Story Breaker Powers and Game Balance

In most stories, the battles are usually determined by who has the better strategy or who is more powerful than the other. For every 'reasonable' superpower, there are some superpowers that are just plain broken that any 'fight' the character engages in will end as a stomp. Some stories the fights are usually resolved by strategy, a game of rock paper scissors, just being more powerful than the villain or just by making everyone just as broken. I am not good with strategy or science for that matter, inasmuch as I enjoy shows like Dragon Ball it can get monotonous after awhile and I don't know how to handle a world where everyone is broken. Also, I don't really like super powerful characters with no real weaknesses but so does everybody. How can balance out the characters or place some limits on what the powers can do? Or how can I provide an illusion of balance?

edited 7th Mar '13 12:26:38 PM by GAP

Depends on the powers to be put in check.

There are all sorts of reality warping abilities or Imagination Based superpowers, how can put limits on those powers?

Reality warping : make it happen without the characters input and it cause good and bad things to happen.

Scared of a monster coming in the middle the night and killing you? Guess what happens. As for imagination have it cause brain trauma or dementia the more you use it.

You're putting limits on the power.

Try putting limits on the character's willingness or ability to use it.

Will that provide some balnce? I don't want characters completely overshadowing the setting.

My usual method is what I call the "Balance Method".

I.e if you have a heroic Reality Warper, have a villainous Reality Warper who can counter-match him, thus limiting your hero. Or a villain who can limit his reality warping [i.e not a reality warping villain, but a villain who can nulify/weaken his reality warping skill].

You put limits on something by...well, by limiting it. It's pretty simple.

If you've got some sort of reality warping powers, limits can include a geographical range beyond which the powers are useless, serious physical exertion required to use the powers, a requirement to maintain a certain mental state, some sort of exchange that's required to use the powers, or a certain level of probability/entropy that has to be maintained.

It might seem like these rules make things less interesting but it's actually more interesting to see someone coming up against limits than it is to see someone who can do whatever they want all the time.

Yes! Use Magic A Is Magic A.

edited 9th Mar '13 1:00:59 AM by fillerdude

If your story relies on something that is trivialized or destroyed by a certain ability or power, then simply don't have that ability or power in your story.

If telepathy would ruin your mystery story, don't have telepathy.

If you can't -or won't- get rid of it, then use another power/ability to ensure your story remains.

You are worried about having vast and mighty powers that destroy the whole setting?

Then don't have them.

Or find a way to believable explain why they haven't wrecked everything.

Avoid godlike powers in general unless they are portrayed as very very bad. Too much is left to the subconcious for a human mind to be able to handle them without accidentally killing themselves or those around them. I personally nickname it the AKIRA principle.

Superpowers also are something to avoid. Powers are fine, but SUPE Rpowers break immersion in the story. Literature doesnt affect the same parts of the brain other genres do. With movies, seeing someone leap out of a helicopter, plunge thirty stories and land unharmed through a sunroof would be a classic scene that would be spread all over youtube, with the general reaction being "How amazingly awesome". But if you did the same thing in liteture people would think you were joking, and the general reaction would be "how ridiculously unrealistic.". Literature is weird in that even though its escapist we will read under the pretense "Like reality unless otherwise noted."

They break immersion so badly because even having the smallest unnatural advantage over other people puts you in a whole other leauge already, let alone things like flying. Things as simple as having better night vision than those around you would make you a master at jobs that require information gathering, and in a similair vein greatly extended hearing could make you the worlds best spy. Partial immunity to cold the best artic rescuer, able to dive right into the water unharmed. stuff like that.

Superpowers are a thing best left to other genres in my opinion, but regular paranormal/supernatural "powers" are fine.

edited 11th Mar '13 9:56:11 AM by SalmonPunch

A form of Reality Warping features in my 'verse, and to explain its limitations I liken it to a computer requiring more processing power to pull off complicated tasks (say, running Crysis). Reality, in the 'verse, is simply a very complicated, high-resolution simulation and thus can be manipulated. But for someone inside the simulation (i.e. the whole universe), it is VERY hard to do so. An ounce of ordinary matter would be composed of mind-boggling amounts of data and it would take an enormously powerful computer to manipulate it.

Even God doesn't have it easy, because he designed the universe to be adaptable and capable of "evolving" on its own. So while he may have been able to control the early beta version of the universe, it's become too complicated for him to manipulate.

Also, the physical laws all still apply (unless we're talking an absolute master of reality-warping, who can bend those laws), so manipulating the Matrix to the effect of giving yourself fire-based powers is still liable to give you a nasty burn if those powers are mishandled.

I have to disagree that superpower somehow break the immersion of a story. So long as you come up with a set of rules and stick with them.

Saying that they do, but supernatual powers don't strikes me as rather arbitrary.

Theres a difference that's not at all arbitrary between "Superpowers" and just regular powers.

Powers: Plasmids from Bioshock, Augments from Deus Ex:HR, Geass' from Code Geass, Door's magic from Neverwhere. In a fight with an un-powered person, the person still stands a moderate/small chance if they are skilled, strong, and intelligent enough. The dramatic tension remains constant because these people could feasibly be killed by (situation picked at random) a random nut with a knife if they were ambushed in a dark alley, or someone who studied their powers and created a countermeasure.

Superpowers: Superman, Tetsuo from Akira, most of DBZ, most of the cast from Sphere ect. Only other superpowers seem to put a dent in these people, and the aforementioned knife nut would probably break his blade trying.

Maybe I use different terminology than most people, but there a definable difference between the two. If you pit someone with powers against someone with superpowers, superpowers will win the fight.

And about setting up rules and limits, I did mention that really strong powers could be used if you utilized the "like reality unless noted" part well, but I guess I didn't emphasize/phrase it enough.

edited 11th Mar '13 6:51:39 PM by SalmonPunch

You're using a somewhat different definition of superpower than I am.

To me, Superpower is basically any ability that goes beyond normal human capacity. If you spit pepsi, that's a superpower. Good one? No, but one non-the-less.

Someone with "Magic" can be just as undefeatable as anyone else. Great power doesn't always mean invincibility, or a lack of dramatic tension.

Just because a normal knife won't bother the half-vampire hunter protagonist, doesn't mean half a dozen other things won't.