Advice/Help What are some good limitations to powers for characters that possess them?

[Trickster Crayon]

What are some good limitations to powers when it comes to characters who possess them?

I read somewhere that characters with no limitation to their power cause things to get boring.. because all the issues get solved quickly in a session. Most people just wanna be badass when really the best character arch’s come from things like being super puny or having this awful setback to your power. Kind of like in My Hero Academia, how some people can’t hold their quirks for long because their bones start to break.. or they lose stamina and tire out their quirk.

 

[rae2nerdy]

I'm a little confused are you wanting specific powers and weaknesses or are you wanting advice on how to make a weaknesses that make characters interesting?

 

[Trickster Crayon]

I'm a little confused are you wanting specific powers and weaknesses or are you wanting advice on how to make a weaknesses that make characters interesting?

Oh idk.. It doesn’t matter really..

 

[rae2nerdy]

Alright here is some general advice with specific examples.

1. Make your power specific, the more specific your power is the easier it will be to come up with weaknesses and the more you will have to get creative in implementing it in the roleplay.

EX1. Rather than saying "My character manipulates fire." Say "My character can create fireballs OR My character can manipulate existing flames."
EX2. Rather than saying "My character can fly." Say "My character has wings. OR My character has a flight belt (tech)."

2. Make sure your weakness is something that physical prevents/limits your character from accessing their power.

EX1. If your character creates fireballs, have their weakness be getting cold or wet. If they manipulate existing flames, than a lack of existing flames is their weakness. Also probably being in a wet place as well.
EX2. If your character flies with wings than a good weakness is their wings being damaged. Also possibly high altitudes as well. If they fly with tech than simply have the tech stolen and their power is neutralized.

3. If you give your character a personality/emotional weakness give them a personality/emotional trigger.

EX1. If you say that your fire character's weakness is being insecure/shy. Than make their powers activated by feelings of confidence.
EX2. If you say your flying character's weakness is being depressed. Than make their powers activated by feelings of optimism/positivity.

4. Most importantly make your characters face their weaknesses multiple times throughout the roleplay.
EX1. If your fire characters weakness is cold and wet than have them fight in a wet cold environment. If their weakness is being insecure have the character grapple with bouts of insecurity.
EX2. If your flying character's weakness is their wings being damaged than have them be injured for multiple scenes in the roleplay. If your character's weakness is being depressed than have them struggle with long bouts of depression.

 

[Trickster Crayon]

Alright here is some general advice with specific examples.

1. Make your power specific, the more specific your power is the easier it will be to come up with weaknesses and the more you will have to get creative in implementing it in the roleplay.

EX1. Rather than saying "My character manipulates fire." Say "My character can create fireballs OR My character can manipulate existing flames."
EX2. Rather than saying "My character can fly." Say "My character has wings. OR My character has a flight belt (tech)."

2. Make sure your weakness is something that physical prevents/limits your character from accessing their power.

EX1. If your character creates fireballs, have their weakness be getting cold or wet. If they manipulate existing flames, than a lack of existing flames is their weakness. Also probably being in a wet place as well.
EX2. If your character flies with wings than a good weakness is their wings being damaged. Also possibly high altitudes as well. If they fly with tech than simply have the tech stolen and their power is neutralized.

3. If you give your character a personality/emotional weakness give them a personality/emotional trigger.

EX1. If you say that your fire character's weakness is being insecure/shy. Than make their powers activated by feelings of confidence.
EX2. If you say your flying character's weakness is being depressed. Than make their powers activated by feelings of optimism/positivity.

4. Most importantly make your characters face their weaknesses multiple times throughout the roleplay.
EX1. If your fire characters weakness is cold and wet than have them fight in a wet cold environment. If their weakness is being insecure have the character grapple with bouts of insecurity.
EX2. If your flying character's weakness is their wings being damaged than have them be injured for multiple scenes in the roleplay. If your character's weakness is being depressed than have them struggle with long bouts of depression.

This was good advice!! Thank you!!

 

[Idea]

I'll start by covering some basic notions just to be sure to make a proper distinction between them.


Flaws VS Handicaps
The first matter to adress is the distinction between a "flaw" and a "handicap". Now developing a proper flaw is in itself a whole topic, which I will only lightly brush on later in this post. However, it is a very common pitfall to confuse flaws with handicaps. To put this as simply as I can, while both flaws and handicaps are negative traits meant to hinder and/or humanize your character, a flaw is part of your character's personality and general behavior. In a flaw there is an element of choice, so to speak: Being greedy isn't the choice of the character, but things that make them greedy- stealing money, the mindless persuit of money, being cruel for profit- are all things the character has to actively choose to do.

Handicaps on the other hand are external rather than internal to your character. Being disabled isn't a fault of the character, but it does hinder them without them ever having to choose to "act disabled", they don't choose to for instance be missing an arm or have their legs not work.

Weaknesses VS Limitations
Within handicaps there is more than one notion. The relevant ones for this thread are weaknesses and limitations. They are both handicaps, so they are external negative factors which hinder the character in some way. However, how they go about it is what makes the distinction between them. Let's say that a character's hypothetical power level is represented with having to race through a track, and the more laps they run, the more powerful.

Weaknesses hinder a character directly. A vampire turning to dust when exposed to sunlight is a weakness, because it adds something negative. In the race analogy, a weakness would be like having a weight attached to you: It makes you go slower, thus reducing how much of the track you can run in any given time.

If a weakness is going down, then a limitation is just not going any further up. If your power is to have the strength of an elephant then that right there is your limitation: the limit to your power is "the strength of an elephant". In our track metaphor, a limitation would be like having a time limit, because it prevents you from running indefinitely, but it doesn't affect you while you're still within the bounds of the time limit, thus allowing you to cover as much grow as you can push yourself to within the limitation.

I will be adressing both of these, since they are despite their differences closely connected. That said, I do want to mention that there is a third type of handicap which I will not be discussing here, which has to do with the external conditions in which the character is, both of environmental, societal and interpersonal nature.

Disclaimers
1.Not everything needs weaknesses, as some powers already come with limitations that are sufficient.

2.Most of the points I'm about to mention are somewhat debatable. HOWEVER, breaking any of the "rules" of sorts that are below requires a greater awareness of skill, self-awareness and restraint than what most RPers display.

3.The definitions and distinctions I have made are born out of my research into this topic. People do use the terms pretty interchangeably. The important part to retain out of the distinctions I made is not the terms themselves, but the fact that there is a distinction between the various ideas I talk about there.

Constructing a Proper Weakness
Now at last we get to answering your actual question, albeit in very general terms. Some of these rules apply to each individual weakness/limitations, whereas others apply to the collective of your weaknesses and limitations. However, as a rule of thumb, it's better to have a weakness or limitation than to not have one.

1.Basic Requirement To be a Real Weakness or Limitation
The first step to having a proper weakness or limitation is to actually make sure you HAVE a weakness or limitation (in the narrative sense). For this, look at the trait and make sure it has these two things:
*It is something which actually hinders the character or disincentizes the usage of the power REGARDLESS of outside intervention.
*It is something which can actually cause your character to realistically fail at crucial moments. This in turn implies you weakness has to be reasonably possible to explore by others.

Something being "too powerful" is not a weakness, I take that much I don't need to explain. However, it is also nonsensical to consider "the enemies can steal our weapons" a weakness when discussing those weapons, because that itself is a testament to their strength. Ultra-specific counters nobody can realistically expected to have also don't work as weaknesses in most contexts. Sure, your cosmic powers may be weak to black matter, but this isn't saying much because nobody is just walking around with black matter in their pocket or something.

Another thing which is also not a weakness, is for example the ability having "an evil side that threatens to consume the user". Unless there is some concrete rule establishing when exactly this "take over" will trigger and what consequences there might be for that, this "weakness" won't actually matter when the chips are down and the character has to use their ability. When that happens 9 times out of 10 absolutely no consequence will come as a result, so it was entirely meaningless at the moment it was most needed.

Now, the good news is most of the time, if you cover the rest of the rules here, you're almost guaranteed to also hit the two rules I just mentioned. That said, I think it's good to have an awareness of them as well.

2.Concrete
A proper weakness has to be properly established. Real. If you can just throw it away or borderline ignore it, then it's no weakness at all. Making a weakness concrete is simply firmly planting something firm that you cannot shake of for your own convenience. Any limitation that is ill-defined is not a concrete weakness. "Using this power consumes a lot of energy" may seem effective enough at first glance, but if you think about it, what is the actual limit here? When exactly does the character no longer have enough energy? What happens to them, what CAN'T they do as they get exhausted, and how do we determine when they reach that state?

It's because nobody can be quite held accountable until it gets utterly ridiculous that such types of "weaknesses" are often pretty much ignored, despite often being a power's ONLY weakness. And not even by bad players per se- it's just that when competing, or during an important moment in the RP, or when something is really at stake, it's very difficult to have the self-restraint necessary to properly tire your character for this type of weakness. On the other hand, if you tie it down- the character is only able to sustain it for five minutes for instance- then now we know that the character has five minutes to fight and use their power, and after that no more.

3.Universal
Your weakness shouldn't just apply "sometimes", it should be everpresent. If you can arbitrarily skip the weakness, then as already mentioned it is utterly meaningless. Now this isn't to say that your character needs to have the weakness 24/7 in effect, but that there is a consistent and established pattern others can explore without fail. Maybe your character loses all their power during a full moon. Or when they are wet their flight is compromised. While these aren't always there, one can wait for or create the situation in which they are.

This is, arguably, the most important rule for weaknesses, because out of everything I said so far, this is the one you absolutely cannot argue your way out of. When a weakness is not universal, it becomes either a plot hole (if the weakness was established) or a plot contrivance (if it wasnt laid out yet). Furthermore, while the other characteristic of a proper weakness could be more or less considered done after the CS stage, universality continues forward into the IC, as if you start opening exceptions in the IC, the weakness can no longer be considered "universal".

4.Sharing the Spotlight
This is where we get the "collective" rather than individual weaknesses. While so far, every single weakness and limitation would have to have those traits to be a proper one, when it comes to this rule they only need to achieve it overall, with no one weakness or limitation being responsible for achieving it on their own.

"Sharing the spotlight" implies your character needs to give others a reasonable chance of standing on their own. This is the "point" of a weakness in roleplay. Yes, narrative stakes are also important, but when it comes to limiting your character, this should be your priority: that the involvement of your fellow players isn't being hindered by your/your character's presence.

To get to this, your character first needs to settle into a role of sorts. Your weaknesses and limitations need to, collectively, either make sure your character is unable to cover all the ground and tasks on their own (in fact the more specialized the better)- or if they do, that they can only do so to a very limited extent, being a "jack of all trades, master of none", thus allowing other characters to just be straight up better in those areas and have their own part to play.

The other need is that your character have a reasonable chance for ANYONE to beat them. Now this doesn't mean it necessarily has to be likely that anyone will beat them- but the means should be accessible enough that any upstarter could conceivably strategically defeat them, without having access to specific counters or advantages. If you ever find yourself thinking something along the lines of "oh, if they catch my character by surprise then they can defeat" or "oh, if they have X power then they can defeat", I recommend you start over.

5.Examples (some common proper weaknesses/limitations)
Directly limiting abilities are some of the most common yet still quite functional types of weaknesses. There are charge-types, which mean you can use the ability X times either like X times per day or X times like the number of bullets in a gun. Cooldowns are a forceful amount of time between uses of the ability, though this is only really meanginful if the cooldown is relatively long and the ability is not continuous (there is little point in adding a cooldown to flight for instance, but a lazer beam might get fired once and then have to wait a few minutes before it can be used again for instance). Time limits are as simple as it gets, and I alreayd mentioned them: Just give a maximum duration to the time the ability can be used. Usually work best combined with cooldowns and/or charges.

Another common type of effective weakness is conditions. Making an ability only usable under very specific conditions or only under conditions which would normally make it hard to get to use the ability or make the ability weaker by being in those cirucmstances can be a great limiter, and seeing the character trying to find means to reach the conditions can be veyr entertaining as well.

The last type I want to mention is ultra-specificity, which I already kind of mentioned, but is one of the best kinds too. If you are, say, immortal, but still feel pain or healing up may have severe side-effects and stuff, you may want to still use the power carefully. This works even better if the character doesn't have other powers besides their immortality, meaning to get anything done they'll mostly still have to do it as an average Joe.

Bonuses
On top of what was already mentioned, here are a few weakness-pertaining things you can do to make them even more interesting, but which don't necessarily need to be there to make them competently-designed weaknesses.

1.Connecting
Three minutes on your fire spewing ability may be an effective weakness to balance it, yes. However, the ability may feel much more fleshed out if, say, the weakness is that using the ability heats you up and burns you from the inside, being therefore extremely painful and having long-term damage if ever abused, hence why it can only be used for three minutes at a time. A time warping ability that makes you loose memories and your sense of time. Only having five fingers on each hand while your ability requires you to use one as fuel each time it is used.


And I'll leave it at that. Oof that was a lot...anyways, I hope this helps! Best of luck and happy RPing!

 

[adrian_]

Uh, in the case of tabletop, I run Cyberpunk 2020, with some homebrew rules, so number one for me is:

DON'T BUY A FUCKIN' CYBERTRONIC YOU HAVEN'T RESEARCHED

Time and time again I see some poor dumbass buy cybertronics they don't understand, one of my players had multiple things on their sheet they didn't understand, and one I always include on my CS's; BREATHING MODE. Are you breathing out of your mouth or your nose right now?

Holy shit is it annoying when people don't ask about these things, if you buy nasal filters, and don't announce that you were breathing from your nose, your character deserved to die in a cloud of tear gas or chemical agents.

This is a good weakness, your own forgetfulness. Make it aware that your character is human, they're gonna get dabbed on by interdimensional beings and shit whether or not they have powers, the biggest weaknesses to these powers, are good writers. Have a page with your weaknesses on it next to you, and keep looking it over.

 

[Echopixel]

A big one people forget but when you're RPing your characters powers should not strip another character of their autonomy.

 

[Trickster Crayon]

I'll start by covering some basic notions just to be sure to make a proper distinction between them.


Flaws VS Handicaps
The first matter to adress is the distinction between a "flaw" and a "handicap". Now developing a proper flaw is in itself a whole topic, which I will only lightly brush on later in this post. However, it is a very common pitfall to confuse flaws with handicaps. To put this as simply as I can, while both flaws and handicaps are negative traits meant to hinder and/or humanize your character, a flaw is part of your character's personality and general behavior. In a flaw there is an element of choice, so to speak: Being greedy isn't the choice of the character, but things that make them greedy- stealing money, the mindless persuit of money, being cruel for profit- are all things the character has to actively choose to do.

Handicaps on the other hand are external rather than internal to your character. Being disabled isn't a fault of the character, but it does hinder them without them ever having to choose to "act disabled", they don't choose to for instance be missing an arm or have their legs not work.

Weaknesses VS Limitations
Within handicaps there is more than one notion. The relevant ones for this thread are weaknesses and limitations. They are both handicaps, so they are external negative factors which hinder the character in some way. However, how they go about it is what makes the distinction between them. Let's say that a character's hypothetical power level is represented with having to race through a track, and the more laps they run, the more powerful.

Weaknesses hinder a character directly. A vampire turning to dust when exposed to sunlight is a weakness, because it adds something negative. In the race analogy, a weakness would be like having a weight attached to you: It makes you go slower, thus reducing how much of the track you can run in any given time.

If a weakness is going down, then a limitation is just not going any further up. If your power is to have the strength of an elephant then that right there is your limitation: the limit to your power is "the strength of an elephant". In our track metaphor, a limitation would be like having a time limit, because it prevents you from running indefinitely, but it doesn't affect you while you're still within the bounds of the time limit, thus allowing you to cover as much grow as you can push yourself to within the limitation.

I will be adressing both of these, since they are despite their differences closely connected. That said, I do want to mention that there is a third type of handicap which I will not be discussing here, which has to do with the external conditions in which the character is, both of environmental, societal and interpersonal nature.

Disclaimers
1.Not everything needs weaknesses, as some powers already come with limitations that are sufficient.

2.Most of the points I'm about to mention are somewhat debatable. HOWEVER, breaking any of the "rules" of sorts that are below requires a greater awareness of skill, self-awareness and restraint than what most RPers display.

3.The definitions and distinctions I have made are born out of my research into this topic. People do use the terms pretty interchangeably. The important part to retain out of the distinctions I made is not the terms themselves, but the fact that there is a distinction between the various ideas I talk about there.

Constructing a Proper Weakness
Now at last we get to answering your actual question, albeit in very general terms. Some of these rules apply to each individual weakness/limitations, whereas others apply to the collective of your weaknesses and limitations. However, as a rule of thumb, it's better to have a weakness or limitation than to not have one.

1.Basic Requirement To be a Real Weakness or Limitation
The first step to having a proper weakness or limitation is to actually make sure you HAVE a weakness or limitation (in the narrative sense). For this, look at the trait and make sure it has these two things:
*It is something which actually hinders the character or disincentizes the usage of the power REGARDLESS of outside intervention.
*It is something which can actually cause your character to realistically fail at crucial moments. This in turn implies you weakness has to be reasonably possible to explore by others.

Something being "too powerful" is not a weakness, I take that much I don't need to explain. However, it is also nonsensical to consider "the enemies can steal our weapons" a weakness when discussing those weapons, because that itself is a testament to their strength. Ultra-specific counters nobody can realistically expected to have also don't work as weaknesses in most contexts. Sure, your cosmic powers may be weak to black matter, but this isn't saying much because nobody is just walking around with black matter in their pocket or something.

Another thing which is also not a weakness, is for example the ability having "an evil side that threatens to consume the user". Unless there is some concrete rule establishing when exactly this "take over" will trigger and what consequences there might be for that, this "weakness" won't actually matter when the chips are down and the character has to use their ability. When that happens 9 times out of 10 absolutely no consequence will come as a result, so it was entirely meaningless at the moment it was most needed.

Now, the good news is most of the time, if you cover the rest of the rules here, you're almost guaranteed to also hit the two rules I just mentioned. That said, I think it's good to have an awareness of them as well.

2.Concrete
A proper weakness has to be properly established. Real. If you can just throw it away or borderline ignore it, then it's no weakness at all. Making a weakness concrete is simply firmly planting something firm that you cannot shake of for your own convenience. Any limitation that is ill-defined is not a concrete weakness. "Using this power consumes a lot of energy" may seem effective enough at first glance, but if you think about it, what is the actual limit here? When exactly does the character no longer have enough energy? What happens to them, what CAN'T they do as they get exhausted, and how do we determine when they reach that state?

It's because nobody can be quite held accountable until it gets utterly ridiculous that such types of "weaknesses" are often pretty much ignored, despite often being a power's ONLY weakness. And not even by bad players per se- it's just that when competing, or during an important moment in the RP, or when something is really at stake, it's very difficult to have the self-restraint necessary to properly tire your character for this type of weakness. On the other hand, if you tie it down- the character is only able to sustain it for five minutes for instance- then now we know that the character has five minutes to fight and use their power, and after that no more.

3.Universal
Your weakness shouldn't just apply "sometimes", it should be everpresent. If you can arbitrarily skip the weakness, then as already mentioned it is utterly meaningless. Now this isn't to say that your character needs to have the weakness 24/7 in effect, but that there is a consistent and established pattern others can explore without fail. Maybe your character loses all their power during a full moon. Or when they are wet their flight is compromised. While these aren't always there, one can wait for or create the situation in which they are.

This is, arguably, the most important rule for weaknesses, because out of everything I said so far, this is the one you absolutely cannot argue your way out of. When a weakness is not universal, it becomes either a plot hole (if the weakness was established) or a plot contrivance (if it wasnt laid out yet). Furthermore, while the other characteristic of a proper weakness could be more or less considered done after the CS stage, universality continues forward into the IC, as if you start opening exceptions in the IC, the weakness can no longer be considered "universal".

4.Sharing the Spotlight
This is where we get the "collective" rather than individual weaknesses. While so far, every single weakness and limitation would have to have those traits to be a proper one, when it comes to this rule they only need to achieve it overall, with no one weakness or limitation being responsible for achieving it on their own.

"Sharing the spotlight" implies your character needs to give others a reasonable chance of standing on their own. This is the "point" of a weakness in roleplay. Yes, narrative stakes are also important, but when it comes to limiting your character, this should be your priority: that the involvement of your fellow players isn't being hindered by your/your character's presence.

To get to this, your character first needs to settle into a role of sorts. Your weaknesses and limitations need to, collectively, either make sure your character is unable to cover all the ground and tasks on their own (in fact the more specialized the better)- or if they do, that they can only do so to a very limited extent, being a "jack of all trades, master of none", thus allowing other characters to just be straight up better in those areas and have their own part to play.

The other need is that your character have a reasonable chance for ANYONE to beat them. Now this doesn't mean it necessarily has to be likely that anyone will beat them- but the means should be accessible enough that any upstarter could conceivably strategically defeat them, without having access to specific counters or advantages. If you ever find yourself thinking something along the lines of "oh, if they catch my character by surprise then they can defeat" or "oh, if they have X power then they can defeat", I recommend you start over.

5.Examples (some common proper weaknesses/limitations)
Directly limiting abilities are some of the most common yet still quite functional types of weaknesses. There are charge-types, which mean you can use the ability X times either like X times per day or X times like the number of bullets in a gun. Cooldowns are a forceful amount of time between uses of the ability, though this is only really meanginful if the cooldown is relatively long and the ability is not continuous (there is little point in adding a cooldown to flight for instance, but a lazer beam might get fired once and then have to wait a few minutes before it can be used again for instance). Time limits are as simple as it gets, and I alreayd mentioned them: Just give a maximum duration to the time the ability can be used. Usually work best combined with cooldowns and/or charges.

Another common type of effective weakness is conditions. Making an ability only usable under very specific conditions or only under conditions which would normally make it hard to get to use the ability or make the ability weaker by being in those cirucmstances can be a great limiter, and seeing the character trying to find means to reach the conditions can be veyr entertaining as well.

The last type I want to mention is ultra-specificity, which I already kind of mentioned, but is one of the best kinds too. If you are, say, immortal, but still feel pain or healing up may have severe side-effects and stuff, you may want to still use the power carefully. This works even better if the character doesn't have other powers besides their immortality, meaning to get anything done they'll mostly still have to do it as an average Joe.

Bonuses
On top of what was already mentioned, here are a few weakness-pertaining things you can do to make them even more interesting, but which don't necessarily need to be there to make them competently-designed weaknesses.

1.Connecting
Three minutes on your fire spewing ability may be an effective weakness to balance it, yes. However, the ability may feel much more fleshed out if, say, the weakness is that using the ability heats you up and burns you from the inside, being therefore extremely painful and having long-term damage if ever abused, hence why it can only be used for three minutes at a time. A time warping ability that makes you loose memories and your sense of time. Only having five fingers on each hand while your ability requires you to use one as fuel each time it is used.


And I'll leave it at that. Oof that was a lot...anyways, I hope this helps! Best of luck and happy RPing!

Wow I actually read this years and years later and this is amazing you are brilliant!

 

[Idea]

Wow I actually read this years and years later and this is amazing you are brilliant!

Apologies for the late response, but thank you

 

[GojiBean]

What are some good limitations to powers when it comes to characters who possess them?

I read somewhere that characters with no limitation to their power cause things to get boring.. because all the issues get solved quickly in a session. Most people just wanna be badass when really the best character arch’s come from things like being super puny or having this awful setback to your power. Kind of like in My Hero Academia, how some people can’t hold their quirks for long because their bones start to break.. or they lose stamina and tire out their quirk.

Hoyo!

There's been some awesome responses so far, but I'll chime in anyway. Some of this will be repeat information. But hopefully there'll be something new for you to digest. So let's get started!

What's a Limitation on a Power?

There's a lot to consider when putting limits on powers. But we'll start with the two most basic things you need to consider when making powers for your character in the first place: Cost, and Consequence.

These two elements are pretty self explanatory. But let's cover them real quick just to be safe.

The Cost - Powers don't just come from nowhere. They exist for a reason. And using them must come with a cost which takes the form of either a source of fuel to power their bodies.

Take Superman for example. The cost of his power is the yellow sun of our solar system. When exposed to a red sun, or when deprived of the yellow sun's direct radiation, he loses the majority of his power until he's re-exposed to it.

The Consequence - Again taking Superman as an example, the consequence of his incomprehensible strength and abilities is near constant endangerment of the world he calls "home." In all of his biggest fights whether from the comics, tv series, or films, destruction and presumed loss of life follows him everywhere. Why? Because his power attracts powerful enemies who test and challenge him, and who often don't care for his world or the people in it and use them against him.

Very often, the cost and consequence can intertwine and even become one and the same. Take the Incredible Hulk, for example. The cost of his power is the mutations caused by gamma radiation exposure, which in turn created the consequence which is the Incredible Hulk monster he turns into (I use the term "monster" loosely and for emphasis, btw).

However, I find it's often easier and smoother to make sure that the cost and consequence are separate and related, rather than being one and the same. But that's personal preference.

Now, let's talk about proper limits.

Where's The Ceiling?

It's both a literal and metaphorical question. But where's your character's power ceiling? In other words, what can their powers accomplish, and what can't their powers accomplish.

The "can't" is the ceiling, or where their power's influence on the world ends and becomes a non factor.

Let's take a simple example in one of my favorite movie characters: Maui, from the Disney film Moana.

Maui's power limitation comes from his magical hook. He's a demigod, so he's really strong and immortal. However, without his magical hook he has no magic power or ability to shapeshift. His hook also serves as the cost of his power. And it's not uncommon for the cost of the power to be the ceiling at the same time. Not always. But very often.

Take another of my favorite characters from film, Mister Incredible from The Incredibles. His power is physical strength and durability. While there's been no fully established or quantified limit to his strength, he does obviously have limits. For example, he struggled mightily to hold up the final mechanical enemy sicked on the city by Syndrome in the original film, so it's not unreasonable to believe that however much it weighed is at least approaching his physical limit to lift and move objects. It's a more subtle and implied limitation, but a limitation nonetheless. If that thing were to double in size again I have no doubts Mister Incredible would not have been able to lift it due to how the physics of weight, mass, and volume work.

So what's your character's ceiling? Where do their powers literally and metaphorically end?

The True Reason For Limitations

You touched on it before, but it's not necessarily that powers without limits equals boring. The true reason for putting limits on your character comes down to compelling storytelling.

The more overpowered your character becomes, the less compelling their story tends to become unless you take measures to ensure that their overpowered nature is kept in check and has enough limits to prevent them from walking through every problem they face.

For example, let's say that your character is immortal, has psychic powers, can fly, and has infinite strength. There's one power listed here which could prevent this character from being too boring if it's used correctly. The psychic powers.

Why?

Psychic powers come in many forms. And the one form that this character cannot have if you want them to still have a chance at being compelling is telepathy.

Why?

Because if they have telepathy and can read the minds of anyone/everyone around them, they'll always know what's coming. This single ability brings more power and usability to the character's other powers such as their infinite strength and flight. So long as they have telepathy, their other powers will be ready to be put to use to stop problems before they start, thus removing any sense of pending dread from the story which makes the entirety of the story around them less compelling. There's nothing that can challenge them so long as telepathy is there to reinforce the other powers they possess.

But if the character does not have telepathy and can't see what's coming next, their strength and flight and immortality start to lose their value because none of those three things are going to be able to stop catastrophe from striking on their own when the character isn't in an immediate position to know it's happening, or about to happen.

For example, let's say it's 2am in the morning and your character is sleeping. However, a meteor is on its way. The character doesn't watch tv or have a radio, so they're snoozing away until the meteor strikes the city and kills everyone in it... Except your character, who is now roused from their slumber by the sound of the explosion as it happens. Because they're immortal, the explosion can't kill them. But their strength, immortality, and their ability to fly mean nothing when it comes to being able to save anyone from the explosion's wrath.

Your character could have stopped that meteor if they'd been awake or if they had telepathy to serve as an alarm clock when people began panicking around them. But because the character was asleep with no way to listen in on what was happening around them they failed to stop the meteor and tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are now dead. Other psychic powers like telekinesis would not have changed the outcome, so they'd be fine to add to the character. In fact, it would almost be to your benefit to add more powers to this character just to further emphasize the fact that none of them are useful unless your character is already present when disaster strikes. When they're not present, there's no way for the character to be useful because they're just like everyone else and won't know something's wrong until it starts happening, or until it's already over.

In Conclusion

Compelling storytelling is always the name of the game.

The number of powers your character has, and the limits placed on them, go hand in hand with whether or not you achieve the goal of making their story compelling.

The more outs your character has to just waltz through any sort of problem they are faced with, the less compelling their story becomes because stories are, quite literally, built on conflict. If your character can't face and struggle with conflict, you have no story. Period.

Cheers!

~ GojiBean

 

[Trickster Crayon]

Hoyo!

There's been some awesome responses so far, but I'll chime in anyway. Some of this will be repeat information. But hopefully there'll be something new for you to digest. So let's get started!

What's a Limitation on a Power?

There's a lot to consider when putting limits on powers. But we'll start with the two most basic things you need to consider when making powers for your character in the first place: Cost, and Consequence.

These two elements are pretty self explanatory. But let's cover them real quick just to be safe.

The Cost - Powers don't just come from nowhere. They exist for a reason. And using them must come with a cost which takes the form of either a source of fuel to power their bodies.

Take Superman for example. The cost of his power is the yellow sun of our solar system. When exposed to a red sun, or when deprived of the yellow sun's direct radiation, he loses the majority of his power until he's re-exposed to it.

The Consequence - Again taking Superman as an example, the consequence of his incomprehensible strength and abilities is near constant endangerment of the world he calls "home." In all of his biggest fights whether from the comics, tv series, or films, destruction and presumed loss of life follows him everywhere. Why? Because his power attracts powerful enemies who test and challenge him, and who often don't care for his world or the people in it and use them against him.

Very often, the cost and consequence can intertwine and even become one and the same. Take the Incredible Hulk, for example. The cost of his power is the mutations caused by gamma radiation exposure, which in turn created the consequence which is the Incredible Hulk monster he turns into (I use the term "monster" loosely and for emphasis, btw).

However, I find it's often easier and smoother to make sure that the cost and consequence are separate and related, rather than being one and the same. But that's personal preference.

Now, let's talk about proper limits.

Where's The Ceiling?

It's both a literal and metaphorical question. But where's your character's power ceiling? In other words, what can their powers accomplish, and what can't their powers accomplish.

The "can't" is the ceiling, or where their power's influence on the world ends and becomes a non factor.

Let's take a simple example in one of my favorite movie characters: Maui, from the Disney film Moana.

Maui's power limitation comes from his magical hook. He's a demigod, so he's really strong and immortal. However, without his magical hook he has no magic power or ability to shapeshift. His hook also serves as the cost of his power. And it's not uncommon for the cost of the power to be the ceiling at the same time. Not always. But very often.

Take another of my favorite characters from film, Mister Incredible from The Incredibles. His power is physical strength and durability. While there's been no fully established or quantified limit to his strength, he does obviously have limits. For example, he struggled mightily to hold up the final mechanical enemy sicked on the city by Syndrome in the original film, so it's not unreasonable to believe that however much it weighed is at least approaching his physical limit to lift and move objects. It's a more subtle and implied limitation, but a limitation nonetheless. If that thing were to double in size again I have no doubts Mister Incredible would not have been able to lift it due to how the physics of weight, mass, and volume work.

So what's your character's ceiling? Where do their powers literally and metaphorically end?

The True Reason For Limitations

You touched on it before, but it's not necessarily that powers without limits equals boring. The true reason for putting limits on your character comes down to compelling storytelling.

The more overpowered your character becomes, the less compelling their story tends to become unless you take measures to ensure that their overpowered nature is kept in check and has enough limits to prevent them from walking through every problem they face.

For example, let's say that your character is immortal, has psychic powers, can fly, and has infinite strength. There's one power listed here which could prevent this character from being too boring if it's used correctly. The psychic powers.

Why?

Psychic powers come in many forms. And the one form that this character cannot have if you want them to still have a chance at being compelling is telepathy.

Why?

Because if they have telepathy and can read the minds of anyone/everyone around them, they'll always know what's coming. This single ability brings more power and usability to the character's other powers such as their infinite strength and flight. So long as they have telepathy, their other powers will be ready to be put to use to stop problems before they start, thus removing any sense of pending dread from the story which makes the entirety of the story around them less compelling. There's nothing that can challenge them so long as telepathy is there to reinforce the other powers they possess.

But if the character does not have telepathy and can't see what's coming next, their strength and flight and immortality start to lose their value because none of those three things are going to be able to stop catastrophe from striking on their own when the character isn't in an immediate position to know it's happening, or about to happen.

For example, let's say it's 2am in the morning and your character is sleeping. However, a meteor is on its way. The character doesn't watch tv or have a radio, so they're snoozing away until the meteor strikes the city and kills everyone in it... Except your character, who is now roused from their slumber by the sound of the explosion as it happens. Because they're immortal, the explosion can't kill them. But their strength, immortality, and their ability to fly mean nothing when it comes to being able to save anyone from the explosion's wrath.

Your character could have stopped that meteor if they'd been awake or if they had telepathy to serve as an alarm clock when people began panicking around them. But because the character was asleep with no way to listen in on what was happening around them they failed to stop the meteor and tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands or even millions of people are now dead. Other psychic powers like telekinesis would not have changed the outcome, so they'd be fine to add to the character. In fact, it would almost be to your benefit to add more powers to this character just to further emphasize the fact that none of them are useful unless your character is already present when disaster strikes. When they're not present, there's no way for the character to be useful because they're just like everyone else and won't know something's wrong until it starts happening, or until it's already over.

In Conclusion

Compelling storytelling is always the name of the game.

The number of powers your character has, and the limits placed on them, go hand in hand with whether or not you achieve the goal of making their story compelling.

The more outs your character has to just waltz through any sort of problem they are faced with, the less compelling their story becomes because stories are, quite literally, built on conflict. If your character can't face and struggle with conflict, you have no story. Period.

Cheers!

~ GojiBean

wow this is great too! Thank you so much

 

[Trickster Crayon]

A big one people forget but when you're RPing your characters powers should not strip another character of their autonomy.

This is great advice because a lot of people struggle with this for sure

 

[Trickster Crayon]

Uh, in the case of tabletop, I run Cyberpunk 2020, with some homebrew rules, so number one for me is:

DON'T BUY A FUCKIN' CYBERTRONIC YOU HAVEN'T RESEARCHED

Time and time again I see some poor dumbass buy cybertronics they don't understand, one of my players had multiple things on their sheet they didn't understand, and one I always include on my CS's; BREATHING MODE. Are you breathing out of your mouth or your nose right now?

Holy shit is it annoying when people don't ask about these things, if you buy nasal filters, and don't announce that you were breathing from your nose, your character deserved to die in a cloud of tear gas or chemical agents.

This is a good weakness, your own forgetfulness. Make it aware that your character is human, they're gonna get dabbed on by interdimensional beings and shit whether or not they have powers, the biggest weaknesses to these powers, are good writers. Have a page with your weaknesses on it next to you, and keep looking it over.

Oooh Great advice I think I’m going to work through my characters and write a whole page on weaknesses out