Powergaming and Munchkinism
What is "powergaming"? Well, as it's often referred to in RPGs, powergaming is using the characters of other people unsuitably. It's pretty easy to do, if you're not careful; you just write whatever you think the other player's character should do.
Why is it bad? Well, mainly because it can give your character a ridiculous amount of power, but also because it really ticks some players (like yours truly) off when other people try to write for their characters and get it wrong. For the most part, only you can accurately portray your character. (Caveat-- I'm not sure about people who play already made characters, such as the large corps of people who play a certain character from the Sailormoon series. I've never felt like I could do it well, so I've avoided trying except in special cases.)
An example of powergaming:
Violet dove behind the lunch counter, just barely avoiding a blast of fire from the sorceror's hands. She drew the pistol her father had given her just two days ago.
"Great timing, Dad," she muttered, "Hope it'll give me the same luck it gave you." With that, she sprang up, shooting. The gun caught the sorceror in the gut, knocking him backwards. The angered enemy pulled himself up and fired a second blast, which Violet deftly dodged.
(assume I'm playing Violet, someone else is playing her opponent.)
The problems?
1) I never gave the sorceror a chance to dodge. This is one of the biggest problems in powergaming. A fair amount of people worry that if they DON'T say the attack hit, their opponent will automatically decide s/he dodges, turning the fight into a useless game of dodgeball. (Or possibly "Dodge-Energy-Attack.") Not so. A good gamer is more than willing to take a few licks for the sake of a good story.
2) Also, I wrote in the other guy's response. Not only is this not my job, it's probably completely off-base. With that one simple sentence I've pretty much made sure that the sorceror's player has nothing to do but sit around and watch his/her character get puppeteered.
It's easy enough to leave the story open for another player. Observe:
Violet dove behind the lunch counter, just barely avoiding a blast from the sorceror's hands. She drew the pistol her father had given her just two days ago.
"Great timing, Dad," she muttered, "Hope it'll give me the same luck it gave you." With that, she sprang up, shooting.
See? Now the sorceror can try to dodge the attack (unless, say, the gun has an enhancement causing it to never miss) and retaliate in whatever manner the player sees fit.
A subtype of powergaming is godmoding, also known as twinking or being a munchkin. This involves trying to make your character ultra-powerful and unbeatable by anyone. Godmoding is LAME, because it frustrates your fellow players. The antagonists will despise your character because they can't do anything to her, and the allies will despise her because, well, with an unbeatable ally on their side, why should they even be there?
RPGs- especially most PBeM ones- are designed for someone to play a character, not her ego. It doesn't reflect on you if your character can't do this or that, so don't feel like your character needs to be perfect for people to like you. As a matter of fact, more people will be interested if you show the integrity to give your character interesting weaknesses.
So, how do you tell when you're godmoding? Look over your character's profile, paying particular attention to her weaknesses. Namely, does she have any? Note that by "weaknesses" I mean things that could cause her downfall- things like "stubbornness" or "antisocial" rarely have an effect on most characters' survival. (For elaboration on weaknesses, check out this article.) If you're not sure, try to visualize a situation where your character would lose- usually in a fight, but also in an argument, or other situations. If you can't, or if the situation involves extreme powers or luck, your character is probably too powerful.
Godmoding also applies to spiffy magical powers. Can your character cast a spell that instantly kills her opponent? Can she blow up the world? Is her power undodgeable, unblockable, and excessively potent? Then you're succumbing to the lure of godmoding. These sorts of powers should only be available to GM-controlled characters. For player characters, a power should have its drawbacks- things that block it, a range effect, dodgeability, and so on. (This is covered in further detail in the "Powers" section of the Application Guide.)
Be willing to let your character lose sometimes. It makes the game more enjoyable for everyone involved, and can make for some fun character development.
There's another form of powergaming that even the most seasoned gamers sometimes commit, albeit accidentally- mixing of In Character and Out Of Character knowledge. Be very careful about this one. You, the player of Daisy, may know that Violet's mother was actually one of the sorcerors, for example, but unless Daisy herself has learned about this in the course of the game, she can't use that knowledge. If you have trouble remembering what your character does and doesn't know, try rereading the story (or stories) she's in.
Another example of using OOC knowledge IC is when a character pops up with a random skill or fact that she wouldn't normally know. Example: The aforementioned Daisy is notoriously uneducated in anything medical. However, her player happens to be a certified lifeguard. Let's say Daisy encounters a person who's drowning, and manages to pull the victim from a watery grave. What would she do? Her player's first response would probably be CPR, and she forgets that, well, Daisy's idea of CPR is kissing with tongues. Hopefully, though, one of the other players can call her on it, since plot holes like that can take a story down several notches.
So, to sum everything up:
1) Only play your own character(s)- let the other players say what their characters do.
2) Don't overpower your character- give her plenty of weaknesses.
3) Keep in mind what your character does and does not know.
Now go forth, and be righteous in your non-powergaming!
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