Lemme sum up my points in bullet points. I'm going to have to be brief, because I don't think anyone is going to read a wall of text.
-Key point: If you can't state a complex thing in relatively simple terms, you don't understand it well enough.
-Most moves get rejected because they're unbalanced or badly explained, not because they're too complex.
-Most moves that get approved but take a long time to approve do so because they're complex and/or they're initially unbalanced or badly explained (see above).
-You can do what you want to do, as proven by the MMO example I posted. But that was far far weaker than the version Gunther posted. A game like FFXIV is a good measure of balance, because it's usually been iterated on for years by large teams and communities of people.
-If you don't have the capacity to balance complex moves yourself, you shouldn't try to make complex moves, because it puts the onus on staff members to balance the moves, and ...
-We have limited staffers who each have limited time, and not all of whom are great at handling complex moves.
-But if you can write a concept simply, and balance it, it will get approved. Tearen is a great example of this. It might take a little longer if it's a precedent-setter, since the staff will have to come to me to ask "is this concept/mechanic okay?" - but the staff members should at least clearly understand how the move works, perhaps stray of a few spare details, and it shouldn't require massive change.
-If you can't do that, it won't get approved and both you and staff will become frustrated. This helps nobody, hence my advice: stick to simple moves and enjoy the roleplay.
As an aside, as far as I know, there are no other active play-by-post roleplaying sites out there that let you build your own moves with the level of freedom we do, without eschewing numbers entirely and going full freeform. This is deliberate: I made it because it didn't exist.
-Key point: If you can't state a complex thing in relatively simple terms, you don't understand it well enough.
-Most moves get rejected because they're unbalanced or badly explained, not because they're too complex.
-Most moves that get approved but take a long time to approve do so because they're complex and/or they're initially unbalanced or badly explained (see above).
-You can do what you want to do, as proven by the MMO example I posted. But that was far far weaker than the version Gunther posted. A game like FFXIV is a good measure of balance, because it's usually been iterated on for years by large teams and communities of people.
-If you don't have the capacity to balance complex moves yourself, you shouldn't try to make complex moves, because it puts the onus on staff members to balance the moves, and ...
-We have limited staffers who each have limited time, and not all of whom are great at handling complex moves.
-But if you can write a concept simply, and balance it, it will get approved. Tearen is a great example of this. It might take a little longer if it's a precedent-setter, since the staff will have to come to me to ask "is this concept/mechanic okay?" - but the staff members should at least clearly understand how the move works, perhaps stray of a few spare details, and it shouldn't require massive change.
-If you can't do that, it won't get approved and both you and staff will become frustrated. This helps nobody, hence my advice: stick to simple moves and enjoy the roleplay.
As an aside, as far as I know, there are no other active play-by-post roleplaying sites out there that let you build your own moves with the level of freedom we do, without eschewing numbers entirely and going full freeform. This is deliberate: I made it because it didn't exist.
Curious about me and the characters I play? See the 'Staff' page! See also the rosters for my characters Samus Aran or Enel if you'd like to see examples of well-formatted rosters. Hope you enjoy the Omniverse!