Forums » Smalltalk » when is something considered too OP?

so recentlt in video games and movies from what I've seen weapons seem to get progressively more and more broken so this forum is here to see what the community as a whole deems as being "too op" for me i think the level of something being extremely op is the comic iterations of the infinity stones i mean for christ sakes you break one you break an aspect of the universe?

this is guess ia topic for people to rant on the topic of overpowered wseapons and abilities

"Overpower" is an abstract term to describe your dissatisfaction with the willing suspension of disbelief being broken. Anything in fiction can be as powerful as the audience allows it to be.

I think there is a big difference between roleplay and novel writing when it comes to OP. Books, movies, video games...they can get away with being OP in every way because they are telling a singular story that has a a mission, a goal and a definitive end. Generally its... hero comes from nowhere to acquire OP weapon to stop OP badguy and thus has an epic arc. (not always but you know what I mean)... and certain genres of movies, games and especially anime take liberties on physics.. like holding a giant sword and jumping super high in the air. and for the story telling purposes they are doing it works..

But when it comes to RP its a collaboration where characters could be working together or against each other.. but either way both are telling a story so its not singular.

So for the purpose of RP, OP limits for me is when a character is imbalance, indestructible, defies natural laws of physics without reason (like an ability or supersuit ) or otherwise has a solution for everything.


by imbalanced I mean that for every strength or set of strengths there should be an equally powerful weakness (or set of weaknesses).

Indestructible is a complicated one when you consider deities, demons, angels vampires and other supernatural creatures. some of these by nature are indestructible.. so I would point to whether or not they are balanced. Like for an example I had a demon character who is essentially indestructible but not killable which effectively sends him back to hell for a period of time. so when I talk about indestructible being OP i mean it more in the lines of normal humans.

So really.. in RP I would consider OP to be anything that steals from collaborative efforts that renders your partner to feel undervalues, insignificant or otherwise not part of the story. I feel like that could be a lot more expanded on this, but that's pretty much what I see it coming down to. and obviously that's just not something you see in books, movies, shows or video games.

I really can't think of anything else to add to these, other than to comment on your example used, i.e. The Infinity Stones. I may not watch Marvel movies or really know that much about them, but breaking a part of the universe sounds pretty cool. In fact, tons of lores out there, some popular and some not (first one that comes to mind for me is Elder Scrolls) - these sorts of Artifacts are everywhere and a pretty common concept.

That there is always something much bigger than ourselves, and can move on a cosmic or divine level is, well, everywhere, including our reality; branches of philosophy, theology - it goes beyond fiction. The setting and the way it's implemented is what matters more to me. It can make sense and be rather enjoyable, but as Churchtuary said, it really depends on the audience. If you don't like it - fair, but that doesn't mean others can't. Let alone enjoy the imagination and thought that goes behind those ideas.

P.ost S.cript: Honestly though, on the topic of not liking, just let it lie and move onto something that you do enjoy. No sense wasting energy on things you don't.