Traits

[Rafael]

So, I picked the Bully trait:

Bully
While it may be “cool” or “heroic” to stand up against the big baddie, someone has to take of the underlings. Though it may not be as glamorous, you’re a pro at sweeping up the rabble. Anyone weaker than you better look out, because you’re going to show them exactly who’s in charge. Those with this attitude have no problem putting down the peasants, but when someone arises to match their power, they might not seem so tough anymore.

Mostly for flavor reasons, because I see Oriole as sort of the horror movie type, brutalizing regular type people, but I eventually started wondering what the real point of the trait is, as anyone can RP thrashing a large group of people and I don't think anyone would see a problem, or for, say, in a year after my CA's gone up a decent amount, using my scouter to send new people to the Other World which looks rather annoying to recover from, and seems like a jackass thing to do.

While I'm thinking about it, Efficient seems to be almost the same thing.

Efficient
Why go through all the trouble of a long, drawn-out fight when you could end it in one shot? Or try to, at least. Efficient fighters are at their best when they’re… at their best. This extra energy goes quickly, though, and it only takes a few minutes for you to lose your edge.

Because, really, when is someone going to let you actually use this and take them out in a post or two? This and bully sound like they require walking a line between claiming trait power and god-moding of sorts, as opposed to the more popular and undeniably useful

Tenacious
Normally, getting beaten up doesn’t do much for a fighter’s morale. Those with this trait are the exact opposite – when they see death encroaching on the horizon, they just try all the harder for it. Because if you’re gonna lose, you might as well go down in a blaze of glory. And hey, with the extra “boost” there’s always the chance that you’ll pull a surprise win.

and

Defiant
For some, the challenge of a strong opponent is what unlocks their hidden power. It doesn’t matter that their opponent is stronger, or faster, or smarter, or all of the above, they’re going to give it everything they’ve got and then some. Overwhelming odds is exactly where they shine. Fight the power!

Traits, which simply provide a power boost of sorts, and, to a more rarely usable extent,

Compassionate
Seeing harm come to the things you love can be a traumatic experience for some. For others it can push them over the edge, unlocking powers you didn't know you had. While this extra strength have help you win the battle, you can only hope you haven't already lost the war.

and then we have

Lone Wolf
Some characters don’t shine in groups – often, they’d rather die than accept help from another. They can only reach their true fighting potential when they’re backed by the proud knowledge that they will live or die by their hand alone. Who needs help anyway?

Which I assume is active most of the time for people who have it, which makes it easy to ignore because it's generally just part of the power they always have, which is a similar problem to

Pack Mentality
While being the lone wolf can look pretty cool, it’s not without its flaws. You know how to work with your teammates to get the job done. There’s an art form to playing off of each other’s strengths, covering someone else’s weaknesses and proving that there is strength in numbers. When you’re fighting with at least two other healthy warriors, you’re really at your peak.

which is also highly forgettable, because if you have at least two other people in good condition with you, whatever you're fighting is one of three things:

1:Getting beaten to a pulp anyway

2:Strong enough to not care about your teamwork

or 3: A group of opposing fighters, which seems like an exceedingly rare situation, and most of those times it'll probably break into a bunch of 1v1 because nobody wants to read 5+ people's posts about a fight every one time they post, at least I wouldn't, as I think it would be a mess.


So yeah, just my thoughts/questions on the traits, wondering if I'm thinking of them the wrong way. Thanks in advance for any clarifications.

[Kaden]

Traits are there primarily for flavor, not as much for statistical gain. Really, anyone could try to exploit their trait by RPing crap like "Kaden was losing the fight when his two buddies Bill and Yen joined and then started winning because Pack Mentality made him r0x0rz teh big ONE1111" They help people get a feel for your character while looking through rosters.

As for the Traits, themselves, they come in sets of two with the exception of Compassionate. (We could have done something like "Bloodlust" or something like that but... well... we didn't)

Efficient/Tenacious basically have to do with the "length" of the fight your character is in. The description ties it to the state of the character's well-being, but they go fairly hand-in-hand in this case. Efficient characters work at their peak when they are, like the description says, at their peak. If there's an overwhelming difference in power between two opponents, the stronger person would be at their peak longer and Efficient would function similarly to Bully. Tenacious has to do with being tired and worn out, but still in the fight, which is logically more likely to happen in protracted battles.

Bully/Defiant have to do with the strength of an opponent. Bully's are at their peak when fighting people weaker than them and Defiants are the opposite. There are definitely circumstances where there's overlap in the functionality of these two traits as compared to Efficient and Tenacious, but they are definitely different.

Lone Wolf and Pack Mentality deal with the number of people around you. Really, almost all fights in this RPG end up being RPed from the "Lone Wolf" perspective (I'm actually surprised we haven't seen more people take this trait). Even in group situations people will usually pick and opponent and find some way of seperating themselves. Regardless, these two are pretty straight-forward. I would say "Pack Mentality" is easily the least functional of the traits, but has a lot of flavor nonetheless.

Compassionate is also pretty straight forward. This is a straight-up "omgz Gohan theyre hurting ur friendz" trait. It is VERY DBZ.

Again, though, traits are more for flavor than anything else. I personally think of traits as letting a character fight at their "peak" for longer periods of time. Roster stats represent a character's maximum potential at a given point in time, but no one is always running at 100%. That's how I look at traits.

By the way, I like these kinds of threads. Just kind of general musings about the RPG.

[Rafael]

Hm. Definitely didn't notice the two-set style, but it makes more sense now with the opposing comparisons. Thank you.

[Sigfried Hunin]

I think this sort of system really helps you sort of understand how to RP WITH a character. Now that you have X trait, I have a better idea how your character acts in a given scenario.