Powers

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Powers General Explanation One of the biggest objectives of this RP is to put characters in a position where they feel both physically and emotionally vulnerable; this is to give players an opportunity to develop their characters in a way that might not be feasible in their original canon. One of the easiest and most significant ways to do this is to weaken or completely erase abilities that they usually take for granted. What constitutes a "power"? A power is any ability that your character has in their canon that would be physically impossible in our real life world. Along with obvious cases like magic, telepathy, and transformation, this also includes inhuman feats that might be considered merely noteworthy within the context of your character's canon but which would not occur in our world. (For example: a samurai moving lightning-fast in an anime that is otherwise historically-based.) How about high intelligence? No matter how ridiculously smart, intuitive, or observant your character may be, this does not count as a power and does not need to be weakened. However, while in play, you must make sure that your character does not godmod by jumping to conclusions without writing out their reasoning; in addition, you must consult with the mods before your character deduces anything substantial about the Damned plot at large and consult with players before your character deduces anything about another character that might significantly impact their development. How about natural combat ability? Any feats that are plausible in our world are exempt from weakening; however, if your character is generally able to take down dozens upon dozens of foes without breaking a sweat, climb buildings daily, run miles and miles, etc., in their canon, it should be stated clearly in your application and is subject to mod approval. What weakens the characters? Your character's abilities are automatically modified when they wake up in Landel's. How this is possible is a mystery that your character must solve. Can I take my character's powers away completely? You can nerf your character's powers as much as you want if you feel that it would facilitate more interesting development than a normal range of in-game abilities. Can I change my character's powers in-game? If you have a solid rationalization behind it and if the request is reasonable, then yes. However, this is an uncommon event and should only take place if you run into serious problems with your character's development or if your character undergoes an M-U session. Can you change my character's powers in-game? The mods reserve the right to radically alter your character's power set should it become necessary to do so. However, this is an extremely rare event; usually, mod intervention involves general clarification rather than severe penalization. Overall Standards Game-Wide Balance While it is impossible to standardize all powers under a common set of rules, we try to be as fair as possible in keeping the powers of all characters consistent across the board regardless of how comparatively powerful they are in their own canons. For example, a megalomaniacal supervillain with Earth-crushing power would be given no more preference than an underdog superhero. Canon Power Sets If your character belongs to canon in which a variety of different individuals have the same general set of powers (e.g. Harry Potter wizards, Bleach shinigami, Twilight vampires, etc.), we do our best to keep that set of powers consistent for each in-game member of that canon. In some cases, with the express permission of their canonmates, some players may request that their character be slightly more powerful than their canon peers if the better power set still fits our overall criteria of limitations. If you are apping into a canon with a preexisting set of players, we strongly advise that you contact your potential canonmates for information before writing the power limiting section of your application. Overpowered Characters As there are many different types of powers spanning many different canons, you can imagine how limiting might be a tricky process with some very gray areas and many opportunities for misunderstanding. As such, a character may turn out more overpowered in practice than they should be in theory; if you witness this in-game, please report it to us immediately. Specific Application Criteria PLEASE READ THE BELOW SECTIONS CAREFULLY BEFORE BEGINNING THE POWERS SECTION OF YOUR APPLICATION. Failing to meet any of the below criteria may greatly increase the time needed to process your application. Be specific If your character is keeping an ability, you must tell us exactly what it can do in its limited state. The more details, the better: tell us HOW MUCH DAMAGE it can do or HOW MUCH PROTECTION/HEALING it can provide, HOW LARGE AN AREA it can affect, HOW LONG it lasts, HOW MUCH FATIGUE it would cause, and HOW MANY TIMES per night it can be executed. Provide reasonable limitations The best way to deal with a power is to set a specific amount of times it can be used each night, with each time increasing your character's fatigue. However, these limitations also depend on: a) how powerful the ability is, b) how useful the ability is, c) how easy to it is execute the ability, and d) other related variables. While we can't provide every permutation of possible circumstances, we can tell you that more powerful/useful abilities will cause more negative side-effects and be limited to less uses, whereas extremely mild or benign powers might be allowed more uses without any side-effects at all. Give concrete time frames If you have to set a time limit on a particular power (for example: a summoned weapon, a force field, a berserker rage, etc.), you must give us a time limit in seconds, minutes, or number of posts. Again, the more potent a power, the more it will be affected: a summoned weapon might last for ten minutes, a weak force field might last for 60 seconds, and a berserker rage might last for two posts. List all individual abilities If you have a character who can perform a wide range of feats (e.g. telepathy, empathy, telekinesis, premonitions, fire sorcery, water sorcery, flying, etc.), you may only choose four (preferably fewer) abilities for them to keep in-game. Once you have chosen these abilities, you must list each one in your application and specify how exactly each remaining ability would be limited. You may also keep a bank of moves for your character that they can choose from (for example, your character has access to four abilities but can only perform two per night), but again, the limitations must be concrete. Keep in mind that the larger variety of abilities that your character keeps, the less they will be able to use them and the more they will be weakened. Be conscientious of latent abilities Latent abilities are powers that your character constantly experiences or has access to (e.g. having super-speed/strength, being able to see ghosts, being able to sense emotions, being able to regenerate, etc.). In these cases, you may either treat the latent ability as a normal power and apply all of the above limitations to it, or you may have your character keep it constantly but with constant side-effects and/or heavy weakening. Like normal powers, how much a latent power is limited depends on its potency: seeing ghosts might not need to be weakened at all so long as the general kinds of sightings are cleared by the mods, but super strength/speed will usually be limited to plausible athletic standards. Again, if your character's latent power is their only remaining power, it will not be as limited as it would be otherwise. On telepathy/empathy/sensory abilities These latent abilities are possibly the most tricky category due to the myriad ways in which they can potentially affect another player's character. As such, overall telepathy/empathy are generally nerfed quite harshly, with physical contact or general closeness determining how much information one character can glean off of the other. More specific sensory abilities may not be as severely affected and can be allowed a post on damned_lounge to collect information from other players if that character will be sensing something from large groups of people. In all of these cases, the player of the affected character must be consulted for permission. If any of the above information didn't answer any questions you might have, please don't hesitate to contact one of the mods for further information. We realize this is all pretty complicated and we're always happy to help!