Ravenswing

Well, Smurch got the point.

Also, Common Sense: If you look that up you'll find it's a trait many MMO RPers lack.

Okay... well, my personal advice to people wanting play cosmic level characters is: don't. Not in this game. DCUO maybe.

I'll give the mechanical example in terms of the DC universe. I used to pretty much collect RPGs, the pen-and-paper ones, not what software houses call RPGs. So, when the DC universe RPG came out, I snarfed it. It had problems. Somehow it had to encompass characters like Superman, and characters like Batman. It proved to be... less than satisfactory. The mega-characters were okay, but human scale characters were pretty poorly handled, and mixing the two in any situation just left the lighter characters sitting around wondering why they bothered.

This was very pronounced in the DC RPG, but is a problem in any game with disperate power levels.

Back when GG started, we had that kind of differentiation. As a result, even if your character started out as a lightly powered character, they tended to escalate. Mine was War Crow. Crow was a Welsh farm boy who thought he was the Champion of the Morrigan. He knew magic, which he largely used to accelerate his healing and empower the katana he hit things with. But, he was a magician. Roleplay-wise, he could theoretically do anything and eventually, he did. I suppose he was a sort of Incarnate.

Largely as a result of roleplay, he discovered that he had made the whole Morrigan thing up. He was a willworker, able to manifest his thoughts in any way he wished, and having spent a night on Cader Idris once, he had gone mad and dreamed up the whole idea of the Morrigan choosing him. (There's a legend that if you spend a night on that mountain, you come down a poet, or insane. Crow was no poet.)

He became so powerful, there was no point in playing him and just about every character I've had since has been an attempt to do better.

First came Jason Caine. You can't kill him, permanently, but this is just an expression of game mechanics. Unless we choose to permanently retire a character, they just wake up in hospital. He's a magician, and very old, but nothing like Crow.

I came back and created Annette. Annette is just human. In fact, one of the reasons for creating her was to explore the boundaries between human and superhuman. She is many, many times more interesting to play than Crow or Jason, and I believe that the Incarnate mechanics will provide some more interest from her before she becomes boring, not to mention the morality shift system.

She has over-powered abilities, but they are massively limited to roleplay situations. An example is her 'super-hearing,' which is powerful, but has characteristics which make it unusable in a combat situation and leave her vulnerable.

Even with Annette I've done almost all I can do with her and I want to explore something else. Gunwitch, Annette's Praetorian counterpart, is designed to replace her. She's a very different beast, and has certain characteristics which are 'over-powered' such as an ability to see anything from 2cm microwaves to 1nm ultraviolet. However, she's human and the character interest comes in what she has done to herself (and what she has done in general) to end up the way she is, not in her amazing abilities or high-tech super-weapons.

Um... where was I going with this?

Mega-characters can be interesting, but frequently their interaction with other characters is problematic in the extreme. Richard, for example, is at his best when he's being human, and worrying about not being.

If you're thinking of creating a character with near god-like abilities (or turning one you have into such a beast), be very careful of why you're doing it. If your answer is anything even similar to "because I want to play a really powerful being" or "I want to be the centre of attention" then don't. You may like it, but no one else will.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's honestly the best advice I can think of.

Started aboy 7:05 in Talos. Became impossible to move by about 7:20.

Still, solo, I got two badges and some merits, so... cool.

What FFM said.

If I'm running a mission (any mission) for RP purposes, I'm not doing it for XP. One mission doesn't make any difference, really.

You may be right, but I'm terrible at comedy plots, so someone else is going to have to do that.

Practical joker, however, not such a good idea. Not everyone likes practical jokes.

Sorry folks, I was right, I'd be insane to run this.

Well...

I decided to post this tonight, since it's ready.

This is the story of what's happened to Annette and Ni. It's a little graphic, in the violent sense, you have been warned.

Rei

Update: I have a basic plot worked out. Going to take some planning.

Okay, I'll have a think about this and see if I can come up with something interesting/different enough.