Ammon

I have one multi-millionaire character, who was a highly successful (read Rock Star) singer/songwriter before taking an overdose put her into the situation where she gained super-powers.

I wanted to examine and explore the similarities and dissimilarities of the two different forms of 'stardom' and celebrity. A heroine who could deal with the limelight before she could deal with her powers, but who conversely was already going to get a hard time in the press.

In short, because I enjoyed where it took the character.



Wherever it seems to work best.



Never have yet, because only a GM can do so really. But it would depend greatly on the definition of 'god' in question.

It might be very cool to play a character who was essentially some small forgotten deity of some long-forgotten peoples, stripped of power by the lack of faith/devotional energy, and struggling to be recognized again.



Ah, I do have one of these. Demonic Machine. Again, its was a concept I wanted to explore. Many players have robotic or pseudo-robotic characters where the AI is sufficiently advanced to wonder if they can be classed as truly sentient, and indeed, whether they may have a 'soul'. If an AI did have a soul, or whatever level of psyche could pass for one, could it be possessed by demons?

What then would the demon make of its form? How would it change? Would it matter that the demon understood nothing of technology? Would the AI inform the demon of all the technological knowledge it might ever need and had never wanted? Lots of fun questions.

The Militia team looks certain now.

Of course, we also have some villains that have known some cage fights in their time. I notice that the Team League is not a starred event. We'd love to be able to field a villain team as well, but are aware of the issues if both teams ended up drawing against each other at a stage. What's the official rules on such things? We'd planned to simply have one team withdraw due to urgent outside events in such a situation, but we don't want to mess anything up.

There have generally been a lot more 'ruthless mercenary' RPVGs than true super-evil ones, certainly. However, the Court of the Blood Countess are certainly as monstrous as evil gets, and The League of Scoundrels are as truly super-villain evil as I've ever wanted.

Why so few, and why are mercenaries more common? Well, it is certainly easier. You need a strong hook to keep PC super-villains working together and not at cross-purposes. Both The League and The Court have an outside NPC group that keep them somewhat in line. A bigger badder thing than the players themselves that is the line they cannot cross.

The League is the one I know best, of course, and it can indeed be fun to RP, but it does take a lot more thought on plots and motives generally to have collaborative storylines. Just as CoV always declared, by introducing the newspaper missions, villains are more proactive. They make the plots rather than spot an unravel the plots of others.

And yes, an inability to change the game world, to devastate an area of the city with terrorist bombs, or jam all the police radios across the city, or, well, any great part of a meaningful super-crime is virtually impossible. The game rather limits us to smashing up cardboard boxes and trashcans while robbing a bank before we'd need the widespread agreement of the Unionverse participants.

I think that offering rare enhancements, infamy, and similar actual rewards IC would work just fine. But friendship also works. Most of those 'mercenary' type roleplay characters will do some pretty evil acts when an IC friend asks it of them. Or if set-up, believing an innocent adversary has acted first.

It all depends on the characters in question. People can get away with a lot, if they are charming enough and seem otherwise worth turning a blind eye to. On the reverse side, someone you already dislike will be hated at the first decent excuse.

Obviously, a character who feels some need to boast about their evil is probably not a charming and likeable personality. But the character who can read his audience, makes them feel comfortable, and not seek to deliberately inflame them can get away with some fairly evil stuff.

Its simply human nature. We may abhor racism, but a charming comedian may be able to make us laugh at a pretty overtly racist joke, where the thug at the bar talking about bashing immigrants makes our skin crawl. We don't know that the comedian hasn't bashed and killed people of an ethnic minority, but he's not rubbing our faces in it. He's enabling us to accept him socially. That's the difference in a nutshell I guess.

I just made £10.

That's what I bet that specifically FFM, rather than any other GG-regular, would moan it was unfair to call them a clique. ((And considering you already got moderated once for it, could you please stop calling people J**ks?)).

Well, this entire thread shows exactly what so many complain about the group at GG being a 'clique' for.

We have had a strong, occassionally passionate, and very occassionally heated debate about how we will, and can, bring 'becoming incarnate' (the Game mechanism) to our characters - the IC rationale/cause for the OOC incarnate slots effect.

However, a very few people can't stick with just agreeing or disagreeing with the points made, and start arguing with the poster, rather than the post. Sadly, Dr Mechano was the first.
Some people take themselves far to seriously to tease even if you make clear it is just humour by following it with "but seriously, ..." Does anyone think that was a reasonable reaction to a harmless joke about misspelling?

Ah, FFM asks me to leave his forum. And becomes the first person to need moderator intervention.

Of course, there is no point before this where I have told anyone how to play their character. I posted a list that stated entirely the opposite. The closest I have come is saying that I have the right to react IC to how they play their character IC, and even avoid/ignore roleplay stuff that doesn't sit well with me. I never say what others can or cannot do, per se, only what they may or may not expect me (or others like me) to swallow and accept.

Me either. But certain people really did seem to have a major problem with the idea that one of my characters might not take their character seriously, and might, on seeing them backhand Statesman across a room, IC, believe them to be of the same power-order or more than known Incarnates.

Apparently, I am 'wrong' for deciding that my character, in character, on seeing another character perform with Incarnate-level powers, think to themselves that the character is indeed Incarnate level. That my character does not have the right to think that a very powerful character of theirs is possibly Incarnate. Somehow, my character is supposed to know their OOC explanation?

I must be 'wrong' because my posts about how I and my characters will react to things are what has been attacked quite personally at times.

This was said of a quoted part of my text, so again, unneccesarily personal. However, from a later post, I get the idea that Fanservice thinks I am in agreement with CB, or that CB and I are some sort of team. For all I know, Fanservice has been unable to separate my posts from CBs, and really meant to get personal with him. But is that really any better?

And for the record, Fanservice, my group are those lively people in the Militia and Cadre, thus it is with Dante and Wolfram with whom I play the most often (several times a week on average). I barely know CB really, can't recall a time we have teamed together IC if there is one, but I'm with Voltaire, in that I may disagree with everything he says, but I shall defend to the death his right to say it.

I will always be dismayed to see posts like:

There is no call for things to get personal, nor for name-calling. None. It doesn't help things at all either that it sometimes seems like the GG RP crowd cannot argue anything without using the words 'Right' and 'Wrong'.

You see, I am right. Because all I have stated is how my characters will be reacting. And my characters are my right. They may not be right for you, but they are always right for me. Its called individual choice.

I have never, once, had the sheer abominable arrogance and to decide that how someone else will think IC, about my characters actions is something I should control, or something I could possibly have the authority to declare 'right' or 'wrong'.

Those that have, that do, are all from the Galaxy Girl RP scene, and so it gives the impression, that they are unfriendly, intollerant, and a very closed clique.

I'd be willing to bet money also that the several posters who have expressed that they've been told they did forum RP somehow 'wrongly' were also told that by members of the GG clique.

And although these 'vocal personalities' (to coin the lovely tem Shadowe gave us) may be and probably are a minority of the GG crowd, which are in turn a very small minority of the Union RP scene, the fact is that the others of that GG group never speak out against it. "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that Good people do nothing".

It does give other Union RPers the impression that some excellent RPers, such as Shadowe and Zortel, tacitly condone the rude, aggressive, and entirely unmerited authoritarianism of their fellows telling people what is right and wrong, and how they may or may not react IC to IC events.

Your subscription is free?

Ultimately, this is a game, and the game mechanics, flawed or not, are the laws of the universe. Until they change, at which point the new mechanics are the laws of the universe.

Of course we roleplayers bend those laws, and positively tie knots in mere guidelines, but that's where consensus and agreement comes in. Without agreement, if one player takes the actuality as having happened, well, he's technically in the right. It is his right to do so. Just as it would be in your right to retcon and say the entire thing didn't happen. (And yes, this can lead to situations where the characters end up in separate realities, unable to interact further, and a mess with characters they both know).

We'll always have to bend the rules to allow RP to happen. Of course we will, when Johnny Newhero is about to bust Frostfire's group of outcasts in The Hollows just five minutes after Bobby Oldhand, Johnny's SG leader, has been working with Frostfire as a redeemed Hero.

Thus we will always need to agree a comfortable consensus on what our shared realities will actually be, and avoid certain areas handily where consensus is not so clear or easy.

Most of the arguments in the thread are not things that are actually arising for us. At least not right now. Omy's never wanted to PvP any of my characters that I know of, and isn't likely to. I might never be on an IC TF with Wrench Wench and think "Ooh, she's powerful, maybe as powerful as Statesman, in her way".

By and large we are Unionite Roleplayers and we get along. Either by being agreeable and fair with each other, or at worst by simply avoiding groups that play by very different rules to those we like or are comfortable with.

The arguments we're down to now seem to be pretty much just rampant last-wordism. So, considering that I think I have adequately put forward my own opinions and views on how we treat Incarnate as an IC thing, I'm going to bow out of this thread as of now. Start a new thread if there's anything else you want to ask of me. I'll leave this one to whoever wants that last word.

Right.

This is always a contentious issue, because here we have a Roleplay reality that is in direct contradiction with actual or game reality. Getting around such issues is always exceptionally easy if you can gain the assent/agreement of others to go with your alternate reality over the actual.

In an arena battle, you'd simply use the match settings to bring the levels of all involved to the level of the lowest. That gives level pegging for level, and makes the level difference the same non-issue in reality as in the roleplay scenario. We've done this often for some of the Militia training session PvP scenes.

However, roleplay beyond the game parameters always needs that agreement to accept a common reality that is not the actual reality. Turning around to any other player and saying "Actually, my level 20 tank is more powerful than your level 40 blaster because he has x power, and level is not a factor of roleplay" is godmodding.

The only non-godmod version is to discuss and agree with that other player, OOC, whether they are prepared to go along with your reality first.

CB mentioned this precise point way back, and I know from years of experience that he is not alone. Lots of players will say that your character is as tough as you make him, in game. After all, this isn't IRC chat roleplay, this is CoX, and the entire point is to mesh the two things together.

I've played this out both ways. Like I said, for the Militia we'd happily level-cap everyone to the lowest member of the group for IC PvP sessions in the arena. On the other hand, once that fairness was established, the winner of each match was the one who actually won, in the game session. No fudging.

It didn't necessarily mean that my Kinetic defender, White Vampyr, was more powerful than mighty Aurelian the fiery incarnate sun-god. It meant that on the day, my petite little lady was the more focused, evaded his far more powerful attacks, and perhaps he was even put off his best at the thought of fighting a woman. Plus, it was only sparring.

Spiderman has faced off Hulk. Batman has faced off Superman. Both cases, just like your Crab Spider, the loser had the far (by a million miles) more powerful punch. The loser could have literally smashed the winner to a pulp with a single hit.

But that's life sometimes. The best, stongest, etc doesn't always win. Every expert in the world would tell you that Betamax was a far better format technically than VHS ever was (plus was directly related to U-max which the TV programmers themselves filmed on). Most computer geeks will tell you quite happily that Linux is far far better than Windows in every practical way. Oh, and America lost its war in Vietnam.

I tend to think that a character should only be as powerful as you can show them to be in a mission situation. Characters like Dante's Dante Carver, or my own Powerstone are more powerful, but can't call on that power in the heat of a melee.

I tend towards the thought that having any character that can't actually perform in-game as they are supposed to be is a sure sign that they should be a forum and social RP only character until you can be bothered to level them and slot them. Levelling is not at all hard in this game, after all.

And if they are already levelled and still underperform to what you've claimed them to be, well, that's probaby a sign of one of those over-powered uber-characters. Personally, I really dislike those. It smacks of cheating and the worst sort of 'special snowflake-ness'. But then I have almost 30 years of RP gaming experience.

Mechanics usually exist in any game because without it that special snowflake thing turns to arguments and godmoding. No player has the right to say their character is more powerful than mine. That's godmodding my characters' power levels. However, if they can actually, through the game mechanics make that so, then great. We can both agree to that as fair by an entirely disinterested party - the game mechanics. We both have the same fair chance to be special.

Some will play things differently. That's cool too (as long as I don't have to settle their arguments). Play as you want to play.

Unlike several others in this thread, I'm never saying what people must or must not do with regard to their characters. I have however pointed out what canon says, but even there I don't say anyone can't break canon. I've just said don't force it on me, or forget that you'll need the consent of others you RP with in such cases. RP is about sharing reality, and that means you all have to have consensus on which reality you are sharing.

Just as a final example, consider this. If your level 20 tanker wants to pick on my level 50 fortunata, feel free. But I'd suggest you get consensus first on whether I'm willing to be malefactored down to about level 18 just so that you can feel more powerful. My character earned her levels, and they reflect additional experience that a level 20 character doesn't have. She's been back to fight beside Imperious, has beaten down pretty much every member of the 'Surviving Eight' and won, and even faced off Ghost Widow and got away with it. Who are you to say your character is more powerful than mine unless you beg and plead with me to agree to such a reality, or we use a fair system that we agree to decide it?

Its like Wolfram's question ages back. It doesn't have to be that your tanker is weaker than the crab spider. It may be that your Crab Spider is far tougher, luckier, and more experienced than the Tanker gave him credit for. Maybe the Crab Spider wins simply because the Tanker had massively underestimated him.

Since the PvP system, the devs have worked and reworked systems over and again so that all ATs are (roughly) equally powerful, but in different ways. That's a form of canon, but more importantly, it is basic good gamesmanship.

It would indeed sound like IC teaming.

That's what we do at The Militia, The Cadre, and every other RPSG and RPVG I've played in. Its the bit I like most. I also love doing IC TFs and SFs, and have done ever since classic ones like the MMB Rikti Raid (an IC version of the LGTF). The Militia even do a little IC PvP every now and again, sometimes portraying IC training/sparring between teammates, and even more rarely as ways of facing off against a particular boss/villain that we want to do a lot more than just basic fight AI, including talk.

In some of those IC teaming situations, defeats may be taken as defeats (to some extent) requiring medical aid, and in others, merely as being knocked down, winded, whatever as Wolfram said (in which case, any means of getting back up, even to a hospital trip, is assumed to be OOC).

But we do react to them being knocked down, stunned, winded or whatever IC. "Hey, you okay? Looked like you took a nasty hit there!"

On the MMB LGTF, we were told in advance that it was going to be hardcore roleplay rules, and that if you went down in a mission, you would need to be gotten up by teammates in that mission or you were gone. The character Dr Helios did indeed die on that run IIRC. It was very moving for all. Ask Zortel - she was on that adventure too.

I generally find it is rare for RPers to have serious IC repurcussions to missions, that most RPers prefer to avoid any risks of potentially losing a character due to in-game situatios, even where it is an IC mission event. I'd like to see more of it, personally, as it can lead to a lot of high-adrenaline gaming, and help make players feel the risks their characters are taking.

Now, if you are RPing on a mission, and your character is the obvious gimp, really weak, and being totally carried by the rest of the team, then that is an actuality. Of course you expect the rest of the IC team to notice that they are giving you medical attention, or at least helping you up off the floor and dusting you down in every single encounter. If you don't like that fact, then stick to Forum based RP, and leave IC missions for characters that actually can perform remotely realistically - the RP equivalent of acting in the action scenes, rather than just writing them.

I can see how that wouldn't necessarily suit certain RPers. Most especially those who create over-powered characters that cannot possibly ever be created in-game in even the broadest sense. People who've spent years building a mythos that their hero can one-shot any boss without breaking sweat, but in fact can't face 2 even-conning minions at the same time without breaking insps. Cool. Those types of people are not in the RP groups that I am. And I don't team with them twice if I can help it.

Several of us in the Militia group, and others brought in by dint of The Guild of Gentlemen Adventurers, are going to be running the Alpha Slot arc IC, with just a modicum of plot twisting to fit our own story. We are then intending to run a lot more IC TFs, what with wanting the shards etc. Its a lot of fun. IF any RPer out there hasn't tried it, and fancies giving it a go, feel free to drop me a line, or get in touch with The Militia (blueside) or the Cadre (redside) groups for some IC teaming including IC missions and TFs.

Depends on which 'this' you have in mind.

The subject of the thread is the IC interpretation of Incarnate level power, and on that we've been getting closer and closer to consensus, with more and more people stating agreement with my points that:

1. The Well neededn't be magical/mystical
2. The Well can be substituted with anything that fits as a suitable substitute.
3. We can't see Incarnatehood directly, but can see visible Effects thereof

I was the first to say "sees the Well as being more than a stone shaft around a borehole that you draw water from" for instance, and I don't see much argument to that now. I pointed out that The Well is canon for how these powers are coming into the world, and I see general acceptance of that now. And I pointed out that despite the Well being canon, it didn't have to be the only path, and that too has seemingly been generally accepted.

I see plenty of agreement that whether you are or are not Incarnate is a cause, not an Effect, in itself, and is invisible as a game mechanic. And that the Effect can be the visible, IC, can be reacted to part. e.g. going toe to toe with Statesman and not being massively outclassed, if done IC, will be notable IC.

Largely, as Shadowe, Wisdom Incarnate, has declared, we're all saying the same thing on the issue of Incarnates.

I can only assume therefore that your 'this' is one of the side issues, and presumably one directly in the post you quoted.

Ah, the classic ad-hominem attack. "I disagree with you so I'll accuse you of something blatantly false and ridiculous".

Firstly, as Wolfram already pointed out, the specific example you actually quoted in your own post, about the rocket launcher, is proof of precisely the opposite. On screen, the character has just the one weapon at a time, and that disappears into thin air the moment he's not using it.

It is roleplay, that ignores the on-screen appearance, and creates an artificial but immersive reality, that says the character who doesn't have pocket dimensions in which to store equipment is actually carrying a heck of a lot of guns and ammunition, and that the weight might be an issue that should be ... you know, roleplayed.

It is also part of roleplay to notice things that break immersive play. If you weren't roleplaying, and creating that artificial reality, suspending disbelief, and getting into the 'reality that your character is experiencing', you wouldn't care how/where/why an effect comes about. You'd just say "Because the game mechanics make it so".

I also pointed out earlier, that just like Fanservice, my character doesn't beat their chest to have the effects of toughness, IC. But they do have the Effect of toughness. Even if I explain it not as resistance to damage, but as a form of deflection, or even extreme powers of good luck, or some limited foresight. Those are all causes for the same effect - they take less damage from certain attacks.

Considering that your entire post was just an attack based on this obvious falsehood, there's really not a lot to respond to, other than to ask you to tone down the false accusations and play nicely if you want to be taken seriously. Thanks.

From having faced Reichsman's Fist of Tyranny attack in game, you are probably right about the power level. But the Fist of Tyranny doesn't drain his endurance and drop all his toggles which is a huge difference mechanically to a nuke. But whether it is more or less powerful is entirely missing the point.

Your blaster can presumably do both. And from what we've seen, could use the Incarnate AoE effect and immediately follow it with their good old trusty Nuke on top! It is an additional big AoE in addition to everything possible for you at 50.

Non-blasty ATs who have never had a nuke suddenly get one, even if it is more the mini-nuke of the Archery or Dual Pistols set, including the lack of endurance crash, rather than a full on Nova.


No.

But it is no different to seeing an 8 foot man standing at the bus stop and thinking to yourself "He's incredibly tall". Does it mean you have to tell him so? Not unless you have a real lack of impulse control. My characters noting that someone is abnormally powerful, even for a super-hero, when it becomes as readily apparent as seeing that an 8 foot chap is tall is simply a thing called Roleplay.

This is exactly the same straw-man argument as the first point above. This is not an either/or situation. This is about a character with as many powers and abilities as a level 50 super-hero can get suddenly getting more. Its about taking the possible, and then going past it.

A character with one rocket launcher is not an example of this. The character with three rocket launchers, a full auto assault rifle, a flamethrower, pistols, grenade launcher and a crate of 60 grenades, three crates of assorted rockets, who claims to be just a regular soldier is the example. You're noticing something beyond the possible (or not noticing if it is not apparent IC) just like noticing that the 8 ft guy is tall.

I'm actually certain that some RPers will continue to have concept builds such that even if Incarnate are much harder to notice as such in play. The ones with the 'less offensive powers' you suggest. Maybe they took the basic +End alpha slot enhancement on a build that wasn't very well slotted for endurance before. That would be harder to notice, especially if the reason the endurance wasn't well slotted before was because they'd been overslotting damage and losing most of the effect to ED.

That comes under the 'Not immediately obvious' thing. The character's build still has effectively a lot more slots in every power than is possible to a non-Incarnate, but we cannot see that effect because the extra power is lost through poor slotting choices. The character's extra ability is one that isn't easy to see in interaction. But that's assuming just one alpha slot, and that someone who made a build that pushed the ED on Damage wouldn't take the +Damage alpha ...

In that very specific and individual case, my character probably would not notice that theirs had Incarnate-level powers, because effectively they don't. Through poor slotting they negated the extra slots.

That's like where some very gimped 'character concepts' builds are noticeably weaker than most heroes. My characters do notice when another is continually the first to fall, weaker than the sidekicks, and those characters will note to themselves "He's a bit weak for a Hero. Probably does okay against muggers, and thought he'd be fine on our quest to battle Rularu. Wish to hell we'd brought someone more capable.".

If they are using Warburg nukes IC then I'm sure they are also providing a great explanation for them. They will also have at most, what? Three shots? And all different types. They can call one big nuke damage attack down, and then its spent. Maybe they can also call down a buff nuke and a debuff nuke, but the damage one is done and dusted.

That's a lot different to calling on an Orbital station all of their own, time after time after time, endlessly if needs be. Calling down strike after strike after strike just minutes apart. That's someone who rather than having a Warburg Nuke could effectively out-gun all of Warburg! Maybe his orbital canon isn't doing as much damage as a single nuke, but he has an endless, ever replenishing supply.

Not noticing that a character you've teamed with for years suddenly is twice as accurate, can call on an orbital plasma cannon seemingly at will, fights Statesman as though sparring with a Troll minion, and can solo the entire Lady Grey task force mission without needing a single bit of support, healing, or rest ... that would be silly sounding to me.

I'm fairly certain that most people are going to use even just the Alpha slot in the manner that is most effective, most noticeable, for their character. I know I am aiming to get one of the rarer boosts, with the ability to treat opponents as one level lower in regards to hit chances, damage, acc, etc, etc, on pretty much any character I bother to get the alpha slot on. And that is just the first slot of many.

Essentially none. She'd be precisely that sort of 'Incarnate and doesn't know it' type. The fact that she's just produced a flamethrower that only a god-level being could, that breaks the laws of physics is the proof.

Because the best possible flamethrower an non-incarnate can produce is what you can produce for your level 50 with IOs.

Even just the Alpha slot makes a HUGE difference. Let's take Mechano's earlier example of just slotting the +acc Alpha. You now have a character that can easily have the equivalent of 7 or 8 slots worth of enhancements in every single power that accepts accuracy enhances. Something no mortal can really do without the influence of the Incarnate (whatever you define that as, as per all previous discussion).

Or maybe you think if you take the alpha slot for +damage, allowing you to free up one damage slot from every damage power, now you've stayed within the 'laws of physics for mortals' boundaries, because even with the alpha, none of your powers work out as the equivalent of six slots of IOs ... but no. Because you have now got, effectively, more total slots for powers than the rules of non-incarnate physics allow. You've just five-slotted three times more powers than any level 50 could do.

So basically, yes, totally agree that Wrench Wench could deny all Incarnate status stuff to her impossible flame-thrower, but the fact is that it goes beyond what is possible for a level 50. Not just that one flame thrower of course. But the slotting part. It would be like someone carrying more equipment than could possibly be physically carried. It might not be immediately obvious, but it would be there. Only an Inarnate can bend the rules of the universe that way.

That's just my take, and my explanation. Interacting with others IC may be easier. It isn't like the animations thing. Animations are cosmetic. Superficial. The game mechanics come under the Effect, not Cause. You get to make up any Cause you like as an RPer. Your toughness is always on, and doesn't need cheast-beating? Of course. neither does mine. But that you have Toughness as in resistance to certain damage types is Effect. Explain it anyway you like, including ignoring the animations and we're all happy. But you can't deny the effects of having toughness if you have it on, and we see the effects. Not the SFX, but the effects.

Just like having the effect of a shedload more enhancements than any non-Incarnate level character can possibly have is an effect that would be hard and unfair to ignore.

Nothing OOC ever breaks IC reality.

The problem only comes up where you have Incarnate powers quite obviously in an IC mission/situation and insist you don't. So long as people are not IC saying they are doing things only an Incarnate could do, yet also saying they are not Incarnate, there's no need for any issue, explanation, or anything because the problem never arose IC.

Even in that situation, however, I'd almost certainly use my get-out rationale. My character would assume that their character was an Incarnate (whatever that is, empowered by the Well, whatever that is, directly or indirectly), and simply didn't even know it themselves.

Mostly the same thing. Substantially the same thing, just from differing perspectives.

I started to argue because certain people were insisting that the Well is mystical/magical, and unusable to non mystical/magical characters. As when FFM said "too limiting for most folks, especially those who don't have magic based characters".

The Well is whatever you want it to be or perceive it as. That's what I've been saying over and over in various ways since my first post in this discussion. That anyone refusing it because they insist it is magical/mystical is limiting anyone's characters who take the Well as a Force, a far-future AI, a Destiny Engine, or whatever they want that can fit the effects. They were the ones sailing perilously close to god-modding other character's backstories.

I'll take it from a Dev or cancel my sub, but I have no need to take it from players who simply lacked the imaginative thought to say "Oh, sure. It can be that. It doesn't have to be an actual well, as in a hole in the ground with a bucket".

I know that my use of the words 'god-like entity' will have thrown a few people who don't know me well. You see, for me, God is just a label for whatever created the universe. God may be a big bang. God may be some collective spiritual consciousness or energy somewhere between budhism and 'The Force'. God may or may not be sentient (but probably not as we understand it). God is just a nice short word for a complex unknown concept. For me, God never means some spectral beardy guy in the sky.

However, we did have some genuine divergent opinions - namely that Incarnate shouldn't necessarily exist at all. With mentions of it being something a street level hero might have. Or as simple as straightening a wonky gunsight.

The consensus we're arriving at does not agree with those. It works around them in much the same way I suggested. "Sure, that's what they think". As Forrest Gump might put it, "Incarnate is as Incarnate does".

I still, personally, am prepared to accept characters who can seem to keep up with and compete with Incarnates not actually being Incarnate at all, even without their knowledge, if the explanation is good enough. Incarnate level power is 'superhero plus', but we all know from beating Incarnates in-game that the plus doesn't have to be in a single person. A team of people = superhero plus. Finding other explanations for applying the plus than having personally gotten more powerful (i.e. in your character's own person) is cool too, for me.

Zortel's new armour allows her to have the targeting and telemetry of a super-hero AI, right there with a super-hero, inside a suit that is advanced enough to be a super-being in its own right? Perfect, I counted three super-heroes in that team, just all in one suit, and I'd probably class the full resources of the Vigil's AI, housed in an entire tower-block as more than one hero, and more than its portable personification has been able to demonstrate to date.

I'd tip my hat to someone who used their five costume slots to represent an entire tag-team of regular super-heroes, using that method to keep pace with Incarnates. Again, representing not one hero who rose to Incarnate levels of power, but five heroes with identical powers or tech who are teaming up.

Militia is an SG, very heroic. A rogue probably wouldn't fit, with 2-3 active police officer characters in the SG. The Cadre is a Villain group, but firmly on the path collectively towards Rogue rather than full evil. A rogue would certainly fit in morality-wise.

No.

That'll be a future issue, we hope.

Oh, I'm another of the folks in the Militia group of players. WB to the game.

Nicely said.

Its exactly what I was trying to get at with the whole "the Well can be whatever you want" thing. Great example.

I think there will always be a certain amount of haziness to the definition of the Well, just to leave us RPers some wiggle-room, but I could be wrong. And I very much doubt it will remain as utterly undefined and hazy as it currently is. I'm sure there's more to come in that storyline.

We don't have to like the idea of the Well, but it is canon. It exists. How your characters react to its existance is going to be an issue, even if their reaction is to remain blissfully ignorant of it somehow. (But you'll have to avoid GG and Pocket D as both are likely to be as full of Incarnates as they were suddenly overrun with Time-travelers when Ouroboros came along).

God knows I really hate the entire Ouroboros storyline, and have several characters for whom Ouroboros is unknown and non-existing IC (even when they have the portal for OOC use). But I'd never be creating my own lore for Ouroboros that entirely goes against canon and then serving it up to others and expecting that character to be thought sane.

Much of my long-term planning for characters lately has been in determining how each will react to the known, proven, matter of fact existance of the Well as a means to godlike powers.

Only one so far would be likely to refuse to even explore it for curiousity. The one who came by her powers by accident, unasked for and unwanted, and had great trouble in accepting them.

Other characters may be cautious, but they would explore and investigate. They are heroes and villains after all. Not pensioners scared of learning how the sky-plus box programming works.

It is there, and others are using it. How do your characters react to those facts once discovered?

Actually, brilliant example.

I always got around that one by inserting the word 'Known', and that can as easily apply to Incarnate powers.

There were no known heroes existing before Pandora's box was opened.

But any hero or villain who kept a low profile, or who was never proved to have existed, fit in just fine with canon without breaking it. They were thought to be a myth or legend, if thought of at all.

I think saying that "there is no known path to become an 'Incarnate' (however you may define one) other than through the Well of the Furies" is equally applicable.

Let's all have fun creating the unknown paths and ways and means.

You're lucky. Just thinking of it made me actually want to create such a character, just for chuckles.