Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25309478-20140908212228

On the Prayer wiki there has been some discussion about the notion of overpowered. It is more suitable the discussion is moved to the appropriate place, here.

First of all, the definition of overpowered. I think it is incomplete.
 * The term "overpowered" is firstly comparitive. I mean, it needs to be looked case-by-case. What seems to be OP in one case is not in another. Thus, one should say "this character is overpowered in this situation, when we compare the relative powers of these two characters".
 * The term "overpowered" secondly is not interracial. A vampyre will always be "overpowered" compared to a human. That's how lore dictates. It is not necessarily negative.
 * The term "overpowered" is subjective. It is always in the eye of the beholder. There is no objective way to measure the powers between characters.

There is also the issue of the taboo it creates. Once something is tagged to be overpowered, it often ends up to a collective blacklist. Whole aspects of lore are thrown away (races but also Prayer). This limits creativity, limits character freedom gravely and in general leads to bad roleplay. It could also be abused to blacklist entire players, or defame them to other roleplayers to exclude other roleplayers.

This rule was established to ensure fun for all, but now we went from one extreme to another. The overprotection is suffocating.

I suggested to establish clear rules, boundaries you could even say, how controversial and potential overpowered things can be roleplayed without causing distress. I know some might disagree, believe in the absolute freedom of everyone. I disagree with that as clearly, it leads to abuse. Abuse leads to banishment. Banishment leads to restricted freedom.

So the three main topics of this discussion are: revision of the overpowered rule, breaking taboos it created and solution to avoid distress. 