Mimic Is Not Needed (If You're Spending OM)

[Takanomiya Hijiri]

First off, thanks for the responses everyone. ^_^
I would've replied sooner, but, y'know, I had work today...

mimic applies to more than just weapon moves though. it could allow you to copy something that cannot be physically represented, such as shooting lasers from your eyes, or a variety of similar effects.

That's what I meant by the whole "For other moves this may be more complicated, as these things may have some drawbacks that may not be immediately apparent" bit; if your character has seen a move used even just once then they can form a mental image of you it should work... but that image may not be correct, unless they had Insight... or had heard the specifics described in detail.

In the example you gave, for instance, shooting lasers from your eyes could potentially have a drawback that blinds you whilst the move is active ('cos all you can see is bright red light), but without paying close attention, this may not be obvious... but it could be argued that the character trying to copy the move was paying close enough attention if they were focusing on watching the laser-eyed person whilst they used the move... in which case it could be argued that neither Insight nor Mimic would not be needed in order to buy a permanent copy.
That's what I was meaning by it being "debatable".

edit: ALSO the three minute summoning time for a weapon means that doing so in combat would be a no-no.

Oh yeah, of course. I was only meaning with regards to purchasing moves permanently, I know that Mimic is the only way to copy stuff mid-fight.

Mimic allows the prime to copy what he saw without an OM cost unless they want it permenantly (And have the requirements to take it as a permanent move) of course.

Yeah, I know. My point was only that there's no reason buying a permanent copy of someone else's move should require Mimic; I'm well aware that Mimic is a very useful and versatile power.

Summoning new items with Omnilium is creating something from your head (your character's, ICly). To create a perfect replica of someone else's move you must have witnessed them use it and understand its inner workings, whether through Insight, because they explained it to you or because you spent a lot of time closely observing. And while your character can fantasize together extra aspects to the new move they're creating, there's limits beyond which you're just meta-gaming.

Yeah, I get what you're saying... though based on the move they're copying, 'a lot' of time closely observing may be a bit of an overstatement. A 300 OM move shouldn't be too hard to imitate, I'd imagine, since they're usually pretty basic (Hijiri's katana, for example, is literally just an average katana, one glance is about all it'd take to get a clear enough picture in your head to copy it).

To take a practical example, disregarding Insight, Telepathy etc.: character A uses a rifle that has automatic (hold the trigger for constant firing) and semi-auto (pull the trigger once for one shot) modes. Character B witnesses A using the semi-auto mode, they will be able to use Mimic to create a rifle that can fire ONLY semi-auto, because that's what he's seen. He didn't see A using the automatic mode.

Later, Character B wants to create a permanent replica, it could be argued that they must know that character A's rifle can also use auto-fire because that's normal for modern-day rifles or something. But it would be overstepping the limits to say that just by seeing the rifle Character B is also aware that A can turn the rifle into a hammer or something similarly fancy, which he's never shown. It's entirely based on what Character B knows and wishes for.

Technically Character B doesn't need to know that at all, they could just think: 'yeah, Character A's rifle is cool and all, but it'd be better if it could somehow change into a melee weapon as well...'

Buuuuut I can see what you mean, if they actually did that and gave their replica the exact same extra mode as something that the other character had that they couldn't have known about then it'd seem like really bad writing.

I think the main issue was this line of Warren's move:

Warren forms a digital replica of Thor's hammer in his right hand.

Which would be hard to do without actually seeing Thor's hammer, and mimicking it or having him explain it to you.

It would be like Dane (low magic fantasy setting) summoning a lightsaber after hearing about it from a stormtrooper or something - or maybe seeing a picture. He could try to summon one, but it'd probably just be a hot glowy-sword and not an actual lightsaber. The same thing applies here. Warren can make a strong electric hammer move, but without mimic or having Thor teach him or something like that - it won't be Thor's hammer move - or a replica of it. It will just be something that likely does the same thing, and is highly inspired by it, but not the actual same weapon.

I'd saaaaay it should be pretty easy for Dane to make a lightsaber if someone showed him a picture of one and told him how it functioned; it'd be no different than someone summoning a car without knowing how an internal combustion engine operated. That was the point of the quote I mentioned in the first post; if you can visualise something, you can make it. The rules are pretty clear that characters don't need to understand things in order to make them.

With regards to Warren's move; if he had seen a picture of Thor's hammer and knew what it could do (I don't think he's ever met Thor in the OV, so I'm gonna assume that his character has read about him on the Dataverse or whatever) then there's no reason he couldn't make an identical copy.
See, Mimic, the Power, cannot work based on videos and pictures, but nowhere does it say that normal summoning functions that way... the only limitations are imagination and Omnilium (IC, obviously... OOC there are rules to stop people getting OP moves).

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So, to recap, my point is basically just that it shouldn't cost an extra 2800 OM to buy a move that is identical to someone else's than it would to buy a functionally identical move with a slightly altered name and description.

In the example that Ebony gave, Warren was able to get his hammer move approved simply by altering the name and removing all mention of Thor from the description. That's all it took, the actual move didn't need changed at all.... and yet if he had insisted on keeping Thor's name in there, he would have had to buy Mimic in order to get it...
For some reason...