Esper/Limit Break Concept with "Touch" Tones

[Mglo]

A character is still taking shape in my head. I'll report when I've got something definitive.

 

[Mglo]

So, I've been thinking and my head keeps going for the obvious ones samster's already listed. However, I liked this idea for an RP because it gives the opportunity to creatively OP a character so I can't let myself settle.

But.

I've only come up with the idea of luck: I am always lucky. I am always lucky except when I'm forced to roll the dice (uh... or something like that)

I'm still not entirely sure, but yeah I felt like reporting something... I'm still mulling things over tho

 

[SamIO]

Luckiest when you least expect it? Caveat: Taking a risk deliberately is the same as falling on your own sword.

 

[Mglo]

I like the idea, but when I picture it in roleplay I'm not entirely convinced.

 

[Asuras]

So, I've been just trying to wrap my head around the idea behind these powers as well, and so I've come up with a few I'd like to throw out. See if they're what you're looking for:

"I am always right, but only when you believe me."
"I cannot be stopped unless someone tries to do so."
"Nothing I do can be undone unless someone knows I did it."

Not sure. :U

 

[SamIO]

@Mglo;
I guess yours (hypothetically) is the sort of character who ends up being forced to take extra precautions at every turn because trying to jump that maybe too-big gap would be suicide — but when that kill squad trying to execute the Mutant Person pulls the trigger, five soldiers' guns jam simultaneously in what can only be a miraculous act of God (so they let them go and run for the nearest Priest).

The difference, I think, is when the character takes a risk, versus when they are put in a risky situation against their will. In a corner, they shine; get too bold, they fall.

@Asuras;
I like the first one especially. Just enough power to blow things out of the water, but without the ability to outright warp reality at a whim. Maybe we should add the extra caveat that they have to believe you before they reckon that their belief will inspire the realization of whatever thing you've asserted as fact, that way you can't just turn to the nearest party member, assert "The antagonist is dead," and turn as they fall.

The last is my favorite. :3
The mere motive to undo something that you have consciously orchestrated will cease to be effective until such time as you have been identified as the mastermind. Gives a paranoid antagonist a bit too much power, but they can't really know, so I guess that'd be silly. ;3

The second one seems a bit too plain, to me. I guess this is the Man With Super Strength among a party of People Who Control Time And Space, in a sense (metaphors not to scale). Maybe if it were a bit more powerful with the same ratio of restrictions...

 

[Mglo]

Yeah. I like the idea of walking on that fine line, plus I can play with it in little ways that don't affect anything and simply demonstrate the character's everyday life. I think luck can come without necessarily putting him in a risky situation, so long as he's not taking a risk.

I'm mostly questioning my ability to do this right, because it's not an ability that the character would have control of, unlike most others.

 

[SamIO]

I'm having a really hard time coming up with an appropriate plot, so I've changed the thread's direction. This concept was originally solely an idea for a party, with no associated plot or setting, so I've really been kind of winging it since I posted the thread. ^.^;

Mine's a muse of impressions — really fickle, really particular — and that seems to be getting in the way, because I don't really know what I'm feeling as far as this roleplay goes. Should I go modern? Futuristic? Are the characters familiar? Strangers? And so on.

But that's just the base setting. More importantly, I have no idea where I want to go with these characters, except that I'd like some mild action and moderate drama, much as in the tone of Touch, but I only want to emulate that canon in atmosphere, not in content. What sort of antagonists will we encounter? Why do we have these powers? What decisions will our characters have to make?

I'd like your guys' input, first because I'm hitting a wall with my muse, and more significantly because you're all part of this, too, and I want to appeal to your interests. :3

 

[Mglo]

I'll ramble. Maybe it'll help inspire/generate ideas.

I think it'd be more interesting and in accordance with the Touch atmosphere to hit the ground running. Which is why I'd suggest for the characters to be strangers brought together by strenuous circumstances. Skip the polite and slow introductions and just crash into each other as they're brought together by a common goal/circumstance.

When I first read the thread I pictured a futuristic setting, I don't know why. I suppose when thinking about the origin of their powers my mind went straight to a more sci-fi explanation than a supernatural one. I guess that means we ought to think about which of the two, or other, genres we'd rather lean towards and go from there?

Of course, what I'm saying sounds just as vague probably. I might be adding more than some mild action in my head but I think what I said is still valid since it's non-specific. Strangers colliding would give plenty of drama, even more so if we add the whole coming to terms with their powers thing.

As for antagonists, I think a futuristic setting would add variety to that. If there's tech they can put up a better fight than if it was another world. And it wouldn't make sense to involve magic since that would make the character's abilities less OP than aimed for. Apart from tech armed enemies we'd have the option of enhanced or the one antagonist samster talked about.

I'll stop here, since I'm not adding much to the topic. But it's a start, and I'll seriously think on it to be more specific in future.

 

[Kingofheart]

I'm having a really hard time coming up with an appropriate plot, so I've changed the thread's direction. This concept was originally solely an idea for a party, with no associated plot or setting, so I've really been kind of winging it since I posted the thread. ^.^;

Mine's a muse of impressions — really fickle, really particular — and that seems to be getting in the way, because I don't really know what I'm feeling as far as this roleplay goes. Should I go modern? Futuristic? Are the characters familiar? Strangers? And so on.

But that's just the base setting. More importantly, I have no idea where I want to go with these characters, except that I'd like some mild action and moderate drama, much as in the tone of Touch, but I only want to emulate that canon in atmosphere, not in content. What sort of antagonists will we encounter? Why do we have these powers? What decisions will our characters have to make?

I'd like your guys' input, first because I'm hitting a wall with my muse, and more significantly because you're all part of this, too, and I want to appeal to your interests. :3

First off: Greetings, been off for a while. I´d have made a post by now otherwise.

Second: I didn´t go into much detail earlier on what my character power was, but I guess I could expand more on that now. I did mention it had to do with an idea spinning around "Spare time", basically this bending of his occurs when the need of time to spare arises. For instance the example I gave before. A person is getting late for work and suddenly instead of getting pass the time he had to meet with, this person found himself earlier and with time to spare. What actually happened is that time itself stretched up to meet with the appointment or target in mind, enough for this person to have time before eventually having to ,in this case, go to work. Time will continue to be perceived by everyone equally and normally, he is not creating time or accelerating/deaccelerating it, simply stretching it.

Put into a more extreme situation. This ability can become a form to preserve his life or avoid danger by enhancing the time he has to react. Say a bus was about to run him over and he realizes it. He needs time to spare to think and react to this situation. Time will start to stretch to afford so and overcome the bus.

Into an absurd situation, say a missile was heading towards the city he is at and he realizes he needs time to spare to leave or to find a solution, time will once again afford this for him.

However there is a weakness to this. This ability will only work to produce spare time, if anything were to ocurr after the spare time was generated then he would be completely exposed untill that time is up. Basically spare time cannot be generated when theres already time to spare produced. Also this ability will work for combat but it is in the field where it exposes it´s weaker side given he wouldn´t be able to see through all of the actions taking place at once, enough to precisely use this power in his favor, more so if facing multiple oponnents. Meaning, the more dangerous situations that take place simultaneously, the less effective this becomes.

Third: I also agree to go on with the futuristic setting for the same reasons mentioned above. As for the relationship of the protagonists, i guess the idea of them getting together due to a specific circunstance where their objectives align is good and will give room for a wider variety of different personalities and backgrounds.

For some reason i´d like to think that the antagonists would be either people who are looking to use their powers for profit/establishing a hierachy or people who, lacking this unique traits, are afraid of loosing control and desperately seek to eliminate them and or contain them. I admit this aren´t very original or revolutionary concept for antagonistic characters but it could work for the smaller antagonist, i´d think the main one to have much deeper reasons for oposing the protagonists.

I thought the powers could have something to do with a recent change in the world triggered by some event but the characters be on the loose of what actually happened...

 

[SamIO]

Thanks, you guys; it helps a lot knowing what you're interested in. ^.^;

Hitting the ground running in a science fiction setting sounds good to me! Still a bit iffy on the antagonist cast, but I think we can figure that out along with the nature of the abilities down the road. I think this at least gives me somewhere to go off of, but I like where this is going, so keep it coming. :D

I'm thinking about putting up the thread, now that I have a clue what I'm thinking about, but I'm sure once I get to writing I'll encounter specific problems again; I'll be sure to keep you guys posted. :3

 

[Cresion Breezes]

Um, just going to ask, so the powers featured in this RP are powers that just exists in an individual? So it's not that one individual who can control his/her's power and do what he/she wishes with the power, instead reality and the laws of the universe automatically allow the powers of these people to be present without completely breaking the concept of reality.

I'm really interested in this setting because it seems really different from typical extra sensory powers setting, but the limited of one's powers in this seems very complicated to grasp, it seems like that the traits listed as example really have no boundaries as in where they can go up to. This way one trait may become either the most useless or the most overpowered thing depending on how the universe acts towards it and how the person who posses the trait uses it. It also seems like that the powers can't be directly controlled by the person possessing it, one's actions may be influenced by the power, but the power itself can't be controlled.

So yes, this looks very complicated, and I'm not sure how well I can keep up with logic and concept behind this, but as for now I'm interested, hoping for more details on the setting. :D

 

[SamIO]

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what my exact intentions were when I thought up the idea, either. Really I'm just trying to parse a feeling I had in the back of my mind.

The idea is that the powers are more a conspiracy of the laws of physics than an aspect of the character's physiology. Whether a character has a lot of control over the power depends on how well they exploit it; when a character becomes adept at taking advantage of their — well — advantage, they will start to find ways to force it into their favor as well as minimize its pitfalls.

The structure of a rule is essentially an absolute fact followed by its sole exception. I feel like it's necessary to discuss potential implications of said rule before putting it onto an approved character to manage relative balance and general effectiveness.

As for what distinguishes these powers from standard superpowers, I'll just say this is a sort of I'll know it when I see it thing, because I really don't know how to describe the abstract concept in my head — even to myself. The best I can say is that there's a certain feel to the powers that makes them different, and I think part of the fun is thinking up something that's really neat as a result of being based on a different impression of science fantasy (thus requiring more creativity to come up with). :D

Anyhow, that's all I've got. My muse and my mind haven't been in line for a while, anymore. ^.^;

 

[Kingofheart]

I had this sort of discussion with a friend about when i was making my power and he was making his. I´ll quote something he said about a week or two ago when we I had problems tackling the abilities. Hope it comes close in any way. if anything perhaps to further develop on what this powers are.

"!For any practical purposes.. this 'law of never missing' is not any different from just having the classical superpower of perfect aim. The result is the same, you shoot. Something gets hit every time. The difference between both scenarios appears when you ask WHY something gets hit every time.

For example, suppose there is an urn in front of your bed. And that every day after you wake up you dive your hand into it and retrieve a small ball with a number written on it. You find that every day the ball you retrieve always ahs the number 1 written on it. And you propose 2 possible explanations :

Explanation 1. Every single ball in the urn has 1 written on it.
Explanation 2. Whenever a ball is retrieved from the urn, an invisible creature called "Glochsnatt", quickly changes the number written on it, from whatever it was, to 1. To troll you.

Regardless of which explanation is true, the results are always the same. That is, you will always draw balls with 1's on them. That means that you can't test the system to figure out which explanation is true. Why? Well, no matter what experiment you do, the results you would get if explanation1 was true, would be exactly the same as the results you would get if explanation 2 was true.
Similarly, this 'laws' are akin to explanation 2. They... sound kind of weird. You'd think explanation 1 to be more likely.... but you can't never test them, unless you find an experiment in which each explanations leads to different results.

So for example. In the case of 'flight', here's what the two explanations would look like :
1. The individual was born with some special ability that allows flight. (Be it genetic... supernatural, whateves.)
2. There is some sort of universal law that is making it such that the universe conspires to make this individual be able to fly.
Whether the individual is conjuring magic to bend the winds to his will and thus propel himself into the air... or if the winds are bending spontaneously in response to some weird law... we can't tell the difference. The answer is unknowable. The concept exposed in the thread appears to be that explanation 2 IS true."

 

[SamIO]

The first explanation is classical superpowers logic, and I wanted to subvert that trope here (partly because they are pretty much done to death with a side of bloody horse pulp). There is an aspect of fantasy to this, because while the powers are scientifically measurable phenomenon, they are totally devoid of any conventional explanation: They simply are as far as mainstream science is concerned, as absolute as the existence of reality itself (and that's the entire idea).

In this roleplay, I have been considering implementing a canon-snippet I had been using in an offline roleplay that fundamentally boils down to the way Toaru Majutsu no Index handled its espers — personal reality. Essentially, the logic of cogito ergo sum is our phlebotinum, explaining both existence itself and ultimately the nature of espers in this universe. These infinities are individuals who have been exposed to (artificially, somehow) a concept which in many ways is comparable to Doctor Who's Time Vortex.

Characters are not necessarily (or perhaps at all) aware of the information that allows them to do the things they do (maybe it's simply beyond the capacity of conscious human comprehension to realize that they don't exist unless they believe they do and thus could theoretically lucid dream their way through the world as an omnipotent entity of whimsy). Which power a character possess is at least partly correlated with themselves, which gives a reasonable explanation for characters whose powers really are a blessing in ways that may not necessarily be for others.

Rambling

I've always had a hard time understanding it as a scientific aspect (though not necessarily accepting it for suspension of belief) when canons describe superpowers as a biological event, because you then come to questions like, "Where did that lightning bolt come from?" "Their nervous system." "Which produced enough voltage to pierce fifty meters of atmosphere and then kill four men? And not kill them?" Or in a harder science fiction setting (like Alphas) which is a bit smarter about its choice of powers, but still goes and does things that ask the question, "Where did those pheromones come from?" "Their endocrine system, out of pores in their skin." "Their endocrine system, which in every other way except this one way is identical to every other human on the planet?" "Yes." "That somehow evolved naturally?" "Yes." "Despite the fact that there is no evolutionary precedent for such a sudden and specific leap in features?" ^.^;

 

[Kingofheart]

yeah when you put espers into this I could tell there would have some influence coming from toaru. It feels like this abilities work like laws on their own because that way they´d be fundamentaly unquestionable and regardless of how profound it may turn to be, theres always more to learn from them. (on a side note) In which case the word "LAWS" sounds kinda cool for naming them right? just a thought.

 

[Mglo]

You people and your brainy brains! *goes to meditate in an attempt to come up with a brainy idea*

 

[Mglo]

I've been thinking about the context in which we would apply our characters and their pertaining laws, and tackling the idea of a plot. For example, the circumstances that bring them together, the possible reasons that would arise to keep them together, and their general goals (as it were) for moving forward which would in turn bring about an antagonistic force because I don't think said force would appear just BECAUSE. Otherwise, we would be treading dangerously towards some elaborate slice of life thing I don't wanna go for.

Having said that, I've come up with nothing that I find satisfactory, but decided to come back here and ramble once more in hopes that writing it out generates more ideas in myself or the rest of you.

And without further ado, rambling:

I suppose the most important thing to tackle is the circumstances, since an antagonist force can be figured out down the road as Samster pointed out.
I've just been thinking about what could possibly bring together a variety of personalities and keep them together long enough to develop some sort of reason to actually stick together. Especially, given the fact that the laws they are gifted with are non-explainable and therefore unprecedented, and unique to each individual. So then, assuming all characters have absolutely nothing in common that could tie them to each other somehow (i.e a criminal record, a zip code [which wouldn't make sense cause what are the odds!], etc. etc.) it seems even more improbable D:

Unless I'm missing the mark, something has to tie them together in order to make the circumstances that force their meeting work. Only thing I could come up with was some corporate hands reaching out for them with vague ideas about "abilities." Perhaps even a future antagonist is involved, perhaps even one that is gifted with a law of his own and therefore assumes that if he exists others might too. (a la Unbreakable I suppose)
With corporate backing a group might be amassed somehow, but given the uniqueness of the laws not everyone in the group would have them just be suspected of having some vague capacity that might point towards a law.

If I'm making sense, we could kill off a bunch of the amassed group while showing the usefulness/effectiveness of our character's laws.

.... there's something about this whole corporate thing that doesn't have me convinced though. Use your brainy brains again D: (haha I jest)

EDIT:
This seems to take us further away from the Touch atmosphere and more into the sci-fi genre, but I think it's all in how we approach it in the actual roleplaying so I won't shy away from blurting out anything that comes to mind.

 

[Kingofheart]

"If I'm making sense, we could kill off a bunch of the amassed group while showing the usefulness/effectiveness of our character's laws."

This aspect really makes me wonder, are we all from the beginning capacitated to kill? As in were we all exactly leading normal lifes before this events took place? Or do we all inheritly possess a moral for killing from a specific background?

 

[SamIO]

Categorically, our characters (at least for my preferences) are initially normal, everyday people; but that doesn't mean some of us weren't part of law enforcement or military organizations, so there's no reason a few individuals couldn't be conditioned to potentially lethal force already. Of course, if everybody is a Mister MercenaryGrunt McSoldierMan, the roleplay's probably not going to be in the light I think we want to portray it in.

Hm; zip code ...
What if the infinities were an artificially-induced phenomenon — somebody's grubby fingers getting into things they shouldn't be?

I feel like the stickiness for the characters will best be brotherhood in adversity, so I think we need an early game antagonistic force to push them together. How might our characters be forced to reveal themselves in public?

Or perhaps our conflict is quiet, with whoever started this mess trying to reap their rewards and forgetting that they're dealing with autonomous people.

Suppose we really steal some Touch content and somebody's pulling strings in ways beyond conventional means. :o