Oh, this brings memories filled with nostalgia…
I used to be into forum RPG’s back when I was a kid. The rapid and wide spread of suitable Internet technologies in Russia in the early 2000’s coincided with the comic/anime boom. So practically everyone who had an access to the net and who was a comic book fan was involved into forum role-playing at some point. Basically, that time span can be legitimately called the Golden Age of forum RPG’s in Russia: a large variety of them existed and many people took part. So be aware of two disclaimers: 1) All said below is not just theorizing but is based on long and vast experience of my own role-playing days back in 2003-2008; this is something I actually went through and witnessed; 2) I am exclusively speaking about Russian RPG’s, so I don’t know how the things were and are in other parts of the world.
The most underrated superpower for me was electrokinesis. In may seem hard to believe that in 2003-2004 (when I started gaming) electrokinetics were extremely rare to find. No one seemed to like or care about that kind of stuff. Everyone were into pyrokinetics, psionic (telpahy, TK, etc.), metamorphs and speedsters (Quiksilver rip-offs). Probably due sad fact that there is just no cool or prominent electrokinetics in Marvel and DC universes (well. Maybe, except Surge who didn’t do much and who was generally regarded as a speedster). I chose to wield one cause there weren’t any before me and maybe cause I just liked Zapper in the Ninja Turtles franchise. Oh, and it was generally easy passing an electrokinetic through the registration – no on took them seriously. BTW forum RPG’s registration rules usually limit the chosen superpowers to 1 at a time but they do allow to keep all possible side-effects if a player can properly explain their connections and links with the main superpower (they have to be at least somewhat decently derived from main powers’ nature via scientific and sci-fi methods, yeah…
. This is the place where electrokinesis began to kick off: the trick is that it’s a very-very vast field of usage and a great space for creativity + you can derive tons of useful bonuses from it as «side-effects» such as not only generic zaps, discharges and lightning bolts but enhanced nervous system (enhanced speed and reaction, immunity to different stuff), supreme electromagnetic field, levitation, immunity no telepathy and other mind screwing, EMP, EMF-based radar and, theoretically, a route to possible achieving of magnetism and plasma-based powers.
So I kicked almost everybody’s’ asses be it canon or original chars fighting me.
So if there I any of you kids out there who might be still interested in forum role-playing, and does it for not only participating in a noir wangst lovehate lovestory but also maybe getting into action in free time, I highly recommend registering an electrokinetic character. He’ll most likely be fairly easy to pass through the registration and, if you play your cards right and put some effort into researching the wonderful phenomenon of electricity, you’ll rout like about 90-95% of our enemies. Psionics will be extra pissed on you cause they won’t be able to read your thoughts. To cut it short in vulgar simplification – thoughts and other brain activity is done with electric charges via nervous system. If you’re a electrokinetic, you mind as well have superb abnormal nervous system which defends your mind from intervention. Even tough guys like Xavier can take a rest. You won’t even need a mental block.
The second choice would be the guy who controls the oscillation of sound transforming it into ultrasound and infrasound. Also pretty useful. Psionics will s*it bricks once you’ll screw up their TK and forcefields by creating a dissonance and when you’ll be inflicting cases of nausea, fear, depression, dizziness/vertigo and otherwise meddling with their minds while not being… well… a psionic yourself.
