So how does your character concept explain exemplaring?

Why use the power to destroy a city on a small cabin? The same question applies here.

I didn't think about it tbh, but if someone asks, they'll get an answer that I find suitable, even if that answer never existed before.

I just look at is as one of my more established people coming along to help out "the next generation", or to be a back-up for other heroes who aren't quite as experienced as they are. They don't use their full range of abilities because it's not their show. They're only in that issue as supporting cast... and they know it.

My potent Hand Wave Technique is more powerful than any discontinuity reality can throw my way!

I just explain it as "Part of being a good team player is not being a showboat, so you play at the level of your teammates."

My characters ignore the whole concept of experience levels. Game mechanics are a necessary evil, not something that character concept is subject to.

The easiest way to lose me when I'm reading a fanfic is when the author does something like write Ms. Liberty as if she actually spends all of her time standing in Atlas Park, to the point that she puts up a sign or, better yet, a hologram as a stand-in when she takes a bathroom or lunch break. (Then again, if the Vindicators and Freedom Phalanx actually do spend all of their time smiling for the paparazzi then maybe that explains the state of the city...)

Same with exemplaring or mentoring or any other game mechanic. Do you imagine the your hero fights by throwing a punch and then standing there with his fist pulled back, waiting for his muscles to recharge before throwing the next one? Exemplaring is no different. It doesn't require an explanation, IMO.

One time, while helping out SG-mate and thus exemplaring from 50+1 to 12, I had the flu in game, and was thus operating way below usual efficiency.

Thats the only time I've tried to explain it though.

Gear Kitty actively assesses the threat level and capability of nearby enemies and responds with appropriate actions that do not create lasting harm upon her foes. This is only trumped by persons or things masquerading as those she trusts. Those she beats it to tiny, bloody pulps.



Cindertail loves being in the action, if she went full throttle against weaker enemies, it'd end too soon!


But I think my favorite explanation for game mechanics happening/hobbling my own character combo is R4V3R. She loves the action too. But she's not spectacularly powerful, having petered out just shy of being on the same level as her friends, giving her a slight inferiority complex. At the same time though, she has discovered the nature of her powers, and a way to boost them for a short time, and she's been able to create a suit that lets her extended that boost as long as needed. The only time I allow myself to use Medium or Large inspirations on her are either when she's used a boost, or in the suit. It limits her power, but Smalls and Domination go a long way.

*Sigh*

I don't try to explain it - I accept it as a game mechanic.

The way I see it, everytime I experience the world through another player's perspective, my toon is actually operating in a facsimile dimension, home to whoever holds the star. Greyed out powers are a consequence of this phenomenon, as every team member becomes subject to the timeframe of their leader's home dimension - perhaps that dimension exists in a different point of history, even if the calendar date matches with everyone else's, where Ouroboros rules apply.

Yes, I deny your existence, fellow players! Mwahahahahah!!!... erm... umm, disreguard that last part, please.

When I exemplar, I'm "guest starring" in their comic book and therefore have lowered effectiveness, like when the X-Men turn into idiots whenever The Avengers are a few page turns away; or Galactus gets beaten by some schmuck because the schmuck's creator wants to prove how awesome their pet character is.

A combination, for me, of what various people have said: holding back to not overshadow the rookie(s), "character is as powerful as the comic-book writer needs them to be", and a whole lot of just ignoring it, as looking at such things too closely tends to end poorly.

They view it like a trip to AE.

My very first character (Nowhere Woman, energy/energy blaster) explained that as an entity from outside time, created out of pure mathematics and inserted into the timestream by the (**redacted for copyright purposes, but it was totally the Time Lords**), she was capable of perceiving that Paragon City (and later the Rogue Isles) was the center of a massive temporal anomaly. Time was disjointed, and individuals' timestreams were running in loose parallel instead of properly synchronized.

Those five muggers that a superhero just ran past as if they didn't matter? To you, they're a real threat, but to him, they're mere echoes of a long-forgotten past. They don't see him, he doesn't care about them...although he could disperse them with a single punch, if he wanted. Exemplaring and sidekicking were just more examples of this temporal weirdness.

It's an explanation that's served me well over the years.

My characters are powerful enough that they see no need to waste effort crushing the weak. Why unleash my full fury against a lone PPD Officer when I may need my strength for a greater adversary later? A wise villain knows when to hold back.

Besides, if I feel the need to atomize a few peons, I can always take a quick trip over to Sharkhead and Ionic Judgment the local Scrapyarder protests.

I magic it by saying that I am holding my punches so I can fight on level with my teammates.