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Game Forum / Nintendo / Pokemon / August 2006

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[PW][NS][Meta][PKO] WWPWD?

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Chet Weaver - Interstellar Hitchhiker - 04 Jul 2006 18:55 GMT
If you read all the tags, you've probably realized that this is actually
about my PokeOps board.  However, this relates, at least tangently, to
PokeWars.

I recenly locked a story thread because one of the characters involved,
I'm not going to mention names, decided to unveil he had super-human
abilities not mentioned in his Writer's Guide and told his author that
he had to include all his abilities in the WG.

The scenario went like this: It's the troupe's first encounter with Team
Rocket (a taciturn girl codenamed "The Fury" and a ninja called "The
Sound"), and this guy apparently has some sort of murderous grudge
against the organization.  Another player already has his Pokemon out to
deal with them, but this guy leaps out of the hole he fell into and
directly attacks The Fury while his Pokemon is sicced directly on The
Sound.  I didn't have a problem with that, so the encounter continues.

With their hole plan thwarted, The Sound and The Fury resort to Plan B:
 nets fired from a rocket launcher mounted on a hidden jeep.  Now this
is where the guy decides to go Super-Saiyan.  He removes the weights on
his legs (also not mentioned in his WG), which are so heavy they sink to
the ground when he drops them, and takes off after The Sound (who was
heading back to the jeep for a drive-by snagging and subsequent getaway)
faster than the human eye can follow.  This is where I locked the thread.

Here's the information he didn't include, but was revealed to me in an
IM chat and in his editted WG: His character believes that there is too
much evil in the world for his Pokemon alone to handle.  Thus, he has
been wearing weights for the past six years and has trained himself to
be faster than a Dotrio and stronger than a Machamp.  He doesn't want to
expose his Pokemon to Team Rocket, and has is powerful enough that they
"can't force him to do stuff."  For example: if they dropped a cage on
him, he could bend the bars and escape.

It's too late for me to follow any advice since I've already made
decisions and unlocked the thread, but still, my questions is: What
would PokeWars do?  How would we here at AGNP handled this situation?

I'll reply with what I did shortly.

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Chet "Tech" Weaver

"The power of our love makes robots explode!"
--Winter, http://www.go-girly.com

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Chet Weaver - Interstellar Hitchhiker - 04 Jul 2006 19:22 GMT
> It's too late for me to follow any advice since I've already made
> decisions and unlocked the thread, but still, my questions is: What
> would PokeWars do?  How would we here at AGNP handled this situation?

Here's what I ended up doing:  I let him keep the character as-is.  I
didn't feel like having to go back and rewrite posts, and counting
myself we only had three players.  I've also told him that as a
consequence of training himself to such a degree, his Pokémon training
skills would have to suffer.  (On that point, I also gave the Trent
Retwin example, but I left out the name)  However, I couldn't think of a
good reason for him to not have all that beyond the fact that it
offended my sensibilities.

My plan, however, is to adjust my campaign (which I'm just making up on
the fly anyway) so his enhanced character becomes a liability.
Basically, I'll have to make sure his power is completely uncalled for
in every possible situation.  The two approaches I'm considering is that
any villain he faces is so unprepared for direct attacks that using that
tactic loses its glamour, or stepping up their game to the extent that
either his power is completely canceled out or everyone else suffers
from the extremeness.  Since I want his character toned down, I'm pretty
sure I'll have to go with the first option.  The second option just
promotes power gaming.  Considering my other player's character grabbed
The Fury by the neck (despite Fury being described as a "little girl")
and threatened to kill her if she tried to harm his friends, it's not an
inconceivable notion.

Signature

Chet "Tech" Weaver

"The power of our love makes robots explode!"
--Winter, http://www.go-girly.com

Latest Blog Entry: The Tattooed Girl

Novel Blog: MultiPets: The Chimera Knight (http://multipets.blogspot.com)
Blog: The Chet Weaver Diaries (http://chetweaver.blogspot.com)
AIM: PanGatomon
MSN: Nichirasu@hotmail.com
eMail: zeroohki at netscape dot net
Yahoo! Messenger: tech_weaver
ICQ: 122744531
Webcomic: The Virtual Life (http://desperadocoyote.keenspace.com)

Adrian Tymes - 08 Jul 2006 18:08 GMT
> It's too late for me to follow any advice since I've already made
> decisions and unlocked the thread, but still, my questions is: What
> would PokeWars do?  How would we here at AGNP handled this situation?

"Omnipotence is baaad".

You've been wearing weights?  That doesn't make you that strong.

One of the tenets of the Pokemon world seems to be that pokemon are
naturally stronger than humans.  There are definitely a few exceptional
humans that are stronger than the average pokemon - but the logical
conclusion is that the strongest of pokemon are, in turn, stronger than
even these humans.  Furthermore, anyone in that excellent a physical
condition would be obvious, to the point that Team Rocket would have
brought such a counter-pokemon along to deal with him.  (And if it
really was their first encounter with Team Rocket, how would he have
built up a murderous grudge?)

But the more serious breach is that the author is adding powers to his
character with no previous logical justification, specifically to make
his character unbeatable - as in, omnipotent.  ("Previous" as far as any
reader has seen, that is; not "previous" from the character's newly
rewritten history's point of view.)  Even predeclared power is not as
bad (because then other authors can know in advance that battles might
not be winnable, and avoid confrontations - or any other interactions -
with the overpowered character, unless they see a way around what has
been declared).

One possibility is to pull in NPC gods, or otherwise overpower the omni
PC in ways that do not significantly affect the other PCs.  In this
case, perhaps TR had backups - hidden "offstage", but on hand to deal
with this guy.  If he hates TR, TR might well know about it and have
been using The Sound and The Fury as unknowing bait.  They spring out,
overwhelm that guy, then move on leaving everyone else to deal with
their situation.  That guy is then removed from interaction - further
stories involve him and NPC TR members only, and can be forbidden (or at
least frowned upon) on the basis that he's no longer interacting with
the other PCs.  It takes caution to do this without going omni; I've
done it myself more than once in a certain PW!-like game, and made sure
I only went omni in response to someone else going omni.  (Which is
perhaps one reason why I like shapeshifter characters. ^_^; )

Another is to go meta and declare rules breach: the character is
acting OOC relative to what's in his published Writer's Guide.  Major
revelations that add new powers simply aren't allowed.  (Consider PW!'s
explicit warning against being a more powerful psychic than Sabrina.)
This is less satisfying, but it is much easier to do and does get the
message across with little chance of confusion (and does not risk
accusations of the same ill act being sent to the corrector).

The approach you went with (making the power useless) is attractive if
you're seriously hampered for players - where you have the time to give
that amount of attention to one case, over a long period.  That's not
the case with PW!, but it's definitely suitable for the more common
players-and-GM RPGs.
Chet Weaver - Interstellar Hitchhiker - 09 Jul 2006 21:53 GMT
>> It's too late for me to follow any advice since I've already made
>> decisions and unlocked the thread, but still, my questions is: What
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>
> You've been wearing weights?  That doesn't make you that strong.

Apparently, he had been wearing them for six years.  I don't buy it either.

> One of the tenets of the Pokemon world seems to be that pokemon are
> naturally stronger than humans.  There are definitely a few exceptional
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> really was their first encounter with Team Rocket, how would he have
> built up a murderous grudge?)

Well, this is the first meeting of our troupe, too.  My character falls
into a hole while running to Oldale in search of Professor Birch (who
also happened to be in the hole), then Player 2's character also falls
into the hole while being chased (I presume from Oldale) by a wild
Primeape.  The Sound and The Fury show up after their Pokemon fail to
knock Player 3's character (who my character met just outside
Littleroot) into the hole, who then sends out his own Pokemon.  Despite
being knocked out when he landed in the hole, Player 2's character
catches wind of Team Rocket and leaps out of the hole to fight them.
Two's character's explanation is that he hates Team Rocket because they
tried to recruit him.

Actually, maybe I should've seen this coming.  This occurred on my new
Proboards site (http://pokeops.proboards98.com), but Player 2 is from
the old ezBoard site (http://p097.ezboard.com/bpokeops).  There, he had
a grudge against Team Magma because they kept trying to recruit him and
he beat up a recruiter that randomly popped up.  I thought he just found
them annoying. 0_0

> But the more serious breach is that the author is adding powers to his
> character with no previous logical justification, specifically to make
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> with the overpowered character, unless they see a way around what has
> been declared).

I agree.  That's why I also instituted a "If it's not in your WG, you
don't have it" policy I got from another RP board.  They can only add
things if they RP the gain.

> One possibility is to pull in NPC gods, or otherwise overpower the omni
> PC in ways that do not significantly affect the other PCs.  In this
> case, perhaps TR had backups - hidden "offstage", but on hand to deal
> with this guy.  If he hates TR, TR might well know about it and have
> been using The Sound and The Fury as unknowing bait.  

Actually, The Fury was already based on Presea from Tales of Symphonia,
making her a match for Player 2's character, and The Sound's a freakin'
ninja.  They could handle P2C on his own, but they'd also have to divide
their attention between fighting him and coordinating their Pokemon
against the three Player 3 had out and Player 2's Eevee.  I didn't want
to get omni.  At least, not on the first date. ~_^

> They spring out,
> overwhelm that guy, then move on leaving everyone else to deal with
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> I only went omni in response to someone else going omni.  (Which is
> perhaps one reason why I like shapeshifter characters. ^_^; )

Hm.  Didn't think of that.  Then again, we weren't going on in PW's "one
player writes for everbody" style, and I didn't want to alienate by only
other player by suddenly bunnying him.

> Another is to go meta and declare rules breach: the character is
> acting OOC relative to what's in his published Writer's Guide.  Major
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> the case with PW!, but it's definitely suitable for the more common
> players-and-GM RPGs.

I haven't actually done that yet.  We're still at the hole, last I
checked.  A fourth player decided to join, mainly to screw around with
Player Three and his over-the-top antics, and his Rocket is battling P3C
and making disparaging remarks about his show of emotion after The Fury
commented on how evil he was being.  ("Go ahead.  Kill me.  Take one
more step over the edge.  We will we see who shows who mercy.  Then
pretend I would have done the exact same thing.")

Signature

Chet "Tech" Weaver

"The power of our love makes robots explode!"
--Winter, http://www.go-girly.com

Latest Blog Entry: The Tattooed Girl

Novel Blog: MultiPets: The Chimera Knight (http://multipets.blogspot.com)
Blog: The Chet Weaver Diaries (http://chetweaver.blogspot.com)
AIM: PanGatomon
MSN: Nichirasu@hotmail.com
eMail: zeroohki at netscape dot net
Yahoo! Messenger: tech_weaver
ICQ: 122744531
Webcomic: The Virtual Life (http://desperadocoyote.keenspace.com)

Steffan Alun - 06 Aug 2006 01:05 GMT
> If you read all the tags, you've probably realized that this is actually
> about my PokeOps board.  However, this relates, at least tangently, to
> PokeWars.

Personally, I wouldn't have included the PW! tags at all, using only your
own PokeOps tags.  I'm sure everyone who's read this post would have read it
regardless of tags, and that way it would've been less misleading.

> With their hole plan thwarted, The Sound and The Fury resort to Plan B:
> nets fired from a rocket launcher mounted on a hidden jeep.  Now this is
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> back to the jeep for a drive-by snagging and subsequent getaway) faster
> than the human eye can follow.  This is where I locked the thread.

I suppose it'd be pointless to mention that such heavy weights would sink
HIM into the ground, regardless of how strong he was.

> Here's the information he didn't include, but was revealed to me in an IM
> chat and in his editted WG: His character believes that there is too much
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> decisions and unlocked the thread, but still, my questions is: What would
> PokeWars do?  How would we here at AGNP handled this situation?

Personally, I like the Rob-and-Tymes standard RetCon Machine.  Add more
information to the story in a follow-up that undermines the offending rules,
with a note that the author should take your example to avoid more severe
punishments.  You can't always do that, of course, so the best bet is to
post a standard NS post telling the author to RetCon his OWN story to fix
these problems.

The fact that he left the details out of his WG is annoying, yes, but
bad/flawed/rulebreaking stories are a bigger crime than incomplete WGs.
Ergo, he should be told what he did wrong and how to change it.  If he
doesn't learn his lesson, he should be told again.  Finally, if he continues
to resolutely break rules, he should be banned.  Very simple - this is
SHAKKmaster's story.

Of course, being forums, I'd apply different rules.  Threads can be locked,
posts can be edited or deleted, and members can be banned.  The AGNP methods
should still apply, but combine them with threats of forum-based actions.
That's what I'd do in your position.

Steffan
 
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