How does RP affect your character build?

[Coyotedancer]

People tend to get a little odd about the mind reading thing in my experience... I remember some serious fights and melt-downs about it in the Old Days. No surprise it's still an issue.

 

A couple of friends and I were discussing it the other day in the OOC roleplay channel, trying to suss out how we wanted to handle one of Kaikarra's new "spells". (She's an Incarnate level character, but as anyone who's read her Diary knows, she doesn't in any way think of herself as one. As far as she's concerned, IC she's just a somewhat more talented than average mage, not some semi-deific powerhouse-) She created that new ward specifically to protect herself and her teammates from the mental effects of the factions they're fighting in Dark Astoria, so it has to have a pretty broad range of defense by definition.

 

The issue is that one of those teammates... In fact, the one she initially started designing the ward specifically to protect... is a psychic. (He's a PsiMelee stalker-) Part of their IC fighting style does involve him reading the group's surface thoughts. He and Kai are often the front line when they run together, so still being able to do that is important to them. There are also personal considerations involved.

 

But that "ward" is a Tier 4 Clarion. Not *just* an Incarnate level power, but what is (as far a I know-) one of the single most potent effects of its type in the game.

 

While we were talking it over, trying to decide if the sheer mechanical horsepower of that effect meant it was more likely to mean "blocks EVERYTHING" or "involves enough fine-control not to", one of the other channel regulars expressed the pretty pointed opinion that ANY kind of 'immunity to mind-reading' was BadWrong god-modding. Even a T4 Clarion defined as a "Keep ALL THE THINGS outt'a my head!"-spell.

 

I sort of raised the proverbial eyebrow at that, especially given that were discussing it openly on the channel specifically in order to reach a group consensus that both made some rational sense and WASN'T just god-modish railroading. o_0 So... yeah. It's something people have strong opinions about and that can obviously lead to conflict.

 

(In the end, we settled on saying that the fact that it IS a T4 ability and not one of the lower-tiered versions meant that Kai had enough finesse when casting the spell to block the Talons' brain-games while still allowing BioRogue to do his thing. Other groups may have come to a different conclusion than we did under the circumstances.) 

[Terminal]

@Coyotedancer, That sounds identical to 'The Stealth Problem.'

 

The Stealth Problem is as such: Stalkers, when they stack Hide, Stealth, and a Stealth effect IO, cannot be seen, period, even if you cap yourself out to max perception using stacks of tactics, focused accuracy, aiming drones, etcetera, unless they come within 10 feet of you.

 

This problem is not really as pronounced as yours, since your Mind Reading/Clarion has no simple or direct answer to it. But it did have similar consequences back on the live forums. You would have writers with Stalkers and other players who would claim they had enough perception to pierce through max hide at any range. The 'solution' there, such as it is, is that under normal gameplay conditions, IC, nobody should be able to see through capped stalker stealth even if they have capped perception except if they come within 10 feet. If they want to get enough perception to see stalkers from further away through max stealth, they need some kind of narrative metacontext - my favorite generic example is stealing the Thorn Tree Nexus since, amongst other attributes, the Thorn Tree has a much higher perception cap than players and can see even capped stealth stalkers from pretty far away, so harnessing the power of the Thorn Tree Nexus should, IC, be able to grant you the same level of insight/perception at least for a limited duration.

 

I think a similar solution could be ascribed to the Mind Reading problem. You are absolutely correct that t4 Clarion should or would provide god-tier mind reading protection.The obvious counterplay, however, is that metacontextual solutions to overcome that protection should be permissible. A specialized counter intended for the particular purpose should always defeat the broadband generalized protective measure, which is exactly what Clarion is. This is all without touching upon, by the way, the fact that even Clarion t4 grows weaker over time. After the first 30 seconds, it's only a mag 9 status effect protection, and after 60 seconds that fall to 6, etcetera. A permadom mind control character will basically laugh at that, incarnate or no, so clearly there are workarounds and exceptions to everything, even incarnate abilities.

[Hobbes1266]

I have no stake in that conversation, just chiming in to mention that Mind Link allows for mind-reading amongst allies. Creative RP interpretation of a reverse use of the power would be reasonable, I think. Mind Probe does not say so explicitly but strongly infers such. Psionic Melee's very set description says all of its damaging powers grant insight into your enemies, which is pretty indicative.

I stand corrected ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

People tend to get a little odd about the mind reading thing in my experience... I remember some serious fights and melt-downs about it in the Old Days. No surprise it's still an issue.

 

A couple of friends and I were discussing it the other day in the OOC roleplay channel, trying to suss out how we wanted to handle one of Kaikarra's new "spells". (She's an Incarnate level character, but as anyone who's read her Diary knows, she doesn't in any way think of herself as one. As far as she's concerned, IC she's just a somewhat more talented than average mage, not some semi-deific powerhouse-) She created that new ward specifically to protect herself and her teammates from the mental effects of the factions they're fighting in Dark Astoria, so it has to have a pretty broad range of defense by definition.

 

The issue is that one of those teammates... In fact, the one she initially started designing the ward specifically to protect... is a psychic. (He's a PsiMelee stalker-) Part of their IC fighting style does involve him reading the group's surface thoughts. He and Kai are often the front line when they run together, so still being able to do that is important to them. There are also personal considerations involved.

 

But that "ward" is a Tier 4 Clarion. Not *just* an Incarnate level power, but what is (as far a I know-) one of the single most potent effects of its type in the game.

 

While we were talking it over, trying to decide if the sheer mechanical horsepower of that effect meant it was more likely to mean "blocks EVERYTHING" or "involves enough fine-control not to", one of the other channel regulars expressed the pretty pointed opinion that ANY kind of 'immunity to mind-reading' was BadWrong god-modding. Even a T4 Clarion defined as a "Keep ALL THE THINGS outt'a my head!"-spell.

 

I sort of raised the proverbial eyebrow at that, especially given that were discussing it openly on the channel specifically in order to reach a group consensus that both made some rational sense and WASN'T just god-modish railroading. o_0 So... yeah. It's something people have strong opinions about and that can obviously lead to conflict.

 

(In the end, we settled on saying that the fact that it IS a T4 ability and not one of the lower-tiered versions meant that Kai had enough finesse when casting the spell to block the Talons' brain-games while still allowing BioRogue to do his thing. Other groups may have come to a different conclusion than we did under the circumstances.)

 

On the subject of mind reading, I do Consider Clarion once you ahve it to a 120 second duration to justify a virtually impervious degree of mental shielding. HHowever I dont require that much, will power, a few IOs with psi res etc are more then enough for me to recognize someone as having a much stronger mind and will then the average human or some special technique like the building a wall brick by brick in your mind like in children of the damned.

 

Look Folks I know I can come off as abit too ahrd core but I am actually pretty flexible as long is there is clear respect and love for our beloved game world.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

As far as I'm aware (which doesn't mean that I'm correct by any stretch of the imagination) there isn't any in-game attack or ability that lets the user read someone's mind, as far as I'm aware it's only something that can be done in roleplay not mechanically even if there are characters in the lore that are able to read minds.

 

I can see arguments for having a way to defend against mind reading even if you don't have defense against psionic abilities mechanically, so long as you aren't trying to argue that your character has a defense against abilities that they mechanically don't. I think you can be immune to mind reading if you have a good reason, but if you don't have a mechanical defense against dominate I wouldn't want to see someone claiming immunity to dominate in rp.

 

I have no stake in that conversation, just chiming in to mention that Mind Link allows for mind-reading amongst allies. Creative RP interpretation of a reverse use of the power would be reasonable, I think. Mind Probe does not say so explicitly but strongly infers such. Psionic Melee's very set description says all of its damaging powers grant insight into your enemies, which is pretty indicative.

 

Exactly, the fact is mind walkers are mind walkers. and its important to note that while it never made it into the game, sister psyche and in fact all psionic characters should have what she termed the psionic origin.

 

We see in Who Will Die that even if there is no actual mechanic in game for it, those who are powerful psions  clearly  can and do invade the minds, even of other powerful psions if they have not honed a defense.

 

Ol Berk as soon as I could I started buying and slotting the various IOs and sets to get my psi res to 30% which is my personal benchmark for being well defended against psi invasions in RP.

[Zolgar]

Look Folks I know I can come off as abit too ahrd core but I am actually pretty flexible as long is there is clear respect and love for our beloved game world.

 

You don't come across as "too hard core". You come across as one of the flavors of RPers that gives RPers a bad reputation and puts people off of ever trying to RP.

 

Everything you have said on these forums says one thing about you to me, and that is "Elitist gatekeeper". Which is cool and all, you do you, but using /ignore on people who don't live up to your definition of "respect and love" for the game is anything but 'flexible'.

[Llewellyn Blackwell]

I consider them intertwined and build accordingly. however that doesnt mean a character cant be optimal, and infact the only way one can really justify RPing some kind of serious superman class bad ass is to be both well built in concept and performance.

 

For example I will not remotely acknowledge anyones claims in RP that they are resistant to psi abilities like mind reading if their power sets or IO set bonuses do not indicate at least some moderate level of resistance or defense.

 

On My pure human claw/wp  toon I dont take rise to the challenge. I only give him moderate amounts of resistance and push more into defense to  show he depends to some extent on agility and only has light armor. I use multiple sets procs in his attacks so he doesnt have alot of higher teir set bonuses, but his attacks while all not having more then 40 or 50% dmg bonus hit plenty hard and have all sorts of modest CC effects to help hinder enemies and compensate. On live this build never updated after fitness became inherent and was in fact much weaker then it is now, but even back then more often then not id have people impressed with my characters performance and compliment me evena s they asked why I didnt have inherent fitness.

 

build should reflect the character as they are RPd. We call those who act super awesome at low levels god moders while we recognize incarnates as the god like beings they are. Our Security level is an in game concept reflecting both our power rating and our success and effectiveness. We use pets, emotes, and power animations when we RP.

 

Our character is a sum of all its aspects when we RP. otherwise your just talking shiite in RP and not worthy of others time.

 

Sometimes a master craftsman forgets the arduous journey he took to get there in the first place, and scoffs at the work of a young man's first try at the craft.  He forgets that he too was once an apprentice with much to learn.  And had not another master craftsman taken the time to teach him he would not be where he is today.  He forgets that before he was an apprentice even, when he knew very little about the art, that his own initial attempts at crafting himself were pitiful and hardly worthy of praise.  He forgets that those initial attempts were the best he could do.  He forgets about the friendly journeyman passing through town, who took the time to talk to him about the craft, and inspired him to continue in the journey.  He forgets that journeyman spoke to him at his level, praising the effort that went into the work, and encouraged him to keep trying.  That journeyman who never spoke poorly about his attempt, even though they both knew it was not quality work.  He forgets that it was that encounter that spurred him to try again.  And again, until he knew that this was something he truly wanted to do with his life and finally apprenticed himself to a master who he could ask and learn from. 

 

That master craftsman now ponders...maybe I was too quick to scoff.  We both know it's a poor attempt, but perhaps if I just talk to him like that journeyman once talked to me, that this too might be another master craftsman in the rough, waiting for someone to notice the sparkle of the diamond he could be.  He struggles to remember how the journeyman approached him.  Not with criticism, but praise.  But how can I praise this poor attempt?  How can I even humor it?  He remembers now, the journeyman praised his effort, not the quality.  They talked about the passion of crafting.  He talked at his level at the time so that by humoring the young man that he was, he was inspired to continue the journey.

 

Bentley - I say this to you with absolute sincerity and zero attempt of sarcasm...you are a master craftsman at lore based RP and RP in general.  I would love to team with you because I would no doubt love the experience of teaming with someone so versed in the lore.  But I would be afraid to, because, alas, I am a mere apprentice.  I know it, you would know it, and I would rather not invite your scorn.  I role play because I have some passion around it, but even at the "set in my ways" age of 46, I could those fires being tamped out and the enthusiasm lost.

 

The post is a morality tale...it's my own creation, and it's clearly my opinion, and not based in any universal set of right/wrong.  But having mastered some crafts, having attempted others only to see my attempts squashed, and having journeyed along the path with others, these are my perceptions.

Uhm Flattery will get you everywhere?

 

But seriously, my jouney to lore based RP was not long nor arduous it began in my first weeks in game, which was about 8 months into the games life. I was immediately annoyed encountering god of chaos this, lord of entropy that, all these other fellow lowbies acting like they deserved worship and should be treated as vastly more powerful then I because they said so. Classic god moding of the worst kind.

 

I was like hm who are the actual powers, gods etc in this game, and set out reading an early wiki site for the game and pretty quickly came across Infernals bio page. As soon as I was done reading it I had the perfect response to all the most powerful dark power god moders. Valmaz  Lord of Demon kind, and even better a unique way to approach being such a entity and yet not being a god moder.

 

Because it clearly said he ahd been fused with infernals friend T'Keron, and so I made T'Keron Valmaz, a kat/SR scrapper that used a mystical sword and his inhuman reflexes because he couldnt be sure how much damage this strange new half mortal body could endure. I RPed him as having 3 seperate persona;s T'Keron the man, Valmaz the eons ancient entity, and a fusion of both. I would go on to create costumes for each and as time and options added refined the look of the demon form as full valmaz mode especially.

 

So well did this concept work for me that every addition felt as if tailor made for this singular character. epic pools, IO sets, incarnate powers each a step on the path to him regaining his lost powers. This was all when I was a proper newb that I first began this character. who was my only year one vet badge toon to not ever get deleted because he was just always fun to play and RP.

 

When going rogue came out and I went rogue with him, I started running the various SFs that had Infernal in them and would talk in local caht to the NPC, and was often complimented by my various pug team amtes who said I had added something special to what had otherwise become static and boring for them long ago.

 

Yes I take lore rp perhaps abit too seriously,but its not something that requires years of playing the game to learn, just a few hours on a wiki at most exploring those aspects of it that interest you for a concept.

 

And for true newbs I always suggest praetoria now, because you learn plenty of the world while there, and then are rightly in a  strange new world once you reach prime earth, thus are able to easily RP being a stranger in a strange land.

 

I was no different in D&D I always wanted to read about a campaign setting before making a character so I could actually make my character feel like he was a part of that world.

[Titomancer]

There's wiggle room for me.  Mostly because this is not a tabletop game and the game has limits to what you can do.  If this were Mutants and Masterminds and we were all sitting around a tabletop we could make whatever we wanted work exactly like we wanted (I once made a luck manipulator with 50/50 chances of good or bad, for fun.)  But the game has limits. So when I made said luck manipulator in CoH before sunset, he was an SR Tank, because he was mostly a dodgeball at our tabletop game and the role fit.  So while RP does dictate power choices, sacrifices nee to be made base on the fact that this is a video game and inherently offers less freedom than other mediums (medias? Medi-somethings). 

 

In regards to "your build doesnt validate your powers" and things like that.  Thats just nonsense.  RP is built around imagination.  And while, yes, my Dark/Savage dom may not "mechanically" have any psi powers at all, the combo I chose is that of a psychic who projects constructs to attack with.  Like Psylocke and her damn butterflies and mind-blades.  So, not to be combative, but just because someone cant open up their imagination enough to wrap their head around my concept, it doesnt invalidate it. 

 

I will, however, grant that if someone is playing a literal god and isnt really good at it (Im not talking mechanically.  Not everyone has the amount of time it may take to make it to incarnate level in like a week) then I probably dont want to hang out with them.  it doesnt invalidate them, Im not going to ignore them, but Im just going to find other things to do.  Case in point, I knew a gaggle of people who made the literal horsemen of the apocalypse, and worked it as such that they ended up bound to mortal bodies or somesuch.  Problem was, they just did it, so they're like lvl 12 or something.  No biggy.  I get it, concept was built for long term.  Everyone has a first day.  We dont have a magical "50" button.  But they RPed it really well, so I had zero compunction taking this lvl 12 as Death, The Reaper of Souls.  Its all in how you play it.  Ive met incarnate level maxed out uber characters playing as gods and they were total prats so I just...wandered off.  RP is by nature a freeform medi-something.  Everyone is going to be different.

 

General rule of thumb that I try and follow, in life really, is don't be an a-hole.  Or a D-hole if you hang out with a psychotic raccoon.

 

 

[TheBlindGirl]

My characters want to live and won't avoid useful powers/slotting unless their concept absolutely prohibits them from being capable of taking them. Even that exception is a hypothetical.

[johua]

I generally build my characters around their concept, but I also don't hobble my characters in an effort to strictly adhere to a concept. I also don't think that RP needs to be dictated by out of character game mechanics.

 

As for the psy debate: I have seen people with mind control powers act in pretty terrible ways, so I don't begrudge a single person who puts something like that in their bio.

[Cap'n Capitalism]

If you need flight and it doesn't fit your RP canon to fly naturally, head to the p2w vendor. There's a few flight powers there for $1 million influence each, then you can fly without taking up a power spot in your build!

[Heraclea]

Most of my mans on Torchbearer have backstory that comes from outside the game itself.  Official lore affects them through the game itself. 

 

The character Catrina started as a simple attempt to create the Day of the Dead character from Mexican foklore.  Early in her career she got on a team working Skulls stories in KR.  After she got the Kill Skuls badge, she became an emissary from the Aztec gods, who are peeved at the Skulls for stealing their shtick.

 

Heraclea was Inv/SS in issue 1.  Upon her return, she became Inv/DM, having spent seven years in the Underworld she was changed by the experience.  All the best epic heroes do this, apparently.

[Therumancer]

  While this is an oldish thread (seems to be a long time since the last response) I figured I'd comment. I'm an older fellow (43) and will say that when I started with this "style" of games they were text based experiences called MUDs. A lot of the MUDs I played were highly RP oriented and largely built and played by people who were heavily into paper and pencil RPGs. Some of the MUDS like one called "Moments In Tyme" which was based on Robert Jordan's "Wheel Of Time" novels was so heavily RP based, that while the game had a huge system of character classes, guilds, and mechanics, you were not allowed to advance beyond a certain point or gain certain abilities until a guild leader (guilds were different than most MMOs, as they were all run by GMs who were also coders and builders) approved you and oftentimes made you do an RP event to justify your advancement within the game's story... and they could be very selective in asking why you build your character in a given way and "it makes me better at killing stuff" was not considered a valid answer. Coming from this kind of environment moving over to things like "Dark Suns: Crimson Sands", "Ultima Online", "Everquest", and "Ascheron's Call"  was actually pretty difficult as there was no real RP at all, and indeed attempts to build any kind of RP community was met with scorn, never mind the suggestion that someone's actual power be limited by their RP ability, grasp of game lore, and similar factors. I was part of a group for a while that tried to convince MMO developers to go in that direction, but needless to say it didn't pan out, as several devs bluntly put it, the biggest obstacle to even having a few servers that operated that way is that it would require the GMs to be active with the community in a way most of them did not want to be (they oftentimes compared the idea to baby sitting) not to mention the simple fact that it would require hiring more GMs since any kind of system like this would probably require one per every 50 or so players, and simply put the bean counters would never stand for hiring that way, and nobody was going to take the idea of volunteer GMs who could actually take action in the game seriously... UO *DID* try something like this in the form of "Oracles" but at the end of the day they were pointless since they were literally enabled to do nothing but talk to people, and as far as I could tell they went extinct as a concept by the time I left UO.

 

At any rate, while I used to put a great deal into my online character concepts and such that sort of went away as I did more and more MMOs. Sure there were times where I got involved in some RP, and even a few ERP communities, but for me it was always a part time thing since it felt like a giant waste of time other than the fun of hanging out with people. Of course it should be noted that I've always tended to do a lot of Paper and Pencil RPGs online if nothing else, indeed 5 nights a week I GM a Pathfinder game on Discord, and I'm a player in a couple of Palladium-based RPGs at the moment as well. For a while I got super-hardcore in World Of Warcraft, but sort of dropped down to the level of "filthy casual" where I now drift between games rather than playing any MMO as extensively as I used to, right now in addition to this one (when I find time) I am doing Elder Scrolls Online again for a bit. Of course I did this to myself as I sort of played WoW on an international level for a bit (I was supposed to have been listed on a number of sites around the Lich King era, but I didn't really follow them... as I was too busy playing... and most of them don't exist now anyway) I went beyond burn out and I have a hard time bringing myself to raid beyond even the most basic levels of difficulty even though I'm more than capable of it. Basically I'm one of the few people who has been ultra-hardcore and yet welcomed games doing things like WoW's "Looking For Raid" (although I am not currently playing WoW, as I disliked BfA).

 

I'm considering rolling on the RP server here however, if I do, and if I get involved in some RP, we'll see what happens, as I know they made respeccing rather easy. One other thing is I sort of had a concept for a CoX character that was impossible back when I played, but seems to be quite doable under the current changes.... that might work, though I'd imagine it might be annoying from a game play perspective. I might actually make it as my first character to see how it works out.

[Ruin Mage]

Thanks to creativity and power coloring, you can pretty much play off a bunch of stuff as...not what it is.

 

Magic is magic, and thus can be just about anything.

 

So yeah, it doesn't affect my builds for me.

[chase]

I consider them intertwined and build accordingly. however that doesnt mean a character cant be optimal, and infact the only way one can really justify RPing some kind of serious superman class bad ass is to be both well built in concept and performance.

 

For example I will not remotely acknowledge anyones claims in RP that they are resistant to psi abilities like mind reading if their power sets or IO set bonuses do not indicate at least some moderate level of resistance or defense.

 

On My pure human claw/wp  toon I dont take rise to the challenge. I only give him moderate amounts of resistance and push more into defense to  show he depends to some extent on agility and only has light armor. I use multiple sets procs in his attacks so he doesnt have alot of higher teir set bonuses, but his attacks while all not having more then 40 or 50% dmg bonus hit plenty hard and have all sorts of modest CC effects to help hinder enemies and compensate. On live this build never updated after fitness became inherent and was in fact much weaker then it is now, but even back then more often then not id have people impressed with my characters performance and compliment me evena s they asked why I didnt have inherent fitness.

 

build should reflect the character as they are RPd. We call those who act super awesome at low levels god moders while we recognize incarnates as the god like beings they are. Our Security level is an in game concept reflecting both our power rating and our success and effectiveness. We use pets, emotes, and power animations when we RP.

 

Our character is a sum of all its aspects when we RP. otherwise your just talking shiite in RP and not worthy of others time.

 

I find myself both eagerly agreeing and vehemently disagreeing, so please don't see this as argumentative or insulting, but instead a very different style of roleplayer that would still very much like to find a common ground to enjoy and particpate in what you have to offer.

 

As I'd previously posted, I do put a lot of RP character development into my builds, even characters that don't actively RP in game with.  I would not think to rigidly bind myself (or others) to how my character is defined in-game when playing out those characters.  At least, not in the same way I would in a well defined pen-n-paper RPG.

 

The combat engine cannot always adequately reflect or represent the varied powers or powersets that roleplayers could bring to life.  This is true of any rulesset in any medium, but in the off-screen world a good and responsive GM adapts and works with the players to allow their creations to grow where appropriate and nudge them when not.  In this game, that latitude doesn't exist, but pretending it isn't necessary just would destroy some otherwise very innovative ideas.

 

Roleplayers don't limit themselves to the animated in-game emotes- they add colorful text descriptiors of their characters' actions or even details in the descption that the character creator in all it's glory cannot deliver.  They can bring their own personal narrative into the game- extend villains far beyond the few story arcs that define them.  Doing so enriches the game as a whole. 

 

Intangibility:  Why wouldn't we want that to be extended to the game's powers.  Why would we want to limit them to the only ways that the game engine presents intangibility- as a basic "can't hit me/ can't hit attack" when we can include a narrative that allows people to slip through walls, participate in creative "now tangible, now intangible" unique combat methods? 

 

Or the way the engine (and game instanced mission maps, and most of the way the gameplay works) doesn't allow for extremely large or extremely small characters a la Ant man, but why would a roleplayer limit himself to only that tiny aspect of the world?  Why not use the purest strengths of roleplaying to express such a power in that world.

 

The idea of limiting powers to the ones in characters lead to ridiculous limitations that actually hinder the narrative. I have a cop character that I like playing as a "use less-than-lethal-force" before drawing his gun.  I made him a pistol-willpower sentinel with an early fighting pool.  I could have just as easily made him a mace-willpower scrapper with the pistol temp power.  Either way, I have a cop that doesn't "shoot first" but would I actually be expected to have my "pistols" sentinel never use a billy-club in RP because he doesn't have that power? 

 

Do we really limit characters to just the 4 basic travel powers, or do we allow acrobatic travel or web slinging be "represented" by roleplaying expression?  Do we actually pretend that the trival damage a single bullet does to an even non-invulnerability character is representative of the game world because that's how it plays out in mechanics?  That silliness? 

 

I sure as hell hope not, but that's the natural conclusion to draw from a claimed rigid adherence to a character's stats, like you gave.

 

 

Beyond that, I'd frequently show my support to events on other servers by rolling up a character to attend an event there.  I'm not going to powerlevel my main to 50 there just so people treat it like a 50, and nor in my wildest imaginings would I consider making such an assumption of others based on those stats.  I'm instead going to hope that my fellow roleplayers will understand and appreciate that I am trying to engage with them, trying to enrich their game the same way they enrich mine, and allow me the latitude of fair interpretation. 

 

Finally Consider a player on the server that loved expressing themselves in RP but disliked the math of IO's or the mundane grind of leveling or  just had limited time or were disabled IRL and found they best could enjoy the game as a creative engine away from combat....  all of these become players hindered by a rigid interpretation of their character stats in the character they wish to present.

 

I do agree that there's plenty of metadrama and godmodding around in roleplay, and the drama gets pretty hefty.  I just don't want to add "but their build doesn't support that power" to it.  I want to let them participate in and contribute to the collaborative story that unfolds through roleplay and enrich the game experience in the process.  To paraphrase your closing statement... all that other shiite isn't worthy of others' time.

[Zolgar]

The Security/Threat level vs. RP power level is something that always makes me kinda shake my head.

 

Let's say I want to do the classic comic book trope of a Superman style character.

I'm a being from another planet that either just naturally or because of something about Earth, I am drastically more powerful than a normal human. I'm a fairly new hero though, so in-world-lore, I haven't proved myself enough to be awarded "hero of the city". Now, in terms of RP I have to decide if I am going to apply some sort of (non-cannon) nonsense about "power dampeners" or some such actually limiting my character, or them 'pulling their punches' while dealing with small time threats to prove themselves to the city.

 

You, you're playing a level 50 character who is basically the Punisher trope. You are a guy with a gun.

 

If we're going by mechanics, you are far more powerful than I am.

Which, in character, makes no sense. Since you are literally a normal mere mortal, and I am an actual super-human being.

 

The idea of security/threat level = power level is an artifact of mechanics, which, if enforced in roleplay, actively disallows certain staple superhero tropes under the guise of "that's power gaming."

 

(As an aside, I have also met plenty who would call only acknowledging security levels and actual in-game powers 'powergaming' >.>)

[JusticeBowler]

The only power I gloss over and RP-handwave is flight.  Even if I have to magically just assume that I have a special flight-belt.  Flight is just entirely too useful and necessary to me to ignore for RP reasons, no matter what origin or build I might have.

 

Which is why I purchase flight via P2W for characters that aren't flight characters. You can do very well with super-speed, TP, or SJ more of the time than you'd think, but when I "need" flight I use my leased/borrowed tech to get it done. My main tank Bob "The Janitor" got all the way to 50 without a travel power. From an RP point of view he was "borrowing" something from the office he worked.

 

Even at 50k per session, it is dirt cheap for anyone who has a toon or two.

[JusticeBowler]

For me the concept of the character is what I build the backstory from, the powers from, and the route/way the character is going to level, and how he will RP.  All intertwined.

 

Have I skipped useful powers because of it?  Yes. 

 

About the only area I always try to optimize are enhancements.

 

JusticeBelievers and JusticeBowlers should hang out more often. I have dug your vibe for a long time now.

[JusticeBowler]

RP completely determines my build, but in reverse. I always chose my playstyle first, what I want the character to feel like in a battle. What's their vibe, how to they "save the day," can I justify contributing to the team in a certain novel way? Why are they there (both RP and tactically).

 

Then I build the backstory and everything falls into place. My point is, I'd never fail to chose ... say Snipe on a blaster because of a concept because I'd never write a concept for a Blaster that didn't have snipe, I'd roll a Sentinel because ... no snipe! The whole thing is Synergistic.

 

One of my goals is RPing more in teams. I type relatively fast and can usually pull off quick bits even moving from group to group. The problem I'm having is that it is FAR too easy to fall into the "Spiderman quip" mode and just be comic relief. Even bad jokes work far too well and are too easy to spit out (especially when you change groups you are teaming with so each group hasn't likely heard your "shtick" before). My goal is to try to push out in different directions to RP something other than the CoH king of dad-jokes.

 

One of my toons is in an "RP" supergroup now, we'll see how that goes. So far, not so much. I may have to look for PUGs that are explicitly RP as well.

[justicebeliever]

For me the concept of the character is what I build the backstory from, the powers from, and the route/way the character is going to level, and how he will RP.  All intertwined.

 

Have I skipped useful powers because of it?  Yes. 

 

About the only area I always try to optimize are enhancements.

 

JusticeBelievers and JusticeBowlers should hang out more often. I have dug your vibe for a long time now.

 

The Justice Twins?  Maybe a Justice League (nope, that's taken already)?  The BowlerBeliever?

 

I'd love to team up...all my characters are on everlasting...yours?

 

And +1 inf for the kindest words ever said to me on these forums

[Heartshaker]

Hi there! Kind of a newbie to the game, though I've been rping elsewhere for years, thought I'd add my two cents here. I think I'll go with something of a mixed instance: RP and builds should/could kinda work together but they shouldn't limit each other.

 

Say for example that you make some Iron Man-esque power armor character and roll him as an Energy/Devices Blaster for some reason. So far you've got the shooty hand things and the nifty gadgets covered, great! But what if uring P you wanna take an action not covered by your powerset, like, say, shooting a mini missile? Or creating a force field to protect yourself, or some manner of dampening resonance to disrupt telepotation? If you want to use travel power X ingame but not in RP, merely for comfort/time-saving/QoL reasons why shouldn't you?

 

Similar issue with the level thing. I get it, you want a way to measure characters' power, but if you're rolling a small-time hero, oesn't it ruin the story/way you want to play when everyone keeps saying how powerful you are/should be? Or if you create a new villain alt solely for a campaign, meant to be this big threat, wouldn't it be detrimental to the experience if the other players take a look at the ingame info and go "Haha, this clown's not even level five, you really expect us to take this seriously?"

 

TL;DR: To me, rp should/could influence on build/gameplay, but not viceversa. Again, just my thoughts.

[ChairKicker]

Sometimes, I come up with the concept, then the powerset. Sometimes, I notice a powerset I haven't tried yet, and develop a concept using it.

In either case, RP absolutely affects my build, because to my knowledge, I've never made, even accidentally, an optimal build. Still, even when it is painstakingly slow, or fragile, or I'm struggling with an archetype I'm not used playing, no regret. I've only remade toons from scratch because I realized other powersets fit the concept better, not because I found a more powerful one. There are likely builds I'd have more fun playing from a strict gameplay standpoint, but I can't divorce the RP side from it, it's just that important to me. That's how I operate in all MMORPGs I play, too, it's just that CoX is THAT good about customization; when my choice is limited to whether I develop the pyromancy or summoning tree, it must be less obvious to observers I'm just doing whatever, though the limitation feels also more frustrating. (Yes, I'm also that player who slightly favours gear's appearance over their stats. FFXIV's glamour system is a godsent in ensuring I don't get killed every 5 minutes by random mobs omg.)

[Zolgar]

Sometimes, I come up with the concept, then the powerset. Sometimes, I notice a powerset I haven't tried yet, and develop a concept using it.

In either case, RP absolutely affects my build, because to my knowledge, I've never made, even accidentally, an optimal build.

 

I have accidentally made optimal combos before. It's hard not to if you make enough characters. :)

[ChairKicker]

I have accidentally made optimal combos before. It's hard not to if you make enough characters. :)

I might have a couple. Somewhere in this pile of a dozen or so toons. Excluding the Peacebringer, doesn't count. Somewheeeeeere...

Well yeah, when you've got alt-itis, it's statistically more likely to get a theoretically good build at some point. Just gotta figure out which.  ;D

[Adeon Hawkwood]

In general RP affects my power set choices but not my specific build. As an example I wanted a character who was an elemental mage so between the three power sets (Primary, Secondary and Epic) I wanted one Fire, one Earth and one Ice/Water/Wind. I ended up settling on a Earth/Fire/Ice Dominator but I considered other options such as a Earth/Storm/Fire Controller instead.