An Overly Long Post Talking About Balancing Character Power with Character History

[McSpazz]

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!

 

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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!

Edited October 6, 2022 by McSpazz

[Vic Raiden]

Sorry for not replying to this further, but... I assume power here means not just physical power, but also things like status, wealth etc., correct?

[McSpazz]

1 hour ago, Vic Raiden said:

Sorry for not replying to this further, but... I assume power here means not just physical power, but also things like status, wealth etc., correct?

Correct! For our purposes, "power" translates to anything that a character can use in response to something happening in the story. Power, very generally speaking, translates to a character's ability to influence if not solve a problem. While simply physical power alone being maxed out can lead to a character being overpowered, it's not the only way a character can hog the spotlight.

[chase]

Great points.  

Folk should also keep in mind how their power creep may affect the players they often team with.   Power imbalances among teammates can be very good narrative material done right but can also lead to considerable inter-player conflict-- ESPECIALLY if you have 'transfer-able powers' (blessing "buffs", an antimatter armory, an unlimited credit line, a personal army of minions) that can pull a character beyond the player's vision.
 

[Vic Raiden]

Oh yeah, it's mostly the minions bit I'm concerned about. As said in one other thread, my redside main (Elec/Energy dominator) is an ex-archvillain who once got busted so hard he lost his entire evil empire. And I'm not even sure how long to keep that narrative - I really want him to gain an army to command around, but I don't know how to go about it beyond rerolling him as a mastermind or multiboxing with a henchman toon who is indeed a MM. And of course, there's the matter of this fridge logic of why an evil overlord would do everything in person when he could as well just sit back and watch from his lair as his minions do all the dirty work.

[Crasical]

 

 

[Vic Raiden]

Like I said, I'm sorry for the necromancy, but I genuinely didn't use to know this thread even existed, let alone that nobody replied to it before.

[McSpazz]

2 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Like I said, I'm sorry for the necromancy, but I genuinely didn't use to know this thread even existed, let alone that nobody replied to it before.

That's part of why I have a whole list made of all of the tutorials I've done. You can find the link at the bottom of the original post. Considering the purpose of these posts, I don't consider it necroing. 
 

 

5 hours ago, Vic Raiden said:

Oh yeah, it's mostly the minions bit I'm concerned about. As said in one other thread, my redside main (Elec/Energy dominator) is an ex-archvillain who once got busted so hard he lost his entire evil empire. And I'm not even sure how long to keep that narrative - I really want him to gain an army to command around, but I don't know how to go about it beyond rerolling him as a mastermind or multiboxing with a henchman toon who is indeed a MM. And of course, there's the matter of this fridge logic of why an evil overlord would do everything in person when he could as well just sit back and watch from his lair as his minions do all the dirty work.

There's a certain level of minion acquisition that can become a problem. The best rule of thumb I can think of for your scenario is to ask yourself this: If my character has X number of minions and they just threw every minion they had at a problem, how many scenarios would that not solve. For example, if you had 10 minions and you sent them to take over Ghost Widow's tower, they'd probably fail. If you had 10000 minions and threw them at Mercy Island, you could probably take over the entire island. At that point, there would be few "standard" scenarios where your character could be involved and not be able to just summon their entire army to force a problem fixed.

[Vic Raiden]

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. But it still doesn't answer my question of how even to roleplay a ruler-type villain while complying with the game's limitations and the fact most people aren't in the know on who my character is. I mean, I can't just keep the "ex-overlord who lost everything once and is STILL trying to recover" story going on forever, can I?

Edited January 27 by Vic Raiden

[jkwak]

maybe they are undercover on the isles?  they have there evil empire build somewhere else, hell you could build a base for that an make up your own country, Arachnos would sooner or later become an arch rival, and the character just gathers intel undercover, covering some of the ground work them self, starting to throw armies at a problem would just bust the cover putting them in danger from Arachnos and Hero organisations like Longbow, maybe even cause an all out war not ready for by a long shot and you can keep that part of the RP up for ever

[Vic Raiden]

 

That's one way I could go about it, thanks.

[Vic Raiden]

While I can make a full evil organization via Mission Architect, and in fact I have already made one, I just don't really feel like it's enough. Sure, I could make a couple arcs which would let players fight against my forces, but... well, it's just being a punching bag. Can't even flaunt my army much in roleplaying, it's all stuck on my hard drive and a maximum of three arcs I can have up online at a time. ...think posting a folder with all the subgroups forming my empire would be enough?

And again, I do respect that keeping the game fair is a considerable limiting factor for player villains' influence on the world, I'm just trying to have ideas.