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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SweeneyTodd" data-source="post: 2407625" data-attributes="member: 9391">Sorry to post so many times, but I'm trying to separate out different points. Here's an analogy that attempts to take the whole powergamer angle out of it, and just hit the creative disconnect.Let's say you had a player, Betty, who really wants purple butterfly wings. REALLY wants them, and you wont kick them, and can't get them to budge on the wing thing. The system you're playing allows the character to have flight, but it's defined as mental levitation or something. So Betty picks the levitation power, but says "Hey I have cool butterfly wings." 'Cause for whatever reason, that's why Betty wanted to play.You could do things like have NPCs frightened and disturbed by her wings, and have her have to buy custom-made armor, and struggle with getting through doors, etc. etc. Because you really didn't want her to have those wings, and it bugs you. It's a point of contention every session. And you know what? Everybody at the table can't get those d*mn purple fluttery butterfly wings out of their heads.Or you could just ignore it, except for the few times Betty goes "Hey, I fly up and save the cat in the tree." And everybody goes, yeah, Betty's character can fly, fine. And sometimes she mentions how they sparkle with spring dew on them, and nobody pays any attention, or says "Cool" just so she won't get huffy. Some people at the table are going "Whatever, she can levitate, and she has delusions of wings". Some people just ignore it the best they can. In the latter case, those stupid wings aren't even in the imagined head-space of anybody but Betty 90% of the time.(Or, of course, she could get captured and have her wings cut off, in which case she gets mad and storms out in a huff because the GM is "out to get her".)The thing is, people edit the shared imagined space all the time, to subconsciously ignore or discredit the things they don't "buy in" to. I've had a player describe their PC wearing the tackiest outfit you can imagine, and I just didn't imagine it that way. That's pretty much what I suggest you do with Bob. If you're going to give in and give him his cleric powers, do so and then just you, and the rest of the group, pretend it's something different. Don't force him to see it as something different, just let him have his wings.(I've had a Betty before, though her special powers were "I'm so hot, everybody wants me". Yeesh, talk about issues. I let her narrate seducing some random NPC from time to time, and 90% of the time we were able to ignore it, though I'm sure her character was way hotter in her head than she was in ours.)This is all waaaay down on the list after the stuff that isn't going to happen, like making sure when you get a group together to share an imagined space that you want to imagine compatible things.</blockquote>

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