My soon-to-be site, like practically every other, includes a no godmoding rule. Since not everyone necessarily knows what you mean when you say that, I also included a small definition and example. Mind you, however, I mostly learned this through my own experiences, not through any textbook definition. Because of this, I just wanted to make sure that all you rpers out there agree with it and/or don't have anything that you would add/subtract/do to refine it.

It looks good to me.

It's funny, I've always defined godmoding as being different from what others define it as (though I have met some who define it the same way I do). I've always found it interesting to see how others define it, whether they consider it an all-powerful aspect (ie. invincible, all-knowing, and all-powerful), or if it's simply the control of another PC.

You're right though! There should be something in there about being all-knowing! I think that I'll make that the next rule, though. Kind of like part one and part two.

What is your definition, by the way?

I find it to even be the implication that another character knows something about my character that they couldn't.

Sometimes you get people who will write things like "Buddy listened as Sally explained, but he somehow felt like something wasn't right" after Sally has lied to him. How does Buddy know "something isn't right"? It especially annoys me when it happens after Sally posted saying how she was a competent liar and hardly anyone ever suspected her.

I wouldn't find it annoying at all because I would most definitely consider Sally's saying that "hardly anyone ever suspected her" a form of power playing in my eyes and it would really only be an assumption. I would probably suggest why she is such a good liar, a display of mannerisms and specific skills that might keep her from being suspected. If not then you are kind of pushing the other character into the category of being one of the infamous many who will not suspect her, granted it is just barely open enough to leave it up to the other player whether or not they will go along. So hardly can I expect to be irritated when the other writer chooses for their character not to be one of those unsuspecting many when all that was said is a one sided statement that she's good at lying without giving any substance to back it up and make the other person believe that.

Oi, what you've defined is what I know as "power playing". I've always thought of "God Moding" as a character who is played as 'holier than thou' who never makes a mistake and never ever gets hurt no matter how much trouble and dangerous situations they are hurled into. "God Moding" - portraying your character as a godly figure who is all knowing, all powerful, and cannot be harmed.

I have always defined god moding as controlling the actions of another character and a character being overpowered as power playing. Someone chewed me out over that once telling me how I was all wrong...So annoying. I think the definitions tend to vary from group to group.

Playing someone else's character was always called autoing, in my experience. Godmoding {god + mode} as I see it is similar to powerplaying, and may mean making one's character invincible, superior to all, alternately it may include when one's character autos damage onto another such as wounding them without the defending player's permission. A player simply taking over another's character and playing them as though they belonged to them seems to be a different beast to me and usually just results from the player being new to RPing and not understanding that it's against the rules. Once this is made clear to them, they nearly always shape up. Habitual godmoders on the other hand often don't.

Yeah, the meanings vary from place to place and from person to person it seems. This is the first time I've heard it referred to as "autoing", I like it. But regardless of what it's face or name is, we are generally attacking the same issue. XD One simple thing can have many names.

I've been taught that "godmoding" comes from the term "god mode," which is a cheat you generally find in one-player shooter games. It gives you invincibility and sometimes unlimited ammunition. Nifty little thing.

I define powerplaying as controlling another person's character or autoing a hit. Sometimes I've seen mindreading put under powerplaying, but it's probably a good idea to list it as well.

Yeah, I've always defined godmoding as the act of being invincible and all-powerful, while powerplaying as being the act of controlling another character's actions. I think that they're pretty much interchangeable at this point, though. And I've never heard the term autoing XD

In my experience godmoding and powerplaying are pretty much the same thing. The posted rule closely matches the one on my recently-closed rp site and, with the exception of not including notes on battle tactics (dictating how much damage is caused, never tiring, avoiding every attack, etc.)

I've heard metagaming more than powerplaying for controlling another character. This is what I have, and yeah, it's a lot pertaining to the same subject, but it makes it clear.

Godmoding was explained to me as a crossover from video games, too, like Jae said. It's making your character invincible.

Powergaming, to me, is not allowing other people to react, which I guess would make it controlling other people's characters. It doesn't matter if it's a large storyline which you advance (taking over an entire town without any difficulty) or just saying another character did what you wanted.

At the moment my definitions of the three are:

Godmodding - Being perfect/invincible/able to fly/etc

Powerplaying - Controlling others' characters

Metagaming - Bringing OOC knowledge to your character IC (IE reading that Sally is really an alien and making your character know that somehow)

But I switch the definitions around depending on...actually I'm not sure what it depends on. I just do it sometimes.

I'm considering not even having them in my rules next time I do them. I tend to judge things on a case-to-case basis and I godmod, powerplay and metagame vicariously, so I wouldn't want to be a hypocritical admin.

I haven't got it as a rule, and I've only once had to come up and ask my players to please be careful when they post something. I think this may be why posts tend to be a little short; it's easier to post something short if there's the possibility that one player may write the reaction of a character they're not playing in a longer post.

Emma, you're not the only admin who finds themselves doing things they shouldn't; I know I've written reactions from characters other than my own before. Can you suggest ways that you've found to help you not to do that? Like posting shorter replies, or something?

Oh, you misunderstood me. I don't see it as something wrong. I see it as an assistance to fun, mature writing. What I was talking about was doing it with members where we have a full understanding of how far we can take each other's characters. For instance, Panda and I were RPing about ice skating and her character took her shoe off and threw it at my character and said that it hit him. I was totally fine with that. We both use OOC knowledge of each other's characters to make their friendship realistic (IE our character knowing something they haven't been told, because they are so close).

I think it's fairly easy to avoid godmodding/powerplaying/metagaming and short posts should never be made because one is trying to avoid doing anything wrong. I just choose not to avoid it, because I think those things actually improve writing.

I think it's different if you're writing with someone who you know fairly well. Like, back when I was just starting out I had a group of friends and we did a lot of powerplaying and godmoding, but it was all part of our story and part of how the plot was advanced (like, although we were doing probably 50+ posts a day, sometimes someone would have to leave and you wouldn't want to wait just to have written confirmation that they did ___ to your character). Now, however, on more mature sites that depend on equality and fairness, you don't see it very often. If someone wants to godmode or powerplay with my character, they can, they just have to let me know and they usually do. I really do think it depends on how close you are to the person you're writing with.

This was my God Moding rule all chucked in with Mary Sues.

I find that it's easier to just say not to do it all in one. I'm more worried about drama and stuffs on my site.

I think I did misunderstandy you there, Emma.

But I think you're right. To throw something at someone, and wait thre hours or however long before it hits or they dodge is unrealistic, but you can only do that sort of thing if you really know the other player.

Just recently, another player's character, with a hangover from hell, was described as feeling nauseous. My character saw him go white. Is that god-moding/powerplay/whatever you want to call it?

I certainly won't make someone else's character say something I want them to say, unless I have permission because the player's away or something like that.

Emma said:

I would say that, as long as the characters being affected by the godmoding/powerplaying/metagaming are ok with it, it isn't a problem. I only had one member that abused it and he was obviously a new roleplayer, based on his style and usual lack of proper spelling and grammar.

As my characters have been in quite a few fights (the site was based on a worldwide war) I usually avoid godmoding by saying my character launched one attack and then continue to describe her actions, perhaps adding more attacks without saying if they hit or not. (Although I might say they hit but without much force.) This moves things along more quickly and gives more to reply to than a single attack.

As for describing another's character, I usually just suggest the action I would like them to take. I also drop hints about what they may or may not notice about my character- for example, some unusual facial features that the other character could notice to see that she isn't human. As for the hangover example, I wouldn't consider that (pick term of choice) because it is a fairly logical extension of how the other person described their character and does not assume much power over their character.

Hopefully that made sense. It’s a bit harder to talk about the terms than to use rping examples, which I can’t look up or create at the moment.

Edit: Quote tags weren't working for some reason...now it's fixed!

Yes, that made sense. Thanks!