Say No to God Modding.
God Modding. Most likely the worst offense a Role Player can commit within a game.
What is god modding, you ask? Simple. God modding is to, within a fight or similar situation, act as if the character is stronger, faster, and better than everyone else, without an even amount of weaknesses. Not letting yourself get hit, automatically hitting other characters, and easily shrugging off hits are all examples of this.
To be clear, I'll say one thing first: I love specialists. Naming yourself as highly adept in a certain aspect is perfectly fine; I even encourage specialization like this. It makes room for weaknesses that a less specialized character would have rounded off, so to speak. For example, a really fast character usually needs to be less bulky than other characters, and have less time to train other aspects of battle, and thus will usually be physically weaker, especially in the upper torso.
However, acting as if you are better than another character is completely, and utterly, unallowed. And a suspension worthy offense, if strong enough. Examples of this are:
- Auto-hit: Automatically hitting a character without giving them a chance to dodge or react.
- Tanking: Shrugging off an opponent's hits as if they were nothing.
- Auto-dodge: Never allowing your character to be hit.
- Sweeping: Using an attack which is 'too strong,' highly damaging a character and disabling them from fighting any longer, or killing them.
There are more forms of god modding than this, but these are the most common and the most deadly. To bring it down to basics, however, god modding is doing something that:
A) Does something to another character without their permission.
B) Does not allow anything to happen to your character.
C) Brings your character a notch above all others by granting, somehow, an unfair advantage.
If you're doing one of the above, no matter what your reason, you are god modding.
What, you still think that god modding isn't that big of a deal? Think that an RPG can survive if you 'show your character's might?'
There was an Auto-dodge/Tanking character who, on his own, completely ruined the old 'The Dojo' topic. He had an earth-wielding character with an inability to be damaged by swords in a topic where swords were the norm. I was in that topic; and back then, I'd just barely gotten him to RP again, and thus didn't want to say anything, so finally, after pages and pages, and after killing off one of my own characters to try to get him to take a hint, there was still nothing. So, I decided to let another one of my characters, the main villain, get killed off like an ant.
The Role Player IMed me on AIM, asking what I was doing, and told me not to let him get killed like that. So I had him get his leg blown off and die of blood loss. After which, I tried to calmly explain that he had never, not once in the entire RPG, allowed his character to be struck. And I had proof; you could not find a single place in it where he had been damaged.
He, obviously, responded defensively instead of admitting his mistake. He accused me of god modding when I had been a younger RPer. I admitted to it, but also said that he was doing the exact same thing he'd hated. I did everything I could to, as gently as possible, send my point across that he had to be hurt as well.
Instead of accepting my advice, he quit RPing. He still refuses Role Playing to this day.
At the end of the day, the tally was:
- One Ruined RPG
- Two Main Characters Dead
- One RPer Quitting
- Hurt Feelings between Friends
Say no to god modding.
Wait, what if you've already said yes? What if you're suspended?
Not to worry. Even the worst of god modders can redeem themselves. I was one of them.
I think that every (or almost every) beginning RPer and Writer goes through a god modding stage, where their favored character will always be the best in their eyes. The truth of the matter is, you have to fight through this stage. You must learn that you cannot allow yourself to let go to a whim, and you cannot forget that the people on the other side are people too, with feelings. They are people that most likely put just as much time into their character as you did.
Forgetting this simple fact will only harm your fellow RPers, the game we all love, and, in the long run, yourself. The reminder of what I did to the Auto-dodge/Tanker as he tried to argue with me was scathing. As an RPer, I may never live it down.
However, I can learn to move on, and move on I have.
Say no to god modding.
Related Topics:
Mary Sueism