Hmm.. power influx.

I have noticed that a lot of people have been joining as master benders. I find that reading several of these profiles of people and that no one seems to have learned some of the bending styles from anyone.

A thought for approving new characters, if your character knows a "style" such as blood bending, foggy swamp, lightning, whatever - something specialized, they must have documented where they learned it from and not simply that they are talented (unless you write a lot about that as well?). Specialized it always good, I think, as opposed to just knowing everything. Can we have a power list? Can we make restricted classes of bending? Can we keep a leash on this? Many characters seem too powerful, which I think should come with character growth. A motivation to learn from each other, or else, build a character that learns on their own.

If you have a new character, bring something different to the table - a new style, a new way of bending, or even - a non bender character. There were plenty of characters in Avatar that did not bend and were extremely formidable (Kyoshi Warriors, Ty Lee, Mai, Sokka, Yu-Yan, Longshot just to name a few).

/tilts head/

We have lovely characters on this forum that are masters and are active, let them be the gurus - few 15 year old characters should be masters. Play a character that is flawed, or has weaknesses, for even the well written master characters on this forum do as well.

Just a thought for new characters. I don't think people should edit their profiles unless they are too overpowered with no weaknesses. I am making no demand, just something I took note of.

I would like people's opinions. In the mean time, I will not be a hypocrite, and look over my own character ability list.

Most like to have instant power more rather than working their way to it.

As for my opinion:
I was quite reluctant of accepting members who wanted higher status/rank, other than the ones at the beginning. New characters should be relatively weak, beginners. That's what the Experience System was meant for: showing how powerful you are. Strength and power would come to those who showed dedication to and activity on the forum.
But now nearly all members start off as either very advanced benders or master benders.

(As for the admins, don't take this the wrong way, I'm not saying you're doing a bad job or anything like that.)

Note, I have my own crazy f'd up bending style over hear. And I have plenty of weaknesses. Just sayin'.

pfft. that's saying one thing and doing another, if Meili's experiences are anything for me to remember. I saw nothing but strengths; not a weakness in sight.

as for my characters... well, it varies.
I've purposely made my characters all older to give them opening to be masters. Zulera was obviously meant to be a villain, so I wanted her to be powerful so that she was a challenge.

Xilingshi was designed for war. She made herself that way, and her social awkwardness outside of a battlefield was showing as she was about to slowly start opening up to Mozello till Novai rudely interrupted and ruined the whole thing.

and Meili... well she's always been a conspirator. She watches and she learns, both in combat, and in politics, which is how she slowly clawed her way to the top of the chain.

my other character, Sanaki... has sort of fallen into disuse. but I think that despite her talents, she was still just a standard-issue firebender.

I think I'm too nice when I accept profiles. I did, however, stop us from having a 3rd avatar. Loki is pretty weak compared to most of our characters on here, so I don't think I'm an abuser.

I'm an abuser, whoops, sorry for that.

I became the Firelord the day after I joined, but I've lived up to my abilities and have contributed to this community to the best of my ability.

I will continue to do so, until told otherwise.

If anything, Gysu is to unsure of himself. And he's a bit squeamish when it comes to hurting animals. As for other weaknesses, he can't hit a female. But he can throw them. It's all a part of his messed up sense of honor.

Have we ever considered going back to the experience system? I don't know how I feel about it yet, since it will promote people to SPAM I think, or if their RP is slow - just post in the OOC sections.

But I do think we need to have more explanation about abilities, origins, masters and bending styles. I was thinking about making a power list. Just so we can get a good idea of what is going on, who has what, and to promote new players to pick different powers than the ones chosen.

Gysu: You have very convenient weaknesses. You may need to rethink your character's powers a bit. The profile that was approved by the admins is not the one you are currently playing. There is no explanation of Gysu's "personal bending style" save that he is, well, a prodigee that just was talented at every fighting style ever. This, while is fine for a very amatuer RPer, is not something I think you should sell yourself short. There is much powers in flaws, and characters will be all the more interesting. Why I play Xue the way I do - despite being a rather powerful bender, she is unable to heal other human beings - a huge flaw in water bending training (especially northern water bending style) and as an avatar. She CAN NOT empathize with human beings, feeling that humans destroyed her own life, and they do the same to the environment. She is no Aang, nor is she - right now - going to reach the Avatar state of her own volition. She is also a very bad every-other-element bender. These are places I hope to fill up as a character, and maybe (if I am lucky) meet other RPers that will help develop the Avatar's personality and her flaws.

Zuko COULD NOT be a better bender until he got over some personality flaws. Iroh was no lightning bender over night. Aang COULD NOT reach the Avatar state until he let go of his own anchors to his heart.

This is a challenge to all characters to think about how to specialize, how to develope and even how make goals for your character. I have been eyeballing Yeshe or one of the other Air Bending masters on the forum for a while now, knowing I would like Xue to meet them and learn air bending. It is quite possible that Xue will learn from Meili (who knows?) and have a rather evil approach to Earth bending in her learning. Pick something special and unique for your own character - and if you want more power GO OUT AND GET IT. Make relationships, gain posts, be active, work on your roleplaying style so that you can interact uniquely with other players.

Katara was a talented water bender, but without her journey to the North - she would have never been more than just average. This made her interesting than, I think, Fire Lord Ozai even was - who was the God at Fire Bending.

I have admin many advanced RPG forums in my time, learning how to edit forum code, make layouts, write out mutinous place descriptions, approve profiles and help influence people to be better RPers. I don't want anything like that here, but to be the Avatar. :< I will, however, be happy to help with whatever I can. I don't think this is a problem that is solely fixed by admins, but what do we think we should do about this? New rules? New profile standards? Crack down on over-powering players? Experience system? What?

well said. *slow clap*

I think the experience system only gives you EXP if it's an RP post. it might give people 1 XP per non-RP post, but compared to the 25XP or so that you get for RP posting, that'd be a lot of spamming for people that didn't want to RP [and come now. this is an RP site. so what would be the point?]

I agree with this wholeheartedly though. I personally think superpower characters with few, no, or insignificant flaws are really boring, and they also tend to annoy me. It's okay to have lots of power, but there are always character flaws that these people will have unless they want to be Mary Sues/Gary Stus, or just straight up Gods. I hate dealing with those types of characters, frankly, and Xue has a point. powerful characters that learn it or have a good story as to WHY they learned it, ar emore interesting than people who are just plain powerful. [you all know me. I'm all up for making sure something has a good, reasonable story behind why it happened. this should not be new to anyone]

Granted, you don't have to have flaws that kick your character(s) in the ass every time they take a step. But everyone has applicable flaws, especially in real life. While getting your ass kicked can lead to an interesting story arc, you might also think of having something that doesn't kick in right away, and might not ever kick in if things happen to go your way. But again, it's a matter of being reasonable.

for example, however, take Zuko and Azula. both were flawed, the former much more than the latter. Zuko sucked at firebending. He mastered it through extreme hard work and some serious perseverance. Azula on the other hand got it through natural talent, and underneath all that power, skill and perfectionism, her mind had a serious short in its circuits, which didn't actually explode until the end of Season III, which we then saw as she swiftly became a deconstructed badass, and more or less fell apart.

All of my characters specialize in similar aspects, but they all have their own flaws. Meili is a powerful and charismatic leader, but she also has a Hitler Complex. keep in mind that Hitler was voted in in 1933, and World War II didn't start until 1939. [and Kristallnacht, which was more or less the advent of the Holocaust, didn't happen till 9-10 November 1938] So really, while he wasn't "good", per se, the framework of his evil empire didn't start showing up until around that time. Meili's got that thing sort of going on, but she hasn't snapped and gone down that road yet. But, what matters is that the possibility of that happening isn't about to just magically go away either. Meili will be prone to that as long as she's in power. such is the price she pays.

Xilingshi was built to be a warrior. As a result, combat, skill, and power are her specialties. However, that has come at the high price of having almost no real-life experience outside the battlefield. without a war to fight in, Xilingshi has no clue what to do with herself, and so she's starting to waste away at any local taverns, as Mozello was finding out.

Zulera is all about power. that's really all she cares about, and so she is selfish, sadistic, and willing to help people only as long as it furthers her own agenda. Similar to Korra, she has mastered the physical aspects of bending, but has almost completely neglected the spiritual aspects, (while it seems Xue has done the opposite).

While I have run a forum before, I've never actually admin'd RPG forums, but that is mostly out of my own laziness. I've come close, and done many other similar things, and have turned down admin status simply because I didn't want that sort of commitment. I have, however, joined and particiapated actively in many advanced and very literate RPG forums before, and so I know the sort of characters that pickier staff members will accept or reject. That's why I always try to work on making balanced characters who either specialize in certain aspects at the cost of lacking in others, or some that are simply well-balanced; skilled-but-not-the-best, or that sort of thing.

I'm all for the idea of hard crack-downs on overpowered characters and/or new profile standards. rejecting Person A's overpowered god character isn't mean. it's just business.It means there are standards that need to be upheld to continue giving users a good, enriching RP experience that they can enjoy and have fun with. it's no fun when everyone's god, and it's certainly no fun when only one (or a few) people are god.

those are my two cents anyways.

Well Xaal has many flaws, as you could tell by him allowing a stranger to set up the Table in his city..Xaal is very ehh...idk

Xue Xui, in theory your idea is great, in practice it's fundamentally flawed. The population of this RP forum is simply too small, if we had a giant population (20+), Liao would have considered making it tougher to become a master.

We do not have the capacity or the ability to turn away new players due to strength and mastery, although it is not fair or right to let them just have a master rank the moment they step foot, we don't have any other alternative to preserve the population or make it increase.

Once again, I like the idea, in fact I want to implement the EXP system in accordance with the master system, but its too far fetched and will only get rid of people like Xaal, Meili, Myself, You, and anyone else who applied for the position without having any previous standing.

It is possible to give players EXP through the Admin Panel.

Xui I will destroy this current way of my own rping and work on fitting in within my original form. Thank you for noticing me, blah blah blah. I'll edit my character sheet to include more weaknesses.

blahblahblah show. don't tell.

Should weaknesses go under personality or abilities?

Well it depends on if it's a weakness of their personality or abilities...

Well, his inability to strike a woman fits underneath both of those categories.

that's hardly a considerable weakness for being a master prodigy at "his own style", which seems to be greater than any other style seen thus far.

It incorporates other elemental styles into it. and I will tone it down next time I do battle. I swear on my honor, that it will happen.

I need more weaknesses, I'm open to ideals so fire away! (and no hurtful comments)

Oh Xue can you critique my character too? I think I made considerable weaknesses and stuff. I personally love to work characters through the rp, I've never really created a character who was a master at anything. My character is very good at certain things but no where near a master stand point. P.S. I've personally been going by the exp ranks because I liked the idea. When I reach intermidiate 1 or advanced 1 haven't decided yet I'm going to do something special.

Sorry T.K. But Xue has left New Chapters.