What super power would you choose?
By
2short2care,
Posted on: 2011-04-28 06:58 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
Oh, that's easy.
"Grant Common Sense"
Think of the benefits - those a**hats on the road who do 85 in the rain with bald tires? ZAP. People who insist on parking monster SUVs in "compact" labelled spaces? ZAP. People who call in for customer support and are too busy arguing with me to listen? ZAP.
Sure, it's not glamorous or exciting or dramatic, but I suspect the world would be a better place after a while.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
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I would go with energy/sub atomic level particle manipulation. Depending on the level of control, you could do just about anything.
Shapeshifting. Though I wouldn't argue with the ability to shapeshift myself and anything I am in contact with. That would be a rather rad power.
A useless power that would be amusing. Turning others into cat girls for an hour.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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Even better...|
Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
A useless power that would be amusing. Turning others into cat girls for an hour.
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Turning others, regardless of their current gender, into a cat girl for an hour.
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Because it's regarded as 'cheating' and outside of the spirit of the question. It's like having 3 wishes. You're not allowed to wish for more wishes.
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Originally Posted by Beastyle
Why people never choose "reality warping" when this question comes up, I'll never know.
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Do the Granny Weatherwax thing and just makes others *think* they've been turned into something else. Technically less cruel and more entertaining for passers by.|
Originally Posted by Dark One
Even better...
Turning others, regardless of their current gender, into a cat girl for an hour. |
@2short2care. I'm not the only one to share this pointless gift. This makes me happy.
Why couldn't it be lotto numbers or horses in races we get precog hunches about.
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Now, what would be even more entertaining is that the person transmogrified into said cat girl assumes the mannerisms and personality OF a cat girl. The more divergent that personality is from their baseline personality, the better.|
Originally Posted by Carnifax_NA
Do the Granny Weatherwax thing and just makes others *think* they've been turned into something else. Technically less cruel and more entertaining for passers by.
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Then, the icing on the cake is that once turned back into a normal human, the subject knows and remembers exactly what they did as a cat girl.
Bonus points if you turn a big, burly, stereotypically masculine guy into a valley-sounding cat girl with a prediliction for pink and frilly things.
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Because I find myself wishing that every person alive would '**** off and die' about 5 times a day (I work in a retail environment). Giving me the power to make that happen with a thought would be bad.|
Originally Posted by Beastyle
Why people never choose "reality warping" when this question comes up, I'll never know.
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| But picking ANY super power is an easy question; what about 'useless' powers? If you had to pick something that's out-of-the-ordinary, but not extraordinary, what kind of power would you take? For example, I'd like to be able to make things glow by touching them. I always thought that'd be pretty rad. Suddenly, everything becomes a lamp. |
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@Starflier
confuse easy
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You could always just call a mulligan on it.|
Originally Posted by Starflier
Because I find myself wishing that every person alive would '**** off and die' about 5 times a day (I work in a retail environment). Giving me the power to make that happen with a thought would be bad.
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Or say, "I get a Do Over!".
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I have, in the extremely unlikely case that I obtain the favor of a genie in this lifetime, drafted the wording for a single wish that grants me omnipotence with absolutely zero repercussions, no matter how malevolent the djinn might be. |
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Because it's regarded as 'cheating' and outside of the spirit of the question. It's like having 3 wishes. You're not allowed to wish for more wishes.
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I do not need "more wishes." A single wish will serve.
As for "cheating," well, that's the point of creating multiple worlds, isn't it? You can set up certain restrictions upon yourself and play out infinite lifetimes on infinite worlds in infinite combinations. "In this world I can do magic, but only on a Tuesday." "In this world I can fly, but never after 5pm."
You should probably share that verbiage. For the good of everybody.
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How about the ability to manipulate your personal Time perception.
Wanna take a long nap at lunch, adjust your time so minutes become hours.
Wanna get through that long boring whatever, adjust you time so hours become minutes.
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It is quite literally pages long. You have to be very specific with genies, y'know.
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Originally Posted by MagicFlyingHippy
You should probably share that verbiage. For the good of everybody.
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ROFL|
Originally Posted by Dark_Respite
Oh, that's easy.
"Grant Common Sense" Think of the benefits - those a**hats on the road who do 85 in the rain with bald tires? ZAP. People who insist on parking monster SUVs in "compact" labelled spaces? ZAP. People who call in for customer support and are too busy arguing with me to listen? ZAP. Sure, it's not glamorous or exciting or dramatic, but I suspect the world would be a better place after a while. Michelle aka Samuraiko/Dark_Respite |
Win.
EDIT: I'd be more inclined to use it more on some of the people in this game. Especially the type that can't read on trials.
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A particularly evil power would be the power to grant others any power you'd like withfor any amount of time you'd like with any restrictions on the power you'd like.
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It's nice to know I'm not the only one that's thought this way. In short terms, mine would be shapeshifting. In long terms, I have actually thought this out - years and years ago mind you - and I'm sure it would have been pages long as I worked it out to try and avoid any possible loopholes.
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Originally Posted by Beastyle
It is quite literally pages long. You have to be very specific with genies, y'know.
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In the original story of Aladdin, he had as many wishes as he wanted, it's only later adaptations that placed the 3 wish restriction to make it more dramatic.
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
Because it's regarded as 'cheating' and outside of the spirit of the question. It's like having 3 wishes. You're not allowed to wish for more wishes.
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For this reason, my genies required 10 words or less. Wishes are so dangerous in D&D (oh the Humanity.) |
Originally Posted by Beastyle
It is quite literally pages long. You have to be very specific with genies, y'know.
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Efeetri? Well now THAT was danger. They let you dig as deep as you want; the more complicated the wish, the worse the twisting. (Oh, The Dwarvity, Hobbitity and Elveny!)
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Instead of a word limit, I'd place it as "as much as you can get in a single breath". That way, the wisher is more inclined to speak as fast as possible, thus insuring some form of messing up. Though one could get around that by saying, possibly, "I wish for the outcome expressed by the words on this paper to be fulfilled to the spirit and intent of the wisher." or something along those lines.
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Originally Posted by Derangedpolygot
For this reason, my genies required 10 words or less. Wishes are so dangerous in D&D (oh the Humanity.)
Efeetri? Well now THAT was danger. They let you dig as deep as you want; the more complicated the wish, the worse the twisting. (Oh, The Dwarvity, Hobbitity and Elveny!) |
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Say you're a blind genie...or it has to be written in [insert dead language] or you won't comprehend the intent.
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Originally Posted by Dark One
Instead of a word limit, I'd place it as "as much as you can get in a single breath". That way, the wisher is more inclined to speak as fast as possible, thus insuring some form of messing up. Though one could get around that by saying, possibly, "I wish for the outcome expressed by the words on this paper to be fulfilled to the spirit and intent of the wisher." or something along those lines.
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Genies, as found in popular mythology, appear to be creatures bound by a geas. As such, part of the magic appears to be able to understand and communicate with the wisher. If the wisher must make a wish in a dead language, then the wisher wouldn't be able to make a wish, interfering with the function of the geas. Intent is comprehended by the fact that wording is so sloppy in most described wishes that the wish-granter can do the worst-possible pathing to the desired outcome.|
Originally Posted by Leo_G
Say you're a blind genie...or it has to be written in [insert dead language] or you won't comprehend the intent.
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Say you wished to be the richest man on Earth. Worst-possible pathing? Remove all other people, or just have every other man on Earth die. You get the wish, but the intent of the wish was ignored, giving credence to understanding the intent, but following the letter of the wish.
Or say you wished to have 10 quadrillion dollars. Is that American dollars? Zimbabwean dollars? Is that money obtained legitimately? Are you going to have the tax man or various cartels knocking on your door for their disappeared loot? Again, intent is "understood", but without specifying intent of the wish be granted as well, you get screwed.
It's also compounded by the djinn. Are they good, evil, neutral, capricious, wise, or whatever?
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Reality warping without Omniscience is essentially personal and cosmic suicide.|
Originally Posted by Beastyle
Why people never choose "reality warping" when this question comes up, I'll never know. With reality warping, you could have ALL the powers; you would shape the universe to your will. Anything you'd want to do, you could do it. Me, personally, I'd create multiple worlds with alternate physical laws or different timelines and play around in them.
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| But picking ANY super power is an easy question; what about 'useless' powers? If you had to pick something that's out-of-the-ordinary, but not extraordinary, what kind of power would you take? For example, I'd like to be able to make things glow by touching them. I always thought that'd be pretty rad. Suddenly, everything becomes a lamp. |
Incidentally, something very close to that superpower showed up in the scifi tv series Time Trax. It was referred to as "time stalling": the skill whereby for brief moments someone could perceive time passing extremely slowly, giving them the ability to react to that situation far faster and with far more thought than ordinarily possible.
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Can have super strength without invulnerability. Exoskeletons are already capable of doing it. But there are not many heroes or villains with just invulnerability or super strength. Although I can't imagine any decent person with super powers going out into public without a dampening device or some control over their powers. Super strength has to be worse than Midas touch since you can at least sell who you touch to certain collectors. Victims of super strength are such a pain to clean up.
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Originally Posted by Dark One
Problem with super strength without an invulnerability modifier (or at least increased toughness) is that your muscles would rip right off of your bones when you go to do something. Unless one is going the mystical route of super strength. Even with a force field, you would still have biological issues that it couldn't help with.
You would also need extremely good involuntary reflex control, otherwise, super strength could be seen more as a curse than a blessing. See Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven. Heck, even breathing could be an issue, in that you could inhale so much that your lungs pop and/or burst right out of your chest. |
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*Fires*
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*pulls it off*
If I were ever worried about being seen changing (which I wouldn't), I'd perfect the 'smokescreen costume change emote' in that, I'd first shift into a dense smoke/fog before reverting my shape from what I am naturally to something else.