With all the talk about Aesthetic Decoupling for powers and appearances, which is totally awesome in its own right, I think it might be a good idea to have some template looks for each set. Both to use as starting points or just if you're lazy. Since the Burning set is what has been used mostly as the example, I'll use it, too. So if you want a character who shoots fire, you can pick the flames template and be done quickly. Or tint it blue or pink or whatever color you want fire to be.
But the main thing for me would be having some starting points. Pick flames or liquids or ice or bees or whatever the templates are and then tweak my own looks from there. It's an anchor in a sea of options meant to not overwhelm new players, but also to challenge their ideas of what a Burning set or whatever the set is can be themed as. I mean if you pick burning and see options for Flames, Acid, Icicles, Radiation, or Bees as starting templates, it might get some character ideas rolling that you would otherwise not have thought of.
Of course, templates run the risk of just being the things people pick, but different players will care more or less about how their powers look, so giving those who aren't keen on spending a long time customizing those a quick way make things look good enough would probably be nice to have. I'll probably spend hours customizing mine, but I'd still find it nice not to have to set everything manually. Like if I wanted Demonic Fire for Burning, I'd pick flames as the starting point and evil it up from there. Maybe add some skulls or something.
As an aside, templates would also be a great way to introduce new animations into the game later on. You add a new weapon, maybe a crossbow or similar, you make a Crossbow template for the ranged sharp things powerset to show it off.
I agree completely. Not everyone will have the same interest or ability in customisation, so one or more base templates would be very helpful.
It's a situation similar to the avatar builder, especially re faces.
Spurn all ye kindle.
I agree. And I think a randomizer would also be nice to have. I like using randomizers to show me something I normally wouldn't have thought of; and then I say "how did they do that?" and I could end up building an entire character around that one kernel of inspiration.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I really like the idea of earning achievements or badges to be able to unlock certain affects! Gives me even more of a reason to do a certain task in game with the notion of receiving a reward that will make my character stand out even more!
Yes please! Especially if it could be on a per-item basis (thinking mainly of avatar design here). I used to do this manually with dice in the old game. Just one random roll on one costume item could give me an entire character concept.
Of course, it could also result in a horrifying abomination that I could never un-see...
Getting back to powers, one thing I never quite understood in the old game was why it was so difficult to change a power's effect to look just like the baseline but with a different colour. Whenever I tried to change the colours, I couldn't get the same combination of light and shadow that the original had. Whatever the reason was for that, I hope it doesn't happen again in CoT.
Spurn all ye kindle.
That mostly had to do with the way customized powers were painted vs the way the core power was painted. The core power (pre-PC) could use 2-3 or four colors and blend those because it was "hard coded." When you allowed players to change that coloring, because the players only had access to two colors the devs had to repaint the power fx using only two colors and blend those two colors as needed. So the PC power and root power were effectively two separate animations. I hope that explains what was going on well enough.
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I beleieve we will have something like this to make character creation easier.
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Good to hear. It's one of those things that will really help sell the idea of what a power does and what it looks like isn't linked as much as in most games.
That was kind of why I used the examples of Flames, Acid, Radiation, Ice, and Bees in the first post. Flames, acid and radiation immediately make sense for "Burning". Ice takes a moment. And then bees tells the player that they could go nuts with it if they wanted to. The sane ones, the off-beat one, and the "But... okay, why?" one. Of course, not all powers can go that wide, but having at least one template per powerset that challenges the concept would probably be good as a teaching tool.
Good to hear. As someone who has played a few tabletop supers RPGs, I find it can sometimes a bit difficult for people to wrap their heads around "effect-based" systems if they're not used to them. Having a "base template" and letting the players fidget with it from there will ease the learning curve I'm sure.