fae/etc are cringe and that you were absolutely focused on powergaming, your original post not only cast an immensely large net, but the snippet above puts off the tone of someone not asking a genuine question but someone that already has their answer and probably has a bias against general concepts that people enjoy playing (ie: dragon/vampire/etc). You want to know why so many overpowered characters are gods/vampires/fae/etc? It's because bad actors have an easier time breaking them and hand waving away how powerful they are to people that don't know better than to take offense. You want to know why people like to play powerful characters? Power fantasy, out of necessity (to make the concept make sense), being unaware how powerful their character is in the grand scheme of things, and definitely more. Why do people powergame and play characters that are so powerful they are unstoppable? This post is already long enough that you don't want me to get into that too deeply, but... Basically this. Presuming they don't have some sort of narcissistic or otherwise toxic personality? It's usually just looking to have some agency in life...even if it's all virtual. Sad, but that's at the core of it. I don't think your post was malicious. I don't think you just assume people that don't fit your mold of RP are bad roleplayers. I just think you worded things very poorly in such a way that gave the appearance of writing the worst into people's intentions, people took you to be hostile, and then all of the above hit. I hope this post helps clear some things up.

Sunk Cost Age - 26

It has been two decades since the first Rikti invasion. On May 23rd, 2022, it will be the 20th anniversary of the nail biting six months humanity stared into the brink of oblivion. Even as the Batallion are an ever looming threat, we are at the point where there are now adults who have no memory of that first invasion. Everything they know about the invasion comes not from first hand experience but, instead, stories passed down from those that were there. Your character encounters a young person asking about what it was like to live through it. Maybe it's on an online forum or maybe it's in person. What does your character say about it?

While I hereby give you my blessing to carry on the name of Nanite Hacker Lord, I demand that your post always include comments of how hard I am trying to stop this from continuing (assuming you ever do any more of these). This was glorious.

This is glorious. It's like you carefully read every single one of my posts and did the exact opposite. Which is...exactly what you did, I think XD But I shall reward you for this abomination of advice! I'm actually going to answer one of your questions here! Where did my name McSpazz come from? Well, back in high school, my nickname was Screwbucket and that's mostly what I went by...except in one place. @Willowgust, my sister, was the first to start playing City of Heroes and as her first character was McClove, that's what the account's global was. Since the game was entirely subscription based back in the day, we shared the account which meant that we both had the same global. Over time, however, I grew more attached than my sister...that or I just hogged the account more. One or the other. She eventually went back to World of Warcraft while I kept playing the game. Thus, McClove ended up becoming my identifier alone... But uh...it wasn't really mine. So I wanted to make it mine. But I was afraid that if I changed it too much, my global friends wouldn't recognize it. A friend was regularly (but affectionately) calling me Spazz, so I figured why not combine the two? Thus, McSpazz was born! Thank you so very much for writing this. I'm sure it took a while and it seriously made my day. ❤️