Since I'm really just in that twilight state of boredom around the middle of the night where you kinda just stagger around like a zombie wondering what to do but you don't really feel tired enough to just go to sleep, if anyone else gets that too, I decided to list some tropes and throw them out. This time, I kinda thought about characters who have a wide range of special skills, abilities, etc. but write it in a way that doesn't feel like deus ex machina or just pulling random stuff out of your ass get move the plot forward (i.e. have a swiss army Jack of All Trades characters but avoid pulling stuff out of your ass for the convience of the plot). Discuss?

845551
Always make sure to mention or allude to things you will use later. You should have a good idea what problems your character will face before they get there. In most good works there is at the very least an off hand remark of the device that will save them near the beginning of the story.

Dr. Who tend to come to mind when talking about characters that could be considered a Jack of all Trades. Though The Doctor has been around for almost a thousand years, so he would probably know a lot about even given subject.

A Jack of all Trades is fine really, just as long as they follow the rest of the saying which is "...master of none." And as long as the character in question has the proper age, and schooling to make it plausible. Don't need any 17 year old kid running around with the skills, talents and abilities of five people twice his age.

I guess the way I usually plot goes around that. :\ I usually come up with 'signpost' scenes, things I want to have happen down the line, etc., and then if the plot demands that X, The Earth Pony, can fly, then hey! They're a pegasus instead.

Usually it's nothing as dramatic as a race/species change, though. They're a unicorn, say -- okay, they learned self-levitation. I'll strip something else out that would have been cool if the plot needs it, just to try to retain balance.

The other alternative I tend to use is to have a jack-of-all-trades but explicitly balance that out with major flaws that aren't based in capability. They're good at all the weapons? They're emotionally blunted. They're smart about everything? They're weak. They're the perfect stealth assassin? They're working with no time, so they have to keep charging along and put themselves into the worst kind of situation for their skills -- that kind of thing. I find balance in another realm can leave a jack-of-all-trades surprisingly plausible, at least to me.

just balance out pro's and cons then it'll be fine.

He's a jack of all trade but near sighted or something like that.

No jack of all trades without his chekov's gun.

845562 Initially, I was just sortof comparing to characters like Cornfed from the severely underrated Duckman [Just go look up the series on YouTube; I recommend America the Beautiful], who--despite being the partner of the incompetent, crude, and pretty unlikeable title character (though doing an unlikeable character right is the subject for an entirely different thing all its own)--is shown to have a nearly bottomless resume from Shakespeare to basketball to cooking and even more than that. Also see tropes like Hypercompetent Sidekick, which is very similar. The only reason I bring this up is because millennia-old characters like--a character I created--Zander Sanchez (over 3000 years old, given gods powers, revealed to be the King of the Gods, it gets REALLY complicated from here) has a deep wealth of talents, powers, all of which, in canon, have been accumulated over the course of centuries, Zander himself having clamored tooth and nail due to be castigated for his acts of 'heroism' for others (despite his extremism towards the notions of justice), high intellect, and mass amount of powers (a good chunk of which he's manged to absorb from others) while living amongst the human race unaging and blending in. I probably could make an entirely seperate forum for Zander Sanchez alone.

845551

New Power As the Plot Demands has a number of advantages for me. First, when I was first doing my Surprise stories, I didn't really have everything planned out, I made a lot of it up as I went. And for the nature of the story, it worked. A part of me wants to challenge myself, to keep having my characters reveal more and more ridiculous abilities until somebody leaves a comment saying "No, this is getting silly." (I'm surprised the Inventory Screens didn't do that, to be honest...)

It can also work from a dramatic angle. A villain is overbearing, and seems to have almost completely won.... and then you reveal your pony can do the Kaiser Wave (play Fatal Fury 2 or King of Fighters '94 if you don't know what that is) and swiftly turns the tides. Yes, its a cop-out... but come on, how many times in life have you been in a total B.S. situation and you wished you could just spontaneously develop a magical ability to get out of it? Stories like this allow you to live the dream.

... That being said though, I find its important to do things in ways that prevent them from becoming cop-outs. One of my favorite methods of doing this, particularly with attack abilities, is to have them not actually help much the first time they're used. Or to introduce them in situations where they don't really affect the outcome that much, or indeed might have no bearing on the situation at hand. So they're more of a "Hmm, that's odd" rather than a secret technique that saves the day. Sometimes a cop-out ending is actually good for morale, but most of the time, it isn't.

845593 I sorta had a problem, or at least felt like i had one, with sorta overpowering a villain too much; I'm going to use my biggest offender of this Jupiter Justice, in particular Erase. This requires a bit of backstory first, though so here's all that you need to know: Erase is the reborn version of a very powerful Jupiter Justice villain named the Requiem of Death, who possessed the main character Jake Justice into becoming Death Jupiter, reborn in the future and infused with the power of the Negaverse (basically the complete and total compilation of every single evil multiverse & parallel universe ever), who aborbs the powers of just about everyone, eventually becoming Destroyed Erase. At this point, he's essentially unto a god and is unstoppable, so in a spur of deus ex machina Jake and his friends go back in time and destroy the remains of the destroyed Requiem of Death's DNA in the present to prevent him from being resurrected as Erase in the future. I always kinda hated this resolution but then I kinda asked myself 'How the hell else could it possibly have been solved otherwise?' Then again, I don't always see myself as a very good writer, especially back then.

845600 I'm not sure what "Jupiter Justice" is (and why do I get the feeling its Sailor Moon-related?) but I can understand your frustration. They don't actually beat him, they kinda cheat and just prevent him from ever existing, which I can understand that feeling anti-climactic.

I think I would've perhaps had the universes rebel inside him, thus holding back his power enough to allow him to be destroyed.

845608 yeah, that's sorta something I did in a completely different canon on a completely different story. Plot and character wise, though, Jupiter Justice actually has more to do with Captain Marvel than Sailor Moon; it's just a fun, basic, traditional superhero comic I wrote a really long time ago and have been trying to get the scripts back for quite some time. That's unrelated though.

An easy way to deal with a Jack of All Trades character is to limit their mastery to a certain field.

Take Twilight for example. Twilight's magical skill is offset by her complete lack of physical ability. Characters become unbalanced when they start specializing in things outside their purview so if you want an omni-talented character, limit their omnitalentedness to one specific subject or area. Twilight's skill with magic is fine but if she suddenly picked up judo or gained the ability to fly she would start to become an imbalanced character compared to the rest of the cast.

Wait...

Think in broader terms. Someone capable of mastering a wide range of trades might have some sort of personality flaw to counter it rather than an inability. Laziness is always an interesting one because it's a real flaw and not just a bit of psychobabble. Make them an arrogant buttwipe and now what was a plot-breaking advantage becomes part of a serious liability for their personal interactions - they have to work extra hard to be a sympathetic character.

845652

I always thought the term Jack of All Trades was talking about a person with wide range of interest, but a master of none of them. For example, he's good at boxing, but when he faces an opponent who's a master at boxing, he'll lose. His only advantage is he may have a skill that will help him turn the tide.

For the thread, I prefer JATs more than NPAPDs. The latter has to be very very subtle in approach, with their new skills minimized to a degree. One can't have them do an ultimate PWN enemy attack every time, it becomes stupid. At least for the former, you can build that character to train for a move they didn't know, learn it faster than what's normal, but will still need to learn when and how to apply such move.

845551
If you can justify a power/ability/skill in a believable fashion, you can, indeed just ass-pull it. However, the more you do it, the more readers will roll their eyes. So it's something to be done as sparingly as humanly possible. If at all.

If you think it sounds tacked on and lame, chances are it'll seem that way to others too. A bit of foresight is the key. If you know what you're going to need, you can hint and set up in advance, and it makes everything much easier to swallow.

If you're the kind of person that just makes things up on the fly, and you refuse to do otherwise then, yeah, you're pretty much going to have to resort to either just conjuring stuff out of nowhere, which is relatively lame, or your character being super-amazing at everything, which is also pretty cheesy and uninteresting.

Honestly, neither option is particularly great.

There's nothing wrong with the Jack of All Trades, Master of None idea though. As opposed to just being good at everything. Other than being liable to be a bit bland, unless sold properly.

If you've written yourself into a situation where a deus ex machina or other variety of ass-pull is the only thing which will let you continue advancing the plot, then you have done it wrong.

You should have some idea of where things are going or you should write in a way that lets you edit before publishing.

Establish your characters' skills and abilities ahead of time, and then when it comes time to use them to advance the plot, it isn't coming out of nowhere and you look like a proper writer instead of a newbie.

(Unless, of course, the character's role is to be the hypercompetent one, such as Cornfed from Duckman. In that case, just establishing that they're hypercompetent provides all the justification you need to cover future ass-pulls. But watch out that the character's hypercompetence doesn't let them solve every problem, because then there's no story.)

845615

Maybe shes a weak flyer too?

The real problem is whether or not the story is satisfying. I'd generally say that establishing a character as a "Jack of all Trades" is better than just randomly giving your character new powers to solve a problem. Readers are more likely to enjoy watching a character get out of a sticky situation by cleverly using the abilities they've already had. If your character is cornered by the villain and suddenly develops laser vision allowing them to defeat the villain with little effort, your readers are going to feel cheated.

Looking back at the TV Tropes page, new powers are more excusable for characters who have just gotten super powers and are still unfamiliar with what exactly they can do. It's probably also good if the new abilities seem like logical extensions of the existing ones.

As long as we're talking about wide ranges of powers, though, it's worth mentioning that when a character in a story has a list of powers and gadgets longer than that of the last video game character I played as, it's usually a bad thing. Try to give them just a few powers that can be used in creative ways.

845551 I have to agree with what 845557 said. That is another plot device called Chekhov's Gun.

845551

Well, let's see... been waiting to use Reaper from one of my stories as an example, so let's try this.

Jack Of All Trades implies that the character has access to, is trained in, or has interest in several or more areas of capabilities, abilities, intelligences and educations (oh my Christ, I can hear the Nazis already...). This allows you to have a character that can at least tackle any issue that the plot brings along, but often needs support from a friend or ally in order to pull the task off. This enables any kind of plot point you want, given proper support, but turns the spotlight entirely on the main character and his partner.

Pulling powers out based on the plot, however? I can't see this working for anything short of a God, which is where Reaper comes in. In a story I'm writing as an experiment, I've designed a world that functions on a God/Spirit/Mortal system, with each 'class' of being separated onto a higher Plane. Gods can see ghosts and Mortals (living beings), but Mortals can only see other Mortals, for instance. Following this, I designed a set of rules concerning said Gods, Spirits and Mortals. Ghosts can observe in their own plane, and see Mortals walking around, but can only interact with other ghosts. Gods can interact with and see all three Planes.

Reaper, as you can guess, is the Grim Reaper. Since his work takes him to far off places (extremely far off places, hey, the universe is BIG.) he's capable of moving at extremely high speeds, making short 'hops' that can take him to other solar systems in a few moments. He reaps, kills, and judges based either on 'appointments' set up for him by one of the Birthrights, Law, or on his own judgement. Tends to leave Mortals to their own devices, but he's got a strong sense of justice.

He just tends to be a dick. The one who reins him in is Luna, Goddess of the Night and one of the greater Gods in the universe, but she's given herself an immortal body to serve as one of the Princesses. More of an advisor than anything.

All these powers, in relation to each other, stay within the confines of the universe. Necromancy is a thing, and Luna can revive herself, but not anyone else. Reaper is just stuck with killing people, and necromancy, for him, is impossible. Powers based on the plot depend entirely on the plot, and you design the plot to be the plot, not a trigger for you to bring new powers out constantly for your character.

But in that case, the story becomes plot driven, not character driven, so... all I can say, really, is play the game intelligently. If you have a character that's capable of having all these skills, then so be it. They'd have to be really fucking old (Reaper's been around since the beginning of Time), but hopefully they didn't go senile (because, with a Grim Reaper, that'd be... well, bad.)

845741
Even if that is the case, shes still dipping into other disciplines through means of a plot contrivance. This is New Powers as the HasbroPlot Demands instead of Jack of All Trades.

Okay, I'll stop this isn't the place to cry about AliTwi

Take a third option!

For my story in progress, the protagonist has super strength, toughness, nigh-immunity to magic, and a sort of 'fighting sense.' Cliche, sure, but it all comes from the same source of power. On top of that, she is a pegasus - albeit one with underdeveloped wings (no one will ever guess who!). The first big breakthrough in the plot isn't so much learning to fly, but learning how to use her wings to become a lightning bruiser on the ground; zipping about at high speeds and turning on a dime tends to be useful in a fight. The second is a near death experience that forced her to learn how to min-max her power on the fly. Nothing about the power itself changes, but her understanding and control - as an extension of her character - makes her stronger.

I would go with those who say 'use an established power in a new way' above. Check the tropes Chekhov's Skill, Lethal Harmless Powers, and Heart Is An Aweome Power. If you're an Avatar: TLA fan, they touch on learning new ways to apply stock powers more than once. Electric Shock Showdown from Pokemon featured Ash and Pikachu needing to use skills other than brute force electricity to win; actually, Pikachu is quite good for that with his electricity too. Improvisation is a fun aesop.

Bringing it back to MLP: Dash can channel her Sonic Rainboom into a mini-nuke, the Pinkie Sense allowed her to dodge falling debris on the fly, and Twilight can destroy things by teleporting directly inside them. One fic that makes excellent use of largely canon powers is The Immortal Game. Pinkie's abuse of physics and premonition, Fluttershy's Stare, Twilight's skill with magic, and quite a few other things are very well established and justified.

845600 For your problem you could establish the remains as a plot point early on, then a bit later have time travel be brought up, possibly used. The connection could be made that going back in time would allow them to destroy the remains, but then you've created a paradox. In order to ACTUALLY prevent it, they have to stop, say... an avatar of himself projected backwards to guide the resurrection and ensure his own existence. He's a god, after all. Gods do these things. With the avatar gone, the resurrection fails, the remains can be destroyed, and your godly villain is done for. He's not destroyed, and he still exists, but there's no way for him to do anything since he's stuck in a future that will never happen. Think of it like being frozen in a block of ice, unable to move or think or act, in a place that nobody can reach. Foreshadowing, buildup, possibility of success and failure, climactic battle, and a resolution that isn't out of nowhere and makes sense - it'll hurt your brain, but it makes sense.

846601 that's just the thing: at the very end of the miniseries, the last page shows the future Master Ringmaster (who was essentially a gimmick villain who none of the other bad guys took seriously, simply because Jupiter was immune to his mind control anyway) now a decrepit broken old man with his grandchildren (something that was hinted at in continuity was that his assistant/niece had a crush on Jake's evil clone doppelganger from a parallel universe) who reveals carrying one last vial of Negaverse corruption and a vial of DNA labelled 'Over,' suggesting that Jake would, at some point, face an incredibly powerful villain by that name and implying at some point Master Ringmaster would release him again in the future. The villain Over did become the Big Bad of the sequel series Jupiter Justice Forever (spoilers to follow) where he took over the Calamity of Catastrophe (long story short: just imagine a Legion of Doom style gathering of supervillains from across the galaxy centered inside one of Jupiter's moons) after Jake's doppelganger, going by Dark Jake initially but then after turning good became known as Jeremiah, and in the final issue zapped Jupiter Justice, Jupiter Girl, and their partner and anti-hero Trenlork (who has all the powers that Jake has as Jupiter but doubled) through time and space to keep them from being a threat to him in the present kinda like samurai jack.

A character can be a jack of all trades. It's not unbelievable. I'm a jack of all trades. Like any character, they need a flaw of some kind, that's all.

You can't really have a pony jack-of all-trades because of the cutie mark thing.

847084
"What would a jack-of-all-trades cutie mark even look like?!"

I quibble with saying Twilight's powerful magic is made up for by her complete lack of physical abilities. She couldn't have placed well in an endurance contest without having an average physical makeup, even if she was racing smarter than the others. She is unexceptional, but she can do what anypony else can do.

Anyway, the easy answer is to define your character's power set when you make them. That took all of one post for anyone to see. The real question is why you need a character with a diverse power set in the first place? Most superheroes have very limited skill sets. They need to have something else going on upstairs, the ability to out-think their enemies (as Jason so rightly pointed out). Characters with enormous power sets aren't necessarily interesting, they're difficult to write for: how do you challenge the man who is absurdly durable, super-strong, super-fast, can read your DNA like a book, and hear you on the other side of the world?

847265

Like a picture of MacGyver?

Anyhow, I tend to avoid both. While writing my crossover, I was only going to stick with strength, flight, increased damage resistance, and heat blasts, but in More Than A Stallion I ran into a bit of trouble trying to get Big Mac to a certain location, so I gave him a 'danger sense' that allows him to detect dangerous situations. He can't detect all of them, but the more dangerous, the more likely he can detect it.

847392

Characters with enormous power sets aren't necessarily interesting, they're difficult to write for: how do you challenge the man who is absurdly durable, super-strong, super-fast, can read your DNA like a book, and hear you on the other side of the world?

Pretty easy actually.

Of course we've seen him challenged before. He's a much harder character to challenge than, say, one who only has the strength and durability, and then only if he's been awake long enough. Just look at all of the people who complain that he's boring, and how fans have to dismiss about half of his stories.

I've found that you can do a 'jack of all stats' character/new powers as the plot demands. Now this may be an extreme example but I made a character for a story I'm working on, an earth pony who's main way of attacking is either drawing from a set of playing cards, and taking the poker value as the value (read; damage) of the next attack or drawing from the 'Trump card' (read tarot) deck and using the 'Trump card' to turn the tide in his favor. The playing card deck reloads itself after 48 hours, and the 'Trump card' deck only refills at the end of three weeks. The 'Trump card' deck has some pretty arbitrary restrictions. He can only draw one card per day, and if he has to fight, he can't draw a 'Trump card' during the fight. This leaves him pretty weak if he draws a bad hand and has to discard the four cards he drew. It feels awkward at first, knowing he could draw "The World" or "Judgement" and wreak the plot, but his characterization as someone who plays around rather than take things seriously makes it not so bad

And then there is Pinkie Pie, who DEFINES pulling things out of her ass--but even there, I'd be careful. My rule on Pinkie is that she can do it if it would be hilarious. So sudden ninja powers--

--oh, wait.

Frees you up a lot.