fhplotterywheel | Upcoming event: POWER SWAP WEEKEND!

Do you play a character without powers? Do they want to see what it would be like to have powers?

Do you play a character without powers? Would they like to unburden themselves of that responsibility for a couple days?

Do you play a character of either persuasion who wouldn't want either of those things, but you're mean enough to make it happen to them anyway?

Well, if you'd like to play with any of those things, you're in luck! Next weekend, November 17-18, the island is going to throw people for a loop with something I'm calling POWER SWAP WEEKEND.

Powered people who want to lose their powers will sign up in the OCD. When they wake up the morning of the 17th, boom, that power is gone, off to a pool of powers that will be distributed via RNG to the next group. If your character has multiple powers, you can sign up more than one and if we have more unpowered sign ups than powered sign ups, then those secondary powers will be in play. If one of these secondary powers goes un-RNGed, the character will keep the power.

Unpowered people who want to gain powers sign up in the next OCD thread. They'll have a sense that something is different and then spend the rest of the weekend figuring how how best to use and take advantage of their new abilities. But this is Power SWAP, so they'll be losing a more mundane ability that will go into a skill pool, which will be distributed via RNG to the people who lost their powers.

For example, I sign Jessica up to lose her webbing, her wall crawling, and her spider-sense, Dave to lose his ability to tap dance, and Coulson to lose his ability to stack cups. I run the RNG. Jessica gets the power of tap, Dave gets webbing, Coulson sticks to walls. Dave and Coulson both lose the skills they signed up, Jessica loses webbing and wall-crawling, but at least she'll be able to sense when she's about to tap dance off a cliff.

Ideally, you'll find ways to incorporate any of these powers or skills into your playing that weekend, whether it's because your character suddenly has wings, or because once they know they CAN tap, they can't bring themselves to stop.

Sign ups will be open until I go to sleep THE NIGHT OF WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 14.

So. Any questions? If not, sign up below! Comments are screened, although I will of course unscreen any questions.

Oh, also, when you sign up, if you could please include a brief description of any powers or skills so that I can explain to someone what they'll be able to do. For example, with Jessica:

"The ability to shoot webbing from her fingertips." "The ability to sense impending danger and where it's coming from." "The ability to stick to walls."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

CHARACTER NAME:
POWER:
SECONDARY POWER(S) (which may or may not be lost):

CHARACTER NAME:
MUNDANE SKILL:
SECONDARY SKILL(S) (which may or may not be lost):

And here is the place to ask them.

Just to answer one right off the bat: If you're a Jedi and your power is "use the Force" and that allows you to do a bunch of crazy things, just choose your most common Force power, like telekinesis or the like. Same thing with, say, Blue Beetle. He could still get the armor but give up flight or something. Any other questions?

Edited 2012-11-08 02:29 (UTC)

Wrong account but Sholeh and her sisters have the power to be three-in-one, if that counts as a power. Three people within one body, but that body morphs for each girl. Is that something I can RNG? Would that have to go to 3 other people?

Oh god, I wish I could come up with some practical way to have this work out. But I think you're right, it would have to go to three people, and then I guess only one person could really play the conglomeration at a time. I'm inclined to think that would end up being a little too messy in terms of coordination and everyone getting a chance to play with it.

If anyone has a good suggestion on how to make this more workable or if my assumption of the difficulty is wrong, please, let me know, because it has some potential to be really interesting. But until then, I'm not sure it really works well for this plot. I'm sorry!

I don't necessarily think the playing of it would be that difficult, because even if only one person has the "body" the other two can snark inside their head and sometimes even take control of the throat to speak (or just take over the body completely and become the dominant aspect), so there's kind of built-in threading and such. The problem would be the coordination, yeah. I don't think it would work well to be RNG'd (potential scheduling, possible squick, etc). If it were allowed at all, either one person across three characters, maybe, or three people would have to agree beforehand and sign-up as it were--which negates the RNG aspect.

I will continue to ponder--and solicit ideas from other folks.

If you come up with something, please, let me know. :D

Well, in each Tryad, one sibling acts as kind of an embodiment of the Body/Mind/Heart aspect (Sholeh's bookish, Zeela's prone to more physical activities, Zhahar cares for everyone and is sympathetic). I'm sure we could play with that. Not entirely sure how though.

Perhaps whoever gets it via RNG switches form when they're being more emotional/physical/cerebral?

It's definitely something that could get played with, but I'm not sure it does much to solve the coordination issue. Actually, I'm almost concerned that this makes it more limiting if the player with, say, the emotional part isn't around and a scene started leaning that way?

The only two thoughts I really have on the coordination point right now are just asking for volunteers. 1) Either asking for three people to throw their characters in (this way they at least know they'll have to coordinate) or 2) asking if there's one person who would be willing to throw three of their characters into this (eliminating the coordination issue entirely).

I'm not crazy about either of those since I already told someone else on the first day that they can't arrange a swap and that really wouldn't be fair or in the spirit of "surprise, you get this random power!"

I'll give it a some more thought while I'm out today, but I'm still not sure this ability works smoothly with this plot.

Also, is there a limit to the number of times we can sign up? Would it be better to add, say, three and then wait to hear if more are needed?

I won't count anything as final until after the cutoff next Wednesday night, and I'll be sure to mention if we're really unbalanced one way or the other in a final reminder before that point. So throw out however many powers/skills as you want at any time. :D

A: Can alum use their five-days-a-month to come back for this?

B: For people with powers that wake up without them -- will they have a way of finding out where their powers are / what happened, or will they just be in the dark all weekend until the powers come back?

A: As far as I'm concerned, it's open to anyone on the island. If that means you find some reason to bring an alum in for it, that's fine by me.

B: The intention is that first thing Saturday, they'll be in the dark. From there, it's really on them to pay attention to other people who have gained or lost powers. Worst case, I imagine it'll be clear IC on Sunday after radio.

I just added several people at the last minute. SORRY about that.

If you need to drop someone, you can totally kick either Maeby or Lucrezia out. I am just all WOO SHINY.

Technically, per the reminder post, you signed up a bunch of people almost an hour after the last minute.

Fortunately, I didn't get a chance to actually do the RNG yet, so everyone can stay. But no sign ups will be honored after this point starting right.... now!

... wait, now I'm confused.

The reminder post put the deadline at 11:59 Central. I realized I hadn't signed anybody up at midnight, Eastern, so I panicked and cranked everybody through by 12:15, EST, so I should have been under the gun by about 45 minutes. Did I screw that up, are the time stamps being weird, or was it supposed to say 11:59 EST?

I swear I would have apologized for squeaking in late if I had, but I was pretty sure I was clear on that front.

I'm sorry, the notifications came well after midnight, and I didn't look at the post to compare timestamps. Sorry about that! You were well within the time.

Mainly to indicate that I am done, since the world's going to end next month anyway.

Upcoming event: POWER SWAP WEEKEND!

I HAVE POWERS and want to lose them

I DON'T HAVE POWERS and want to gain them

I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

Re: I HAVE QUESTIONS

OOC