Difference between revisions of "Advantages"

Revision as of 02:59, 12 September 2019

What Advantages Are

The Advantages system here is how MCM represents the nearly infinite number of potential powers, assets, abilities, and skills that characters can bring to a game like ours. Rather than require that players write up a pitch for all the things they want and ask staff "please", or detailing out an incredibly crunchy mechanical system instead, MCM concerns itself with two things:

Breadth of Advantages. The Advantages system establishes an objective point against which the conceptual fullness of a character can be judged and agreed on. This also prevents the Saiyan Jedi Fairy Princess Dragon Rider Keyblade Wielder of the Justice League singularity of characters continually accruing new things in play for a long time.

Narrative impact of Advantages. The Advantages system establishes what a character Actually Does on the grid, how central that being able to do them is to the character, and how effective they can expect them to usually be. This communicates how the character plays out, and is agnostic of special theme hierarchies, power levels, numbers or measurements.

Essentially, a player maps out the major things that the character can do, in the sense of "stunts", "special actions", "contextual buttons", etc. irrespective of the specific means through which the character accomplishes them, using the framework below. As long as those check out with the system, the details, description, and flavor they want are all basically free. In other words, the Advantage system keeps things simple, accessible, and objective, by having players apply for Effect instead of Cause. If a character's Advantages satisfy the relevant rules, they pass.

Advantage Classification

All Advantages are first given a classification based on the Advantage's power, scope, and narrative relevance to the character. The core classifications fall into three tiers: Defining, Significant and Minor.

Defining

Defining Advantages those so centrally iconic to the character and vital to their struggles that they would no longer be the same character without them. These represent the core of the character's abilities, and where they would be sinking their metaphorical XP into. The Defining classification usually allows a greater ceiling of effectiveness for Advantages, so carefully consider how much an Advantage is used and how important it is to the character.

Examples: Wolverine's Regeneration and Adamantium skeleton, Magneto's Electromagnetic control, Darth Vader's cybernetics and telekinesis / telepathy, Megaman's power copy, Himura Kenshin's swordsmanship, Willy Wonka's candy-making acumen, C3-P0's vast communications library, Link's Master Sword, Ganondorf's Triforce of Power, Batman's investigative skills.

Significant

Significant advantages represent a broader arsenal of tools and abilities that a character uses in various situations that call for them, rather than as their flagship way of tackling obstacles. While still very effective, the character could probably get by for a while without relying on them, and they're likely to shine best in certain circumstances instead of all the time.

Examples of Significant Advantages: Wolverine's special ops training and enhanced senses, Darth Vader's piloting and mechanical skills, Magneto's technical skills which allow him to construct an anti-telepathy helmet or machines that boost the magnitude of a mutant's powers. Link's inventory of gadgets like the hookshot and boomerang. Batman's Batmobile.

Minor

A Minor Advantage is something useful, but often more of a passive perk or situational tool that the character doesn't really rely on. They typically provide thematic flavour, unique conveniences, or occasionally allow for a very niche application, but don't have much narrative potency, and always lose out to a Significant or Defining Advantage.

Examples of Minor Advantages: Wolverine's physical traits are generally superhuman but only really on the order of you might expect of a larger animal. Darth Vader showing up with a team of Stormtroopers is certainly something he does, but they rarely accomplish much more than menial tasks and adding scenery to a fight where he does all the heavy lifting. Link accrues a number of items that are important to game progression, but rarely all that important otherwise, or else eclipsed by later acquisitions, such as the ability to hold his breath longer underwater, or fire a slingshot in addition to a bow.

Advantage Structure

Each player character is limited to a grand total of:

Two Defining Advantages.
Four Significant Advantages.
A reasonable number of Minor Advantages, subject to request of being condensed. In practice, above 3 full Advantages is where evaluation begins, and above 6 full Advantages is almost never permissible.

Each of these Advantages is meant to be a concise chunk of a character’s overall abilities and toolset, containing a handful of conceptually related “tricks”, “stunts”, “applications”, “roles”, “talents”, or whatever you’d like to call them. These are almost never defined power by power, but are abstract representations of “as many of the character’s abilities as contribute to a single narrative niche”. For brevity’s sake, we call these areas of capability “Points”.

Each of these Advantages serves to bind together up to three Points into a conceptually related package; the Advantage itself is a thematic package, while the Points define what uses and applications it has in play.

In many cases, characters might have a singular ability, item, or other conceptually indivisible "thing" that has too many applications to fit inside a single Advantage and its three Points. This is fine. You can dedicate as many Advantages to it as you need until all of its Points are covered.i.e. A wizard divides his magic casting ability into "Offensive Spells" "Summoning Spells" and "Utility Spells" for a total of 9 Points of space to fit in all his magic.

In rare cases, a character might have a singular defining ability that doesn't relate to anything else. A huge part of their character might simply be their phenomenal strength or skill with a sword, and trying to cram conceptually unrelated tricks into the same space muddies it up. If this happens, you can leave the Advantage with only one Point. Mono-Point Advantages, informally, are understood to get a little more respect, efficacy, and leeway, for their focus.

Lastly, a character could theoretically be so broad in their capabilities that they cannot fit all of them into 6 Defining and 12 Significant Points. It's up to player to compromise on this. “The movie version” of that character is our advice; apply for what the character would use on screen instead of everything in their bio. These changes are assumed retroactive and always the case.

Applying for Advantages

When writing Advantages on your Character Application, divide all the capabilities you want them to have into the Defining, Significant, and Minor categories, observing the maximum limit. Give each Advantage a name, optionally adding descriptive text of your choice beneath it, list out its Points beneath that, and write in their descriptive text beside them. An example is provided on the Application. Failure to use the demonstrated formatting can result in application rejection. Outside of it sometimes just being hard to read, our character generation code breaks if people misformat things or make up their own unique notation.

For brevity and ease, we refer to the descriptive text in Advantages and Points as "trappings". The trappings of an Advantage or Point are free space for you to detail whatever you like about the character's particular abilities, and your prime real estate for describing the character's cool traits. To keep things sane though, we do demand all trappings observe the following things:
Trappings must be no more than 240 characters each. If you find yourself struggling with this, make sure to use concise, understandable language that gets to the point, and look for places where you might be repeating yourself or adding unnecessary articles. We only flex this limit when it is absolutely necessary. 99.9% of the time, it isn't. If multiple Points necessitate being "on the same line", being inextricably tied together, their limits are naturally combined.
Trappings should not use theme-specific jargon. A player who is unfamiliar with your theme should be able to understand what they mean. You may briefly explain any exclusive or unique terms within the trapping itself if the jargon is essential to include.
Trappings must meet any Required Text, if any exists for that Point. Please read the Required Text of a Point you're applying for, and satisfy it in the text.

All available Points are laid out in the following list. Though we do include a Wildcard option for things that just don't fit, historically, it's been used single digit times. The following should be considered more than capable of representing any given character. You aren't required to read the full list, but you should carefully read the full contents of the Points you're applying for; the necessary reading isn't very long, and will save you rejections and revisions.
Apply for Points by name, and note any redundant "free" Advantages with (Parentheses:). Free Points do not extend limits on trappings, and all free Points that don't fall in-line with another Point must be included in a single line with its own 240 character limit.
If a Point ends with an extender (Point - Category) then you need to name what it applies to. The same Point may be bought multiple times with different categories. Other Points cannot; please don't add category extenders to Points that don't have them.
A Point marked Standalone occupies an entire Advantage; it effectively costs 3 Points by itself.
A Point marked with a tier (such as Minor) can only exist within that tier.
A Point marked Consent is an Advantage that has an effect so binary or dictatory that our usual policy of "something happens is better than nothing happens" is diminished for it. It's generated with a tag that indicates certain applications of it are always acceptable for anyone to say no to, and pressuring it can be considered abusive.

Non-Advantages

Some staple fictional powers don't appear in the above list because the power itself doesn't doesn't do anything specific. Powers like shapeshifting, transfiguration, super inventing, or having a doom fortress, are examples. These describe a broader Advantage with a number of possible functions, and those functions are applied for as Points, such as the abilities of the forms a shapeshifter can turn into, or the utilities of the doom fortress they have.
Access to things that anyone should be able to get, or which just don't ever matter, is also beneath the Advantage system. Nobody needs an Advantage to have a car, own a place to live, or carry tools a civilian could legally acquire.

Redundancy and Prerequisites

Since Advantage Points are concerned only with what the character does as a whole, they naturally compress otherwise extensive lists of powers or items. In some cases though, it makes more sense for another Advantage to restate it as part of its conceptual package. In these cases, the same Point recurring at the same tier or lower effectively becomes a “free” Point. It is still noted in the Advantage slot, but it no longer costs any space. e.x. A character has an Advantage slot that gives them sturdy, environmentally pressurized power armor, represented by the Damage Reduction, Environmental Protection, and Superhumanity Points. They also have a giant mecha, which has its own, different Advantage. They can add (Damage Reduction, Environmental Protection, Superhumanity:) as a new line.

As a universal rule, characters are always assumed to have access to basic traits required to usefully exercise their Advantage Points. No Point requires another Point to work.

Advantage Category Examples

Points with - Categories are bounded to a maximum limit of what they can contain in one Point. This involves a small but necessary degree of eyeballing, to keep things relatively even, instead of allowing Points like Resistance - Everything. To help judge acceptable categories at a glance, we've listed a number of examples below. These are not complete entries. The categories themselves are valid, but the contents aren't trappings. Don't copypaste the whole thing.

Bane

Modern Mythos Supernaturals -- Werewolves, vampires, zombies, famous regional monsters such as yeti or chupacabra, most ghosts, some instances of demonic possession, etc.
Classical Folklore Monsters -- Gorgons, basilisks, sea serpents, banshees, hydra, faerie, most dragons, etc.
Eastern Tradition Creatures -- Youkai, Ayakashi, spirits and gods of individual objects or locations, evil ghosts borne of improper burial, archetypes of Kitsune, Yuki Onna, etc.
Undead -- Ghosts, vampires, liches, skeletons, zombies, various necro-horrors, etc. up to and including “technically dead” targets, such as zombies by lethal infection rather than necromancy.
Mechanical Beings -- Cyborgs, androids, most robots, various forms of AI with relevant physical access, etc. Does not cover robots too simple to be called beings or that are clearly accessories, like a manufacturing arm or a tank.
Divine Power Users -- Gods, demigods, avatars of such, typically all kinds of angel and equivalent divine servant, priests/clerics/shamans/monks, etc. that directly invoke a divinity’s power.

This Point may contain categories that are extremely variable on a theme to theme basis, or categories that are so narrow they apply with a great degree of cross-theme lenience, such as:
Profane -- Creatures declared anathema by a primary divine power, and which are subjugated, harmed, or repelled, by divine power. Depending on theme, this could be almost anything. Common subjects are demons, vampires, evil spirits, corrupt gods, the undead, dark magic users, etc. but its massive reach into so much space means that it's at the mercy of a theme's internal conceits. A vampire might be cursed and unholy in one world, but what is blatantly a vampire in another may be some kind of disease or mutation and have no such stigma.
Dragons -- If it’s a big, scaly, winged and tailed, flesh and blood creature, likely with some sort a damage dealing breath, it probably counts. It doesn’t matter whether it’s called a Drake or a Wyvern or a Lung or a Fell Beast; a dragon is a dragon is a dragon. Conversely, this sometimes might not apply to some entities that use the name “dragon” only in metaphor or homage, as clearly some kind of elemental or space god, or something like a dragon-shaped rock golem.

Immortality

Immortality is concerned with acceptable Catches rather than a category itself. Some unofficially named examples are:
Extreme Overkill: The character is killed for good when hit with unreasonable amounts of firepower in a short period of time, essentially “killing them really really dead”. A Defining might need them to be completely obliterated. A Significant might require excessive violence that doesn't typically exist in accidents or normal fights; someone would have to go the extra mile. A Minor would only help survive very casual threats, or battles with enemies not serious about killing them.
Cell from Dragon Ball Z, the Thing, and many iterations of Godzilla, are examples.
Immortality Juice: The character keeps coming back to life until they can’t anymore. The character could have extra lives, a lottery on whether it works, resurrecting could be draining to their stamina or magic reserves, etc. A Defining would probably take a concerted effort to trap or track, and repeatedly kill the character for a while. A Significant has a plausible chance of wearing out in an especially prolonged fight, or enough of a failure chance that the character thinks twice about dying in general. A Minor example will only work to stabilize a character when they go a few metaphorical HP negative, and they could still be easily finished off.
Alucard from Hellsing and Fujiwara no Mokou from Touhou are examples of this Catch.
Minimum Bar: The character only returns from death if specific circumstances are met. They may have had to die while acting a certain way, in a possession of a certain object, in defense of a certain cause, or only if they can pass some sort of bar of entry that a character could reasonably interfere with, such as retrieving their corpse. A Defining would rarely or never fail on its own, and require deliberate effort and setup to enforce a scenario where it would. A Significant could provide broad scenarios where the Immortality is basically guaranteed to work, but will have its reliability be in question in other, non-irrelevant cases. A Minor example would never save the character from an engineered death, but only a trivial, pointless, or ignominious one.
The God Tier mechanics of Homestuck characters fall here, as well as the Undead from Dark Souls, or any number of characters that carries some kind of self-resurrection mcguffin.
Achilles Heel: The character is only killed for good when exposed to, or killed by, a certain class of attack, object, stimuli, etc. They might only die when burned to death, by a silver blade, under the light of the sun, specifically when decapitated, etc. This is graded by how obscure or difficult to obtain the killing mechanism is. A Defining presumes that it would almost never happen unintentionally. Someone would have to know the Catch and plan for it. A Significant presumes that the fatal threat won’t be commonly present, but may still turn up from time to time in regular scenes, and wouldn’t be too hard to acquire it if necessary. A Minor presumes that chances for it to fail are are abundant in everyday adventuring.
A massive list of classical monsters could go as examples, such as vampires and stakes to the heart, as well as the Highlander series, and every other boss from the Resident Evil series.
Note: Past a certain level, a mechanism can be considered too obscure or difficult, and thus not acceptable (for instance, Ganon only dying if killed by the Master Sword).
Backup Box: The character dies, but revives at a remote object or place, often defended for obvious reasons. The success of the mechanism is rarely ever a question. Disabling or destroying it is the obvious method to fulfill the Catch. A Defining means the character is almost never in fatal danger unless an enemy significantly plans for their demise, though there should still be some pertinent reason they'd hesitate to actually drop dead. A Significant means that the process could be compromised in some way more accessible than doing the full dungeon run to destroy it,though it'd still take some effort to acquire a means to interfere, or locate it. A Minor has some intensely limiting factor that makes it easy to locate and destroy, such as having to be kept within 100 meters, or opening a portal directly to itself the character’s soul slips through.
Character examples include Voldemort from Harry Potter, 2B and 9S from Nier: Automata, and every single Lich ever.
Note: A Catch like this cannot ever be defended or secured by a conceit or fixture of a theme at large. Requiring an enemy to turn a critical fixture upside down or inflict mass casualties to threaten the PC results in being behind multiple shields of extra consent and dissuasion.
Proxies: The character works through expendable proxy forms instead of being physically present at the action. Usually, the canon Catch in this form of immortality is that the character has to be tracked down to their real location and killed in the flesh, but this isn't acceptable as the sole Catch on MCM, since someone has to exit the scene to do so. The character must be subject to some kind of sympathetic trauma from damage to the proxy, or the proxy must present a way for something to deal damage to the character through it. A Defining entails the proxies being expendable enough to repeatedly throw at a single danger. Fatal feedback would require killing multiple proxies, or inflicting as much extensive injury to one as possible before destroying it. A proxy link could be as narrow as uploading a tailored virus through a robotic body, or exorcising a character possessing someone. A Significant means that feedback can be lethal if the proxy is damaged to an egregious extent, or a link might be more like electrically overloading a robot body, or destroying a homunculi's animating gem. A Minor means only that the character can tap out and choose to abandon the proxy before they're killed through feedback barely any less lethal than their own durability.
Character examples include Neo from the Matrix, Motoko Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell, and the Tenno from Warframe.

Knowledge

Computers -- Finding evidence of forced entry, learning how to operate unfamiliar systems, analyzing the capabilities of robots by their programming, tracking by someone’s internet activity, etc.
Occult -- Knowing favored items to negotiate with spirits or things that repel them, resolving the unfinished business of a ghost, decoding ciphers in arcane texts, etc.
Psychology -- Attempting to ascertain someone’s honesty, psychological profiling, finding the right approach in interrogation or negotiation, dealing with victims of traumatic events, etc.
Tactics -- Anticipating an ambush, predicting an enemy’s movements ahead of time, reading into a goal or strategy through a group’s actions, picking naturally defensible places to build, etc.

Resistance

Each example includes examples of things a Resistance could reasonably claim immunity to, and which could reasonably provide useful protection from. Obviously, any and all of these examples are subject to the tier of the Advantage incorporating the Point, and any special factors that make the source important. Immunities are automatically trumped by PCs, according to the rules expressed in the table, and which examples apply to the character should be made clear in their trappings. No Resistance may be so broad that its environmental examples functionally eclipse Environmental Protection (such as Resistance - Space Hazards).
Fire and Heat -- Immune: Natural heat such as the air of a desert or volcano. Forest fires, burning clothes, or a naturally occurring magma pool.
Resistant: Flamethrowers, plasma guns, critical reactor heat, fire spells, stellar exposure, etc.
Toxins and Disease -- Immune: Ordinary diseases and infections, and toxins that are “bad for you” but don’t have consequences that would manifest within a scene, asides maybe throwing up.
Resistant: Supernatural or magical diseases or illnesses, curses of poor health, chemical weapons, weaponized viruses, animal venoms, lethal poisons, etc.
Arcane -- Minor cantrips, mild hazard spells, "magical radiation", pockets of wild magic, or Consent effects such as polymorphs or disintegrations.
Resistant: Direct forms of arcane attack or impediment, like magic missiles, curses, explosive runes, binding spells, offensive teleports, etc.
This is specifically bounded by the origin of the effect being some sorcerous, enchanted, magical creature, magitechnological, or similar means. Resistance - Magic is a supertype so broad that no longer meaningfully resists anything.

Skill

Architecture -- Building useful structures, reinforcing existing ones to combat readiness, renovating a ruin into a home base, finding structural weak points for demolition, discovering secret rooms, etc.
Mechanical Engineering -- Assessing the purpose of an unknown device, manually operating things like bridges, hangars, and generators, performing standard manual repairs, salvaging for useful parts, performing tuning, upgrades or restorations, etc.
Scouting -- Tracking quarries, finding secret passages, discovering or making shortcuts, erasing tracks, picking up on environmental signs, etc.
Spelunking -- Navigating, map making and reading, climbing and rappelling, squeezing through small spaces, reading air currents and natural signs, finding things in the dark, etc.

Vehicle Mastery

Aerospace Superiority -- Jets, combat planes, bombers, starfighters, VTOLs, etc. Works for equivalent flying riding animals such as pegasus knights, griffons, and dragon riders, etc. so long as air combat is happening. Would need an additional Point for exceptionally skilled ground riding.
Air-Ground Support -- Helicopters, gunships, landing craft, space troop transports, etc. Likewise large, low-flying riding animals can work here, like dragon strafing runs.
Watercraft -- PT boats, hovercraft, jet skis, speed boats, kayaks, amphibious vehicles, etc. Practically any marine creature significantly smaller than a whale.
Fully Staffed Ships -- Destroyers, frigates, battleships, etc. of the water, space and air varieties. Riding equivalents are usually colossal war beasts or flying whales or the like.
Multi-Wheeled -- Cars, trucks, ATVs, jeeps, tractors, APCs, armored vans, etc.
Heavy Military Ground -- Tanks, APCs, self-propelled guns, drawn siege-engines, war elephants and similar big stompy monsters, etc.
Single Riding -- Motorbikes, jet skis, snowmobiles, horses, etc. Most mounted ground combat could be covered.

This Particular Point allows for extremely limited selections with broad roles, such as:
Flying Cavalry Beasts -- Would allow solely for things such as pegasi, griffons, etc. but would cover all aspects of riding them, air, ground, support, dogfighting, mounted combat, etc.
Humanoid Mecha -- Similarly, this allows for mecha combat in space, in the air, on the ground, etc. so long as it’s a giant metal person and acts like one.

Weapon Mastery

Hilted Slashing -- Most swords and daggers, axes, sickles, naginatas, most vibroblades, some energy swords or psychic/magic blades, etc.
This is as wide and catchall as melee weapons get, and it should be assumed that the weapons in this category are being applied in their generic roles; it won't get get you the unique styles and tricks of everything with a cutting blade.
Polearms -- Spears, pikes, halberds, glaives, naginatas, polehammers, scythes, shock staves, etc.
Heavy Striking -- Maces, hammers, war picks, polehammers, clubs, batons, realistic flails, suitably sized improvised cudgels, etc.
Hand-To-Hand -- Claws, powerfists, knuckle weapons, pile bunkers, etc. May include unarmed combat itself, or things such as knives used as CQC enhancers.
Modern Infantry Firearms -- Typical rifles, shotguns, handguns, submachine guns, etc. May include somewhat more specialist weapons used in a generic role, up to and including basic grenades.
This is essentially the "Hilted Slashing" of guns.
Flexible Wire -- Whips, weighted chains, mono-wires, lassos, tentacle spells, etc.
Martial Arts Sticks -- Various staves, escrima sticks, tonfas, nunchaku, three-section staff, etc.
Mounted Heavy Weapons -- Missile launchers, miniguns, autocannons, ballistae, mangonels, etc.
Archaic Hand-Powered Projectile -- Bows, crossbows, javelins, throwing knives, shuriken, etc.

This Particular Point allows for extremely limited selections with broad roles, or extremely broad selections with limited roles, such as:
Knives -- Just knives and that’s it, but the character would within their rights to use them as a melee weapon, CQC enhancer, and thrown weapon, as per their roles in Hilted Slashing, Hand-To-Hand, Archaic Hand-Powered Projectile. The extreme focus affords versatile capabilities with that weapon.
Personal Sniping -- Just about any weapon that could be used by an individual to believably engage in sniping, from marksman and anti-materiel rifles to longbows or lasers, but no matter what they use, any of these weapons will fill the role of “sniper”, with their other qualities mostly being perks and window dressing. The extreme focus affords a versatile selection of weapons in that role.

Advantage Standards

While MCM leaves the standards of writing trappings and designing Advantage space mostly up to the players, there are certain stylistic matters of policy that are mandatory for Advantages to do exactly what they say.

"Conceptual" and "Molecular" Terms

Advantages that work on a “conceptual” level cannot include said terminology in their trappings. Advantages have to explain what they actually do in clear terms, and utilizing "conceptual" language does exactly the opposite of this by reaching into abstract territory. “Molecular level control” is understood to be effectively the comic book equivalent of this.

The Et Cetera Rule

For the same sake of Advantage clarity, using “etc.”, “and so forth”, and other thought extenders, should only be done in the context of a tight grouping of examples that obviously relate.
-Acceptable: “Black Mage has the magical power to fire blasts of elemental energy (fire, ice, lighting, etc.)” The “etc.” clearly indicates extra elements, but the magic itself has a clear and sufficiently narrow scope. Black Mage could shoot dark or water or earth element attack spells, but it doesn't expand on the utility of the Advantage, merely the VFX.
-Unacceptable: “Doppelganger has the ability to completely transform his body into that of a different creature, such as a bear, spider, dragon, werewolf, android, etc.” The “etc.” has no clear bounding or obvious continuation. None of the listed examples are intuitively related, and the entry could spiral into turning into planet-sized space whales for all the reader knows.

Up-rating Tiers

When a single package of abilities is split up across multiple tiers of Advantage, any mention of the higher tiered Advantage should only appear in the lower tiered Advantage, not the reverse. Written inclusions of Significant or Minor Advantages shouldn't be appearing in a Defining Advantage's text.

Implicit Limitations

Despite the extreme breadth most Advantages allow, MCM has expectations that Advantages be played to what they say, and not what they could theoretically justify. “My Advantage doesn’t explicitly say I can’t do it” doesn’t mean you can. A Black Mage, Link, and the Doom Slayer might all have Attack List - Ranged, but there is a serious problem when Black Mage pulls a BFG or a Hookshot out from under his hat because it would fit under an Attack List - Ranged for the others.
On a related note, there is no such thing as Advantages that implicitly exist. Robot NPCs don't confer a free version of Skill - Computers because "logically the character should be a computer wiz to make robots".

Hard Numbers and Figures

In almost all cases, defining the limits of Advantages through specific, hard and fast numbers will result in being bounced back for revisions. MCM is not a roleplay where comparing statistics is very meaningful, and our Advantages system runs on narrative effectiveness, not power levels. Exactly how many tons a character can lift, how many kilometers per hour they can run, how many kilojoules their laser gun fires, etc. should not appear in Advantages. "Lift a semi truck", "sprint as fast as a car", or "melt holes in battle tanks" are useful and acceptable alternatives.

Meta Reference and Rules Restatement

Advantages should not be written so that their trappings reference the Advantage system as a meta entity. Dictating interactions with Points by their official names, directing the reader around an Advantage section like a wiki, explicitly leaning on conventions such as the Defining/Significant/Minor tiering system, or universal rules on scope/range/etc. is either making pseudo-policy calls, or already implicit in it being on MCM at all.

Anti-Consequence Advantages

Advantages that exist to prevent other characters from being able to affect their desired target, or generally do things to the scene, are not permitted on grounds of being dictatory and/or anti-RP. An easy example of this is the barrier field magic from the Lyrical Nanoha series, which shunts combatants to a dimensional space where they cannot affect the real world.

A Word on Force Fields and Energy Shields

Personal barriers that block incoming damage are common fixtures; a skintight energy shield from a high-tech suit of armor, a mental force field bubble projected by a psychic, or a barrier of magical energy summoned around a wizard to protect himself. These Advantages are okay to apply for, but require some extra consideration when portraying them on MCM.
When these Advantages are played, we require that taking significant damage incurs some kind of strain as a result, so the conceit of force fields completely shutting down damage and guaranteeing the character's safety up until their arbitrary failure point doesn't work out. The armour has a shallow shield with a fast recharge that accrues repeated spillover, the psychic taxes their mental reserves, the wizard takes magic burn damage, etc. Essentially, players don't get to decide on a point of "okay, now this enemy/hazard matters to me".

Advantage +1

Lastly, MCM does not consider Advantages recurring multiple times equal to “Advantage but better”. A natural superhuman might put on a suit of powered armor that further enhances his superhuman physical abilities, but Superhumanity is Superhumanity, and is worth 1 Point. There is no Superhumanity+1, double Superhumanity, or Superhumanity squared.

Basic Advantage Policy and Limitations

As MCM allows an extremely wide variety of characters and character abilities, for the sake of keeping things sane and fun, there are a few universal rules that Advantages must abide by.

Non-Player Characters Don't Have Advantages: The Advantage system is the core method for PCs to interact with each other and RP as a whole. The many entities that will exist as fixtures of scenes do not adhere to, or benefit from, the same system. NPCs (not the Point) abstractly have "whatever abilities are good for the story and fun", and can't enforce things like Skeleton Catch or Power Copy - 1, nor do they possess meaningful tiers of things like Resistance or Anti - Power that trump or cede to characters mechanically. Sometimes this means that plot entities can exceed parameters normally available to PCs for the sake of a story, but never as a long term or irremovable fixture that can still push PCs around.
Threat to Player Characters: MCM requires that all player characters are capable of being threatened by reasonably significant bodily danger. Serious enemies and hazards should always be able to present as credible risks to PCs regardless of theme. Though what matters might vary from PC to PC, there is no way to "switch off" the potential for consequences to a character.
Intensity of Effect: Almost no Advantages are absolute. When someone “attempts to do a thing to you”, it's preferable for “something to happen” rather than “nothing to happen”, but we leave specifics to the affected player. Transparently, there isn't, and shouldn't be, any way to enforce through rules that Avada Kedavara automatically kills any target, or an Exalted Perfect Defense automatically negates any attack. Range of Effect: Any Advantage that targets another PC is assumed to use a delivery mechanism that is avoidable, even if it doesn't in the source material. To put it another way, Everyone Gets A Save Against Everything. All combat powers are assumed to function with range and methodology which permits meaningful interaction between all players.
Scope of Effect: In day-to-day use, Advantages shouldn't exceed a Scope of Effect of one city block, the upper end of which we identify as Kowloon Walled City. When mass destruction happens, we want it to be a plot-significant event, such as when Alderaan is destroyed by the Death Star; not Nappa blowing up a city for giggles. Places with little or no plot significance can play more fast and loose with this rule.
Interaction with MUSH Meta-Elements: Advantages that interact with natural Warpgates, Unification, or any other element of the MUSH's back-end, are not possible to have. You can't "de-unify" or leave the Multiverse or MUSH setting.
Conservation of Ninjutsu: It's possible to create PC-class power. It isn't possible to mass-produce PC-Class power. Cloning Superman once might get you another Superman, cloning him a hundred times gets you Superman-flavored mooks.
On Gestalts: Certain character concepts can make more sense to apply for as an amalgamation of multiple characters, rather than arbitrarily choosing one and designating the rest as NPCs. This is most common in cases where a pair of protagonists or a group of characters are presented with equal prominence and their dynamics with each other are the central focus. In these cases, where an applicant is applying for a duo or squad as a single bit, we expect that the entire duo or squad functions at exactly the level of one PC when all constituent members are participating in something. A gestalt of two characters is effectively half a character if only one is present and doing something. The bit just plain does not have access to the abilities of characters who aren't present, Likewise, all individuals in the gestalt must be represented in the bit's Trouble; it is not acceptable to tactically exclude members from a situation in which a Trouble might be tripped. The entire gestalt has one amalgamate "life bar" and/or resource pool like any PC.

Advantage Format on Applications

This is the section to reference when filling out Advantages on a Character or Upgrade application. A walkthrough of the format follows:

Which Advantages are Defining, Significant, or Minor is determined solely by which section they are placed under. i.e. an entry written under 3b-1. Advantages: Defining on a character application is automatically a Defining Advantage. A name should be given to each Advantage by the player, which can be just about anything, though it should be related to what the Advantage represents. A very brief description of the Advantage may be added as well, as a form of broader trapping to the whole package. This follows the same guides for trappings on Points: less than 240 characters is the ideal. No more than this should really be needed when the Advantage Points will cover the bulk of explaining what it does.

e.x.
Black Magic:
Black Mage is a career expert in wielding destructive and debilitating magic, using elemental attacks and status to destroy his foes.

After that, the Advantage can be populated with up to 3 Advantage Points. Write the proper designation of the Advantage Point, end it with a colon for neatness’ sake, and then fill in the Point’s individual trappings as desired. For the most part, keep one Point to one line. If two Points are extremely obviously intertwined and could be attributed the same trapping (such as with the components of a teleportation power), they can be put on the same line.

e.x.
Black Magic:
Black Mage is a career expert in wielding destructive and debilitating magic, using elemental attacks and status to destroy his foes.
Attack List - Ranged: Black Mage can fire blasts of fire, ice, and lightning to defeat his enemies, as well as damaging toxic and non-elemental energies, usually being projectiles and explosions.
Debilitation: In addition to damage, Black Mage can use the elements to weaken and hinder foes, such as lingering burns with fire, slowing cold auras with ice, brief stuns with lightning, etc.
Field Shaping: Lastly, Black Mage can manipulate the field of battle by creating spires of ice, walls of fire, toxic miasmas, and other such elemental hazards and terrain.

Finally, add any “free” Advantage Points (as explained in the main body of the Advantages article), if any, to the end. All free Points should go together on a single line, and use the same trapping to encompass all of them, since by their very nature they should need a quick recap at the very most. If there are free Points that are clearly intertwined, they can go on the same line as an existing Point, as explained before. Put all free Points in (parenthesis) to designate them. Reserve parenthesis solely for free Points.

e.x.
Black Magic:
Black Mage is a career expert in wielding destructive and debilitating magic, using elemental attacks and status to destroy his foes.
Attack List - Ranged: Black Mage can fire blasts of fire, ice, and lightning to defeat his enemies, as well as damaging toxic and non-elemental energies, usually being projectiles and explosions.
Debilitation: In addition to damage, Black Mage can use the elements to weaken and hinder foes, such as lingering burns with fire, slowing cold auras with ice, brief stuns with lightning, etc.
Field Shaping: (Attack List - Ranged): Lastly, Black Mage can manipulate the field of battle by creating spires of ice, walls of fire, toxic miasmas, and other such elemental hazards and terrain.
(Destruction, Incapacitation): Black Mage can use personal versions of the intensely destructive or non-lethal spells of his Aeon Summons, albeit weaker and more localized.

In this example, the free Point added to Field Shaping is not strictly necessary, since how it relates to his elemental attack powers is blatantly obvious from its organization and trapping. It’s only an example of how it could be done. The example also references an Aeon Summon Advantage that obviously isn't included to demonstrate unrelated free Points. As a general rule, players should assume that explicitly compounding Points like this is unnecessary when their relation is very clear, or it’s very easy to figure out what comes out of the combination. i.e. Superhumanity + Weapon Mastery - Swords = superhuman feats of swordsmanship.

The character’s +advantages entry on the MUSH will parse in ANSI to make things easier to read: Advantage titles are white, Points are green, free Points are blue, and any Point that has a Consent application is automatically marked with a red asterisk (this*) by our code. Since Share Power can encompass Advantages up to and including “all of them”, there is no special format; the trapping should give a good idea of what Advantage Points it shares. Please format applications correctly to make things easier on staff generating your character, and to prevent errors.

Quick Characters

Apart from the standard format presented here, written for MCM’s default character application process, players wishing to app relatively streamlined and straightforward character concepts have the option of writing their character to in the format of a "Quick Character Application".

The Quick application effectively does the following:
The character still has up to two Defining Advantages.
The character now has two Significant Advantages, rather than the default four.
The character is still limited to a reasonable number of Minor Advantages, but this will rarely be allowed to exceed three slots.
The Wildcard Advantage Point is not accessible. Highly fiddly Advantage Points with high bars of required text (such as Improbable Defense, for example) are discouraged but not disallowed, so long as they are relatively simple examples of their breed.
The character is obligated to fill out only a Trouble for Disadvantages. No further Disadvantages, Significant, Minor or otherwise, should be sent for approval.

Submitted Quick Character Applications are something staff places slightly higher priority on processing, and due to being smaller and simpler in scope, are generally processed and approved more quickly, which makes it the preferred format for characters who just don’t need the full sprawl of Advantage space.

A character approved under the Quick format can, at any later date, obtain the same four Significant Advantage slots, somewhat increased Minor Advantage slots, and access to the Wildcard Advantage Point, as well as more technical examples of other Advantage Points, afforded to regular character applications, by submitting an upgrade application which fills out the minimum three Disadvantages a normal character application requires. If the player anticipates their character will be upgrading into further Advantages in the near future, they should send in a full character application rather than the Quick format and a following upgrade shortly thereafter. Otherwise, this can be done at any time, so there are no lasting restrictions on a character approved under the Quick format.

To submit a Quick Character Application, simply submit the existing character application and re-title it from Character Application - Name - Faction to Quick Character - Name - Faction. Staff will process it under these adjusted parameters.

Patch Notes 9/11/2019: Overhaul to most text to drastically decrease length and amount of reading. Mind Manipulation and Mind Reading folded into new Mental Intrusion Point. Oration removed. Attack Redirection removed and considered part of Attack List or Buffs. Water Functionality removed and considered part of Environmental Protection and Mobility. Multiple Discrete Actions renamed to Split Actions. Required text in Repair changed. Benchmarks of comparison between Superhumanity and Superior - Attribute added.

Patch Notes 9/24/2018: Required Text for Field Shaping and Power Copy cleaned up. Superior - Attribute now broken down into Superior Strength/Speed/Stamina.

Patch Notes 5/13/2018: Standards on Meta Reference and Rules Restatement added. Cure now uses the Self/Other notation as Healing. Destruction and Skeleton Catch made Significant minimum for common sense's sake. Skeleton Catch now has more explicit interactions in its Significant permutation. Extraordinary senses now more clearly defines required cues. Mind Reading clarified for the purpose of "mundane" versions. NPCs are now more explicit about the fact that are required to be a non-trivial investment for the character, as opposed to Proxy. Share Powers now references the banlist of Power Copy to be specific. Both NPCs and Share Powers have had their standards of Required Text updated to account for the new Meta Reference and Rules Restatement clause.

Patch Notes 7/5/2019: Proxy rolled into Immortality, Anti-Power Genre Required Text example regarding Anti-Magic revised, Stubs removed, Non-Advantages section added, Gestalt policy on Troubles updated.

Patch Notes 1/19/2018: Flash Movement interaction with passengers, Healing interaction with different-tier Share Powers, and Destruction and Skeleton Catch interactions in general, clarified.

Patch Notes 1/13/2018: Further/missing notes added to Destruction, Improbable Defense, and Mind Manipulation.

Patch Notes 12/31/2017: Advantage Redundancy and associated instances of free Points updated.

Patch Notes 12/29/2017: Missing Required Text added. Format example expanded. Up-rating Tiers section created.

Patch Notes 12/24/2017: Format updated to 5.5 Application standards.

Patch Notes 6/14/2017: Edited to flow better for learning the new system.

Patch Notes 2/22/17 7:15 P.M.: Edited the Conceptual file to encompass another form of broad shorthand: Molecular-level control.

Patch Notes 1/16/2017 6:18 P.M.: Edited Minor NPCs to clarify that they cannot have a PL, and how two minor NPCs of different specialties might interact.

Patch Notes 1/12/2017 8:31 P.M.: Edited out Monsters of the Week as a standalone advantage. A MotW would be a "blank" Defining NPC entry with possible advantages fleshed out as a mix'n'match package defined as a part of the character's other advantages.