Game (2) - Strength

[radiantfracture]

Thinking about a thing and looking for some quasi-randomized ideas, if you need a distraction.

What's an interesting strength for a character in an RPG to have -- interesting for you to play?

It can be a strength or skill of any sort, from a standard stat to a mundane expertise like knitting. Spellcasting is a bit too broad. Necromancy is closer to the level of specificity I'm thinking of. Over-specificity is fun (ex. can only reanimate dinosaurs).

What makes a strength or power fun, beyond just "I win all the things"?

As per the question about weakness, I'm currently imagining a mostly-mundane-ish-world RPG like Ten Candles.

Strength we can define in the 10C way as "a quality that helps your life more than it harms it," which doesn't mean it couldn't prove suddenly catastrophic in a final deluge of dramatic irony.

{rf}

PS no obligation to answer all of the questions! I'm just free-associating right now.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Communicate with the dead, but only about subjects that the dead find interesting, and no additional language skills so if they're talking in a foreign language or in an old-timey way, they won't be able to understand.

More mundane skills:
- Preserving foods
- Encyclopedic knowledge about a particular topic, but to access it, you have to role a D20, exclude 6 letters of your choice, and the topic must correspond to that letter in the alphabet.
- Perfect pitch
- Exceedingly good sense of direction

[elusis]

Well, in my current Invisible Sun game, my character's skill from the world of Shadow (our "real world" which it turns out is a kind of collective hallucination to escape war) is accountancy, which it turns out has not actually come up in game.

On the other hand, he has the ability to talk to ants. And rocks. Which it turns out is kind of useful.

Though not very mundane.

He also has skill with pretty much any musical instrument he picks up.

[juushika]

Uncanny (in the sense of too powerful, not supernatural, although I think either could work) insight into other people's motives and desires. I guess the payoff for that would probably but not necessarily be restricted to either a long form or multiplayer game. I've always liked headgaming people, reading too much into their personalities/tells, but then I made it the defining character trait of a self insert in an RPG/RP/story/it's complicated, and I love it. It's a power without being overpowered: people want to be seen and understood, but it's also invasive AF; disarming, insightful, and off-putting can be synonymous.

So, high wisdom, I guess, in DnD parlance.