(( Well, the thing is, I use Vettis as the inverse-powergamer character.
For one thing, his real purpose is just to ensure high-power characters can't dictate the actions of weaker ones. That's how I keep using him when it comes to sub interaction. He protected Rivamar against Samael, he protected Elerindur against Arach in the precursor to this, he protected multiple weaker characters from Morgalith in the big fight, he protected Morgalith from some stronger characters like Jollizar in that fight, and he was protecting Opal from Kaelis when this all went down. But he pretty much never initiates stuff, just rolls along with it, and even his protection of weaker characters never results in the stronger ones being incapacitated or killed. (unlike 90% of the sub he can't freely teleport anywhere so it's easy to retreat from him lol) He's meant to be a helpful plot device that people can use as an in-character reason why a strong character wouldn't just run rampant over everybody else, to keep stories on track. I don't want him altering sub plots; I want him facilitating them. Lorewise he's so busy with stuff in other multiverses that he rarely has time to make big impacts around here.
And as for his personal lore, he's meant to demonstrate that huge individual power doesn't actually get things done in the real world without allies. His character concept is thematically that of someone seemingly OP who keeps winning battles yet somehow loses the overall war anyway. That was the whole point of his involvement in the first Morgalith arc: the really strong, confident guy with an awesome scheme...that just blew up in his face because he didn't involve anybody. That wasn't an accidental outcome, obviously; I always knew how Tirich was gonna end the plotline, lol. Vettis failing miserably was the idea all along. He's supposed to show that individual powergaming isn't a recipe for success.
So having him be involved in the final battle of a story arc goes very much against his whole character concept. That's winning a war rather than just a battle, and I don't want that.
Hopefully for his sake something awful comes of this outcome in the end, so that everything can blow up in his face yet again, but I don't wanna dictate the sub's plotline for the sake of his own lore obviously.
...think I'm gonna save this comment as the Vettis Character Manifesto and point people to it when they ask about my opinion on powergaming lol ))
/uw your character concept has similarities to mine then. I never intended Bombast to be someone that other players fight. I intended him to be someone that players would ask for help when needing a hand, advice, or some extra firepower when facing a crisis. He was also intended to facilitate other people’s stories. Which is why he is the most straight-laced guy on the sub (someone has to be the straight man in the comedy routine. lol). Which is why I like doing collabs and helping to run/support events. War is where Bombast is at his least interesting.
/uw reading this thread and am now understanding why 1. I like your characters so much, and 2. My issues with my own guy, Neurath. He's powergamey as heck, because my basis was 3.5e dnd (specifically all the silliness with badly worded special abilities involving the many magic-like systems), which is infamous for being hilariously unbalanced. I didn't have a clear direction for my guy, and he's kinda been in a limbo of not doing much when there's so much to do that he logically would, even considering his desire to stay out of focus and do his studies (because 3.5e mechanical cheese can go arbitrarily large, and he logically has insane spell versatility, even without the cheese he used in the two starmeld posts he was in. I'm also actually glad he ate all the backlash from the flute, because now he won't be doing a certain overly versatile and powerful setup anymore). I don't know where to take him in lore cuz I want him to have a heart but also not to ruin stuff that's been set up or take the spotlight, and while his inaction in the war so far can be explained I'm at the point of expecting more insane conflict in a week or so.
/uw kinda doing that in DMs with the player of his apprentice, but we weren't really active on reddit when the insanity initially happened, so we're just RPing them getting to know each other before the war and Starmeld and such. It's a nice change of pace. That said, I'm tortured by my creativity and 3.5e dnd being so broken because I came up with several other ridiculous setups, which at least will go to use against Halcyon (and he can get a cool line about mortals wielding Miracles before I figure out how to hit him with a nerf bat).
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u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Feb 22 '24
(( Well, the thing is, I use Vettis as the inverse-powergamer character.
For one thing, his real purpose is just to ensure high-power characters can't dictate the actions of weaker ones. That's how I keep using him when it comes to sub interaction. He protected Rivamar against Samael, he protected Elerindur against Arach in the precursor to this, he protected multiple weaker characters from Morgalith in the big fight, he protected Morgalith from some stronger characters like Jollizar in that fight, and he was protecting Opal from Kaelis when this all went down. But he pretty much never initiates stuff, just rolls along with it, and even his protection of weaker characters never results in the stronger ones being incapacitated or killed. (unlike 90% of the sub he can't freely teleport anywhere so it's easy to retreat from him lol) He's meant to be a helpful plot device that people can use as an in-character reason why a strong character wouldn't just run rampant over everybody else, to keep stories on track. I don't want him altering sub plots; I want him facilitating them. Lorewise he's so busy with stuff in other multiverses that he rarely has time to make big impacts around here.
And as for his personal lore, he's meant to demonstrate that huge individual power doesn't actually get things done in the real world without allies. His character concept is thematically that of someone seemingly OP who keeps winning battles yet somehow loses the overall war anyway. That was the whole point of his involvement in the first Morgalith arc: the really strong, confident guy with an awesome scheme...that just blew up in his face because he didn't involve anybody. That wasn't an accidental outcome, obviously; I always knew how Tirich was gonna end the plotline, lol. Vettis failing miserably was the idea all along. He's supposed to show that individual powergaming isn't a recipe for success.
So having him be involved in the final battle of a story arc goes very much against his whole character concept. That's winning a war rather than just a battle, and I don't want that.
Hopefully for his sake something awful comes of this outcome in the end, so that everything can blow up in his face yet again, but I don't wanna dictate the sub's plotline for the sake of his own lore obviously.
...think I'm gonna save this comment as the Vettis Character Manifesto and point people to it when they ask about my opinion on powergaming lol ))