Should flexible powers be indexed for each possible application?

[Deagonx]

This question has come up on a recent discussion regarding the Greek "Fates" that manipulate threads on a loom that represent people's lives. One of them seemingly splits a thread to cause twins to be born, and the question is whether this should be used as a justification for "biological manipulation." My purpose in making the staff thread is to address the broader implication that has been discussed which is: If an ability can accomplish many effects which themselves can be characterized as several different abilities, should we give that character each of those abilities?

I want to make it clear that I am not referring to something like a water-user being given both "Water Manip, Ice Manip, and Snow Manip." This is more with regard to extremely broad abilities that could accomplish 10 or more abilities, even. For example, if someone has Telekinesis and can pick up and throw any physical object with their mind, would we give them an individual ability for each type of object? Metal Manipulation, Flesh Manipulation, Water Manipulation, Cloth Manipulation, etc?

What about more broadly like Plot Manipuation, Fate Manipulation or Probability Manipulation? If someone uses probability manip to cause an avalanche, do they get Snow Manipulation or Earth Manipulation? If someone writes that two people to fall in love do we give them Empathetic Manipulation?

As I see it, there are three possible permutations of how we handle very flexible abilities that overlap with many other abilities.

1) We only index the root ability, not each ability it overlaps with.

2) We only index the root ability, and the overlapping abilities that actually happened in the series

3) We index the root ability and all possible permutations or applications where they overlap with other abilities.

I think (2) is, at first glance, an attractive compromise but I think it's ripe with its own problems such as in the telekinesis examples. If someone can pick up any object with their mind and we just happen to index new abilities for each object they pick up, but not the ones they did not pick up that they definitely could, it seems inconsistent and would still result in an excess of redundant abilities.

I think the best option for abilities that are so broad that they can overlap with an extremely high amount of abilities is to just index the root ability and give some of the more prominent examples in the justification section. I wouldn't agree with giving Earth Manip to a probability manip user because they (usually) can't just do that anywhere at any time. Same thing with Fate Manip and something like "Empathetic Manip." They (usually) cannot simply will someone to any specific emotion they want like someone who actually has that ability can, they can just accomplish some of the same things as a side effect of their main ability.

IMO (1) is the best option here, and given the lack of clarity on this matter once we come to a vote -- regardless of the result -- we should make a note somewhere about how to handle such abilities.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I prefer to index the abilities it's shown to also result in, as it makes things clearer as far as defining what they can and can't do. If we only index the root ability, things would become more messy and disorganized, as we'd probably need to list every known application under the ability's justification, so as to not cause ambiguity with what can and can't be done

 

[Deagonx]

I prefer to index the abilities it's shown to also result in, as it makes things clearer as far as defining what they can and can't do. If we only index the root ability, things would become more messy and disorganized, as we'd probably need to list every known application under the ability's justification, so as to not cause ambiguity with what can and can't be done

This seems kind of confusing. You have an issue with listing every known application (although that is not what I am proposing) in an abilities justification because it's messy, but not giving each of these applications their own indexed ability? To me that seems by far the worse option.

For instance, I don't want to go to Eleven's?so=search) page and give her a new ability for each type of object she ever picked up in the series, nor do I want to tediously list each of them in her justification. IMO Telekinesis alone is sufficient here (which is how it is currently indexed). Even sticking to applications that occurred in the series leaves us with an avalanche of abilities that are just barely functional at all in context, and are already obvious from the root ability.

 

[KLOL506]

I prefer to index the abilities it's shown to also result in, as it makes things clearer as far as defining what they can and can't do. If we only index the root ability, things would become more messy and disorganized, as we'd probably need to list every known application under the ability's justification, so as to not cause ambiguity with what can and can't be done

I agree with this sentiment. This would actually help enforce our rules of NLF than if we just said "They can do anything with Fate Manip" without actually listing what they do.

 

[Planck69]

I share Clover's thoughts. Obviously there's nuance to this (a telekinetic isn't getting metal manipulation for lifting a car).

 

[KLOL506]

@Planck69 @Theglassman12 @Emirp sumitpo @KingTempest @LordGriffin1000 @DarkGrath @CrimsonStarFallen @Mr. Bambu @Elizhaa @DarkDragonMedeus @Maverick_Zero_X @LordGriffin1000 @DemonGodMitchAubin @AbaddonTheDisappointment

 

[CloverDragon03]

This seems kind of confusing. You have an issue with listing every known application (although that is not what I am proposing) in an abilities justification because it's messy, but not giving each of these applications their own indexed ability? To me that seems by far the worse option.

For instance, I don't want to go to Eleven's?so=search) page and give her a new ability for each type of object she ever picked up in the series, nor do I want to tediously list each of them in her justification. IMO Telekinesis alone is sufficient here (which is how it is currently indexed). Even sticking to applications that occurred in the series leaves us with an avalanche of abilities that are just barely functional at all in context, and are already obvious from the root ability.

I know you're not proposing that, but I feel like that would be necessary to some degree to avoid confusion. For example, VS matches would heavily benefit from this because it provides clarity on what the root ability entails overall (so you wouldn't have people mistakenly claiming the ability would let the associated character do something it's never suggested to be able to do)

Also, I'm not even that big on the Telekinesis example because that's just moving stuff with your mind and not much else beyond that. Granting other abilities or even listing out all the materials moved doesn't seem all that great to me.

 

[Deagonx]

Also, I'm not even that big on the Telekinesis example because that's just moving stuff with your mind and not much else beyond that

Many instances of things like "Metal Manipulation" or "Earth Manipulation" etc. are just moving those things with your mind. Telekinesis overlaps significantly with all of them. That's sort of the point of the whole thread, either we index each object that a telekinetic individual can move because of its overlap with those abilities or we don't. The same goes for things like Probability Manip. Whatever we decide, we need to be consistent. To me the root ability is best.

Obviously there's nuance to this (a telekinetic isn't getting metal manipulation for lifting a car).

I agree, that's why I am in favor of proposal (1).

 

[KLOL506]

Proposal 2 is the best approach, it accurately defines all the abilities the specific Fate Manip can do as well as its limits.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Many instances of things like "Metal Manipulation" or "Earth Manipulation" etc. are just moving those things with your mind. Telekinesis overlaps significantly with all of them. That's sort of the point of the whole thread, either we index each object that a telekinetic individual can move because of its overlap with those abilities or we don't. The same goes for things like Probability Manip. Whatever we decide, we need to be consistent. To me the root ability is best.

I think it may also depend on the context. For example, someone could bend metal with their mind, but the ability given would depend on in-verse implications. A sort of metal-bender, for instance, would get Metal Manipulation since that fits the in-verse context. The same goes for someone doing the same thing, but being stated or implied to be a telekinetic rather than a metal-bender, thus getting Telekinesis as an ability.

Speaking of Telekinesis, looking at its page also does remind me that most ability pages have a "Possible Uses" section, so I'm wondering if that could be helpful to some degree

 

[Damage3245]

I think it depends on context. Obviously if someone uses magical power to create a fireball they would be listed with both Magic and Fire Manipulation.

But if someone used Telekinesis to lift a boulder then I wouldn't say they have both Telekinesis and Earth Manipulation. They're not manipulating the earth itself there; they're just grabbing an object that happens to be composed of earth. Their manipulation isn't exclusive to earth. (Contrasting with someone like Toph from The Last Airbender who doesn't use telekinesis to move boulders but moves the boulders themselves)

 

[AbaddonTheDisappointment]

I feel like proposal 2 is the best in this case however it depends on the ability and how the verse itself treats it.

For someone who, as the example in the OP says, uses telekinesis, any further uses to manipulate specific materials would just be telekinesis. Those wouldn't need additional abilities because it's all generally under the same umbrella of what telekinesis can obviously do. However, I'm going to use Mahito's page as an example. His whole thing is soul manip but he uses it to transmute people and himself, force people to obey him, and split himself into two people because he can manipulate his soul. Putting it all as just soul manip wouldn't cut it so in such a case, the base ability as well as the uses would have to be indexed.

Also aren't things like metal manip and earth manip more for guys or an ability that can only specifically manipulate those materials, it wouldn't be given for someone who can just control all things with their mind aka telekinesis.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

Pretty sure many use proposal 2 currently.

I'm not really up for debates but currently I believe I use proposal 2 for the character Beiloune (His profile needs better/more scans but he's the only example i know in depth from from Okage, his Classification which his basically law/fate hax and he had canonically used it to give characters powers like Immortality, Invincibility and more (Power Bestowal), cut their power in half immediately (Statistics Manipulation), splitting a portion of the universe from the rest (Spatial Manipulation) and so on

All of the abilities stem from Classification/The World Library. I don't have an issue given him abilities based on what the core power allows him to do. However the alternative (proposal 1) would be just to write a giant paragraph that explains all it's applications as a whole. To me it doesn't matter, I don't mind the later method but prefer the former. So long as the ability can be defined, aka, him using Classification to for a specific person like how he made someone unlucky, I wouldn't mind giving Probability Manipulation because that's what the core ability was used for.

In the end, I don't really care, the second proposal is just the one I'm more comfortable with using because it fleshes out the applicable abilities but if majority decide on proposal 1, I'm not going to fight it since to me it comes down to a preference. So long as people know where all those abilities come from (the core ability) it should be fine. Regardless, I will not be participating further in this thread since I'm not feeling well enough to, I'm just putting my thoughts down because I was asked to and this one character I have knowledge on fits this topic to a T.

 

[Deagonx]

I think it depends on context. Obviously if someone uses magical power to create a fireball they would be listed with both Magic and Fire Manipulation.

I think magic is a bit of a tricky case, because sometimes magic systems are completely fungible (anyone who has magic can cast any spell, including basic fire spells, so feasibly all mages have all of those things) in which case it should just link to the verse's magic system page for the most ease. Other times like Black Clover each person is limited to their own repertoire and element.

For stuff like Plot Manipulation or Probability Manipulation I think it is better to not try and list individual permutations like "fating an earthquake to occur" as earth manip.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I think magic is a bit of a tricky case, because sometimes magic systems are completely fungible (anyone who has magic can cast any spell, including basic fire spells, so feasibly all mages have all of those things) in which case it should just link to the verse's magic system page for the most ease.

I'd consider Fairy Tail a good example of this one, though perhaps to an even broader degree. Magic is something that's just straight-up learnable rather than something inherent, like in Black Clover for instance. It's far from uncommon for a singular mage to utilize multiple kinds of magic, and even one kind of magic can encompass multiple elements (like Levy's Solid Script Magic being able to create whatever corresponds to the words she writes, like "Iron" creating iron and "Fire" creating flames).

Though, Black Clover does also have things like Word Soul Magic, which can also spawn a bunch of elements and other effects since the magic's purpose is to bring to life what the user says. I'm not sure where you'd stand on an example like that.

 

[Theglassman12]

Proposal 2 should be the standard, if the ability is shown to be expanded upon in the series that it’s canonically shown to do more than just the bare minimum then it should be indexed. The Death Note has a wide variety of ways it can kill someone to the point it can flat out mind control folks to do things they normally wouldn’t before they die, so saying that it should just be Death hax and nothing more would be disingenuous.

 

[DemonGodMitchAubin]

Depends on what characters actually can do and would logically do

 

[Deagonx]

The Death Note has a wide variety of ways it can kill someone to the point it can flat out mind control folks to do things they normally wouldn’t before they die, so saying that it should just be Death hax and nothing more would be disingenuous.

Even if proposal (1) passed, the mind control element would still be a separate ability. This proposal isn't aimed at items that have multiple abilities.

 

[Damage3245]

@Deagonx; when it comes to root abilities and other abilities derived from them, some of our profiles that use bullet point formatting take this into account by making them a sub-list, like this example from Gas' page:

So it's made clear that Gas' gravity manipulation is a result of his magic and distinct from his Ki Manipulation. This may help.

 

[Deagonx]

So it's made clear that Gas' gravity manipulation is a result of his magic and distinct from his Ki Manipulation. This may help.

I think that is good for fungible power systems like magic and Ki, I am skeptical that it is the best solution for something like Probability Manip or Telekinesis.

 

[DaReaperMan]

No staff perms so delete this if you want, but how it's done above is probably the best way.

(In coding terms)

*'''[[Darkness Manipulation]]''' (X Justification)
**'''[[Body Control]]''' (Justification)
**'''[[Madness Manipulation]]''' (Justification)

you get the point. For the Fate Manipulation example(with knowledge of why the thread was made)

*'''[[Fate Manipulation]]''' (Justification)
**'''[[Biological Manipulation]]''' (Justification)

Just nothing down that XYZ abilities come from the parent ability should be sufficient, with full knowledge that resisting one or the other is sufficient to resist the ability. (Using the Darkness Manipulation example above, if you resisted the Darkness Manipulation you would also resist the Body Control and Madness Manipulation cause they come from the Darkness Manipulation)

 

[Theglassman12]

@Deagonx its an item that’s main gimmick is to kill people, the application of how it can do that leads it to gaining numerous abilities by proxy, so my point stands that if it’s shown to do more than just the basic application of the ability then they should be listed

 

[Deagonx]

@Deagonx its an item that’s main gimmick is to kill people, the application of how it can do that leads it to gaining numerous abilities by proxy, so my point stands that if it’s shown to do more than just the basic application of the ability then they should be listed

Sure, but that would be true even if proposal (1) passed. This isn't the kind of situation I am addressing.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I basically share thoughts as Clover and agree with what Glassman said about Death Note.

 

[Elizhaa]

I agree with other's points on option 2 being the best.

 

[Deagonx]

I'm surprised at that, as it seems like the result will be tediously indexing every instance where the use of a power can feasibly be interpreted through the lens of any of our many many abilities, even when the application of them would be immensely limited and in many cases insignificant.

Do we really want to give "metal manip" to every telekinesis user that picks up a piece of metal or "mind control" "body puppetry" "empathetic manip" to every author character with plot manip, that writes about romance?

IMO (1) is far and away the preferable option.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Not sure on the Plot Manip regarding romance example, but we've kinda already been explicit about the fact that the metal example will not give a Telekinesis user Metal Manipulation

 

[Deagonx]

Then that's proposal (1), not (2).

 

[CloverDragon03]

Not quite. In the Telekinesis example, it wouldn't be Metal Manipulation because you're not manipulating it. You're just picking it up.

 

[Deagonx]

That's the case for all overlapping abilities, definitionally. Someone with probability manip isn't actually manipulating anything other than probability, but the end result overlaps. Same with fate manip or etc. Using Fate manip to destine two people to fall in love isn't empathetic manip, but it has the same outcome.

 

[Maverick_Zero_X]

I agree with indexing the abilities a flexible root ability is shown to result in. Listing the applications of their core ability gives insight on how versatile it is based on feats.

For example, for this character with very flexible Probability Manipulation, which she can use to freeze water, I’d definitely list Ice Manipulation as one of the applications of her Probability Manipulation, rather than just listing Probability Manipulation.

 

[CloverDragon03]

Not entirely, no. For example, if you used Telekinesis to bend and shape metal to whatever form you wish, then I'd consider it viable to list Metal Manipulation as a sort of sub-ability of Telekinesis for that character

 

[Deagonx]

For example, for this character with very flexible Probability Manipulation, which she can use to freeze water, I’d definitely list Ice Manipulation as one of the applications of her Probability Manipulation, rather than just listing Probability Manipulation.

This is an interesting case, but Scarlet Witch IMO is more archetypally a reality warper even if the root mechanism is described as manipulating probability. I'm not sure this is a good test case for something like Plot Manip resulting in 20~ abilities or so. As it is, she doesn't appear to have ice manip on her page.

Not entirely, no. For example, if you used Telekinesis to bend and shape metal to whatever form you wish, then I'd consider it viable to list Metal Manipulation as a sort of sub-ability of Telekinesis for that character

This makes the line somewhat unclear. In the discussion that spawned this, using Fate manip to cause the birth of twins was supposedly going to be characterized as Bio manip. How is moving metal around with a power a worse approximation of metal manip than causing twins would be of Bio manip, if no other application is demonstrated? How would we broadly determine where the line in the sand is without just leaving it to arbitrary whim?

 

[CloverDragon03]

This makes the line somewhat unclear. In the discussion that spawned this, using Fate manip to cause the birth of twins was supposedly going to be characterized as Bio manip. How is moving metal around with a power a worse approximation of metal manip than causing twins would be of Bio manip, if no other application is demonstrated? How would we broadly determine where the line in the sand is without just leaving it to arbitrary whim?

Well the line's always gonna be at least somewhat blurry depending on how people interpret certain things, but for my money, I think it depends on whether you're directly altering the makeup of the thing being manipulated. For example, moving around a block of metal wouldn't be Metal Manipulation, but bending it or otherwise altering its shape would be Metal Manipulation.

As for the birth of the twins thing, I did end up being neutral on the thread due to just how much Fate Manipulation can accomplish, but I'd say it would depend on something like if the manipulation of fate actively caused a change in the conceived child that turned it into two children (rather than it being an indirect result). Or, if a Plot Manipulation user directly caused a change in two people's feelings that caused them to fall in love, rather than just orchestrating events that led to them falling in love indirectly.

I hope that's an adequate explanation for my rationale regarding this.

 

[Deagonx]

I think that gets messy, because we are basically saying "we will index when we want to and won't index when we dont" which leaves us with no consistency across our profiles.

 

[CloverDragon03]

I'd be inclined to disagree, since I believe my way of viewing this has a consistent basis throughout. But I can see where your concerns might lie

 

[DarkGrath]

I was originally going to write a fairly long response, but I don't think a lot of what I could say is really necessary or beneficial to the discussion. Mainly, I just think this part needs to be stressed here, as I'm not completely sure the implications of it have been understood through the discussion thus far.

I want to make it clear that I am not referring to something like a water-user being given both "Water Manip, Ice Manip, and Snow Manip." This is more with regard to extremely broad abilities that could accomplish 10 or more abilities, even. For example, if someone has Telekinesis and can pick up and throw any physical object with their mind, would we give them an individual ability for each type of object? Metal Manipulation, Flesh Manipulation, Water Manipulation, Cloth Manipulation, etc?

The example Deagonx posted makes this out to be a rather limiting concept, but (and, do correct me if I'm wrong, Deagonx), the impression I get here is that this would far more often than not be how such abilities manifest. The above example of the Death Note has been addressed - the Death Note is primarily used as a form of direct death manipulation, but it is also directly capable of mind control. Proposal 1 does not say we would only give it death manipulation because its other powers are an extension of this primary goal. It demonstrates the ability to directly mind control its targets, so it gets mind control.

Another example I'd like to give, which I feel is more illustrative for the kinds of situations where we would care about these standards - void manipulation and existence erasure. If someone has the ability to control 'nothingness' or 'what is nothing', and they can therefore use this ability to turn someone into 'nothing', this would naturally give the user both void manipulation and existence erasure. I would argue we aren't stretching this 'root' ability into distinct, verse-specific causes as much as we are acknowledging that the 'root' ability simply fits two standards at the same time - the ability to turn things into nothing would, in such a case, fit the definition of both void manipulation and existence erasure. In my perspective, this is no different than someone who can bend water being given water manipulation, ice manipulation, and snow manipulation, as those are all just standards that are met by a single power. I don't believe either would be impacted by Proposal 1.

At present, I don't know which proposal I prefer. I am leaning on Proposal 1, as I generally don't like considering feats performed entirely through indirect means to be an actual power of the character (for one example off the top of my head: I've never concurred with the suggestion that Starscourge Radahn would warrant having fate manipulation for stopping the normal course of destiny through holding the stars in place through his gravity magic, because it's the stars that actually change fate - all Radahn does is physically hold them in place). Both Proposal 2 and 3 could justify indexing such abilities, which I'm iffy about, but I'm willing to be convinced.

 

[Theglassman12]

@DarkGrath There's another example that can be used that expands on an ability to do numerous things while stemmed from said one ability: Time Manipulation. You'd normally have the usual stuff like stopping time, slowing down time or fast forwarding or rewinding time, but some characters can use time manipulation in ways that are unconventional, like say rewind time to heal a wound, make someone age fast by fast forwarding their time, or even erasing from time by destroying the time they had across history, in this case just listing it off as just time manipulation wouldn't really be expressing what this character is capable of since these instances would show their application of time hax is far beyond the normal demonstration.

I think even Scarlet Witch from Marvel Comics is another example since her main ability is probability Manipulation, but through said probability hax she's capable of doing things that are more unconventional than what normal probability users can do, so listing off what she can do there would be noteworthy imo.

 

[Armorchompy]

I don't think a single approach is viable here. Something like approach 1 leads to silly results such as verses where magic = reality warping having only that listed, rtaher than what characters can do with their spells. And something like 2/3 could lead to silly things such as "Percy Jackson's water manip worked on the lethe which is made of memories, so he gets memory manip". 'Tis very silly either way. Unfortunately what we gotta do here is the bane of all powerscalers, I.E. use common sense.

 

[Deagonx]

Another example I'd like to give, which I feel is more illustrative for the kinds of situations where we would care about these standards - void manipulation and existence erasure. If someone has the ability to control 'nothingness' or 'what is nothing', and they can therefore use this ability to turn someone into 'nothing', this would naturally give the user both void manipulation and existence erasure. I would argue we aren't stretching this 'root' ability into distinct, verse-specific causes as much as we are acknowledging that the 'root' ability simply fits two standards at the same time - the ability to turn things into nothing would, in such a case, fit the definition of both void manipulation and existence erasure. In my perspective, this is no different than someone who can bend water being given water manipulation, ice manipulation, and snow manipulation, as those are all just standards that are met by a single power. I don't believe either would be impacted by Proposal 1.

Yes, this is correct. I think I may need to find a better way to communicate what I am proposing, as many of the objections pertain to things I didn't intend for this thread to address, like the Death Note. In a word, I am more referring to incidental overlaps. Where someone who does not have a power can approximate some minor aspect of it incidentally and is then characterized as having this power.

Time Manipulation. You'd normally have the usual stuff like stopping time, slowing down time or fast forwarding or rewinding time, but some characters can use time manipulation in ways that are unconventional, like say rewind time to heal a wound, make someone age fast by fast forwarding their time, or even erasing from time by destroying the time they had across history, in this case just listing it off as just time manipulation wouldn't really be expressing what this character is capable of since these instances would show their application of time hax is far beyond the normal demonstration.

This is a good example of what I mean above. Let's look at the unconventional uses

1) Reversing time to heal wounds:
This is fine. Healing can occur through many different mechanisms, that isn't the kind of ability that would need to be collapsed into it's parent ability in any case, whether it occurs with magic, reality warping, time manip, bio manip, etc. Same with abilities like regeneration/resurrection/etc. It's still the case that this character would have "Healing" because he can literally heal people.

2) Making some age fast:
Wouldn't this just be time manip anyways? I don't know what other ability we'd give this.

3) Existence erasure through erasing someones time:
This is very similar to healing, in that existence erasure occurs through a lot of different mechanisms, but the character definitively does have existence erasure.

What I am referring to would be more like giving this character "bio manip" or "flesh manip" due to the impact his time reversal has on human flesh.
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Mostly I want to avoid two situations:

1) Tediously listing every overlapping power for broad abilities like Telekinesis (various physical object manips), Fate Manip/Plot Manip (empathetic manip, mind control, body puppetry, disease control, etc etc.)

2) Giving characters abilities due to extremely minor incidental impacts on things that are more notably associated with other abilities (like giving bio manip for reversing someone's wound with time manip)