Powers

Upon arriving to the Overjoyed universe, characters will have their canon powers stripped away from them. The techs will do their best to replace these powers with equivalent abilities, but their translations may not always be exact due to inherent limitations between different realities. Players are expected to detail in their applications how their canon abilities will work given the technology of the setting.

In other words, you will need to translate your character's canon powers into the game's universe mechanics. Feel free to play with as much 'pseudo-science' as you like, and hit up the brainstorming meme if you'd like to bounce ideas around for reshaping canon abilities. Additionally, consult the FAQ for any questions you may have that aren't answered in this document.

The key rule of thumb to remember is that although your character's abilities will change in terms of how they function--from magic to tech, for instance--they are not being nerfed in the overall functionality. Same device, different batteries.

Additionally, powers will be divided into two broad categories at Overjoyed:

Minor
Major

Minor

A minor power will be that which does not have an impact on others, or it if does, has only minimal impact. A good way to think of this might be cosmetic. These will be purely defensive in nature, if combat-oriented at all—all offensive abilities are immediately slotted for the major category and entail a different regain process.

“Minor” Examples:

Elemental Motes: Such as a light mote that might serve to illuminate otherwise dark spaces, this can constitute as a minor power because it has little to no direct impact on other characters.

Glamour: An ability that changes the outward appearance or vocal tone of your character—eye color, hair color, voice tone. Glamor abilities that do more extensive deception (in which more than two of the senses are used) will constitute a major ability.

Empathy: The supernatural ability to feel the emotions of others, this ability can be considered minor if it’s unrefined and does not translate to further mental abilities.

Psychometry: The ability to divine past events of an object by touch. Like empathy, the level of refinement will determine whether this power is classified as minor or major.

Major

A major power is anything which falls outside of the category of the above “minor”. As such, most abilities are more likely to be major than minor, and any ability which can be use offensively is firmly in this domain.

“Major” Examples:

Telekinesis: The ability to move things with the force of will, this power has a direct impact on the environment and other players and thus constitutes a major power.

Pyrokinesis: Setting things on fire with your mind. Fun, but also definitely in the “major” category.

Weather Manipulation: The power to influence the weather on a mass-scale—an especially dangerous skillset for a spacefaring crew.

Sonic Scream: Letting your rage be heard loud and clear in eardrum – and potentially brain matter – shattering screams.

Between Two Extremes

As you can tell, abilities fall on a spectrum—even a mote can be powerful and might constitute what could be considered a major power, and thus it’s on the player to define their character’s canon powers between major and minor. Simply because a power might be listed here as an example of one category or another does not mean that it’s a hard and fast rule: if your character can only manipulate weather in terms of making it slightly colder around themselves, for instance, that would fall under the realm of minor.

Regarding latent abilities such as accelerated hearing or instant reflexes, these will be handled on a case by case basis and judgment will largely depend to the degree and sustainability of the power. If, for instance, the healing is instant and constant--i.e., the character effectively never sustains damage--we will place restraints on the character's ability to heal, in conjunction with the player, in a way that helps maintain game balance. This does not mean that we will nerf that character down to human level, only a peg or two down from god level.

Regain Progression

To regain the minor abilities listed in your application, mod approval is not necessary. Your character can have full control of these abilities from the start of the game. Should you choose to have your character struggle with minor powers to coincide with the memory deterioration, that's to your discretion, but we won't be imposing any mod control over how or what you do with them.

Major ability regains, however, can only be obtained through the use of AC Purchases. Some abilities, those which are deemed game breaking (such as time travel, teleportation, dimension shifting, life/matter creation, etc), will never be available.