Reactive Evolution: On NLFs

[Bobsican]

Doing this thread to avoid derailing another thread

Anyways, it has come to my attention that currently we seemingly allow Reactive Evolution to extend to abilities far beyond what it has displayed, let alone abilities entirely unrelated to what it has granted.

I already looked at precedents here and here, and the overall consensus (even agreed by a staff member as linked in the second link) historically appears to be that the ability at most only grants a countermeasure to a power that already exists in the given verse and dimensional level, and so my proposal would be to add a note to this power page on that regard, as this misconception is clearly widely spread, we already have a similar note in Power Mimicry, for reference.

 

[EldemadeDityjon]

Following

 

[LordGriffin1000]

I thought we didn't allow this... I assumed we only allowed characters to evolve to what they've shown and within reason.

I'm fine with a note.

 

[ThanatosX]

I agree. Assuming that a character is able to gain any ability in existence only because they were shown to be able to gain abilities while fighting would mean that his RE would be limitless, making him able to obtain any ability or any resistence imaginabile. Which is obviously NLF, and I don't have to explain why.
The RE of a character must be restricted to what he was able to adapt or evolve to in the story, meaning that they cannot gain something that wasn't shown they can gain.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

I do believe a bit of leeway can be granted- For example... If someone could sporadically gain Ice Manipulation, then perhaps they could gain Water Manipulation- But for the most part, I do think we need to apply some hard limits. Certain abilities just don't seem to be in reach for some character's to gain.

 

[JoshSSJGod]

Yeah that's fine. A clear limit to it can be what is in the verse so like a character isn't just pulling out plot hax or something.

 

[Bobsican]

Okay, given the overall consensus being positive, I'll start suggesting what to add:

It would be a No Limits Fallacy to assume someone with this power can obtain any ability whatsoever. Its extent and complexity only go as far its feats and scaling have gone for it, in relation to countermeasures to powers that already exist in the setting.

This bit could also be removed to avoid a bit of redundancy, the above also provides better wording to its premise IMO:

Likewise, the latter determines the complexity and scale of the powers, resistances and statistics gained.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

I will hope that we don't put hard limits on such an ability, because then it loses all it's usefulness and becomes redundant. I would keep some room for nuanced discussion.

Other than that I agree we shouldn't allow egregious NLFs.

 

[Bobsican]

Well, Power Mimicry is already mostly useless out of that as far I'm aware, so it'd be best to be consistent.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

Being consistently useless is hardly something to aspire for.

 

[Bobsican]

Extraordinary powers require extraordinary evidence, as usual.

It's just like how there's quite big requirements to get type 5 acausality, and even then it's limited to what it has displayed in the first place, that's just how the site goes in general, really.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

I don't mind that, but what I don't like is hard limiting stuff from get go, leaving no room for nuanced debate and discussion.
It will be impossible to even debate with extraordinary evidence if someone starts plastering the P&A page on debate quoting the description which heavily contrains abilities for no reason with such blanket rules.

Just a warning to "Avoid NLF and make reasonable arguements substantiated with evidence" should be enough of a rule. Because not every RE/Mimicry power in fiction is same, some are useless and some are actually useful, so it's better to keep things case by case.

 

[Bobsican]

Okay, then how about...?

It would be a No Limits Fallacy to assume someone with this power can obtain any ability whatsoever. Its extent and complexity only go as far its feats and scaling have gone for it, in relation up to countermeasures to powers that already exist in the setting or similar, in a case by case basis.

If that could be improved on, I'd be willing to accept more direct changes proposed.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

It would certainly be much safer to over restrain the ability than to let it run rampant with little to no limits. In this case, letting characters be able to use this power to gain bizarre abilities they've never even remotely shown a previous aptitude for, thus allowing them to win a match. If x character shows the ability to use this power to gain elemental powers, I think it's fair to let them, say, gain Earth or Ice Manipulation, but not let them obtain, let's use NPI for example. There's no real indication that the character can gain X ability or any abilities of a similar nature.

I'm not inherently against this more loose ruling that is being brought up, but I'm afraid that will lead to wide variance in how people will treat it- Some people might make larger leaps in logic than other's with the looseness of this rule, and it brings many things to question about what kinds of RE's can lead to what kinds of abilities.

 

[GilverTheProtoAngelo]

Okay, then how about...?



If that could be improved on, I'd be willing to accept more direct changes proposed.

Addition of case by case is good enough imo.

It actually coerces people to have proper debates about abilities rather than spam NLF FRA trains by wrongfully utilising abilities beyond their scope and potential.

Cool thing about RE is it involves a more intense discussion about how abilities and resistances of various nature interact with each other and how every character evolves with different speeds and potency to variety of different haxxes. They fail in some cases and success to evolve in others.
As long as this rule weeds out idiotic NLF stuff and allows some interesting debates I am in support.

 

[Lynieryz]

what about characters that RE literally works in order to gain the skill needed to win a battle?

 

[Bobsican]

They'd get handicapped as it'd be limited to the showings of the ability, especially if it isn't elaborated on beyond that.

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.
I can't apply the stuff as the page is locked

 

[Bobsican]

Bump.

 

[WeeklyBattles]

Makes sense, thought we already did this too given stuff like 682 has always been argued this way

 

[Deceived3596]

I'm fine with a Note.

Reactive Evolution is one of those abilities which are extremely susceptible to wanking, so having something in-place which hopefully decreases the chance of the ability being wanked into high heaven would be good.

 

[Noneless21]

this I agree

while it is an unspoken rules that RE can't get by dimensionality, RE shouldn't grant new resistance/abilities that never existed in a character's verse so it'll always be better to look at the feat case by case as per usual

 

[Tony_di_bugalu]

So how does RE work now?

 

[Sniper670]

We preach against nlf yet we have character beings assumed to be able to acquire abilities/resistances that are nonexistent in the verse because of RE.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

I'll call some other staff so we can get this applied and done with.

@DarkDragonMedeus @Damage3245, @LordTracer @Theglassman12 @Elizhaa

Your input would be appreciated, so we can get this settled.

 

[Theglassman12]

This is fine by me, so long as there's at least some case by case basis on how the reactive evolution is treated each verse.

 

[LordTracer]

My thoughts are the same as Glass, as long as there’s some case-by-case evaluation, I’m fine with this.

 

[Tony_di_bugalu]

So for example if character X resist concept manip in verse is he allows to get resistance to soul manip against Y here?

 

[Lynieryz]

So for example if character X resist concept manip in verse is he allows to get resistance to soul manip against Y here?

I didn't understand anything you said why would resisting concept manipulation result in character X having resistance to soul manipulation?

 

[Therefir]

So for example if character X resist concept manip in verse is he allows to get resistance to soul manip against Y here?

There's zero correlation between the two resistances, so the character wouldn't be allowed to gain soul resist.

 

[TheKingStrategist13]

I really think it's gotta depend on how close the abilities are. For example, if you resist Ice manip, then gaining Water Manip resistance isn't out there. But you can't just gain Fire Resist from it. That's just a simplified example, of course.

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

This seems fine as long as case-by-case evaluation is used.

I feel it could be reasoned that a character who can develop resistance against Disease Manipulation can also develop resistance against Poison Manipulation or being drugged for example, but typically I suppose we shouldn’t allow extreme extrapolations without feats to avoid NLFs. So resisting Plot Manipulation or Reality Warping technically wouldn’t automatically grant Resistance to Soul or Conceptual Manipulation.

 

[Damage3245]

Case-by-case basis, yeah. In general though, avoid NLF or supposed assumptions that cannot be sustained without evidence.

 

[Arkenis]

So lets say a character has shown RE to spatial, time, and ee hax, is it massive leap in logic to assume he could RE to law manip, causality manip and soul manip? Is this fine even if those aren’t shown in verse?

 

[Damage3245]

So lets say a character has shown RE to spatial, time, and ee hax, is it massive leap in logic to assume he could RE to law manip, causality manip and soul manip? Is this fine even if those aren’t shown in verse?

Yeah, that's a leap.

 

[Arkenis]

Yeah, that's a leap.

But so long as they are in the verse, then it can be applicable?

 

[Bobsican]

Depends on the reach of the character's overall potential in-verse, TBH.

Merely having RE and X character far above it having, say, concept manip doesn't mean that the guy with RE can make it work to deal with that, but a stronger argument can be made if the character's RE has been confirmed or so that it can extend to "anything" and preferably other stuff to back that up, especially if there's feats of that in-verse. I'd also be careful on how far the statement extends, notably on when it's stated (or more specifically, in relation to which setting).
For example, while a bit off-topic but still showing that premise, we don't assume that Mirage Mewtwo has the powers of every Pokémon species introduced after its appearances (which nowadays is more than half of what it's missing).

 

[Arkenis]

Well in a manga I read theres a character who has law based sealing, and he previously wasn't able to seal souls but after seeing one, he gained the ability on the spot, so im wondering if it'd be fine to argue him sealing other stuff?

 

[Bobsican]

Eh, not really, it'd be a NLF.

At most you could argue that he can seal what he can perceive (and notably would thus take time, which is relevant in vs threads), which would still be limited to what there's in-verse, and of course, that is perceivable to begin with given the context, I'd also watch out for the other potential concerns I've said before, especially if the RE power-wise isn't too elaborated on.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Yeah, I agree with this.