Imagine No "Origins"; It's Easy If You Try...

Except that the Well's not technology. Everything the Well has touched so far is explicitly stated to be Magic.

This is where my "every power at each level is equal" idea comes into play. If Fire Ball and Ice Ball both do 50 damage, the only thing you're choosing there is coolness. If one offers a DoT and the other a Slow, then you have to build characters into *every* villain group who are resistant to these powers. Then you have characters like Frostfire who would be resistant to both, making him tough for everyone. Extrapolate that out to every ability in the game. Not easy, but probably doable if starting from scratch.

As for particular characters outside CoH, it's hard to map most against the CoH ATs, but the Origins are pretty well thought out and many characters fit neatly into specific Origins. Yes, some like Wolverine cross Origins, since he's a Mutant who was altered by Science, but Superman is Natural, Spider-Man is Science (as are a lot of Marvel heroes: Fantastic Four, Hulk, Captain America), and so on.

My issue with the Well is that whatever it is (I say it's Magic and nothing anyone has said so far has convinced me otherwise), your character becomes that Origin. It's like when the various Marvel characters got cosmic powers and became Captain Universe. For that amount of time they were Cosmic origin, regardless of what they were before. The Incarnate thing is worse because it's permanent. Now, for some of my characters who are part and parcel of the Coh backstory and are Magic-themed, it's fine. For others I don't mind if their origin is changed. But for many it's annoying to have this forced on them.

I'm basically just ignoring the Well for most of my characters and using logical extensions of themselves to explain much higher tier abilities. For example, I have a Kitsune character who, as she gains more and more powers, will gain more and more tails, until once she fills the Omega slot she's got her ninth.

Hell, forget the Incarnate paths, a lot of people ignore the canon descriptions of their primary powersets in favor of their own interpretations; I know a "Radiation" Blaster who was made out of living water and who'd colored it blue and was calling it just that; the -Defense was the ability of her blasts to flow like... well... water, and into the cracks in people's defenses.

It was a brilliant little joy to see and I don't see how creative interpretations of Incarnate powers would be much different - like for a ninja I know who's using Void Judgement as a big smoke-bomb, followed by a two-second faster-than-the-eye ninja flip-out. Then hey, the smoke clears and everyone's suddenly unconscious/dead!

That's part of why Lore (deservedly) got such heavy flak - it was one of the two most complained about things in the Beta because it is harder to reinterpret as yours unlike the other, recolorable, customizable Incarnate powers.

Huh?

The X-Men introduced the idea of various super heroes with a common origin point.

Before the X-Men, heroes just had origin stories. After the X-Men you had 'mutant origins' and 'everyone else' origins. The Flash had chemicals spilled on him with a lightning bolt. Green Lantern found a magic/super tech ring. Batman trained himself up and used gadgets. The FF got hit by Cosmic Rays, Peter Parker got bit, Daredevil got blinded and drenched in radioactive goo and trained. And many 'origin' stories got revamped over the years. DC is especially fond of the revamp, look at what they've done to Power Girl over the years.

Origins in comic books have historically been little more than window dressing and plot devices. They've been some really good plot devices, just read the story lines of both Batman and Spider-Man when the 'original burglar' for each was brought back. (For those who were unaware, it wasn't really the Joker who capped Bat's folks)

Trying to pigeon hole super heroes by some sort of enforced 'origin categorization' didn't happen before Marvel introduced the idea that Mutants were 'hated and feared' by everyone else and went on and on with pretend genocide war stories. And even after the X-Men were published, the idea that other super heroes could be grouped into categories didn't really become explored until Byrnes and Clairmont did the 'Vision of Future's Past' story arc.

Nope.

If because of Darwin my evolutionary genetic code says I am supposed to sprout wings and shoot beams of fire from my eyes when I reach puberty, then it's all natural baby. If I'm smart enough to build a suit, or just lucky enough to find it and figure out how to wear it, then I'm naturally smart or naturally lucky.

Why in the world would anyone limit themselves to a particular 'origin type' for any reason? Pick your origin because it's the one you want. Your reasons for choosing to be Mutant are just as valid as my reasons for choosing Natural, even if every other word in our 'origin story' is exactly the same.

DC had a storyline.... Can't remember exactly when and where, it was during the time when there was like four different Legion of Super Hero books going. The Dominators invaded earth, woke up a bunch of old LSH clones.... lots of stuff happening. Anyways...

One of the many threads in the mega plot at this time had to do with the Dominators trying to figure out why Earth had so many 'super hero' types. Through numerous experiments, the Dominators figured out that earth people had a natural genetic adaptation which caused for extreme mutation in the face of sudden extreme circumstances. In other words, put one hundred humans in the same situation where deadly chemicals are dumped on them at the same time as lightning strikes and most of them will die but some of them will spontaneously erupt with super powers. The super powers they gain will depend upon the circumstances and the personality of the individual.

Humans all carry the genetic code which can cause the 'super change' under stress. We're natural. Sometimes the stress of puberty is enough to cause the 'super change' so we're mutants. The change most often occurs in the face of some disaster or sudden life or death situation, so we're science based accidents.... Or magic based accidents if it's a magic disaster instead of a science disaster.

Anyways, my point remains the same. Origin in CoH is whatever you want it to be.

Also, way back when, origins mattered in terms of which contacts you should run in order to gain access to non-Power 10 SOs or DOs. You could obviously run all of them if you wanted to, but people tended to gravitate towards the ones selling their own origins first.

EDIT: I should add that I personally think Origins as a game mechanic is pretty vestigial now. There are the neat little things like the Origins of Power series and the Well, and I have no objection to it remaining a cosmetic part of the character, but other than that...