FYI, I didn't give my character a power limiter as an excuse to have him tag along with other PCs. Whether he tags along or not will be determined by the character interactions when they happen. If the other characters don't want him in the group, he's hardly going to stalk them. And if it makes no sense for him to run into the other characters at all, I'm hardly going to force such a thing to happen.

I gave him the power limiter as further evidence that he will not use his power to simply effortlessly solve all the other characters' problems. [i]If[/i] he runs into them at all. It makes sense for him (as someone who's afraid of his own power) to have such a limiter, so I don't see why it's a bad thing.

I also hardly changed any rules. The rules always said that player characters are limited to a certain power level, [i]unless the player discusses his or her idea with me extensively beforehand[/i]. Anyone always could've made a powerful character if they wanted; they just needed to convince me to trust them with such power. I do think a setting like mine needs a few "top dogs", and since there's no real distinction between "PCs" and "NPCs", I don't see why letting players create these epic-tier characters would be a bad thing if they can handle the power responsibly.

The intent of this post is not to try to convince [@Shotgun Bear] to stay. It's to convince [i]other[/i] people who might want to leave because of what he said. But what he said was a pretty significant blow to my confidence and motivation. If too many people leave, maybe my style of hosting and storytelling isn't right for this forum after all.