TROUBLESHOOTING “OVERPOWERED” CHARACTERS
(...And How To Handle Pokémon Battles In The RPC)
Hey guys, it’s Lo. Since it’s been a hot button topic in some of my circles recently (and you guys seem to enjoy my excuses for meta, for...some reason), I thought I’d offer my take on one of the RP scene’s thornier issues: powerful characters and how they should be handled in RP. Obviously not everybody is going to agree with this and that’s fine, don’t @ me, but I’ve roleplayed in enough different structures of RP to have a little perspective on what makes powerful characters and their players either fun to work with, or a total bore.
HOW POWERFUL IS TOO POWERFUL...? HOW LONG IS A PIECE OF STRING
Let’s get one thing out of the way: the concept of overpowered characters is bunk in a vacuum-RP setting. Vacuum RP is my term. I’m coining it right now. Watch me. People will it citing it in their research papers years from now. snapbxck 2018. In my mind, it refers to an RP wild west such as Tumblr, where there is no setting information or code of conduct that all players adhere to, as you would have in a structured RP environment such as the “Games” on LJ/DW or in a tabletop campaign. How do you measure power when blogs can nary agree on the power of the trainers and Pokémon in the canon materials their worlds are built from? You can’t.
Saying that, there are still characters who are “written to be strong”. Or the STRONGEST™, which is where things start to get a little dicey. Because when you’re playing in a vacuum, there is always going to be somebody else whose muse is as strong or stronger than yours. Tumblr RP has no built-in checks and balances, meaning if you based your character concept around the fact they’re top banana, things are going to start falling apart for you very quickly unless you’re humble and creative enough to adapt to that reality.
IT’S NOT THE SIZE, MATE, IT’S HOW YOU USE IT
When people in the RPC complain about overpowered characters, the problem isn’t necessarily the character themselves, but the way their players choose to handle them. The number one most important thing you should remember when RPing is that this is a collaborative process. In fiction, it doesn’t matter that the protagonist is all powerful by the end of their journey, because this is their story. But in RP, it’s NOT just your story, is it? The mooks and NPCs who would normally only be hurdles standing in the hero’s way have their own hopes and dreams, their own stories to tell. And they all have a real life, fleshy, sweaty, blood-filled human being behind the scenes who poured their love and time into bringing them to life.
These players care about their characters as much as you do yours. They likely have limited time in their day to RP. So you can imagine it might be frustrating when a player with a muse “more powerful” than theirs approaches them to thread and then refuses to throw them a bone. Shuts down all the cool ideas they might have about their character’s part in the scene, doesn’t allow their character any wins or heroic moments of their own, follows up every interesting tidbit about that character’s skills with “WELL THAT WOULDN’T WORK AGAINST MY CHARACTER BECAUSE...”.
Maybe Youngster Joey with his prized Rattata isn’t realistically going to win out against Champion Lance and his army of Dragons. That’s fair. But Joey’s story matters too. Joey’s player deserves to have a good time writing the scene as well. So even if the winner is obvious, it’s down to Lance to help write a story that is rewarding for both parties. As with anything else in RP, battles should simply be a means to tell a story, and victory isn’t always necessary for a story to be worth telling. It’s about allowing your partner’s character a chance to breathe, whether that’s letting them show their bravery in the face of hopelessness, or allowing a defeat to be dramatic and impactful to the losing character and NOT just an empty power trip for the victorious character and player. Your partner’s story matters JUST AS MUCH AS YOURS.
YOUR MUSE’S POWER LEVEL ISN’T INTERESTING TO ANYBODY ELSE EXCEPT YOU
Sorry, not sorry. If the main draw of your character is how powerful they are, you need to work on your character development skills. Read a couple books, find a good online guide about balanced character design... You are bound, eventually, to run into a character who is as powerful as yours is, and if your character’s strength is the only thing that’s exciting about them then you’re stuffed. Your RP will turn into an ugly game of one-upsmanship. There is nothing less interesting that listening to somebody go on and on about how strong and special their character is if there’s no character there to begin with.
Think about the last media you consumed with a powerful protagonist. Sure, the battles may have been flashy, but did you care about their outcome? And if so, why? Or why not? Part of the reason powerful characters work in fiction is because the narrative makes us care about them. Their powers, extra as they may be, only make for satisfying watching if we have reason to care about the character winning (or losing). A good piece of fiction makes you care about the characters and what’s at stake for them. Do not slip into the easy trap of using a character’s swanky power-level as a substitute for motivation, fear, complexes, weaknesses, because power alone isn’t interesting. It just makes you a show off. People care more about a three-dimensional underdog who has nothing impressive about them but a well-written personality than they do a bland and empty vessel that exists for channeling the mun’s power fantasies. Character first, powers second, and make sure you’re relating back to how your character’s abilities and prowess—or lack thereof—inform who they are as a person.
TREAT FIGHTS OR BATTLES LIKE ANY OTHER ACTION SCENE
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here: I will let my character lose over, and over, and over again so long as I’m having a good time. My personal rule of thumb is that, when you’re writing a battle or any kind of fight scene, it should be part of the process of getting from point A to point B rather than the event itself. The outcome should be predetermined, and there should be some level of stakes for both characters with something on the table win or lose. Whether that’s just victory/crushing defeat, some sort of character development or realisation, getting a character past the obstacle, etc. They’re not best used—from an OOC perspective—as a test of which muse is strongest. If you want a traditional grudge-match take it to Showdown, otherwise surrender yourself to a tedious fucking thread that drags on and on and gets progressively less enjoyable as either side refuses to accept defeat. Treat battles like you would any other scene.
If your character’s up against someone of roughly the same strength and both you muns are being stubborn fucks as to who would be stronger, consider this: just don’t have them fight?? Or have them fight and be interrupted by a bigger, mutual foe who they need to team up to take down. Or end matters in a draw. Or find some other exciting manner of action scene in which both muses can show off their awesome power without the necessity of a victor and loser. And for weaker characters writing losses all the time can get tiring, so maybe find a way your powerful muse can work together with theirs, remembering to let them do something impactful as well. In the end everything boils down to 1) having fun and 2) remembering to let your partner have fun as well.
