Okay, well it's prettymuch like writing a comic book script except that everyone makes up their own character and they are the only ones who get to say how that character would or would not react within the storyline. That is the basic premise of role playing. However, if you want the characters to be able to have powers and kill enemies and stuff, then you get to brainstorm your character's power sets with a "character description page" and whoever is in charge of the forum aproves your character for the scenario. (or requests a redraft if your character is just insanely more powerful than your average teamate. Let me show you what I mean.
The following is a character description that I made for a strict RPG forum that stressed a limit on how many elemental powers your character could have. (Some idiots still insisted that their characters had control over all the elements, and were not approved for the story. For reasons you are about to behold, my character was. This here is a character description for the very first hero in the "Goliath Assassin" legacy. His individual persona is "The Watcher," which is used to distinguish him from other Goliath Assassins that come later (The Blindsight, The Red Hair, etc.) Anyhow:
The Goliath Assassin (The Watcher)
Name: Unknown
Nickname or Alias: Keilah, The Son of Keilah, The Watcher
Race: Old Human (Like Noah, removed from the 120 year lifespan)
Age: Over 80 years old
Age appears to be: 50
Hair: Scraggly, shoulder length, still rather thick.
Color: White with a hint of gray.
Style: What style? Wind-whipped?
Eyes: Black with gray pupils. Appearing blind, but not really. Can light-up with flame, in order to activate magical sword.
Height: 6’0”
Weight: 256 lbs.
Physical Build: Aging warrior. Strong as ever, just lacking that youthful tone.
Dominant Hand: Right
Alignment: Holy good. Born near the end of Saul’s reign, raised Jewish.
Clothing: Cloth tunic and pants, Chain mail tunic forged of heavenly alloy, complete with hood (Helmet of Salvation)
Studded leather belt (Belt of Truth)
Studded leather boots (Gospel Shoes of Peace)
Equipment:
B) Ephod: A replica of the High priest’s Ephod that was worn at Nob, given to him by the elderly Priest Abiathar. Made of pure gold, complete with Breastplate of Righteousness, Urim and Thummim. (shoulder pads)
Shield of Faith made of heavenly alloy
Weapons: The Six Foot Sword, (of the Spirit) made for him by the late King David. It is a more light-weight, double-edged (bastard sword) version of the “Giant’s Sword,” which David took from Goliath. The hilt is specially designed with a “Crossbar,” (Christian symbolism) offering two more handles by which to grip the weapon. Recently became enchanted with fire elemental, having been stained with the lifeblood of a fire sorceress.
Special Abilities:
Eyes of Truth: When black, can see perfectly 20/20. When dilated to gray, can see spiritual spectrum. While flaming, sees infra-red for a distance of thirty feet. Actually considers it a nuisance, and makes him extremely confused in the heat of battle.
Spiritual Tongues: Understands heavenly speech perfectly, but has great trouble responding. Has ability to understand all animals, but rarely pays attention, and thus only speaks horse. Has the potential to temporarily understand and/or speak any foreign language/dialect, as the Holy Spirit sees fit to bestow. (Primarily in matters concerning evangelism and imminent bodily or spiritual death.)
Communion of Faith: Dialogue with God, through the Holy Spirit, exponentially (not infinitely) increases his human endurance in times of hardship. The conscious attributes of Communion of Faith allow him to endure extreme bodily injury, achieve brief (otherwise inhuman) feats of strength and agility, and ride for days and nights without need of sleep, water, food, etc. These conscious attributes have a definite limit, in that they cease to function when communication with God is forcibly (or defiantly) severed.
Sustaining Mercy: This subconscious attribute allows for a miraculous and gradual healing of wounds, and generally causes his body to age at nearly half the normal human rate.
Martyr’s Legacy: Upon dieing, he can transfer all powers gained through God to any subject chosen by God to receive them.
Magic:
Flaming Sword: A mystical elemental magic, counterfeited in darkness, taken from the blood of a slain enemy. God saw fit to cleanse this magic and award it to his faithful servant. The Son of Keilah finds this skill altogether difficult to use. He has little luck controlling it consciously, and during fits of rage, cannot control its brutal effects.
Just as awkward are the necessary infra-red vision and flaming pupils that accompany this skill. It takes a good 30-90 seconds for Keilah to “re-adjust” to seeing in infra-red. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is a phrase that describes this warrior well. His fire elemental is also easily expendable, (lasting only five or ten minutes) and must be “recharged” with a gift of Manna from God. Manna can take whatever form God wills, whether bread, sunlight, a soothing rain, or (showing His contempt) an actual bolt of lightning! Keilah never knows when or where this gift will come, but feels it entering him, and can use it at a moment’s notice, (unless struck unconscious by it’s method of entry!)
The natural act of sleeping restores a very miniscule amount of Manna. This is basically enough to power Keilah’s favorite use of his fire elemental: lighting his eyes for strangers! He can create a “warm glow” to gain small amounts of charisma or a “fierce glow” for intimidation, but these are not magical skills, rather a small boost on his natural social art of persuasion. Conceivably, a long episode of sleep could be used for something more important like escaping tight situations with “MacGuyver-ish” tactics, or creating cooking/lighting opportunities where none would otherwise exist. But even in these cases, He could fail and light something he hadn’t planned on lighting!
Deadwind: Another odd ability gained from the blood of his flaming enemy. This spell is triggered at-will and consumes Manna rapidly. Its basic function is to stop the movement of air particles in his immediate surroundings from entering the air outside of the field. This allows him to speak in total privacy with God or with any other creature inside of the field, and is also useful for sneaking-up on people when he is already fairly close to them. But since it does not distort vision, he can be easily foiled by a lip-reader or an observant victim.
Hidden Dagger: The final ability gained from the blood of his mystical enemy. Hidden Dagger allows him to draw and strike with a small knife at ten times the normal human speed. It also allows him to hide the dagger magically inside of any article of clothing on his person so that it cannot be detected by sight, sound, or touch. This skill is incredibly Manna-efficient, and has extreme offensive and defensive potential, but is far less effective against heavily-armored foes. It also does not work more than once per victim, per altercation, or when he is naked!
Character Persona
Personality: Loyal, dark, and rather intelligent. He is brassy, confident, and extremely intense. He holds contempt for all things “prissy,” (even some angels) and is normally slow-to anger, but can explode without warning. His fidelity to God’s will takes precedence over his own in virtually every decision he makes. This causes him to be very “unpopular” in certain instances, but people learn to rely on in his predictability.
Background/History: Once a protégé of the late King David of Israel. He was born in the town of Keilah, from which his nickname derives, and was orphaned at a very young age, due to actions that David tried to prevent. Feeling guilty, David took the boy under his wing and as a result of war being so frequent for Israel, he had more of a “father-son” relationship with Keilah than his own begotten sons. This caused such resentment in them that Keilah barely escaped murder upon the news of David’s being deceased. He has patrolled the borders of Israel, dispensing vigilante justice, for so long now that his existence and origin gray the line between fact and legend. So the legacy of “The Goliath Assassin” was born.
I originally wanted The Watcher to be more powerful, but I had to tone down some things (like turning over mastery of languages and manna supply to chance, adding a confusing infra-red sight to the fire elemental, etc.) so that he wouldn't be insanely overpowered for the group. So what I ended-up doing was dimming his abilities a bit, and planning his magical feats in such a way as to limit his actual "everyday use," while maintaining their awesome "optimum potential." The end result is that you get a beefy melee swordsman who could really kick (butt) and has plenty of tricks up his sleeve, but can't do virtually everything. (Like explode people from inside of their own skulls through some whacky mastery of every magic that has ever existed!)
I actually like the way they forced me to work within certain limits, as his character seems just a tad "more believable," and yet has the potential to be everything I've ever envisioned. Think about it... what if the Sub-Mariner retained all of his abilities while out of water? It clearly doesn't matter that water is his only element, does it? He is still over-powered! So it might be okay to create heroes like superman for comic books, but since role-playing relies on teamwork, you want to do everything possible to make every character somewhat interdependent upon the group.
