This feels like one of those questions to provide a some OOC context to what comes below and why my character thinks how they do. For those who don’t care, i’ve spoilered that so you can get to the meat of the response.
Background OOC Context
Zyretha was in fact the first character I created (on another server, but an RP server nonetheless) sixteen years ago. I wasn’t an RPer at first and I was in fact, still in school.
As a result, when I began RPing her, I made a lot of the first character mistakes we all have. I made them way too powerful way too quickly. Their story and background could be fickle and I would run off rule of cool over what actually made sense. We’ve all done it sometime in our lives.
However, I never found myself wanting to remove myself from the character. They have a lot of connections, some still from those eariest years alive to this day. Retconning away large elements of the character couldn’t have really worked, especially once my original server hit its absolute last gasps and I transferred her to Argent Dawn. First via a copy, then I a few years back bit the bullet and paid to transfer her.
While in theory this could’ve given me a chance to reset the clock on some of her issues as a character, the slow transition and my own over-a-decade of getting older since then dramatically changed the way I played the character. They became the character I likely envisioned as a child via time with them.
With that large amount of context out of the way…
How does your character approach magic?
Zyretha approaches arcane like an idealist and reformist form of the Kirin Tor’s high ranking magi. (See Modera and other less ‘strict’ or politically motivated mage characters). She focuses on culture, study and sees Arcane magic as a mix of a fundamental set of structures and rules that the force itself places upon the caster and artistic expression of using those structures.
Zyretha approaches magic and teaches it (As some of the earlier responders know from experience!) in a similar way. She breaks down to base concepts within spells and attempts to ensure a caster knows general-purpose concepts before trying to combine them in complex ways.
She also does not see Arcane skill as purely a power game. A great mage to them is someone who understands their limits, skills and comforts. One who manages to take those factors and build up a unique expression of their background and preferences.
This leads on to the next topic…
Do they focus on a single discipline or dabble in multiple areas?
No. Having an Elven lifespan and principally being a researcher in magical history, culturual histories and how these intersect (Often involving a lot of headcanon interpretation or digging to try and work out how/why a race could cast how it does) she finds herself knowing a wide array of spells and concepts. She has learned a wide array of languages as cultures have come accessible to the Kirin Tor such as Pandaren or Zandali.
This drives her teaching methods as a result. She often finds herself knowing a huge breadth of techniques that do the same end goal (E.g. 10 different fireballs) but have different advantages and disadvantages, or may suit different people’s needs. For example, if someone struggles speaking Thalassian (the likely defacto language of many Kirin Tor spells) they may find a less linguistic focused tradition (E.g. runic or heavier somatic focused spellcasting traditions).
This means Zyretha often finds herself knowing many potential answers or the fundamental ideas that could be combined into the perfect answer for a given moment depending on the situation. Being an Archmage as well, she has a non-insignificant amount of traditional training behind that. When Dalaran still existed, much of her offscreen day jobs as a result were teaching advanced classes.
What drives their specialization (or lack thereof)?
Zyretha was (Context helpful here) written very much originally that didn’t really explain this. Some concepts have stuck, but much has been fixed subtly over time. Zyretha’s parents abandoned her in Dalaran rather than dealing with an unwanted child. As a result, she found herself in the orphanages there.
While she had Elven aptitude, Dalaran of the past was still a massively human nation surrounded by human nations. She felt like she had to learn to adapt and fit among the students, who would’ve seen her priveleged by her birth species, but she herself came from a very low upbringing, meaning she was likely coming from worse socio-economic starts than those peers who would be seeing her as priveleged.
This shaped along with her tutors a desire to learn rapidly - But not just the standard textbooks provided to the students, but to explore whatever else lied beyond. Be that her people’s homelands’ skills, the differences in tutoring the Stormwind or other Human kingdoms provided, Gnomish approaches, etc.
As with many people who try to widen their knowledge this much, it pushed her to also wanting to integrate and understand the cultures she was trying to glean the arcane traditions of. This cosmopolitan background drove them to try and weave as much of them together and allow students under her charge to discover spells or techniques to casting spells their standard textbooks would not provide.
How do you balance your magic user’s power level?
Simply put (context again!) younger me didn’t. And by the point it became too hard to undo I had hit a wall. However, I also realised what the character fit best for and my own personal preferences in RP. Its no secret I do a lot of hosting of events (public or otherwise) and have been one of the driving forces behind an RP hub via Zyretha.
This has often meant the balance has come with changing the characters’ role. While she may not be going out and doing heroic adventures herself anymore, she fits in well with (and I find myself highly content with) the mentor/questgiver/DM insert archetype.
This leads on to…
What limitations do you set to avoid making them feel all-powerful?
I try not to be an attendee of events much on Zyretha, unless I know expicitly the group will be fine with it in a private context (Usually by being invited specifically) or by the public event being of an appropriate nature to allow, or will already contain several other powerful characters. (The fall of Dalaran).
While this is a bit of a cop-out, given I am usually the host and not the attendee in general I find this to not be so bad of an issue. Zyretha’s wide array of skills and power means she can be useful for providing setup, travel and information to the players while acting in some nebulous “other” role.
The other main role is that they are principally a mentor now and focus on the remaining citizens of Dalaran who survive, not winning battles. Mentally they have been exhausted by personal losses and wider changes to the story over the last 16 years of playing them. This makes them an often unwilling combatant.
How do you engage in roleplay without always having the perfect solution?
One of the beautiful things I personally like about Wow’s magical systems are how open-ended they are. I can’t be perfect and can only suggest a good answer. Even on a powerful character, there are still things they won’t understand or won’t be able to handle. Nor should we.
Often this manifests best to me in the attitude that the character now takes. They can occasionally solve someone’s problems if there’s a dire need, but they have reached the point in their story where they find themselves most useful teaching someone the tools to try and build up an answer. Hence their focus on fundamental concepts.
Also, acknowledging my character does still have a few focus areas of spellcasting (transmutation school) rather than being an expert in all, I believe it best to always encourage a character who’s sole focus is that thing to be the sole focus. In character this means defferring to specialists by default, then adding in things they may not know due to their specialism.
Conclusion, because that’s a lot to read
While sticking to an originally bad character concept is probably unwise, one can shift the role of the character in a narrative accordingly. The implication of how powerful some characters are, but changes in personal needs and foci can salvage the mess.
Using an example from the time I made Zyretha, Iroh from ATLA is shown to still be an incredibly powerful character even to the end of the show. But that character’s focus and main traits aren’t that power and it isn’t used to solve problems for other characters unless absolutely necessary. He just wants to be a good uncle, teacher and drink tea.
Making your character too powerful is hard to undo, but changing their focuses and expanding to sharing that knowledge, power or skillset is key to making sure the character doesn’t just become a burden that spoils RP for those around them.
I’ve ommitted a ton here for (sort of) brevity but considering the amount of time i’ve played the character and the tangled mess I have made of their life, I am happy with the fact the character has ‘backed off’ and attempts to make others shine now where possible.
I keep track of the spells she’s learned, so if a spell isn’t on the list, she (usually) just can’t do it. For example, during the recent Undermine events she was part of a mage squad tasked with keeping civilians safe through shield magic. She could help out easily enough while others cast spells like that, but then the group split and she just… couldn’t. Didn’t know how. The best she could do was conjure an ice barrier around just herself, and stand in front of people. It led to a lot of frustration on her end!