Oddest Power WTFery

[txernest 0]

So, you know that moment when you're reading an app, and everything is going good, and then you see it. The strangest, most nonsensical power definition ever. It's anything from scientifically impossible within the universe restraints to weirdly misconstrued via adaptation to just plain oddly written. What are the strangest powers that you've seen given to characters in a roleplay?

 

There's quite a few that I've seen, but by far the strangest and most "WTF?!" moment I've had when reading an app was a snake-shifting mutant whose entire science was wrong. From misspelling her snake form's name every time it was mentioned to a listed weakness being cold water negating venom to the fact that she grew exponentially in size when shifted and yet could eat an entire cow in that form and shift back to human without exploding immediately after to the fact that she seemed to believe that snakes are squishy slimy things, everything about the power-set was completely nonsensical.

 

What are your stories of weird power-sets? Was it just badly written or was it badly conceived from top to bottom? How strict do you get about the science within your settings?

[Amelia 25]

She strangest power set I came across was a long time ago actually. It was a power that allowed the person to blow gas bubbles. Like it was contained in a bubble and it could burst and than a gas would escape. There was not much more explanation to it, it was not on a site i was an admin on but I was very confused by it. On top of that the gas would have different colors but besides not a lot of useful applications. 

[Mistress Of The Obvious 73]

I'm a den of weird over here. Characters I have include:

 

- A girl who murders people and transforms them into traditional wooden Japanese dolls for an evil entity. Other powers include: teleportation using the doll as an anchor, spying (seeing through the doll's eyes), manipulating a doll through a soul transfer, and blood clean up.

 

The idea is that the murder victim's soul is stuck in the new doll body, and can see, hear, smell, think, but can't interact with the world. The victim would gradually lose all memory and go insane or catatonic. So she can take over the body of a doll, but the murder victim would take over her body.

 

- I also play that evil entity, who has a co-dependent fatherly relationship with her. They both gain power through each soul, and if she dies, he dies too. He's paranoid about gaining more power, gaining another servant, and his servant gaining loved ones and eventually finding a way to destroy him that won't kill her. He usually lets her do the work, but is there to protect her if things go wrong. He's a dream entity. She was terrified of the mad hatter from Alice and Wonderland and appeared to her in a similar form. She screamed a clipped, "Matt Adder," so he goes by that name.

 

 - A 93 year old woman who survived being a comfort woman (sex slave) for the Japanese military and the Hiroshima bombing, but looks middle age and she can deliberately drive people to commit suicide with her music. She wants vengeance to prevent the same thing happening to her. The draw back on her power is that she gains an injury from each incident at random, so it can potentially kill her. She also has a strange sense of humor. She'll do things like have someone chop off their hand and serve it as a sandwich to a loved one.

 

- A humanoid plant. She's a dream entity who is now a side show performer. She's two years old, looks adult, and was created by a dying child. Her appearance changes with the seasons. In the summer she grows flowers on her face and body, in spring and fall it's moss, and winter twigs. Her hair and eye color changes as well. She can control plants, has an empathetic connection with them. Besides the obvious instant growth stuff, she can do things like make plants sing, and seeds shoot fireworks.

 

On a game that's taking years to develop (sorry @Elena), I have a giant rhinoceros beetle who is a third gender, and another character who can manipulate shadows and turn them into solid objects. On that game, a friend of mine developed a species of harpy that are essentially a production house of magic, don't really follow the basic laws of physics, and are the reason why magic exists. They look like they're about twelve, lay eggs, live to be about thirty, and have stretchy bones and ligaments so they can swallow rhinoceros or a small elephant. The point of that species is basically what crazy stuff we could come up with and it fit in a universe. So we got into their reproductive system, digestive, and also their culture like, how their social structure is, what games they play, etc.

 

On a site idea I had with him (not sure when that will be), I have two characters, one with powers similar to "Harold and the Purple Crayon" where he can draw something inorganic and create it, and an empath who must transfer wounds onto herself to heal others.

 

There's a big difference of having a crazy concept you want to explore and having an ill thought concept, sometimes they cross a bit, but for the most part I think they're different beasts. Some people just want to play a toaster.

[txernest 0]

The first two sound like the perfect plot to a horror movie, actually. Like. I want to watch that. Right now. XD

 

And yeah, those actually seem more along the lines of "I thought through this crazy powerset" than "here is something I clearly didn't bother to do the research on". Like, I'd happily read things with most of them, actually. 

[Orchid 12]

Erin, I'm just going to look at you real hard, and you can read my mind. You know what I'm thinking about. You know. =.=

[txernest 0]

@mellomeme I do know, XD. The snake power set is the same person actually. SO YOU KNOWWWWW. YOU KNOW. (Side note: This is why I posted this topic, heh.) 

[Mistress Of The Obvious 73]

Why thank you! I have my dollmaker, the evil entity, the songwriter (the dollmaker is one of her singers, she doesn't know of the songwriter's ambitions), the side show performer, and a guy who transforms into a nue on my site that's just started beta.

 

The guy who transforms into a nue is a classic 1940s the Wolf Man archetype. A nice kind gentle giant of a man who faces strange black outs and dreams of being this beast. A nue is a creature with a monkey head, a tanuki body, tiger legs, and a snake tail. The tip of the snake is the snake's head. He makes the sound of a bird, can leap buildings (in mythology the nue can fly), produce lightning from his mouth, and a big black cloud that spreads illness. A nue is a Japanese mythological creature.

 

There's a lot more to my dollmaker and the evil entity, but that's for another thread. They were created along with the songwriter on a supernatural site. So horror was the point. The songwriter was inspired by the Japanese horror movie the Suicide Club/Circle. As far as my dollmaker and entity, that's a long story, but it's my own crazy head. I decided to create a site for these characters because I couldn't find a supernatural/horror/modern fantasy site where they fit and I have more stories to tell with them.

[txernest 0]

@Mistress Of The Obvious That sounds amazing and I maaaaaaay have to stalk your site because I lovelovelove reading horror-themed things.

[Daisy Johnson 0]

Came across a character that you couldn't lie to, verbally at least. Not only that but she could also probe your mind and get the truth... but that entailed destroying your mind and leaving you insane/catatonic with no chances of recovery.

[Death Kitten 200]

2 minutes ago, Daisy Johnson said:

Came across a character that you couldn't lie to, verbally at least. Not only that but she could also probe your mind and get the truth... but that entailed destroying your mind and leaving you insane/catatonic with no chances of recovery.

I, uh, how could anyone play that character in an rp without just destroying everything? It's just so insanely op, and she can't use the mind probe without possibly violating the number one rule I uphold in my game (and I've seen in most games I've played in) of not doing serious and/or permanent harm to another character without their player's permission. The first time someone lies to her, everything can just snowball out of control.

[Daisy Johnson 0]

Just now, Death Kitten said:

I, uh, how could anyone play that character in an rp without just destroying everything? It's just so insanely op, and she can't use the mind probe without possibly violating the number one rule I uphold in my game (and I've seen in most games I've played in) of not doing serious and/or permanent harm to another character without their player's permission. The first time someone lies to her, everything can just snowball out of control.

 

She was also a PI so go figure 

[Death Kitten 200]

A PI leaving a wake of insane and catatonic victims, that'll go over well.

[txernest 0]

LOL. Jeez, that would... yeah, I'm gonna go with "WTF" on that one. Also, like, how do people so easily ignore the #1 golden rule of RP, which is "get consent before futzing with/up other people's characters"?

[Daisy Johnson 0]

Rules are obviously made to be broken, @txernest

[txernest 0]

Wanna get together and break some rules, then? *eyebrow waggle*