I've always been of the opinion that as long as someone does something WELL, it doesn't matter how 'special' their abilities are. If you're just using an ability in order to godmode or play deus ex machina, well... that's no fun. But if you're putting time and effort into it, then... great! Carry on.
I tend to think that I have no right to talk though, since I play Mah. Who I basically yanked from a tabletop game, booted into WoW and said 'lololol'. When I came to WrA, I tried to fix her backstory some so that she wasn't as lolwat, but she's still pretty out there in terms of abilities. Not that most people would know it. I rarely, rarely use her special abilities, and I've worked out a system to keep it balanced.
Basically: Mah can cast magic on someone from any distance (along with her magic working differently than priest stuff...), but. BUT. She has to have something of theirs... clothes, hair, blood, etc. OR she has to be touching them. And because that's still too simple, I also roll a d20 when she casts. There's a strong chance she'll fail, including a chance she'll critically fail. Which leads to lots of pain/embarrassment on her part.
Basically, I think balance is the key. If they have an neat, out there ability, give them a spiffy fault to go with.
=\ My opinions on this might be a bit... bleh though.
With most of my characters, I try to stay out of situations where their odd abilities would even come though. I worry about getting yelled at. =\
I don't have any TL;DR because I am bad at TL;DR and I basically just agree with everything Vorrick said because they are awesome.
THAT BEING SAID I actually don't generally make characters who have/learn some special power, because I have a special place in my heart for the mundane ones that have to deal with all this crazy shit all around them all the time. I love seeing extra-ordinary characters (within reason of lore), and I adore pushing them and my own characters to see what sort of things happen when they interact. However, seeing the repeat of the same things over and over and over does get really dull really fast, and I will start eyerolling. Metal limbs and replacements have been mentioned, and yeah, I do have to say that's a big one for me.
I think people forget that you don't have to have crazy traits to have a strong character. I'd like to think Kal is pretty strong as characters go, and he's really got nothing special about him. He is a loudmouth sulky jerk that will cut you and he likes shiny rocks. If you come up with a fantastic idea for a character centered around something strange, by all means, go for it! But if you're just adding traits and things just in an attempt to stand out, maybe you should take a step back and take another look at the character.
and because I also enjoy talking about character development. So bad.
Vorrick said a lot of stuff I completely agree with and am too lazy to quote all of it. I may end up repeating things already said, too, but I'm gonna honey-badger it all up in here and natter, anyway. WARNED AHEAD OF TIME, I am the wordiest bastard to ever word. Grab a snack and sit down with me. [Also, preemptively putting up an apology, because I'm fairly certain I'll think of more nonsense to spout, thus come back to this and edit.]
Basically, I see a lot of people doing a lot of things that are technically outside of the lore, but fit because people try to make them actively work with the lore.
Sandboxing has got to be one of my all-time favourite things to do with RP: taking a group of people (friends, I'd hope!) who want to work together on plot and story and character development, using common sense, a bit of duct-tape, the basics already laid out in lore (where applicable, like in WoW), and a loooooot of headcanon concepts, all to make something absolutely fun where there's none of that worry about getting smacked on the wrist or snubbed for going against the grain even a little.
As already stated by multiple posts, the huge, huge, huge, all-important thing with sandboxing, no matter if the concept is your wankiest thing ever or something pretty minor, is to communicate. OOC communication is so often the difference between collapse and having a party everyone wants to be at.
X and I (and to an extent when we get to roll with a few others, like Vorrick, for example--man I want to do more, but these last several months have eaten my sanity and willpower for RP--or Greyspell, or Embersong, or Kal or... you get the idea) have a lot of things we do within our sandbox that would never [and have never] made it outside of it.
We have, essentially, two faces to our RP, and I've seen several others adopt a similar philosophy as a sort of insulation or bubble or barricade or shield--whatever you wanna call it--against the threat of getting stomped on. We've all experienced that to some extent or another, I'm sure.
The standard face presented is fairly wysiwyg, especially in regards to the basics stuffed into an RP-flag when in-game.
This is what random RP sees from us--or RP with new folks who have no idea how we are crzt and obnoxiousare the best lore-benders can be kind of casual or not-so-srs, and are better off not finding out if this is a one-time deal.
The sandbox face is for those that, through OOC chatting beforehand or through experience of RPing with each other for a while and thus well aware of comfort-zones, interests, and what goes/what doesn't fly at all, are playing on our playground (or we're in theirs) and get to really let loose with our enthusiasm for concepts and plot and all that other stuff.
I think one of the problems with how much I love sandboxing is it makes me less inclined to go meet new people--piled onto a lack of motivation for being so riddled with anxiety over strangers--since it's not always the same quality--or the same amount of leeway/interest in established headcanon stuff. I'll definitely be working on that [probably forever], because missing out on new opportunities always sucks.
What I'm wondering about is whether or not people recognize the trend in certain skills and powers? ... Which brings me to the next point -- at what point is it okay to object to someone else RPing the special/out of the ordinary trait that you're RPing?
Personally, I'm usually completely oblivious to these things until they pop up and smack me in the face--usually through the realisation that someone or multiple someones is or has been doing things I'm doing. As for objecting for discovered trends or similarities...
Off the top of my head, let's take empaths.
I can't count the number of times I've run into others through random RP on my empathic character who--after repeatedly RPing with them, not just in one instance--suddenly have the same ability[ies] or similar enough, with no indication beforehand in all the times I've encountered, read, or observed about their character. I actually really grew to hate it, but not really because I felt I was being copied. Mostly, it was this disgruntled sense of seeing something I worked hard at and went through years of building up background, plot, and character development for my idea[s], and then got smacked in the face with examples of people doing it because they can, with no regard for IC drawbacks/consequences or any effort put into it at all. Whims are great, but flesh them out. :C
On the other hand, there have been occasions where I've thought I came up with something entirely interesting to me, and while not unique, haven't met anyone else doing them, and then suddenly there IS someone [or someones], and instead of feeling obnoxious it becomes this awesome opportunity to suddenly collaborate/share ideas and brainstorm with the other someone [or someones], building upon this concept [or concepts] together to make more awesome headcanon.
I will also cop to the fact that in the past I definitely DID have some knee-jerk moments about feeling copied, but THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUS HAPPENS. I've gotten a lot better [I hope] at being less of a selfish dick. Somewhere when my back was turned, I grew up stopped acting like a teenager who hoards his collection of emo poetry and stubbornly whines, no one understands that I started this trend, that I'm clearly above them, and those other jerks are just ~poseurs~.
Basically, these days I really try to take it in stride when I run across someone doing something I'm doing [however remotely or identically] and instead try to recognise that this is [usually] a great opportunity for expansion and growth, because nothing is being taken away from me or my ideas, and there are often so many things that could be added and have all involved benefit from doing so.
Examples of things I've had the pleasure of building on with other people with this philosophy in mind:
Penny's blood manipulation for both combat and healing, like wound transfer, DK healing applied to other deaders aside from himself, or controlling blood like others control elements, etc.
Additionally, while on the subject of Penny and DKs, headcanon discussions and brainstorming and applications have happened with his past knowledge of warlock abilities that would transfer over well with a DK, especially through IC use of [Dark Simulacrum], as well as things to do with beholders, shades, bloodstones, Kael'thas' expedition and conquests in Outland, the Sunfury, the Botanica, alchemy and biological experiments, flesh crafting, etc. etc. etc. The staggering amount of things I've gotten the privilege of working with other minds on in regards to the above has been amazing and hugely influential in my development of his character, abilities, and background. Penny is where I first started really seeing the potential of sandboxing with other people.
The concepts behind shadowwalking, shadowstepping, shadowdancing, etc. for subtlety-specced rogue and turning that into IC abilities with more flavour and thought behind them than simply [shadowsteps] or [stealths].
Spellbreakers and their inverse, and the things that can happen with their abilities to reflect, absorb, or otherwise manipulate spells and spell damage, particularly with stealing magic and spells.
Quel'dorei [Highborne] culture, lore, and various sundry behaviours. This really came into effect when Cataclysm happened and Nelf mages were introduced. I got butthurt for a while, when I'd been playing Meros for nearly three years before this and suddenly Highborne were cropping up everywhere--but most especially when there are supposed to be so few Highborne left at all. When I got over it, I got the chance to really sift through tons of contributing headcanon ideas and build a better, more fleshed out background for myself in the process, while helping others do the same for theirs.
Troll culture and tribes in general, especially in regards to interactions/posturing, language, and traditions.
I agree it's totally okay to object to things you're uncomfortable with, especially if in your own sandbox, but I want to reemphasize COMMUNICATION IS KEY and dont be an asshole about it. :D
If you've had a character that picked up an power/ability after a few others (or several others) had it, why? How did you work it into your character's story and why did you feel the need to?
Geeze, where to start...
Okay, let's go with Meros, first, since he's one of my older characters and I talk about him the most anyway. Someone further down talks about their troll going through the gambit of warrior, hunter, and rogue (probably not in that order), which is semi-applicable here.
He started as rogue, then he got a warrior version I rolled during the loooong interim of not being able to afford faction transfers. ICly, he's a laughably bad plate-wearer. He's gangly and, while he has a decent amount of muscle for how hard he works (definitely not the flabby kind of rogue), he's rangy or rawboned rather than a musclebound green hulk like the troll he's been taking his training from. [Okay M'naa isn't that bad, but man, stand the two of them together side by side and the difference is staggering...]
If he's all dressed up in anything past leather--which is what he's most comfortable in, having spent the majority of his ridiculously long lifespan in this fashion--he's not gonna be able to really perform all the tricks, feints, or otherwise be as fleetfooted as he'd like. Armour's heavy, yo. Forget about shadowwalking, forget about ghosting through to get behind someone, forget about everything but the sword moves he's been learning and the shield-blocking that comes with it.
He's not going to be able to withstand all of the blows a "real" warrior would be able to, any time soon, either. He's lucky, right now, that he can stumble around in full gear without falling over. In time, he'll improve, if he sticks with it, but with the way RP has gone with his training, and his own personality, I imagine that he'll always fall back on what he's better at. OOCly, I have plans to move that version of him to another server sometime in the near future, to have access to some friends where WrA isn't their main server, which means come MoP, I'll prolly progress him more logically from rogue to monk-class as a better blend between his fighting styles that he started with and what he learned thanks to his newer training.
Now, aside from the first reasons--both OOC and IC--that I rolled a version of him as a warrior-class, the idea of multi-classing stemmed way back from another character of mine, who, mid-way through BC, went from hunter to paladin.
THAT was interesting for me to work on, and that arc lasted as long, if not longer than this one has, going from BC to nearly the middle of Wrath. I got the idea to do that from someone else on the server I played on during that time, and it seems like multi-classing isn't a rare thing, even if it was SERIOUSLY frowned upon on that server. The IC motivations and the OOC motivations for that character were entirely different, and the end results were fairly different, too, which when I reflect on that, is pretty cool to me.
Incidentally, unlike with Meros, who is still actively taking advantage of both his classes, the hunter version of the other character is actually defunct and has been since BC ended. This is because the storyline involving his former hunter'd self ended with the whole SSO saga becoming fairly obsolete, his "guild" [ship, crew, and captain] disbanding and scattering to the corners of Azeroth, and the onslaught of the Scourge being renewed. Tapping into the forgotten paladin he was before he came to Azeroth was a huge shift in priority, memory, and characterization which I remain very pleased with.
And that's just one ~special~ thing, the multi-classing.
Let's go back to the empathic abilities I mentioned above. I got the idea to try experimenting with such a broad concept--which I narrowed down with a lot of specifics, rules, and consequences as I went through RP with this character--from my first guild leader. Her character dealt in a lot of different mind abilities, although they were both subtly, and in some cases, vastly different from what I ended up doing since her character's class was druid AND the character was kaldorei, so the approach was out of necessity and common sense, pretty different, too.
I didn't even really have a good reason for why I decided to try out messing with the capabilities of the mind with a character--I just thought it was cool, and something worth trying. She was a pretty big influence on helping me out in that regard, especially in trying to decide what things would be different, what would be similar traits in spite of race difference, etc.
Background-wise, this character had always possessed the capability, but he's never been formally trained ICly, nor had anyone who ever got to know him well enough to [while being capable of] teach him. This causes a ton of issues, and I actually have a lot of fun playing up how bad he is at it.
I could go on and on about the different abilities I've integrated into all of my characters, the whys and hows, etc., but this post is already ridiculously long, so I'll move ooon.
NEXT QUESTION.
And to all those with special powers traits and what have you, do you struggle with finding limitations in what the power, skill, trait, w/e can do (as in, how to make it not OP), or is that a non-issue?
Sort of! More along the opposite, than anything. I used to really struggle with feeling like I needed to add ALL the counters and limitations and reasons why something WOULDN'T work out or apply or whatever, because I would get so anxious and worried about being judged for having fun. It helped, I think, that I found several people who want to play like I do, and it also helped to learn how to poke fun at myself a little--because if I took any one of my characters, even my more "mundane" ones, and had to sum up their abilities, they'd sound awful. But it's wholly out of context.
I think that's an important part of characters with ~speshul~ things to them. Context is worth taking into consideration. If I'm quirking my eyebrow at something, I should be asking why I'm reacting this way instead of thinking about how it could actually work, because we're playing in a landscape and setting where dragons are like bumblebees and shouldn't even be able to fly and magic exist, and so maybe there's actually something really cool behind this.
Man, what happened. I'm supposed to get crabbier as I get older, not more lenient. 8[
Penny's blood manipulation for both combat and healing, like wound transfer, DK healing applied to other deaders aside from himself, or controlling blood like others control elements, etc.
Additionally, while on the subject of Penny and DKs, headcanon discussions and brainstorming and applications have happened with his past knowledge of warlock abilities that would transfer over well with a DK, especially through IC use of [Dark Simulacrum], as well as things to do with beholders, shades, bloodstones, Kael'thas' expedition and conquests in Outland, the Sunfury, the Botanica, alchemy and biological experiments, flesh crafting, etc. etc. etc. The staggering amount of things I've gotten the privilege of working with other minds on in regards to the above has been amazing and hugely influential in my development of his character, abilities, and background. Penny is where I first started really seeing the potential of sandboxing with other people.
Case in point for my post on P1 about some special talents being really hard to "Highlander" about; since they're just a shade off of lore-based, canonical abilities (see: my description of D/S's abilities, along with the fact he is a bloodmage/warlock -> DK convert himself). The closer something is to being "plausible", the more common it is likely to be. And there's nothing wrong with that, really.
Everyone makes such great points in the thread so I'm not gonna retread.
Oh, man, my characters having what could be considered lolpowers kinda freaks me out, but whatevs. I really like seeing unique abilities and strengths that are within reason. And Kal'zin said it best:
But if you're just adding traits and things just in an attempt to stand out, maybe you should take a step back and take another look at the character.
If you're adding things that make no sense or aren't a natural progression of previously had powers/traits to be special, it looks strange. This isn't a popularity contest and I'm pretty sure people would much rather like a consistent character rather than one that changes to fit the flavor of the month ability or whatever. Characters aren't static, everyone knows this, but there's a difference between natural changes and jumping from one trend to the next.
I guess what I like to see is progress with a character's powers. I tried my hardest to do that with Eidrain in regards to (what I hope is) a common interpretation of Shadow magics. I would consider him one of my stronger characters because of his knowledge of the mind and of how to use it against someone. That being said, it took him a while to get where he is now. ICly, he very rarely uses his powers outside of the battlefield, probing everyone he meets is a pretty dumb thing. But every time I do it I go pretty slowly, and generally do a dice roll for everything he attempts to do. Idk, with something like that it just seems really easy to godmod so I try my hardest not to. If you're going to do something that would involve another character's mind or whatever, communication with whoever you're RPing with is hugely important. So, yeah, this has to become a habit.
tl;dr, i try to make myself feel better for mind powers. He's taken a huge hit in other areas in regards to priestly powers. He's totally unable to heal, his undead state means he's incredibly vulnerable to the Light (stop using shackle undead guise), and he's completely useless unless he has distance on an enemy. I won't even begin to talk about how difficult undead enemies make his life.
Rogues are fun as a very baseline character, however. I will so stop using my own characters as terrible examples soon. Ereban is just a dude (corpse, whatever) that lies all the time and knows where to hit people. He's not specially trained or anything, his style of fighting looks more like a parking lot brawl than, like, the super duper awesome finesse you'd expect from a rogue. He's not even much stronger than the regular human, he just relies on the fact that he is harder to kill and that he doesn't get tired. But hell, even he has things that'll stop him in his tracks in a fight.
Unique powers aren't necessarily a bad thing, but adding them in when they make no sense to your race/class is a surefire way to turn people off to your character. I've seen my fair share of people turning into dragons made of Light or blood elves that can change into wolves. These kinds things make people roll their eyes, even if we've all been there at one point. Have fun whether your character has special powers or none at all. Communicate and junk, but always give everything a good thought before you do it. And stop making me be nice haha.
now that i've floundered around a bit, can eidrain keep his mind powers ;^;?
people would much rather like a consistent character rather than one that changes to fit the flavor of the month ability or whatever. Characters aren't static, everyone knows this, but there's a difference between natural changes and jumping from one trend to the next.
This is often times my biggest peeve. I honestly am open to anything anyone wants to do, as long as it is done well and there is some history to back it up. I mean, face it, we're in a video game that makes our characters heroes. The game already gives us some pretty amazing stuff. But these things don't 'just happen'. They are learned and practiced and perfected over time.
Consistency, I feel, is really the key to making anything believable.
at what point is it okay to object to someone else RPing the special/out of the ordinary trait that you're RPing?
I agree with what others have said on this (tacked-on traits, instant skills, etc) but would also add: when the RPer in question tells you they're borrowing your 'thing' and then completely fails to get it, while telling everyone where they got the idea from. That's just embarrassing for everyone involved.
For example, I had (not on this server) a troll shaman who would make sacrifices to the various elements. It didn't actually do anything--all that did matter was that she'd pretty much sworn herself to a particular fire elemental--but she thought she should do it so she did. I got a lot of compliments on her concept, and a friend decided to borrow it for one of her own characters. Of course, she didn't get it. Her shaman made sacrifices and the elements did give a shit (because crispy fried troll kids are what every fire elemental wants) and granted her amazing powers for it, and also teleported her through the Firelands to safety, and... yeah.
If you've had a character that picked up an power/ability after a few others (or several others) had it, why? How did you work it into your character's story and why did you feel the need to?
My troll warrior (who at the time was still a rogue, and then a hunter) ended up receiving training from an older Primal as part of his quest to become a 'real' troll. He'd grown up away from troll culture, and was desperate for a place to belong and to prove himself the trolliest troll ever.
It turned out he did have the potential, but he still had to work hard to even get to a point where he could consciously tap into his inner rage. There was a lot of just not getting it on his part, and he went through a half-dozen 'teachers' trying to find someone who could explain things to him. The whole process took over a year (started around when Cata hit) and he's only now achieved what he set out to do. He's matured fantastically, and it's been so very satisfying (if somewhat painful at times) to see him progress toward his goals. Definitely worth the time.
And to all those with special powers traits and what have you, do you struggle with finding limitations in what the power, skill, trait, w/e can do (as in, how to make it not OP), or is that a non-issue?
For most of my 'special' characters, the added traits are really just added flavor for class abilities they already have. My human hunter uses runes for her magic and the way I describe her abilities reflects that--but it's still really just Hunter's Mark, Arcane Shot, etc. My troll priest's abilities are spider flavored: woven webs of light for her shields, swarms of spiders for her fear, and instead of wings she sprouts ghostly spider legs from her back. But that's nothing she couldn't already do, it just looks different. Cosmetic changes only.
Jolhur, the troll warrior/Primal mentioned above, was a bit trickier to balance, though still not really difficult. For the most part, the transition from rogue->hunter->warrior served to illustrate the other changes he went through (the change from energy/focus to rage, for instance!), and he's not really stronger than any other skilled warrior would be. He just took a different route to it. From the beginning, though, he's had a high pain tolerance and a lot of endurance, and adding in that he's a berserker on top of that--he really will fight until he's killed, knocked unconscious, or he runs out of enemies--I've always felt a little iffy about him combat-wise. I suppose the berserking could be considered a weakness in itself, and he's not especially agile. He also tends to charge in and facetank things, which is really ill-advised for the half-armored guy waving a big axe around (even with decent regeneration, he's generally in rough shape after a fight).
I dunno, I guess the least balanced thing about him is mostly he's just really fucking stubborn.
Ultimately what I like to see is a player exercising restraint/consequences of a super-duper power for their character.
You're a telepath. That's cool - only it causes incredible, crippling headaches. Or you can see the future - but you can't process the information you're receiving in an understandable way and people tend to think you're a witch because you live on the streets making rambling statements that end up coming true and maybe its just that you did it with your demon-consorting powers.
When it becomes something that has no cost, it tends to be something I enjoy less.
Edit: Meanwhile, the only time it's ok to "object" vocally to another players use of their powers or quirks is when they are actively forcing it upon you without your interest.
I don't care if someone's rogue is pyrokinetic and spends the whole day lighting candles with their mind for fun. I care when they use their pyrokinesis to light my character on fire as I'm walking by. Even in that example, the most I'll object (if I'm in a sour mood and don't feel like playing along) is by ignoring the attempt and carrying on. The only reason they'll get a reaction from me out of it is if they continue following along, remarking on their incredible powers of melting my skin off.
Edit to my Edit: I might have missed the question. The only time it's ok to object to someone else using the same special power you've come up with for your character is never. There is nothing original in the world - it's not unfair to say that someone else came up with the same concept you did independently. Even if they didn't and are doing it because you made it look so cool, imitation is a form of flattery.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
This. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things power-wise that get me a little cheesed, but imitation (on a small scale) never struck me as terribly irritating - if everyone were to start copying some cool new idea I had in RP (which has never happened to be because I'm boring BUT I KNOW PEOPLE WHO AREN'T and they've said this is terrible) I would be a little more concerned, but if I were to see someone touting the same powers as my character, my immediate thoughts would either be pride in my own idea - either because they got it from me or that we both independently reached the same conclusion, which is rad because hooray self-validation.
Everyone in this thread has made a lot of really good points, and I agree with basically all of them to some degree. The only real original perspective I can provide here is as someone who is horribly guilt of power-stealing in the past.
See, until I started regularly-ish RPing my worgen druid, Rodereck, I never really played characters with any magical ability to speak of. I didn't have any dislike of playing them, and certainly not of playing with them, it just happened that all of the characters I had were boring mundane people who fought and made money with stupid things like guns and alchemy (the latter of which got kind of womwom-y but I digress).
But then I rolled this druid, who wasn't even supposed to be a real druid, because playing casters was scary. I rolled him as a druid largely because cloth and leather have the majority of civilian-looking RP gear, and I OOCly wanted to have a resto druid back when I cared about PvE - but people metagaming knowledge about his in-game class became so prevalent that I caved and decided he could be a crappy druid in training who could make a plant grow a little faster if he REALLY concentrated but would probably end up just giving himself hiccups.
As he shifted more towards private RP as a character, though, I started to let myself slip, because NOBODY WILL JUDGE ME if it's just my character and those of a couple good friends. But I saw all those shiny new blogs on the new WrA.net, which had all these shiny new powers, and suddenly being a magical womwom man was cool like whoah, and he was acquiring ALL the powers. Not only was this more or less boldfacedly taking ideas, I also ended up butchering Emerald Dream lore before one of my friends slapped my hands away from the keyboard and said NO STOP THAT and I did.
My point (which I am totally getting to) is that in my case, and I presume in others', the trend-following, power-stealing behavior largely arose because of inexperience and a desire to experiment, rather than simply thinking HARHAR THIS IDEA IS MINE.
TL;DR: power plagiarism is bad, but is rarely maliciously motivated. If it happens to you, connect with the other person, because if you enjoy it, and they enjoy it, you would both probably enjoy it EVEN MORE if you did it together.
TL;DR: power plagiarism is bad, but is rarely maliciously motivated. If it happens to you, connect with the other person, because if you enjoy it, and they enjoy it, you would both probably enjoy it EVEN MORE if you did it together.
Iiiit's not that it's not flattering. And it's not that it's the sense of PRIDE that's getting hit first when you see your ideas implemented elsewhere. I love it when ideas spread from person to person - and having people actually whisper me and discuss wom wom wom things and shadow-related stuff is always awesome! I usually try my best to help them develop these - creatively - and pretty much advise to have fun with what they roll.
But. When half of the server is a mentalist, it makes the concept much less exciting. I mean, there are gateways to development there, and I have definitely been using them, but it's like a sudden FLOOD OF VAMPIRE BOOKS in your fantasy section, and you just go ahead and pick up an Asimov novel with a sigh instead.
It loses the hook. It loses interest. It stops being your idea and becomes a beaten idea and loses story value.
But. When half of the server is a mentalist, it makes the concept much less exciting.
This :| And it's not even that people borrow powers or concepts, it's more that it's done less because "this seems like something fun to implement/explore on my character, too, since s/he has [XYZ] going for him/her that makes this situation logical" and more because "WOW COOL KIDS DOING COOL THINGS IS COOL I WANT SOME."
And it's not even that I'm like "DON'T TOUCH MY CONCEPTS." If a concept is really cool and seems like it will work for you, I am all for people using it and incorporating it into their character's story. It just makes it a lot less special that Senkha can tweak Oliver's brain to make him feel like he's alive and able to feel again when Joe the Barber can inception the hell out of all his customers for no apparent reason beyond "I thought it was a cool idea!"
idk. It's-- a fine line. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, I agree, but it can also be really frustrating when you see something you've put a lot of thought and love into fleshing out diluted by everyone nabbing the concept for themselves and not putting as much into it as you have. I can't even explain why it's frustrating. And I don't know if it's okay to be frustrated by it or not. I just know that when I see a concept I've put a lot of effort and love into developing for my characters used by someone who seems to have just wanted to follow the trend, I do get frustrated.
But. When half of the server is a mentalist, it makes the concept much less exciting. [...]It loses the hook. It loses interest. It stops being your idea and becomes a beaten idea and loses story value.
It just makes it a lot less special that Senkha can tweak Oliver's brain to make him feel like he's alive and able to feel again when Joe the Barber can inception the hell out of all his customers for no apparent reason beyond "I thought it was a cool idea!"
Wilhiem & Senkha. I don't mean this as an insult. In point of fact when I was reading stories I loved your characters and everything you were doing with their abilities and you're not even really saying this, and I am purely saying this to be the Devil's Advocate and provide another perspective on the general idea people might have of "your" idea/concept getting over-spread and played out.
Is it not at all possible that it's less that your ideas are being imitated and more that the core, boiled down, stripped out premise was not unique to you?
Blatant stealing happens. I know that. And yes, a few people will take an idea and modify it based purely on how cool you personally made it look, or how much reaction they saw it get. That's one half of my point - that imitation is maybe not attractive, but it ultimately stems from envy/admiration.
But there's also just as strong a chance that the other point of my idea comes in to play - that there is nothing original under the sun. That if you have had an idea, in a game of 10 million players, that idea has probably come to the minds of another. That The Hunger Games is not a plagiaristic abuse of Battle Royale, but that they both sprung up independently from two creative persons with a similar idea. Multiple discovery being a thing.
Honestly, I don't mean that to claim that you're somehow not original or creative. I've had the same experience. I thought I was clever when I came up with a fanatic Paladin - until I ran into a whole guild of them, on every server I've ever played on. I can see similarities between a Tauren I played back on Thorium Brotherhood and Apophan's concept as I understood it. But I know that none of these people took my idea any more than I took theirs. It's just the product of creative people coming up with something comparable to something I came up with.
/shrug - I know this doesn't do much to the "lots of people doing the same thing makes that thing feel like its jumped the shark" idea. It's not really supposed to, since that's a valid concern. Its just saying that (even though neither of you said this, really) it is worth considering that its not implausible that other people can independently come up with their ideas that might bear a surface similarity to your own.
Sorry, again. I kind of just took snippets of your quotes and springboarded off the idea that some people might get upset that "their" idea is being used too much. But I do know that's not really what you're discussing, so much as the idea of it getting boring to see ideas become too popular.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
They're certainly not unique ideas, but it was definitely a trend that started showing up after several people started following those characters' stories. So coincidence? Maybe, but it's easy to see where the frustration comes from. I do recall a point on the server when braining was a very niche and rare character concept, but it does seem that just about anybody can learn how to do it IC (and does). Which would be significantly less frustrating if they also bothered to RP drawbacks and conflict within it, but most people... don't. But that's already been covered. It's less of a 'why they do it's and more of a 'how they do it'.
Pretty much what Mac said. It may be pure coincidence that people are RPing similar concepts, and in some cases, I can see that. You can usually tell when that's the case, though, because while the basic idea is the same (e.g., influencing other people's minds with your own), the execution and more thorough explanations are different (e.g., [Person A] just has an exceptionally gifted mind and has to work with the physical aspects of a person's brain in order to manipulate their thoughts while [Person B] plays with shadow magic. Both concepts are plausible, both have different drawbacks and advantages, but they're also both so different in execution that it'd be hard to suggest that either of them stole from each other).
Even when the ideas are similar, almost to the point of being exactly alike, I don't mind--as long as people play out drawbacks and treat the idea with some respect. But people rarely do, and that's what honestly diminishes the concept. Something that's a source of extreme conflict for your character being RPed as something anyone can learn without consequence just kind of kills it.
And it's not even that I'm like "DON'T TOUCH MY CONCEPTS." If a concept is really cool and seems like it will work for you, I am all for people using it and incorporating it into their character's story.
Interesting point, here, and something I can expand upon. In regard to Sidoni, she's always been very anti-magic; she's uncomfortable with it, she doesn't trust it, and it doesn't suit her as a character. But about this time last year, Senkha and Llew were having mentalist guardian interactions that could not possibly have happened between the two characters outside of that realm, plus Oliver's involvement in it all, and I was like ARGH. So we decided to have Llew & Sid give it a whirl, not because having some crazy guardian necessarily fit Sidoni's concept, but because I wanted to see if it could.
And you know what? After the first ~mental space~ guardian thing we did with the Wheatons, it felt weird. After the second, it became clear it wasn't going to work for Sid. After the third, we both backed off the idea and said it simply wasn't going to work for them, both because of who the characters are and because it just felt false. But the idea of primeval archetypes stayed nestled in the back of my mind, and was adapted for use in the 'Our Heritage the Sea' plot.
I don't have any problem at all with people playing off one another's ideas. I think that while it CAN be a cause for conflict, it ought to be a cause for bonding and exploration. The fact is that the writing done for WoW isn't really all that relevant; it's great practice, and it's a great way to pass time and make social connections, but lore-crafting done in a world that you don't own is not something worth getting possessive over, imo. Sometimes that's hard to swallow. So, too, can the acknowledgement that a concept will simply not suit a character be difficult to accept, but it's just as important.
It's been said in this thread already, but to state my own agreement: everything's been done before. And that's fine, that's awesome, because for something to be believable, your audience (whether it's two people or a niche community or the general buying public) has to be able to identify with it in some way. Classics and cliches exist for a reason.
None of my ideas are purely original, nor am I here to defend them as something superior, and I am PRETTY SURE a lot of it has been done before. Nicene is absolutely right. I just write for fun.
I don't mind that my ideas are used at all, and I think it's actually crazy awesome that people expand on the server-wide concepts and lore, so long as people make it interesting and it works for them! But the server, as it were, did have this weird explosion of mind-bending prodigies.
It didn't really make the concept less special to me nor am I waving around a "man, these people killed it" flag, it simply meant that I should shift the focus to something else, creatively.
I don't have any problem at all with people playing off one another's ideas. I think that while it CAN be a cause for conflict, it ought to be a cause for bonding and exploration.
Basically, this.
And then we have a concept within a concept within a concept.
I just wanted to let this thread play out not because I was accusing anyone of something but because I was genuinely curious about how people felt about powers/abilities, trends, and where they draw the line with either of them. But I'm gonna skadoo back into this thread real quick to say this:
Fulbreth, no one is saying they originally came up with the concept. I think what they are getting at is this: it only takes a quick walk around in game or a chat to some people to find that there are definitely certain aspects of character powers and abilities that are being zeroed in on... and when the majority of a population latches onto something, there's bound to be more irresponsibility with how they handle it.
I said early on in this thread that I made it too PC by apologizing constantly in my OP and that's because I really did not want anyone to feel singled out. But seriously, the entire discussion doesn't have to stay PC for the sake of being PC. We all know that in concept, everyone is allowed to do whatever they want and you really shouldn't object to someone else's RP unless it hinders with your own. Of course. That's out of the way so let's stop dwelling on it.
That's not what this discussion is about. It's about what happens when whatever circle your in uses powers and abilities you either find too trendy or too powerful, and in counter to that, when is it really hypocritical to object if you've got something going on in the first place? And because I feel I have to say it again: this isn't about making original character concepts, too, and whether or not they should even be allowed (i p much bolded that in my OP). Let's not get caught up on these little technicalities that side track the discussion.
tldr section below:
I will use a different example that people feel less attached to than the mentalist thing: I RPed Viensa from before Cata's launch and I had been setting up Witch backstories for her while keeping a lot of stuff underwraps. Just because I had her as a omg witch and dabbling in blood magic doesn't mean I'm sitting here balking at the time and effort people have put into their blood witch stories or their own folk lore witch stuff. On the contrary, I find it to be very fun and exciting and it is RP that I think a lot of people could have a lot of fun with. The problem arises if everyone stops what they're doing and suddenly (KEYWORD) has their character perform witch type magic stuff or have connections to witches that were previously nonexistent. It especially hurts if these characters act as an authority on all matters relating to witches when the characters who had that development are pushed off to the side.
It isn't that there is "no opening" for new people to come in and have fun and play. It's that at the end of the day we're all a community and whether you're in a small RP circle or not, you still have to interact and deal with others. When you cheapen someone else's story line by trying to take the biggest short cut possible, you're ultimately screwing with your own RP and it's going to greatly diminish your own fun in the long run.
When you cheapen someone else's story line by trying to take the biggest short cut possible, you're ultimately screwing with your own RP and it's going to greatly diminish your own fun in the long run.
You said this so much better than I did.
The fun isn't in having the special power. It's in learning to use it, exploring the drawbacks, and seeing what comes of it not always being a good thing.
We all know that in concept, everyone is allowed to do whatever they want and you really shouldn't object to someone else's RP unless it hinders with your own. Of course. That's out of the way so let's stop dwelling on it.
Ok... but your question on the first page was literally "at what point is it okay to object to someone else RPing the special/out of the ordinary trait that you're RPing? [...] Is it okay to object and why? If it isn't, why not?" Maybe I missed the point at which that part of the conversation was abandoned, but being as it was still being quoted on the post immediately before I jumped into the thread I can hopefully be forgiven.
As long as everyone realizes that I'm not suggesting that Senkha or Wilhiem are actually protesting that people are stealing character traits or abilities they own in some way, I'm cool with just letting that point be. I'd (with admittedly poor explanation) gone ahead and taken those quotes I used out of context to create trains of thought to argue against a phantom player who might have that mindset, because I'd thought that was still part of the discussion. The actual power in question was irrelevant. And now that I know it's not the point of this thread, I'll go ahead and bow out.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
But for the spellbreaker part of him, shouldn't there be a counter to his spellbreakin' self even if lore gets a bit ridonkulus about the SUPAH STRONG & POWAHFUL stuff? Some weakness to exploit?
Heh. Scrolling down I found this, and the posts associated with it. That spellbreaker happens to be mine. :P Keelanth, actually. I've worked really hard to balance his abilities. I know that may never actually occur, but I will share them with the crowd because I thought I was creative with it:
Spell Reflect: Keelanth pulses mana through his shield in time with a direct enemy cast. If he times it correctly, he will reflect the spell back to the caster. If not, then he will deflect it harmlessly away. If he misses altogether, it will hit his shield, which can stop harmful magic effects like being set on fire or weighed down further by rime.
Spell Drain: Keelanth raises his shield and prepares to drain the mana of the next spell cast at him. Once drained, the mana is stored in the shield and can be used later. However, it is slowly returned to the air around him so he does not overload the shield's capacity. This means the released mana, when he decides to use it, will always be weaker than the original spell. He also cannot release immediately, and the stored energy messes with the timing on Spell Reflect pulses.
Detonate Mana: Keelanth detonates the mana inside of a person's body. This is very physically taxing to the Spellbreaker, and is used a last resort. He must attack them with his shield, and connect for it to work. Once their mana is detonated, the opponent may not have access to their spells and will deffinately be in a state of hurt. If powerful enough, the body could explode. ((last bit reserved for NPCs or blogs about NPCs))
Well, that about covers it. He is a fighter, and the training he went through was specifically to fight Scourge. They are no pushovers, personally, so he isn't going to be one.
I've always been of the opinion that as long as someone does something WELL, it doesn't matter how 'special' their abilities are. If you're just using an ability in order to godmode or play deus ex machina, well... that's no fun. But if you're putting time and effort into it, then... great! Carry on.
I tend to think that I have no right to talk though, since I play Mah. Who I basically yanked from a tabletop game, booted into WoW and said 'lololol'. When I came to WrA, I tried to fix her backstory some so that she wasn't as lolwat, but she's still pretty out there in terms of abilities. Not that most people would know it. I rarely, rarely use her special abilities, and I've worked out a system to keep it balanced.
Basically: Mah can cast magic on someone from any distance (along with her magic working differently than priest stuff...), but. BUT. She has to have something of theirs... clothes, hair, blood, etc. OR she has to be touching them. And because that's still too simple, I also roll a d20 when she casts. There's a strong chance she'll fail, including a chance she'll critically fail. Which leads to lots of pain/embarrassment on her part.
Basically, I think balance is the key. If they have an neat, out there ability, give them a spiffy fault to go with.
=\ My opinions on this might be a bit... bleh though.
With most of my characters, I try to stay out of situations where their odd abilities would even come though. I worry about getting yelled at. =\
Horde: Mahryna, Akurah, Mysie, Weatherman, Lyriah, Flamegale, Hadiya
Alliance: Violettah
^
viensa words making gooder i napped too long
I don't have any TL;DR because I am bad at TL;DR and I basically just agree with everything Vorrick said because they are awesome.
THAT BEING SAID I actually don't generally make characters who have/learn some special power, because I have a special place in my heart for the mundane ones that have to deal with all this crazy shit all around them all the time. I love seeing extra-ordinary characters (within reason of lore), and I adore pushing them and my own characters to see what sort of things happen when they interact. However, seeing the repeat of the same things over and over and over does get really dull really fast, and I will start eyerolling. Metal limbs and replacements have been mentioned, and yeah, I do have to say that's a big one for me.
I think people forget that you don't have to have crazy traits to have a strong character. I'd like to think Kal is pretty strong as characters go, and he's really got nothing special about him. He is a loudmouth sulky jerk that will cut you and he likes shiny rocks. If you come up with a fantastic idea for a character centered around something strange, by all means, go for it! But if you're just adding traits and things just in an attempt to stand out, maybe you should take a step back and take another look at the character.
Personal Tumblr | Character Tumblr
Icon by Dontscary
Hoo-boy. I love topics like this, mostly
and because I also enjoy talking about character development. So bad.
Vorrick said a lot of stuff I completely agree with and am too lazy to quote all of it. I may end up repeating things already said, too, but I'm gonna honey-badger it all up in here and natter, anyway. WARNED AHEAD OF TIME, I am the wordiest bastard to ever word. Grab a snack and sit down with me. [Also, preemptively putting up an apology, because I'm fairly certain I'll think of more nonsense to spout, thus come back to this and edit.]
Sandboxing has got to be one of my all-time favourite things to do with RP: taking a group of people (friends, I'd hope!) who want to work together on plot and story and character development, using common sense, a bit of duct-tape, the basics already laid out in lore (where applicable, like in WoW), and a loooooot of headcanon concepts, all to make something absolutely fun where there's none of that worry about getting smacked on the wrist or snubbed for going against the grain even a little.
As already stated by multiple posts, the huge, huge, huge, all-important thing with sandboxing, no matter if the concept is your wankiest thing ever or something pretty minor, is to communicate. OOC communication is so often the difference between collapse and having a party everyone wants to be at.
X and I (and to an extent when we get to roll with a few others, like Vorrick, for example--man I want to do more, but these last several months have eaten my sanity and willpower for RP--or Greyspell, or Embersong, or Kal or... you get the idea) have a lot of things we do within our sandbox that would never [and have never] made it outside of it.
We have, essentially, two faces to our RP, and I've seen several others adopt a similar philosophy as a sort of insulation or bubble or barricade or shield--whatever you wanna call it--against the threat of getting stomped on. We've all experienced that to some extent or another, I'm sure.
The standard face presented is fairly wysiwyg, especially in regards to the basics stuffed into an RP-flag when in-game.
This is what random RP sees from us--or RP with new folks who have no idea how we
are crzt and obnoxiousare the best lore-benderscan be kind of casual or not-so-srs, and are better off not finding out if this is a one-time deal.The sandbox face is for those that, through OOC chatting beforehand or through experience of RPing with each other for a while and thus well aware of comfort-zones, interests, and what goes/what doesn't fly at all, are playing on our playground (or we're in theirs) and get to really let loose with our enthusiasm for concepts and plot and all that other stuff.
I think one of the problems with how much I love sandboxing is it makes me less inclined to go meet new people--piled onto a lack of motivation for being so riddled with anxiety over strangers--since it's not always the same quality--or the same amount of leeway/interest in established headcanon stuff. I'll definitely be working on that [probably forever], because missing out on new opportunities always sucks.
Personally, I'm usually completely oblivious to these things until they pop up and smack me in the face--usually through the realisation that someone or multiple someones is or has been doing things I'm doing. As for objecting for discovered trends or similarities...
Off the top of my head, let's take empaths.
I can't count the number of times I've run into others through random RP on my empathic character who--after repeatedly RPing with them, not just in one instance--suddenly have the same ability[ies] or similar enough, with no indication beforehand in all the times I've encountered, read, or observed about their character. I actually really grew to hate it, but not really because I felt I was being copied. Mostly, it was this disgruntled sense of seeing something I worked hard at and went through years of building up background, plot, and character development for my idea[s], and then got smacked in the face with examples of people doing it because they can, with no regard for IC drawbacks/consequences or any effort put into it at all. Whims are great, but flesh them out. :C
On the other hand, there have been occasions where I've thought I came up with something entirely interesting to me, and while not unique, haven't met anyone else doing them, and then suddenly there IS someone [or someones], and instead of feeling obnoxious it becomes this awesome opportunity to suddenly collaborate/share ideas and brainstorm with the other someone [or someones], building upon this concept [or concepts] together to make more awesome headcanon.
I will also cop to the fact that in the past I definitely DID have some knee-jerk moments about feeling copied, but THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUS HAPPENS. I've gotten a lot better [I hope] at being less of a selfish dick. Somewhere when my back was turned,
I grew upstopped acting like a teenager who hoards his collection of emo poetry and stubbornly whines, no one understands that I started this trend, that I'm clearly above them, and those other jerks are just ~poseurs~.Basically, these days I really try to take it in stride when I run across someone doing something I'm doing [however remotely or identically] and instead try to recognise that this is [usually] a great opportunity for expansion and growth, because nothing is being taken away from me or my ideas, and there are often so many things that could be added and have all involved benefit from doing so.
Examples of things I've had the pleasure of building on with other people with this philosophy in mind:
I agree it's totally okay to object to things you're uncomfortable with, especially if in your own sandbox, but I want to reemphasize COMMUNICATION IS KEY and dont be an asshole about it. :D
Geeze, where to start...
Okay, let's go with Meros, first, since he's one of my older characters and I talk about him the most anyway. Someone further down talks about their troll going through the gambit of warrior, hunter, and rogue (probably not in that order), which is semi-applicable here.
He started as rogue, then he got a warrior version I rolled during the loooong interim of not being able to afford faction transfers. ICly, he's a laughably bad plate-wearer. He's gangly and, while he has a decent amount of muscle for how hard he works (definitely not the flabby kind of rogue), he's rangy or rawboned rather than a musclebound green hulk like the troll he's been taking his training from. [Okay M'naa isn't that bad, but man, stand the two of them together side by side and the difference is staggering...]
If he's all dressed up in anything past leather--which is what he's most comfortable in, having spent the majority of his ridiculously long lifespan in this fashion--he's not gonna be able to really perform all the tricks, feints, or otherwise be as fleetfooted as he'd like. Armour's heavy, yo. Forget about shadowwalking, forget about ghosting through to get behind someone, forget about everything but the sword moves he's been learning and the shield-blocking that comes with it.
He's not going to be able to withstand all of the blows a "real" warrior would be able to, any time soon, either. He's lucky, right now, that he can stumble around in full gear without falling over. In time, he'll improve, if he sticks with it, but with the way RP has gone with his training, and his own personality, I imagine that he'll always fall back on what he's better at. OOCly, I have plans to move that version of him to another server sometime in the near future, to have access to some friends where WrA isn't their main server, which means come MoP, I'll prolly progress him more logically from rogue to monk-class as a better blend between his fighting styles that he started with and what he learned thanks to his newer training.
Now, aside from the first reasons--both OOC and IC--that I rolled a version of him as a warrior-class, the idea of multi-classing stemmed way back from another character of mine, who, mid-way through BC, went from hunter to paladin.
THAT was interesting for me to work on, and that arc lasted as long, if not longer than this one has, going from BC to nearly the middle of Wrath. I got the idea to do that from someone else on the server I played on during that time, and it seems like multi-classing isn't a rare thing, even if it was SERIOUSLY frowned upon on that server. The IC motivations and the OOC motivations for that character were entirely different, and the end results were fairly different, too, which when I reflect on that, is pretty cool to me.
Incidentally, unlike with Meros, who is still actively taking advantage of both his classes, the hunter version of the other character is actually defunct and has been since BC ended. This is because the storyline involving his former hunter'd self ended with the whole SSO saga becoming fairly obsolete, his "guild" [ship, crew, and captain] disbanding and scattering to the corners of Azeroth, and the onslaught of the Scourge being renewed. Tapping into the forgotten paladin he was before he came to Azeroth was a huge shift in priority, memory, and characterization which I remain very pleased with.
And that's just one ~special~ thing, the multi-classing.
Let's go back to the empathic abilities I mentioned above. I got the idea to try experimenting with such a broad concept--which I narrowed down with a lot of specifics, rules, and consequences as I went through RP with this character--from my first guild leader. Her character dealt in a lot of different mind abilities, although they were both subtly, and in some cases, vastly different from what I ended up doing since her character's class was druid AND the character was kaldorei, so the approach was out of necessity and common sense, pretty different, too.
I didn't even really have a good reason for why I decided to try out messing with the capabilities of the mind with a character--I just thought it was cool, and something worth trying. She was a pretty big influence on helping me out in that regard, especially in trying to decide what things would be different, what would be similar traits in spite of race difference, etc.
Background-wise, this character had always possessed the capability, but he's never been formally trained ICly, nor had anyone who ever got to know him well enough to [while being capable of] teach him. This causes a ton of issues, and I actually have a lot of fun playing up how bad he is at it.
I could go on and on about the different abilities I've integrated into all of my characters, the whys and hows, etc., but this post is already ridiculously long, so I'll move ooon.
NEXT QUESTION.
Sort of! More along the opposite, than anything. I used to really struggle with feeling like I needed to add ALL the counters and limitations and reasons why something WOULDN'T work out or apply or whatever, because I would get so anxious and worried about being judged for having fun. It helped, I think, that I found several people who want to play like I do, and it also helped to learn how to poke fun at myself a little--because if I took any one of my characters, even my more "mundane" ones, and had to sum up their abilities, they'd sound awful. But it's wholly out of context.
I think that's an important part of characters with ~speshul~ things to them. Context is worth taking into consideration. If I'm quirking my eyebrow at something, I should be asking why I'm reacting this way instead of thinking about how it could actually work, because we're playing in a landscape and setting where dragons
are like bumblebees and shouldn't even be able to flyand magic exist, and so maybe there's actually something really cool behind this.Man, what happened. I'm supposed to get crabbier as I get older, not more lenient. 8[
H: Menotoa/Meros, Macaw/Limthala, Penumbral, Jianu, Noneta...
A: Astarin, Rahmael, Grigors...
Case in point for my post on P1 about some special talents being really hard to "Highlander" about; since they're just a shade off of lore-based, canonical abilities (see: my description of D/S's abilities, along with the fact he is a bloodmage/warlock -> DK convert himself). The closer something is to being "plausible", the more common it is likely to be. And there's nothing wrong with that, really.
My DeviantART Gallery
Everyone makes such great points in the thread so I'm not gonna retread.
Oh, man, my characters having what could be considered lolpowers kinda freaks me out, but whatevs. I really like seeing unique abilities and strengths that are within reason. And Kal'zin said it best:
If you're adding things that make no sense or aren't a natural progression of previously had powers/traits to be special, it looks strange. This isn't a popularity contest and I'm pretty sure people would much rather like a consistent character rather than one that changes to fit the flavor of the month ability or whatever. Characters aren't static, everyone knows this, but there's a difference between natural changes and jumping from one trend to the next.
I guess what I like to see is progress with a character's powers. I tried my hardest to do that with Eidrain in regards to (what I hope is) a common interpretation of Shadow magics. I would consider him one of my stronger characters because of his knowledge of the mind and of how to use it against someone. That being said, it took him a while to get where he is now. ICly, he very rarely uses his powers outside of the battlefield, probing everyone he meets is a pretty dumb thing. But every time I do it I go pretty slowly, and generally do a dice roll for everything he attempts to do. Idk, with something like that it just seems really easy to godmod so I try my hardest not to. If you're going to do something that would involve another character's mind or whatever, communication with whoever you're RPing with is hugely important. So, yeah, this has to become a habit.
tl;dr, i try to make myself feel better for mind powers. He's taken a huge hit in other areas in regards to priestly powers. He's totally unable to heal, his undead state means he's incredibly vulnerable to the Light (stop using shackle undead guise), and he's completely useless unless he has distance on an enemy. I won't even begin to talk about how difficult undead enemies make his life.
Rogues are fun as a very baseline character, however. I will so stop using my own characters as terrible examples soon. Ereban is just a dude (corpse, whatever) that lies all the time and knows where to hit people. He's not specially trained or anything, his style of fighting looks more like a parking lot brawl than, like, the super duper awesome finesse you'd expect from a rogue. He's not even much stronger than the regular human, he just relies on the fact that he is harder to kill and that he doesn't get tired. But hell, even he has things that'll stop him in his tracks in a fight.
Unique powers aren't necessarily a bad thing, but adding them in when they make no sense to your race/class is a surefire way to turn people off to your character. I've seen my fair share of people turning into dragons made of Light or blood elves that can change into wolves. These kinds things make people roll their eyes, even if we've all been there at one point. Have fun whether your character has special powers or none at all. Communicate and junk, but always give everything a good thought before you do it. And stop making me be nice haha.
now that i've floundered around a bit, can eidrain keep his mind powers ;^;?
[H] Eidrain | Ereban | Rhendak
This is often times my biggest peeve. I honestly am open to anything anyone wants to do, as long as it is done well and there is some history to back it up. I mean, face it, we're in a video game that makes our characters heroes. The game already gives us some pretty amazing stuff. But these things don't 'just happen'. They are learned and practiced and perfected over time.
Consistency, I feel, is really the key to making anything believable.
I agree with what others have said on this (tacked-on traits, instant skills, etc) but would also add: when the RPer in question tells you they're borrowing your 'thing' and then completely fails to get it, while telling everyone where they got the idea from. That's just embarrassing for everyone involved.
For example, I had (not on this server) a troll shaman who would make sacrifices to the various elements. It didn't actually do anything--all that did matter was that she'd pretty much sworn herself to a particular fire elemental--but she thought she should do it so she did. I got a lot of compliments on her concept, and a friend decided to borrow it for one of her own characters. Of course, she didn't get it. Her shaman made sacrifices and the elements did give a shit (because crispy fried troll kids are what every fire elemental wants) and granted her amazing powers for it, and also teleported her through the Firelands to safety, and... yeah.
My troll warrior (who at the time was still a rogue, and then a hunter) ended up receiving training from an older Primal as part of his quest to become a 'real' troll. He'd grown up away from troll culture, and was desperate for a place to belong and to prove himself the trolliest troll ever.
It turned out he did have the potential, but he still had to work hard to even get to a point where he could consciously tap into his inner rage. There was a lot of just not getting it on his part, and he went through a half-dozen 'teachers' trying to find someone who could explain things to him. The whole process took over a year (started around when Cata hit) and he's only now achieved what he set out to do. He's matured fantastically, and it's been so very satisfying (if somewhat painful at times) to see him progress toward his goals. Definitely worth the time.
For most of my 'special' characters, the added traits are really just added flavor for class abilities they already have. My human hunter uses runes for her magic and the way I describe her abilities reflects that--but it's still really just Hunter's Mark, Arcane Shot, etc. My troll priest's abilities are spider flavored: woven webs of light for her shields, swarms of spiders for her fear, and instead of wings she sprouts ghostly spider legs from her back. But that's nothing she couldn't already do, it just looks different. Cosmetic changes only.
Jolhur, the troll warrior/Primal mentioned above, was a bit trickier to balance, though still not really difficult. For the most part, the transition from rogue->hunter->warrior served to illustrate the other changes he went through (the change from energy/focus to rage, for instance!), and he's not really stronger than any other skilled warrior would be. He just took a different route to it. From the beginning, though, he's had a high pain tolerance and a lot of endurance, and adding in that he's a berserker on top of that--he really will fight until he's killed, knocked unconscious, or he runs out of enemies--I've always felt a little iffy about him combat-wise. I suppose the berserking could be considered a weakness in itself, and he's not especially agile. He also tends to charge in and facetank things, which is really ill-advised for the half-armored guy waving a big axe around (even with decent regeneration, he's generally in rough shape after a fight).
I dunno, I guess the least balanced thing about him is mostly he's just really fucking stubborn.
tl;dr: melee classes are hard to RP, man
Ultimately what I like to see is a player exercising restraint/consequences of a super-duper power for their character.
You're a telepath. That's cool - only it causes incredible, crippling headaches. Or you can see the future - but you can't process the information you're receiving in an understandable way and people tend to think you're a witch because you live on the streets making rambling statements that end up coming true and maybe its just that you did it with your demon-consorting powers.
When it becomes something that has no cost, it tends to be something I enjoy less.
Edit: Meanwhile, the only time it's ok to "object" vocally to another players use of their powers or quirks is when they are actively forcing it upon you without your interest.
I don't care if someone's rogue is pyrokinetic and spends the whole day lighting candles with their mind for fun. I care when they use their pyrokinesis to light my character on fire as I'm walking by. Even in that example, the most I'll object (if I'm in a sour mood and don't feel like playing along) is by ignoring the attempt and carrying on. The only reason they'll get a reaction from me out of it is if they continue following along, remarking on their incredible powers of melting my skin off.
Edit to my Edit: I might have missed the question. The only time it's ok to object to someone else using the same special power you've come up with for your character is never. There is nothing original in the world - it's not unfair to say that someone else came up with the same concept you did independently. Even if they didn't and are doing it because you made it look so cool, imitation is a form of flattery.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
/waves a tattered black flag
This. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things power-wise that get me a little cheesed, but imitation (on a small scale) never struck me as terribly irritating - if everyone were to start copying some cool new idea I had in RP (which has never happened to be because I'm boring BUT I KNOW PEOPLE WHO AREN'T and they've said this is terrible) I would be a little more concerned, but if I were to see someone touting the same powers as my character, my immediate thoughts would either be pride in my own idea - either because they got it from me or that we both independently reached the same conclusion, which is rad because hooray self-validation.
Everyone in this thread has made a lot of really good points, and I agree with basically all of them to some degree. The only real original perspective I can provide here is as someone who is horribly guilt of power-stealing in the past.
See, until I started regularly-ish RPing my worgen druid, Rodereck, I never really played characters with any magical ability to speak of. I didn't have any dislike of playing them, and certainly not of playing with them, it just happened that all of the characters I had were boring mundane people who fought and made money with stupid things like guns and alchemy (the latter of which got kind of womwom-y but I digress).
But then I rolled this druid, who wasn't even supposed to be a real druid, because playing casters was scary. I rolled him as a druid largely because cloth and leather have the majority of civilian-looking RP gear, and I OOCly wanted to have a resto druid back when I cared about PvE - but people metagaming knowledge about his in-game class became so prevalent that I caved and decided he could be a crappy druid in training who could make a plant grow a little faster if he REALLY concentrated but would probably end up just giving himself hiccups.
As he shifted more towards private RP as a character, though, I started to let myself slip, because NOBODY WILL JUDGE ME if it's just my character and those of a couple good friends. But I saw all those shiny new blogs on the new WrA.net, which had all these shiny new powers, and suddenly being a magical womwom man was cool like whoah, and he was acquiring ALL the powers. Not only was this more or less boldfacedly taking ideas, I also ended up butchering Emerald Dream lore before one of my friends slapped my hands away from the keyboard and said NO STOP THAT and I did.
My point (which I am totally getting to) is that in my case, and I presume in others', the trend-following, power-stealing behavior largely arose because of inexperience and a desire to experiment, rather than simply thinking HARHAR THIS IDEA IS MINE.
TL;DR: power plagiarism is bad, but is rarely maliciously motivated. If it happens to you, connect with the other person, because if you enjoy it, and they enjoy it, you would both probably enjoy it EVEN MORE if you did it together.
Wallace Threlfall [Threllfall] - Alec Holmewood [Holmewood] - Cadmus O'Connolly [Cadmus] - Ostromir Adlerbrandt [Ostromir]
Iiiit's not that it's not flattering. And it's not that it's the sense of PRIDE that's getting hit first when you see your ideas implemented elsewhere. I love it when ideas spread from person to person - and having people actually whisper me and discuss wom wom wom things and shadow-related stuff is always awesome! I usually try my best to help them develop these - creatively - and pretty much advise to have fun with what they roll.
But. When half of the server is a mentalist, it makes the concept much less exciting. I mean, there are gateways to development there, and I have definitely been using them, but it's like a sudden FLOOD OF VAMPIRE BOOKS in your fantasy section, and you just go ahead and pick up an Asimov novel with a sigh instead.
It loses the hook. It loses interest. It stops being your idea and becomes a beaten idea and loses story value.
[A] Wilhiem/Hammerstorm, Drevover [H] Trouant
Art thread, commissions OPEN!
icon credit 2 liotuse
This :| And it's not even that people borrow powers or concepts, it's more that it's done less because "this seems like something fun to implement/explore on my character, too, since s/he has [XYZ] going for him/her that makes this situation logical" and more because "WOW COOL KIDS DOING COOL THINGS IS COOL I WANT SOME."
And it's not even that I'm like "DON'T TOUCH MY CONCEPTS." If a concept is really cool and seems like it will work for you, I am all for people using it and incorporating it into their character's story. It just makes it a lot less special that Senkha can tweak Oliver's brain to make him feel like he's alive and able to feel again when Joe the Barber can inception the hell out of all his customers for no apparent reason beyond "I thought it was a cool idea!"
idk. It's-- a fine line. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, I agree, but it can also be really frustrating when you see something you've put a lot of thought and love into fleshing out diluted by everyone nabbing the concept for themselves and not putting as much into it as you have. I can't even explain why it's frustrating. And I don't know if it's okay to be frustrated by it or not. I just know that when I see a concept I've put a lot of effort and love into developing for my characters used by someone who seems to have just wanted to follow the trend, I do get frustrated.
/e stallion
[A]: Lorchan, Cinnamon, Wenxiu
[Retired]: Senkha, Mairèad
Wilhiem & Senkha. I don't mean this as an insult. In point of fact when I was reading stories I loved your characters and everything you were doing with their abilities and you're not even really saying this, and I am purely saying this to be the Devil's Advocate and provide another perspective on the general idea people might have of "your" idea/concept getting over-spread and played out.
Is it not at all possible that it's less that your ideas are being imitated and more that the core, boiled down, stripped out premise was not unique to you?
Blatant stealing happens. I know that. And yes, a few people will take an idea and modify it based purely on how cool you personally made it look, or how much reaction they saw it get. That's one half of my point - that imitation is maybe not attractive, but it ultimately stems from envy/admiration.
But there's also just as strong a chance that the other point of my idea comes in to play - that there is nothing original under the sun. That if you have had an idea, in a game of 10 million players, that idea has probably come to the minds of another. That The Hunger Games is not a plagiaristic abuse of Battle Royale, but that they both sprung up independently from two creative persons with a similar idea. Multiple discovery being a thing.
Honestly, I don't mean that to claim that you're somehow not original or creative. I've had the same experience. I thought I was clever when I came up with a fanatic Paladin - until I ran into a whole guild of them, on every server I've ever played on. I can see similarities between a Tauren I played back on Thorium Brotherhood and Apophan's concept as I understood it. But I know that none of these people took my idea any more than I took theirs. It's just the product of creative people coming up with something comparable to something I came up with.
/shrug - I know this doesn't do much to the "lots of people doing the same thing makes that thing feel like its jumped the shark" idea. It's not really supposed to, since that's a valid concern. Its just saying that (even though neither of you said this, really) it is worth considering that its not implausible that other people can independently come up with their ideas that might bear a surface similarity to your own.
Sorry, again. I kind of just took snippets of your quotes and springboarded off the idea that some people might get upset that "their" idea is being used too much. But I do know that's not really what you're discussing, so much as the idea of it getting boring to see ideas become too popular.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
/waves a tattered black flag
They're certainly not unique ideas, but it was definitely a trend that started showing up after several people started following those characters' stories. So coincidence? Maybe, but it's easy to see where the frustration comes from. I do recall a point on the server when braining was a very niche and rare character concept, but it does seem that just about anybody can learn how to do it IC (and does). Which would be significantly less frustrating if they also bothered to RP drawbacks and conflict within it, but most people... don't. But that's already been covered. It's less of a 'why they do it's and more of a 'how they do it'.
DeviantArt | Tumblr
Pretty much what Mac said. It may be pure coincidence that people are RPing similar concepts, and in some cases, I can see that. You can usually tell when that's the case, though, because while the basic idea is the same (e.g., influencing other people's minds with your own), the execution and more thorough explanations are different (e.g., [Person A] just has an exceptionally gifted mind and has to work with the physical aspects of a person's brain in order to manipulate their thoughts while [Person B] plays with shadow magic. Both concepts are plausible, both have different drawbacks and advantages, but they're also both so different in execution that it'd be hard to suggest that either of them stole from each other).
Even when the ideas are similar, almost to the point of being exactly alike, I don't mind--as long as people play out drawbacks and treat the idea with some respect. But people rarely do, and that's what honestly diminishes the concept. Something that's a source of extreme conflict for your character being RPed as something anyone can learn without consequence just kind of kills it.
/e stallion
[A]: Lorchan, Cinnamon, Wenxiu
[Retired]: Senkha, Mairèad
Interesting point, here, and something I can expand upon. In regard to Sidoni, she's always been very anti-magic; she's uncomfortable with it, she doesn't trust it, and it doesn't suit her as a character. But about this time last year, Senkha and Llew were having mentalist guardian interactions that could not possibly have happened between the two characters outside of that realm, plus Oliver's involvement in it all, and I was like ARGH. So we decided to have Llew & Sid give it a whirl, not because having some crazy guardian necessarily fit Sidoni's concept, but because I wanted to see if it could.
And you know what? After the first ~mental space~ guardian thing we did with the Wheatons, it felt weird. After the second, it became clear it wasn't going to work for Sid. After the third, we both backed off the idea and said it simply wasn't going to work for them, both because of who the characters are and because it just felt false. But the idea of primeval archetypes stayed nestled in the back of my mind, and was adapted for use in the 'Our Heritage the Sea' plot.
I don't have any problem at all with people playing off one another's ideas. I think that while it CAN be a cause for conflict, it ought to be a cause for bonding and exploration. The fact is that the writing done for WoW isn't really all that relevant; it's great practice, and it's a great way to pass time and make social connections, but lore-crafting done in a world that you don't own is not something worth getting possessive over, imo. Sometimes that's hard to swallow. So, too, can the acknowledgement that a concept will simply not suit a character be difficult to accept, but it's just as important.
It's been said in this thread already, but to state my own agreement: everything's been done before. And that's fine, that's awesome, because for something to be believable, your audience (whether it's two people or a niche community or the general buying public) has to be able to identify with it in some way. Classics and cliches exist for a reason.
[A] Sidoni
[H] Silverash
Fandom secret:
None of my ideas are purely original, nor am I here to defend them as something superior, and I am PRETTY SURE a lot of it has been done before. Nicene is absolutely right. I just write for fun.
I don't mind that my ideas are used at all, and I think it's actually crazy awesome that people expand on the server-wide concepts and lore, so long as people make it interesting and it works for them! But the server, as it were, did have this weird explosion of mind-bending prodigies.
It didn't really make the concept less special to me nor am I waving around a "man, these people killed it" flag, it simply meant that I should shift the focus to something else, creatively.
Basically, this.
And then we have a concept within a concept within a concept.
C O N C E P T I O N
...wait
[A] Wilhiem/Hammerstorm, Drevover [H] Trouant
Art thread, commissions OPEN!
icon credit 2 liotuse
I just wanted to let this thread play out not because I was accusing anyone of something but because I was genuinely curious about how people felt about powers/abilities, trends, and where they draw the line with either of them. But I'm gonna skadoo back into this thread real quick to say this:
Fulbreth, no one is saying they originally came up with the concept. I think what they are getting at is this: it only takes a quick walk around in game or a chat to some people to find that there are definitely certain aspects of character powers and abilities that are being zeroed in on... and when the majority of a population latches onto something, there's bound to be more irresponsibility with how they handle it.
I said early on in this thread that I made it too PC by apologizing constantly in my OP and that's because I really did not want anyone to feel singled out. But seriously, the entire discussion doesn't have to stay PC for the sake of being PC. We all know that in concept, everyone is allowed to do whatever they want and you really shouldn't object to someone else's RP unless it hinders with your own. Of course. That's out of the way so let's stop dwelling on it.
That's not what this discussion is about. It's about what happens when whatever circle your in uses powers and abilities you either find too trendy or too powerful, and in counter to that, when is it really hypocritical to object if you've got something going on in the first place? And because I feel I have to say it again: this isn't about making original character concepts, too, and whether or not they should even be allowed (i p much bolded that in my OP). Let's not get caught up on these little technicalities that side track the discussion.
tldr section below:
I will use a different example that people feel less attached to than the mentalist thing: I RPed Viensa from before Cata's launch and I had been setting up Witch backstories for her while keeping a lot of stuff underwraps. Just because I had her as a omg witch and dabbling in blood magic doesn't mean I'm sitting here balking at the time and effort people have put into their blood witch stories or their own folk lore witch stuff. On the contrary, I find it to be very fun and exciting and it is RP that I think a lot of people could have a lot of fun with. The problem arises if everyone stops what they're doing and suddenly (KEYWORD) has their character perform witch type magic stuff or have connections to witches that were previously nonexistent. It especially hurts if these characters act as an authority on all matters relating to witches when the characters who had that development are pushed off to the side.
It isn't that there is "no opening" for new people to come in and have fun and play. It's that at the end of the day we're all a community and whether you're in a small RP circle or not, you still have to interact and deal with others. When you cheapen someone else's story line by trying to take the biggest short cut possible, you're ultimately screwing with your own RP and it's going to greatly diminish your own fun in the long run.
You said this so much better than I did.
The fun isn't in having the special power. It's in learning to use it, exploring the drawbacks, and seeing what comes of it not always being a good thing.
/e stallion
[A]: Lorchan, Cinnamon, Wenxiu
[Retired]: Senkha, Mairèad
Ok... but your question on the first page was literally "at what point is it okay to object to someone else RPing the special/out of the ordinary trait that you're RPing? [...] Is it okay to object and why? If it isn't, why not?" Maybe I missed the point at which that part of the conversation was abandoned, but being as it was still being quoted on the post immediately before I jumped into the thread I can hopefully be forgiven.
As long as everyone realizes that I'm not suggesting that Senkha or Wilhiem are actually protesting that people are stealing character traits or abilities they own in some way, I'm cool with just letting that point be. I'd (with admittedly poor explanation) gone ahead and taken those quotes I used out of context to create trains of thought to argue against a phantom player who might have that mindset, because I'd thought that was still part of the discussion. The actual power in question was irrelevant. And now that I know it's not the point of this thread, I'll go ahead and bow out.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"And ohhhhh I'm proud to be a Gilnean, where at least I know I'm trapped behind an oppressive barrier concealing our horr-.... free..."
/waves a tattered black flag
Heh. Scrolling down I found this, and the posts associated with it. That spellbreaker happens to be mine. :P Keelanth, actually. I've worked really hard to balance his abilities. I know that may never actually occur, but I will share them with the crowd because I thought I was creative with it:
Spell Reflect: Keelanth pulses mana through his shield in time with a direct enemy cast. If he times it correctly, he will reflect the spell back to the caster. If not, then he will deflect it harmlessly away. If he misses altogether, it will hit his shield, which can stop harmful magic effects like being set on fire or weighed down further by rime.
Spell Drain: Keelanth raises his shield and prepares to drain the mana of the next spell cast at him. Once drained, the mana is stored in the shield and can be used later. However, it is slowly returned to the air around him so he does not overload the shield's capacity. This means the released mana, when he decides to use it, will always be weaker than the original spell. He also cannot release immediately, and the stored energy messes with the timing on Spell Reflect pulses.
Detonate Mana: Keelanth detonates the mana inside of a person's body. This is very physically taxing to the Spellbreaker, and is used a last resort. He must attack them with his shield, and connect for it to work. Once their mana is detonated, the opponent may not have access to their spells and will deffinately be in a state of hurt. If powerful enough, the body could explode. ((last bit reserved for NPCs or blogs about NPCs))
Well, that about covers it. He is a fighter, and the training he went through was specifically to fight Scourge. They are no pushovers, personally, so he isn't going to be one.
[A]: Halent, Forgemight, Bandran, Timillem
[H]: Korkee, Brittlehorn, Keelanth, Mushu, Blanchette
Avatar picture by the great Zuriel, on dA.
Pages