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Powerplaying, sometimes called "Powergaming", "Powerhousing" or "Munchkinism", is when a Writer makes their Character so overpowered that they are seemingly able to resolve any and every situation, often with minimal effort. Powerplaying is considered poor writing, as there is little drama or interest when nothing is tense, and uncooperative towards other Writers as Powerplaying Writers tend to ignore others' writings or "one-up" everything going on. Certain Characters have become built upon this concept and have worked their Powerplaying into the Story itself, working with the Story instead of trying to control it, such as Highemperor. Early days of the Never-ending Story saw more, unselfaware, Powerplaying by the likes of Ares the Writer and Arbiter the Writer whose characters, Ares and Arbiter respectively, were able to dominate events both through Character's being overpowered and Writers countering other Writers work.

Notable Examples[]

The Never-ending Story[]

Ares[]

See also: Ares | Ares the Writer

Ares the Writer was the first notable example of using PowerPlaying Character. Ares, the God of War, has all manner of "uber moves" that seriously overpower almost every other Character used in the NeS at the time. A combination of having "god-powers" and uncooperative writing, Ares the Writer ignored others posts or negated them. This habit of countering other Writers actually became a running meme for the Character and was incorporated as one of the Character's personality traits. AresTW wrote at a time when the NeS had a lot more in common with traditional Role-play and a player-versus-player mentality was in play, so winning the fight was the most important outcome for many writers at that time[NeS1 1].

Notes[]

Al Ciao's Commentary[]

TBA

References[]

Never-ending Story1 References[]

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