How do you resolve the Can't Catch Up plot?

How do you resolve the Can't Catch Up plot? Just recently I just read the Onslaught arc of X Men where there was a scene where Cannonball went to Xavier to talk to him about his place on the team. He talked to him about how he feels that he is slowing the team down only to get a lecture on his selfishness as well as his own insecurities effects how it affects him and not the team. Granted, he was lecturing Sam on his selfishness but it hammered home to me. You are on a team and on teams you cover each others weaknesses but there are times where you feel as though that you slow everyone down with your incompetence and you are mostly concern with how it affects your status on the team. How do you handle plots where you feel that you cannot catch up to your teammates?

Well, one way is to have the character evaluate what his strengths are. It doesn't just have to be his powers either, it could be his personality traits as well. But as for story impact, most of the time your character will decide to go into more of a utility role rather than straight damage, i.e., become a strategist, empowering the main fighter and hindering the enemy to provide space for the main fighter.

What about the Inferfiority complex and the Green eyed Monster that comes with it?

Have someone point out what he had lost and/or cost himself from his rage, envy, and futile attempts to catch up.

Alternate, have such rage eventually kill him, either at the hands of his rival or angering himself to death.

Oh, I assumed you were only looking for general direction. So, yeah, you can have the character lash out at his allies when they try to comfort him, especially if it's the non-fighters doing the comforting; the realization that his relevance in fights has been reduced to their level might have upset him, say. He could also be in denial, rejecting the idea that it's a power gap that's resulting in his loss, but rather the enemies having a favorable position. He might, as a result, ditch a plan that's been set out when he sees an opportunity to catch an enemy off-guard (which would most likely fail and result in heavy damages). And yes, as you mentioned, he could have feelings of jealousy towards the main fighter.

The result of this should be that tensions arise between him and the team, with everyone getting frustrated with his attitude. They might even refuse to fight alongside him anymore. At about this point, you can follow doorhandle's suggestions above and have him come to a realization that his current plan isn't working out and he needs to find some other way.

He will have to take some time off from combat to find out what other skill he can tap into (some foreshadowing for this skill beforehand would be good). But even after he figures it out, incorporating it into a strategy will take time. This will result in a transitional period, where their strategies are a bit hit or miss since everyone is getting used to the character's change in position. Your character can have issues of self-doubt during this period, wondering whether he's making the same mistake twice. At this point, it would be best to have the team show their trust in the character and support him.

Eventually, once the team settles on a working dynamic and meets with some success, the character will gain confidence in his role and might even take pride in it, showing some positive character growth.

First of all, is he holding the team back as things stand, or is the problem in his perception?

If the problem is perceptual, it might be resolved by talking things out with the other characters, and having them point out situations in which they feel like dead weight, or in which the focal character has been useful. This may apply too if there's an element of "many hands making light work", and the focal character feels as though they're contributing little as a result of not perceiving that the efforts of the team are making things lighter for everyone.

This could then be demonstrated to the reader via a scene that plays out in such a way that we see the character's worth in the team—without anything having changed in what they actually do, and perhaps showing the character's recognition of it.

It's also possible for the characters to decide that this guy really isn't good for much of anything, but they like having them around anyway.

The character could just be a bit weaker than others in the group and envious because of it. The character could have problems controlling their powers. The character could lack the combat capability of other members of the team meaning that in higher power fights other members have to protect him/her and in lower power fights his team doesn't need him/her. The character is some kind of weirdness magnet or has persistent enemies that cause trouble for the rest of the team. The character is high maintenance requiring large amounts of money in chemical treatments or something regularly.

The maintenance one could be interesting in that perhaps the team can notice that the character is a liability, but the character needs the teams/governments funding to afford his/her treatments, without which the character will die or suffer from some kind horrific side-effect so they try to ignore it. The character realizes that they are being ineffective and then has to deal with the guilt and the decision of whether to stay and keep taking advantage or leave and try to support the treatments some other way or deal with the consequences.

What would if the useless character is removed from the team? Would there be consequences?

Good Ending: with the Weak character acknowledge that he/she could no long keep up with the trap and entrust the rest of the team to pull it through.

Or

Bad Ending: Epic breakdown that lead to 1) start of darkness. The Weak Character will end up joining the Bad Guy (evil are powerful trope invoked)

2) Suicidal tendency to prove to the team but eventually get killed by the Bad Guys.

Edit: Either way, not having certain character who is good at non-combat related stuff means that they will not have access to those skills.

Think of it as not having a Rouge to open chest or remove trap.

It can be minor inconvenience or major sucks depending on the situation.

edited 8th Apr '15 9:16:10 AM by idiot