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Aron Times
2011-12-18, 12:52 PM
tl;dr: TV Tropes is an excellent resource for roleplayers.

One of the most reviled types of fanfic is that which involves the Mary Sue. As most people here are avid tropers, I'm going to skip the explanation and just provide a link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

(I'll be back in a few hours.) :wink:

Alright, now that you've pried yourself from the productivity-annihilating abyss that is TV Tropes, I thought I'd talk about a roleplayer's growth from playing mostly wish-fulfillment, Mary Sue characters to eventually playing believable, multifaceted characters. While I'm pretty sure most roleplayers start at the Mary Sue stage, the path they take on their journey varies.

Let's compare notes. Here's mine:

The earliest characters that I can remember were typical of a roleplaying novice; idealized, heroic versions of myself. My first ever PnP character was Joseph Silver, a male human diviner. The name is a play on my real name.

Joseph = Jose, my real name.
Silver = Second place. I am the second Jose in the family, after my paternal grandfather (no cigar for guessing what his name was).

I can see my future son or grandson (if I live that long) calling his first PnP character, "Joseph Bronze." But I digress. :smallamused:

He died shortly into the first session, having smashed several cursed mirrors (an entire wall of them, actually) in an effort to get through that part of the dungeon. This caused a horde of undead to rise and kill the two-man party, the other also played by a fellow first-timer.

I would play thinly-veiled player avatars for most of my early roleplaying years, with motivations and personalities closely resembling my own. It got worse after I read the Dragonlance books, which made my characters "darker and edgier." Think an idealized version of Raistlin Majere minus his personality flaws (or so I thought).

Raistlin came before Drizzt, so us Raistlin fanboys were darker and edgier before that black elf. /hipster :smallsigh:

On the optimization side, I started being a munchkin, then evolved into a wannabe powergamer (I thought I was so clever using 3.0 Haste plus a Wand of Fireball), then evolved into a REAL roleplayer hipster who looked down on those who focused a bit too much on mechanics over "realistic, fleshed-out, tragic, darker and edgier" characters.

Joseph Silver, and most of my characters, would retain my real-life personality and motivations until I learned the meaning of the term, "Mary Sue." After a few archive binges on TV Tropes, I learned just how common (and unliked) my "unique" characters were. It seems that everyone (at least in the world of RPGs and fanfics) is an outcast that nobody understands except their idealized and devoted love interests.

No wonder people look at RPG players funny. :frown:

The first long-running character that wasn't a thinly-veiled, idealized version of myself was Aron Times (anagram of my middle name). I played him in what was then the most popular Neverwinter Nights 2 server, and he was a citizen of a Lawful Neutral/Lawful Evil magocracy whose people typically looked down on muggles.

I actually based him on Euphemia li Britannia from Code Geass, a wide-eyed idealistic rebellious princess of the evil empire. She was a Lawful Good member of an otherwise Lawful Evil society, not having been exposed to its darker aspect thanks to her sheltered childhood. As Code Geass is an extremely cynical show with a very Lawful Evil protagonist, her tale ends very badly (understatement of the century).

In his backstory, Aron was an orphan who lost his parents as an infant to an unknown cause. Alarm bells are probably ringing in your head right now, screaming, "WARNING, MARY SUE INCOMING," but I didn't roleplay the loss of his parents as a source of angst. He was adopted by an unnamed mage, possibly a fellow sorcerer, and he spent his formative years in the academic world, studying at a relaxed pace (as a sorcerer, he was able to skip most spellcasting classes, giving him lots of free time).

Think :elan: with a higher intelligence score.

His comfortable and relatively stress-free life gave him a very good opinion of his country and a somewhat friendly and mellow personality. He also lacked the overbearing, hyper-competitive attitude typical of his people. Over time, he would become one of the most likeable characters on the server.

Which was unintentional, as I went out of my way to roleplay his 8 wisdom. His guileless honesty and friendliness ended up making people mistake him for being Lawful Good. In fact, he was True Neutral, as he neither went out of his way to help or hurt people. He was simply the "I'm minding my own business while you mind yours." type of True Neutral, and for some reason, people really liked him for this. :confused:

So I decided to play his obliviousness up a notch. The magocracy he comes from is officially atheist, and they heavily look down on divine spellcasters in addition to muggles, seeing them as not being skilled enough to wield their own magic (similar to how OotS wizards look down on warlocks). With this in mind, I had my character try to convince people to convert a decrepit temple into a public school. Basically, the public education system of his country kept children off the streets and gave them the means to lead a more productive life.

This got the right reaction, and the religious characters on the server were in an uproar. They did not want one of their temples, even a badly disused one, turned into a school taught by godless heathens. I even had Aron cheerfully try to persuade cleric PCs about how his plan was a good idea, oblivious to how such a project would have serious political consequences.

But still, he retained his popularity. :sigh: I had somehow created an Ensemble Darkhorse.

Unfortunately, it would not last, as the DMs of that server were very heavyhanded against those who broke stereotypes. I was banned from the server on fabricated charges, and I only realized years later (see below) that they had banned a LOT of players on flimsy pretenses. I forswore playing on any servers for several years, until I decided late in 2010, on a whim, to try the most popular server.

To my surprise, my old server was all but dead, with very few players during peak times. Taking its place at the top was the Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast server, which was difficult to get into even during the wee hours of dawn. It turned out to be best server I've ever played on, but that is a story for another time.

Anyway, I learned that my getting banned wasn't my fault when I ran into a PC whose incarnation on my previous server was a friend of Aron's. It turns out that the server did get worse, with DMs banning anyone who didn't fit into their preconceived roleplaying notions, leading to most of the population moving to the Baldur's Gate server (no wonder I was getting deja vu a lot). It turns out that we got the last laugh, as they had banned so many players as to completely destroy their popularity.

I learned a lot from that experience. Nowadays, my character usually have motivations other than phat l3wt and XP, and people are less likely to poke holes in their characterization, since they already have visible holes in them.

What about you? :smile:

Knaight
2011-12-18, 01:30 PM
I started as a GM, and while my early characters may have veered towards oversimplified archetype and caricature, I did avoid the whole Mary Sue phase entirely.

navar100
2011-12-18, 02:13 PM
There's a player in my group who amazed me. He's known the DM since high school, playing 2E. He always played the thief. Always.

I join the group for a 3E game. He's playing the rogue. He's greedy. He's conniving. He's also one of the most party loyal PCs I ever met. He's a "thief" alright, but he directs all his thievery against the bad guys. He always looks for an angle to improve his lot but never at the party's expense.

Next campaign. He plays a rogue again. His one complaint last campaign was his lack of combat skills. It was a matter of feat choices and tactics. I helped him with that. This rogue was a two-weapon fighting cuisinart. He was still looking for an angle to improve his lot. He eventually became the King of Thieves. However, he was also generous, kind, and the most loyal and trusted friend and party member you could find, in and out of character. He was given several opportunities where he could have spent party treasure to enrich himself, and he never did.

Third campaign. He played a rogue again. At campaign start he said while he had fun with his previous character, he realized he wasn't being as "thievery" as he used to. He maintained his loyalty and friendship with the party, but wanted to go back to his more roguish ways. While he claimed this, he never did. He got caught up in the campaign plot points. He cared more about "saving the world" than enriching himself. He even realized the disadvantages of two-weapon fighting and sneak attack. Meanwhile, the DM was dissatisfied with the campaign as a whole. He wanted to make changes and in doing so allow all the player to change their characters as well. You could change feats, skill points, even class. Just change what you want. This player took the opportunity and gave up the pretense. He wasn't a Rogue. He changed his class to Fighter to eventually go into a home-made prestige class. He was a warrior. More over, he was so Lawful Good a paladin would blush in shame in his inadequacy. More than just loyalty and honesty, he was humble, generous, caring, and ALWAYS cared about protocol. He always kept his word even when no one was looking. He never took the easy way.

We are now in our 4th campaign, 3.P. He is playing a Paladin!

Waker
2011-12-18, 02:44 PM
I suppose one of my claims to fame in roleplaying is that I've avoided the Mary Sue type characters, in addition to staying away from most of the stereotypical characters. As a general rule, characters I make tend to take one aspect of my personality to make that one of their core traits, like making a character who refuses to lie (even if they aren't a Paladin) or something else. I find that as long as you have some common ground in that way, it makes it much easier to vary other aspects of the personality.
The only time I've made a character who reacted to every situation exactly as I would was when I made a joke character based on the premise, "What would I do if I had super powers?". Thus I created "Chad, the Fist-Fightingest D#mn Wizard around."

Knaight
2011-12-18, 04:29 PM
There's a player in my group who amazed me. He's known the DM since high school, playing 2E. He always played the thief. Always
....
We are now in our 4th campaign, 3.P. He is playing a Paladin!
Maybe I just don't see this, but how is this impressive? A grand total of one character has been played, in various incarnations, that changed a bit. That sounds like the player is still playing an interpretation of themselves, and have simply changed over the period.

navar100
2011-12-18, 05:35 PM
Maybe I just don't see this, but how is this impressive? A grand total of one character has been played, in various incarnations, that changed a bit. That sounds like the player is still playing an interpretation of themselves, and have simply changed over the period.

Impressive that he changed from a greedy, conniving thief to an honorable and honest paladin. He's played a thief/rogue since his first day of playing D&D. Maybe you had to be there, but to watch his change of personality by his own choice is what impressed me. The cherry on the sundae was to do so from a thief into a paladin. He was reckless and became cautious. He was greedy and became generous. He was self-centered and became virtuous.

Vixsor Lumin
2011-12-18, 05:45 PM
My first character was a total Mary Sue. He was a rogue who specilized in ranged and skill monkeying. Total resnentment of his parents, and striving to be better than they thought he would be. They told him he was wasting his life on the streets, (playing music IRL) and decided to use those skills to be someone. He was waaay to selfrighteous and died a quiet boring death at the hands of a mob of mooks.

My current character is in the playtest I'm doing in PbP. His motivation is to liberate the nation he's from, from the Invictine army. He doesn't feel much loyalty to the former government because he was just a gutter child in a street gang. What he does care about are the people. He was cornered by a squad as a young man, but he convinced them he was useful and became an archer.

He had no little problem killing soldiers and guards but on one instance he had to kill an innocent family. It hasn't come up yet OOC or IC but he did kill them before he escaped the army. He harbors a lot of guilt over that and its the basis of his hatred for the Invictus.

Knaight
2011-12-18, 05:53 PM
Impressive that he changed from a greedy, conniving thief to an honorable and honest paladin. He's played a thief/rogue since his first day of playing D&D. Maybe you had to be there, but to watch his change of personality by his own choice is what impressed me. The cherry on the sundae was to do so from a thief into a paladin. He was reckless and became cautious. He was greedy and became generous. He was self-centered and became virtuous.
Exactly. He changed from a character to another character - meaning neither character really had any distance from the guy. Playing a role basically means being able to slip into a different skin, so to speak - ideally into any of a variety of them. Not one, regardless of what one it is.

Lord Raziere
2011-12-18, 06:13 PM
My first character was a mary sue- a 10,000 year old dragon wizard inventor, it was a freeform game, so power level was high and not really based in DnD at all and was actually closer to Mt:G in concept, but he was fun to play nevertheless, like a draconic fantasy version of the Doctor before I even knew who the Doctor was…..
In freeform game however he died like seventeen times before he finally established a republic that had a good life for it citizens after a while…..but I decided to leave the game because most of the other players were jerks, last I heard the freeform game is still going on and someone else destroyed the republic….don't really care, I've moved on to better characters and such. Like Exalted.

Totally Guy
2011-12-18, 06:29 PM
I realised how bad these characters were when I tried writing a book as a teenager. All the "cool" characters were me. One of them jumped from one planet to another one when they got really close to each other. He then proceeded to take over the world he jumped to.

Splynn
2011-12-18, 06:35 PM
My very first game of D&D was just a dungeon crawl. No mary sue there, heh.

I don't remember many of my very early characters. However, after roughly six months of D&D 3.0, I got into a RIFTS group. Again, I don't necessarily remember many of my characters. One of the first was an ex-slave female elf (who turned out to be a lesbian when the option was given) witchblade type character.

I played her for a pretty long time. Towards the end, though, she was a lot deeper. Her history was still that tragic enslavement and being forced to carry this symbiont. But she ended up being a bit more than that. She was motivated by love (not lust; love), fought to do the right thing even when others wouldn't, and slowly a bit of depth and drive built on her.

There was no point where I'd say she morphed into being a non-Mary Sue. But the end of that character was very different from the beginning, in very realistic and story-driven ways. She basically went from being somewhere between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil to being somewhere between chaotic good and neutral good. And all in ways that the story supported.

After her I sort of learned the joy of playing a deep character. Took me a bit longer to get out of the munchkin/powergamer stuff, but she was the start, and the end. She's still my favorite character, though when I think of her, I think of the character standing up to extradimensional demons while the rest of her party is falling back, and fighting for the right cause. Not necessarily because she believed in it, but because the girl she loved did. Maybe not super-deep, but it made for interesting role playing and some weird choices on her part.

After her my characters evolved over time into more realistic characters who were helpful. A few relapses here and there (playing a character like that is still fun from time to time with the right people), but overall she is really where I learned how to roleplay and make a character that was driven and had a real personality.

Though I also had the phase that OP is talking about. "You mean your character's parents weren't killed by a demon? Hah! What a lame backstory indeed." Only dark/edgy equated with deep for a while.

Velaryon
2011-12-18, 06:44 PM
I passed through my Mary Sue phase before I got into RPing, so my outlet was terrible fan fic in junior high and high school, most of which never got past the character design and planning phase. Thankfully this means there is no incriminating evidence of any of it.

However, my early D&D characters were marked by a pattern of cliched tragic backstories. My first character was a half-elven son of a minor noble in Cormyr, who ran away from home after an argument with his family and was subsequently framed for their murder which occurred that same night.

Then I had an ex-monk drunken master who was abandoned on the steps of a monastery who raised him, until he fled because he didn't fit in and took to drinking and brawling until he stumbled into the adventuring life.

Skip ahead a few characters, and I had a sorceress whose parents were murdered and her little sister kidnapped when her powers manifested themselves during adolescence, and was forced to use her powers for evil and assassination until she could find a way to rescue her sister from the clutches of the evil dictator who held her.

I think what finally snapped me out of writing tragic backgrounds for so many of my characters is less that I grew out of them, and more that none of the DMs who were running the campaigns bothered to involve my backstory in the game (to be fair, one of the games fell apart before anything much could happen, so it wasn't the DM's fault). If nobody was going to take advantage of my dark, dramatic past, then why did I keep bothering to make them?

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with making a character with a tragic background, and I think I did a reasonably good job on at least two of them, but I was definitely overdoing it with these kinds of characters.

Greenish
2011-12-18, 07:16 PM
My first character was quite like Belkar, a violent, amoral/evil halfling (who happened to worship the setting's Trickster archetype deity). The game wasn't D&D, though, and I'd never read OotS at the time. I still have my friend's sketch of him swallowing a dog whole. Yay for wacky magic!

My first PbP character was a (whisper) gnome, former street tough who'd served in the army to ameliorate his sentence, and come off (mostly) reformed.


Also, I should remind you that Tropes Are Not Bad. I've read pretty good books where the protagonist was blatant mary sue without ruining the story.

Dimers
2011-12-18, 08:47 PM
I've never put Mary Sues into my games. The numbers won't let me. How can I be smart, insightful, agile, highly skilled and knowledgeable, fashionable, popular, morally upstanding, fearless in the face of danger, and an ideal romance, all at 1st level?

I do have a tendency to put in a particular character type with little depth. I swore off them after about my third year of roleplaying, then revisited that type once recently. I had a blast playing that time, unlike much of the intervening period. I guess a cheerful, munchkinned healer of a HBB is just who I'm meant to be. :smallamused:

navar100
2011-12-18, 09:50 PM
Exactly. He changed from a character to another character - meaning neither character really had any distance from the guy. Playing a role basically means being able to slip into a different skin, so to speak - ideally into any of a variety of them. Not one, regardless of what one it is.

Really. If it bothers you so much I was impressed, tough noogies to you. I don't need your approval.

Cirrylius
2011-12-18, 11:27 PM
Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with making a character with a tragic background,

Remember the violence inherent in the game; statistically, PC's are more likely to come from a screwed-up past.:smallwink:

Mantarni
2011-12-19, 04:30 AM
For my first character, I already recognized that concept and was trying to avoid it, so I didn't go as extreme. I set him up as a party Face, with stats and stuff so he would be able to talk his way around, but gave him a background where that was required of him for him to have survived, but had him be really easygoing and not 'dark and gritty' in the slightest.

Now that I think back on it, it would have worked out well enough, even if it was a really rough around the edges character concept. Except most the time the dm chose to do the worst possible response to everything he did, to the point where I gave up and he quietly followed the group for the rest of the game while I read a book because every time he did something things got more convoluted. :smallfurious:

Every character since then has been practically mute, because of the old trauma of them opening their mouths and suddenly being a laughingstock or enemy of the realm for no bloody reason. Only lately am I starting to try for more sociable characters. So I'm not really sure if I was kicked into Mary Sueness or out of it. I think it's kinda subjective.

One thing for my personal progression though, I've found it works best to make a character with no tragic, epic or any type of drama backstory. Just have them be someone relatively normal. Them, as themselves, without fluff. It's a lot more fun than you would think.

And in the progression of this, I swear someday I'm going to make a character based around this (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/Warlawk/Motivators%20and%20Funnies/Diplomacy02.jpg). Her story: NONE. One day a little 8-year old girl decided to go and make friends with the world. Absolute pacifist, no combat abilities, but the powers of friendship and heart. OVERWHELMING AMOUNTS. :smallsmile:

Analytica
2011-12-19, 08:51 AM
And in the progression of this, I swear someday I'm going to make a character based around this (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/Warlawk/Motivators%20and%20Funnies/Diplomacy02.jpg). Her story: NONE. One day a little 8-year old girl decided to go and make friends with the world. Absolute pacifist, no combat abilities, but the powers of friendship and heart. OVERWHELMING AMOUNTS. :smallsmile:

You need to watch Kemono no Souja Erin, all 50 or so episodes of it. :smallsmile:

Zanatos777
2011-12-19, 09:51 AM
I seemed to avoid the Mary Sue faze as well. This is probably because my first character was a personality-less character for a dungeon crawl type adventure. Afterwards I was the DM and my NPCs were based on fictional characters who were not Mary Sues. Most of my characters later would be based (in the end often very loosely) characters I happened to find enjoyable or on concepts. The closest I think I ever came to a Mary Sue PC was in a Werewolf game (my first White Wolf game) but he evolved very quickly into something else entirely.

I also somewhat avoided the "dark gritty" thing with my characters (not that some are not but it is not a constant theme). I was the first in my group to create a character who adventured to adventure and experience the world. She had not lost her family (they pampered her too much so she left) and the DM added a whole backstory involving reincarnation to give me some "angsty stuff" Great fun.

Wyntonian
2011-12-19, 11:34 AM
My first character was a wildshape ranger whose parents were killed tragically, was raised by a ranger, who was also killed tragically. Yeah. It was pretty bad.

DoctorGlock
2011-12-19, 11:56 AM
Ah, a thread to resurrect shameful memories of RP idiocy...

My first character was a shameless ripoff of my own name tacked onto an UBER WIzArd!!1! (Evoker. Seriously) Thankfully, just being an RPless dungeon crawl, where the character development consisted of "fire? or ice?" and most people did the same, there was little embarrassment

High school rolled around, no gaming for 4 years, I get to college and a freind learns I was into RPGs, and says he knows someone running a M&M game. I say "sure, maybe i'll stop by to blow up some orcs or something"

It was then that the concept of RPing was actually explained to me. To my shame, my character was a Darker and Edgier(tm) loner with a plot ripped from an episode of law and order... oh well.

Later, the same GM runs another M&M game and I make my first real character. A senile man utterly convinced he is Merlin, complete with memories/delusions and the power to back his claims. It was a testament more to the GM's skill that there was character development at all but the end result was a very party oriented character that I actually cared for.

Running concurrently with this under a less skilled DM in 3.5 was a trololol rogue of the "bluff, steal and resell" variety. To be fair, it was a trololol setting (a whole city high off its gourd at all times and genetically enhanced supersonic camels). I got better.

Sophomore year rolls around, tried to remake Merlin for D&D, didn't fit the setting, the game was too fragmented to have coherency and I dropped out due to schedule conflicts.

Junior year, new DM wants to run 3.5. Wants to run an "Evil Game" so I roll up a warlock. I make a backstory and motivations and no sue like tendencies, no epic myth no nothing but an insatiable misanthropy for his nation. Born in a Rome like setting, noble house, dethroned in a military coup from warring subfactions, plots revenge against the whole senate under the guise of attempting to reclaim his house. Worst thing I did with this character was a "That's what my character would do" in the earlier sessions. That was fixed fast.

Another game, rolls a wizard. Starts as typical "derp, I is a wizard, i likes teh power", goes into chain binding for fun and profit and wishes, becomes a champion of heaven when he realizes he needs someone to watch his back against a legion of irate djinn. This continued until the character becomes obsessed with his own mortality and goes evil for the lichdom (well, necropolitanism anyway). Realizing he will eventually end he becomes obsessed with mastery over time as well as trying to find where his identity end and his obsessions begin.

Throughout this I was running near constant games, so I had exposure to other people's characters and that helped refine my ideas.

Senior Year. Ok, no games because I am studying abroad. But someone back home is running one when I get back. This is about now and Legend hits the board and I convince them to switch to it. My character has a cruddy past, but I do not consider it a wangst character unless the past defines him. Lost his folks to plague, like just about everyone, considers himself lucky to have lived. Raised himself on the streets, became a consummate nihilist and was initiated into a cult, actually a proxy of a larger church of illuminati/templar/cultist types. Rises fast in the ranks because the "Might is Right" ideology appeals to a street urchin. One day doing some act of maliciousness he is confronted by a paladin and gets religion the hard way, and takes the redemption offer out of self preservation. Eventually embraces the ideology. Now acts a voice for the weak and self appointed defender thereof, because everyone deserves to choose their own path, not fall into the clutches of organized powers who do it for them. NO mary sueisms, the past is just because "why else become a cult templar?" Rather exited for the game since it's a developed character. Also because the DM is one of the top 3 at Binghamton.


Wow, wall of text.

Cerlis
2011-12-19, 07:59 PM
Exactly. He changed from a character to another character - meaning neither character really had any distance from the guy. Playing a role basically means being able to slip into a different skin, so to speak - ideally into any of a variety of them. Not one, regardless of what one it is.

Some people pick an actor because they know the actor can play anything and they want the character perfect so they pick them.

Other people pick actors because they want a character and thus pick an actor like them (i believe that is called Type casting)

It doesnt matter how you get that actor (someone who is the character come to life, or someone who is good at faking it), as long as the production is fantastic!

Jay R
2011-12-20, 10:32 AM
My first day of D&D (original D&D - just Fighters, Magic-Users and Clerics) was merely practice. I took a first level fighter into a dungeon, alone.

Then Greyhawk came out, and it added thieves and Paladins. And a Bard class appeared in The Stategic Review (right before it was replaced by The Dragon). And since I was often without any other players (the game was new; almost nobody knew about it), I rolled up and played a complete party - paladin, 2 magic-users, a cleric, a bard, and 2 thieves (one of whom died on the first adventure.) There was no need to play a Mary Sue, because I didn't need one character to be the best at everything. So I quickly learned, not that I wanted to have a character who could do anything, but that I always preferred each character to have one thing he could do better than anyone else in the party. And it doesn't much matter what that one thing was.

That party also included the last PCs I ever played without specific characters. Although I eventually developed characters for most of them, they began as sheets full of skills and spells.

I now try to develop a character that not only makes sense as a complete character, but also helps support whatever he's trying to be the best at.

I'm currently playing a 2e elven mage/thief. He's the only thief in the party, and has been combining Invisibility and Flight with thieving abilities well -- more often than not being in the enemy camp before the big assault occurs. He was an orphan - an elf raised in human lands where elves aren't well-known, so he was just the "pointy-eared" kid. He is an outcast, stand-offish and quick to take insult. The DM has just put him in a difficult place. The PC has been outspokenly disapproving of all nobles, but he's just been elevated to the nobility. I'm not sure how he will react to this yet. My first reaction was outrage, since it doesn't help support his skills and character. On reflection, things often happen to people that they aren't ready for, so it's reasonable. I'm trying to figure out how he should react and how to play him now, but I'm still unsure. Fortunately, I have 'till mid-January to figure it out.

I suspect that the best defense against Mary Sue PCs is the obvious one - start every character at first level, so it's impossible. It's much easier to develop one skill well than to develop them all.

SowZ
2011-12-20, 10:59 AM
First characters where oddball gnome sorcerer types. Not particularly deep or moral, but entertaining. Eventually I started playing more story engaging archetypes, (gruff disillusioned pacifist priest or self-torturing melodramatic general guy,) but still within an archetype. It isn't until fairly recently I feel as if I've not relied on archetypes hardly at all when making a character.

Most of my characters aren't good, but a couple here and there have been.

Crossblade
2011-12-21, 01:50 AM
My first role-playing character was called Ganlo. Which is a very poor rearrangement of my first name. How poor? I'll be honest, my first name is Logan. Cut my name in half and swapped the halve's positions. :smallsmile: I also described him as looking like me at the time too (but muscular). His actions weren't as close to mine though, he was a lot more childish, immature and innocent. He was a duel wielding fighter, weapons were a sword and a staff (the game mechanics allowed it, and it was a decent weapon strategy even).


My next character's name was Ryal Crossblade. I've grown fond of the character (as apparent in my user name) and he was very much based on myself too. My middle name is Ryan. Remove the N and replace it with the first letter of my first name, L, and you get Ryal. I created him in an online MMO (Ragnarok Online), this was his first incarnation, it looked similar to me also. At the time I had my hair dyed red, the game allowed me to make the character look similar, so I did. When my hair color changed back to black after time, so did his.
His personality changes from time to time though, depending on how the mechanics allow it. When possible, he's a blind, katar dual-wielding rogue type character (as the character was in Ragnarok). In his first DnD 3.5 appearance he was a McGuyver type rogue, using anything to get out of situations. (I was once called a "sneaky ninja b*st*rd" when to introduce a new PC, that PC locked me in his town jail, stripping me of all gear except my pants -no belt- and I asked the random jail mate for his bootlace as an improvised lock pick) Later incarnations of him are only name sakes though (well, he also keeps spiked black hair, but I haven't spiked my hair in years), as his personality ranged from a strong leader to a cartoony-comic daredevil-ish dodge master to no-nonsense assassin to a shadow that protects his team mates.
He is always a rogue though.

Greenish
2011-12-21, 09:07 AM
I've never put Mary Sues into my games. The numbers won't let me. How can I be smart, insightful, agile, highly skilled and knowledgeable, fashionable, popular, morally upstanding, fearless in the face of danger, and an ideal romance, all at 1st level?By utterly ignoring the pesky crunch and claiming you're all that regardless of your actual abilities. Embrace the denial!


Ok, no games because I am studying abroad.I've heard foreign people play RPGs too. :smallamused:

DoctorGlock
2011-12-21, 09:18 AM
I've heard foreign people play RPGs too. :smallamused:

True, but the only live group I found was inconveniently located and I am not a fan of PbP. Also I am not here long enough to really get incorporated into a serious group.

Nerd-o-rama
2011-12-21, 09:31 AM
Among my longer-running D&D characters, I did have one idealized version of myself, and one pretty traditional fanfic-style Mary Sue who, when I realized what I was doing with her, just piled more Mary Sue clichés on because it was a ridiculous game anyway (and Jade Phoenix Mage is freaking awesome). The latter can still be seen in my signature, mainly because I really like the art.

Since then, I have tried a few other things. Currently I have a tribal swordsman (another Jade Phoenix Mage, which I swear is a coincidence, and I never got to that high a level with Mary Sue anyway) who avoids Mary Suedom mainly by just rolling along with the story for the sake of the fights. Still two-dimensional, I admit, but despite his self-important attitude he never hogs the spotlight or undergoes convoluted wish fulfillment. He's a kind of character who works for D&D.

Also concurrently, though, I have a Changeling character whom I tried to make as an actual character, divorced from myself. I threw away my D&D roots to sit down and start with a concept (A 1940's RAF pilot who flew into Arcadia one day and spent 60 Earth years as a light zephyr) and develop character traits from there rather than ex nihilo or substituting my own. The important thing to do here is put myself in my character's shoes when there is a decision to be made, which requires that I establish my character's shoes, so to speak, as an independent idea. It really makes the game a lot more emotionally impactful, for one thing, something that is only helped by my wife's excellent GMing. I hope to make more characters like this in the future, at least for story-driven games.

As for the self-insert character I mentioned at the very beginning? I don't think he was a problem so much as I got bored with him eventually and lost track of what I was doing with his character. Kinda like my real life at the time. He wasn't much of a Stu (especially compared to two or three of his close friends), but he wasn't terribly engaging to play after a while, either.

Oh, and all my recent PbP characters have been thinly-veiled knockoffs of anime characters. Which made sense in one game, but I really probably should stop doing this.

Rorrik
2011-12-21, 02:35 PM
Speaking of the growth. I have a player now who is the most powerful in the party, in many ways, but who doesn't cooperate much with them or help them further the mission. In the last session he was up a tower looting long dead corpses while hearing the others fighting desperately in the court below and proceeded to ask how many rings the dead queen was wearing.

I want to help him develop into a more believable character, or if he insists on being a rascal, impose some believable penalty for his self-serving behavior. Advise?

Lord Raziere
2011-12-21, 02:42 PM
well, if he is so much more powerful, he obviously does not need magical items to enhance himself even further, :smallamused:, let him know that by making his character so powerful that he has generously donated his share of the loot to the rest of the party so that they can be just as powerful.

Mantarni
2011-12-21, 04:13 PM
I want to help him develop into a more believable character, or if he insists on being a rascal, impose some believable penalty for his self-serving behavior. Advice? Yeah, you could have him not even consider keeping any items that are "below him" in his share of loot.

Or you could give him a phobia or large issue of something they haven't run across yet in any major way that he would need the party's help with. Not where he collapses in the fetal position or anything, but he works harder to avoid it -- it doesnt have to be a monster, it could just be a concept or image or particular item. Make it subtle. Instead of digging through the wardrobe and chest in the room, he sorta hugs the wall and goes upstairs. Or sits at the far corner of the room humming and starts to craft something until its gone. That sort of thing. Then he acts more grateful to them when they deal with it (part of why he keeps them around).

Hell, you could go the full 9 yards and retroactively make him a Jerk With a Heart of Gold and have it be like a lesser vow of poverty where it turns out over half of what he's gotten has been funding a system of orphanages he's established across the country.

Crossblade
2011-12-21, 05:38 PM
let him know that by making his character so powerful that he has generously donated his share of the loot to the rest of the party

Because EVERYBODY loves it when the DM takes control of their character without their permission. :smallannoyed:

The better way to go would be to have that player targetted by bandits and highway men. As it, "as the group travels down the road, an arrow flys out of the trees at Mr Bling. You then hear a bandit yell, 'kill the noble for his good, forget the rest!' Everyone attacks Mr. Bling." Have this happen more times than it should. Make sure the bandit gear is garbage. Need an excuse why they actually landed hits? They were high level, and their appropriate skills were very min-maxed.
If he doesn't get the hint, tell the rest of the party they don't have to share the loot with anyone that didn't help in the kill. He wasn't there to see what items were picked up, he doesn't know what he missed out on.

Aron Times
2011-12-21, 07:11 PM
A clarification:

I'd like to point out that there is a difference between a Mary Sue and an Author Avatar, or in this case, a Player Avatar. While all Mary Sues are Author/Player Avatars, not all Avatars are Mary Sues. Just because a character's personality is identical to your own does not automatically make him/her a Mary Sue.

SowZ
2011-12-21, 08:24 PM
Ignoring mechanics and hurting a character unrealistically, or else forcing him to develop a phobia/give up money, are both poor ideas IMO. You can have gear land in such a way that the stronger character gets less magic gear and the rest of the party finds better stuff. That's okay.

If his character is built better than the party, he will probably be a little stronger even with magic gear distribution. This is okay.

If his character is selfish? That's his choice. But the party doesn't have to put up with it, (in character at least. Letting it turn into RL drama aint cool.) The party can threaten to kick his character out of the group, (again, in game.)

Mantarni
2011-12-22, 05:02 PM
Ah, I was operating on the assumption he was talking to the player about it and offering suggestions. Didn't mean imposing those on that player.

Bastian Weaver
2011-12-22, 07:45 PM
Pretty much every character I played was kind of a Player Avatar. Well, except for some canon comic book villains like Scorpion and Sabretooth, which I didn't actually like but thought I should play them well and true to the character.
Funny thing was, people I played with at that time called my thermokinetic mutant superhero a Mary Sue, going to such lengths as mentioning him as a token example of one. Hey, not my fault that I'm such a nice and cool person.
The last one was a mage with the ability to transform into a lion - a huge, tough guy with a very pirate-like red beard, known as Jackie the Blade. He worked as a scriptwriter and director at the local theater, and was rather successful.

Aidan305
2011-12-26, 12:01 PM
My first character was a mary sue- a 10,000 year old dragon wizard inventor, it was a freeform game, so power level was high and not really based in DnD at all and was actually closer to Mt:G in concept, but he was fun to play nevertheless, like a draconic fantasy version of the Doctor before I even knew who the Doctor was…..
In freeform game however he died like seventeen times before he finally established a republic that had a good life for it citizens after a while…..but I decided to leave the game because most of the other players were jerks, last I heard the freeform game is still going on and someone else destroyed the republic….don't really care, I've moved on to better characters and such. Like Exalted.

In comparison to some of the other characters there he was relatively tame. At least you were willing to take your hits without shouting about it for weeks afterward.

My first character was a GMPC, so probably qualifies on that basis alone. He was three levels higher than the other characters and tended to blast kobolds out of the way with ease. I learned quickly though. My second character, a few months later, barely tipped the scales of Sueishness - at least, in the general field of RPG characters, who tend towards sueish traits anyway. He was a young silver dragon fleeing to the Emperor's court with a message from his father, a high ranking diplomat to a land to the east. (It was a setting of many dragons)

Zorg
2011-12-26, 02:53 PM
Mary-Sue characters aren't necessarily a bad thing (http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue-is), it depends on what you want to get out of them.
Some of my favourite characters (to play and run for) would be classified as Marty-Stus - I've even seen the 'realistic' characters (who are often just as cringeworthy for different reasons) be the ones who stick out of place. All depends on the style of game.
I find it's more how the character is played, rather than their background, that indicates MSness. For instance:


One thing for my personal progression though, I've found it works best to make a character with no tragic, epic or any type of drama backstory. Just have them be someone relatively normal. Them, as themselves, without fluff. It's a lot more fun than you would think.

And in the progression of this, I swear someday I'm going to make a character based around this (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s212/Warlawk/Motivators%20and%20Funnies/Diplomacy02.jpg). Her story: NONE. One day a little 8-year old girl decided to go and make friends with the world. Absolute pacifist, no combat abilities, but the powers of friendship and heart. OVERWHELMING AMOUNTS. :smallsmile:

This concept could swing either way - if the character acts like an 8-year old girl would, she'd be fine, but it could easily be scoffed at with an eye roll and "so she's going to defeat the evil overlord with the power of love?"
If the campaign is designed to work with that idea, it'd be great - throw in a Gandalfesque mentor, a rogue with a heart of gold and a jolly priest and it's a classic story.
If the rest of the party are rolling around in spiked black platemail and live in a fortress made from the bones of their enemies eating roast babies for dinner every night... not so much - it'd either fail in the face of the realism unrelenting nihilism of dark fantasy, or if the GM lets Zadrak the Soul-Crusher see the errors of his ways due to a little girl offering him the last bit of cake the other players would be calling foul Mary-Sue!

It's why, in the link above, Batman seems so stupid when you break him down, but people love him.

MukkTB
2011-12-26, 07:01 PM
I always felt the DM provided protection against the Mary Sue thing. The problem with the Mary Sue isn't how they act. Its how they warp reality around them. They behave badly. They're obnoxious. Or they're perfect with no flaws. AND THE REALITY OF THE STORY NEVER TAKES THEM TO TASK FOR IT. They're never really challenged. Other characters make allowances for their behavior. Every decision they make has consequences that prove that decision was the right one.

Except most DMs aren't gonna let you walk over them like that. You're only protected by one reality altering baseline. The protagonists are set up to win the overarching conflict. And not even that is guaranteed. Total party wipes do happen. The DM is gonna snake tricks in the way. He's going to run at least some shrewd NPCs that know whats up. He is going to challenge the characters and maybe even let the bad guys pull out some victories.

And that's before we even talk about the random vagaries of rolling the dice. Mary Sue until they fumble and do a face plant. Mary Sue until the evil swordsmen beats them in a duel by luck and a little skill. Mary Sue until their bad decisions and bad luck combine to form a total party wipe.

I had a character the other day do some boasting. He promptly got beat up. And on reflection I figured he had made a mistake in assessing the situation. Not to mention the awful dice rolls.

A character with pure or simple motivation isn't a problem either. It only becomes a problem when a player commits a morally ambiguous act and then hides behind RP from the consequences.

Of course giving characters massive stats is kind of Mary Sue. Expecting dumb NPCs is kind of Mary Sue. Optimizing your character while expecting unoptimized monsters is kind of Mary Sue. But all these things require DM complicity.

The character I'm currently playing has a wide variety of skills and abilities on top of a 25 point buy. He is a Player Avatar no doubt. And he is certainly a much more competent dude than fat me. But I don't feel he is a Mary Sue. He can fail. He makes mistakes. He faces consequences for his actions. The world responds to him in a relatively realistic way. I am fallible. My Avatar is fallible. I don't pretend otherwise. Therefore not Mary Sue.

MukkTB
2011-12-26, 07:15 PM
Actually what you really need to look out for is DM Mary Sue NPCs. Nothing is stopping the DM. He only puts himself in check if he wants to. He controls the rules, they aren't gonna stop him. He can roll the dice where they aren't seen or totally ignore them. He can make random and elaborate **** up. Is the villain really always one step ahead of you or is the DM making retroactive decisions for him? The DMPC particularly is despised for a reason.

Go check out Gandalf in 'DM of the Rings' if you want a concrete example. I'll freely admit that I have made some bad decisions in this regard when DMing. Things that I look back on and find embarrassing.

Knaight
2011-12-26, 10:46 PM
It's why, in the link above, Batman seems so stupid when you break him down, but people love him.

People tend to love specific incarnations that have some of those traits. The few places where they all come together tend to be mocked mercilessly, because a flawless perfect hero really is boring. Him keeping up with actual superheroes just by being "badass" is cringe worthy, and usually treated as such. Moreover, it's easy to find other characters who fit the description, and are properly reviled - Eragon, for instance.

Lord Raziere
2011-12-26, 11:03 PM
In comparison to some of the other characters there he was relatively tame. At least you were willing to take your hits without shouting about it for weeks afterward.

My first character was a GMPC, so probably qualifies on that basis alone. He was three levels higher than the other characters and tended to blast kobolds out of the way with ease. I learned quickly though. My second character, a few months later, barely tipped the scales of Sueishness - at least, in the general field of RPG characters, who tend towards sueish traits anyway. He was a young silver dragon fleeing to the Emperor's court with a message from his father, a high ranking diplomat to a land to the east. (It was a setting of many dragons)

Oh hey, you played there to? who were you?

TurtleKing
2011-12-27, 12:58 AM
Did I go through that phase? Don't know. My first character while did have some good rolls wasn't awesome either. His backstory has a intentionally given up divinty from being a Hero Deity could very well ping as Stuish yet in the first session died twice. Still got to play him as a prinny...do I really need to say how he was treated? Well as he went through the campaign he grew in character from the thinks he is invincible based on who he was to the a wizened grandfatherly role with much wisdom from the eons he has seen. And yes he managed to achieve his quest...well not quite but close enough.

Another of mine couldn't be considering playing a baby dragon who was flapping his way into the world. While in certain areas he was capable he wasn't all powerful. Throw a giant eagle or two and he makes a tearful full retreat screaming like a little girl for help (lost 90% hp in suprise round).

Another being a Doctor who died to a cure resistant disease questing as a Deathless so to save his daughter who now has the same disease. Quite capable necromancer who doesn't raise undead due to vows. Joins group looking for the cure. Ends of taking the young fire elf summoner girl inder his wing due to similarities. If you have seen the movie 418? roleplayed that seen out with the dead daughter coming back to die again in his arms (actual daughter still alive as only reason he hasn't passed on yet). Managed to help them group because of his medical knowledge deciper a mad scientist diaries and such. Happy ending is achieved leaving several things for the daughter passing on. Maybe my only Marty Stu.

I have made Player Avatars with one intentional for a White Wolf game telling the rest up front playing myself. And yes I stayed as true to myself as possible so while not the most fighting capable can do something. Investigative was the main focus of the character my Spirit and Time.

Mantarni
2011-12-27, 06:17 AM
Mary-Sue characters aren't necessarily a bad thing (http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue-is), it depends on what you want to get out of them.
Some of my favourite characters (to play and run for) would be classified as Marty-Stus - I've even seen the 'realistic' characters (who are often just as cringeworthy for different reasons) be the ones who stick out of place. All depends on the style of game.
I find it's more how the character is played, rather than their background, that indicates MSness. For instance:

-8-year old girl with power of FRIENDSHIP-

This concept could swing either way - if the character acts like an 8-year old girl would, she'd be fine, but it could easily be scoffed at with an eye roll and "so she's going to defeat the evil overlord with the power of love?"
If the campaign is designed to work with that idea, it'd be great - throw in a Gandalfesque mentor, a rogue with a heart of gold and a jolly priest and it's a classic story.
If the rest of the party are rolling around in spiked black platemail and live in a fortress made from the bones of their enemies eating roast babies for dinner every night... not so much - it'd either fail in the face of the realism unrelenting nihilism of dark fantasy, or if the GM lets Zadrak the Soul-Crusher see the errors of his ways due to a little girl offering him the last bit of cake the other players would be calling foul Mary-Sue!

It's why, in the link above, Batman seems so stupid when you break him down, but people love him.

To be honest, I think that last part in the nihilism section would be hilarious. This might just be me, but a good game involves a small, moderate amount of (good-natured, ie non-dickish) middle fingers passing between the players and the DM. Sure, they have their piercing spikes of brooding respite and the bonetress of forlorness, but when a Mr. Rogers incarnation takes the day by befriending the eldritch horrors into building orphanges and making candy it's just funny, even if in a this-is-a-trainwreck sense. Although I would think she would have an alternate character interpretation as the single most scary, insane and even evil person there, since she can be that way despite being in that setting. That's like a whole new level of creepy.

Being serious, I think that outside of the optimists campaign this could actually be interesting in a more neutral setting (and toning down from RAW-broken diplomancer): she succeeds, but also fails. Things just don't go right sometimes, bad things happen, lots of things went over her head and out of control. And she has to deal with that and try to figure it out and progress from it, with the starting point being an 8-year olds' simple[r] grasp of the world.

And yes, I doubt the evil overlord would succumb to that, which she would probably realize after a while. So she would have to either try to accept that the BBEG would have to die, probably in front of her (in which case she would have to actively, intentionally let a person die, or even have to do it herself if the GM is twisted a good storyteller sadistic), or try to look for some way around all of it. It could be very interesting where that goes, the character maturation part alone might be worth it. I did put some thought into several of the character 'paths' when I came up with the concept. :smallsmile:

So yeah, anyway, I agree it is very context dependent. I would be an idiot to try that without checking with the party members beforehand, and getting a good grasp on the players' personalities (some people seem really attached to playing dark, brooding psychopaths for reasons that I ignore for the sake of participating in that game but keep my guard up for don't want to find out). But if it was with non-questionably-disturbed people and they thought it was a good idea to go with and would work with it, I definitely would.

Cerlis
2011-12-27, 07:03 AM
People tend to love specific incarnations that have some of those traits. The few places where they all come together tend to be mocked mercilessly, because a flawless perfect hero really is boring. Him keeping up with actual superheroes just by being "badass" is cringe worthy, and usually treated as such. Moreover, it's easy to find other characters who fit the description, and are properly reviled - Eragon Luke Skywalker, for instance.

Cus, really, they are the same person.

Jack of Spades
2011-12-27, 08:14 AM
Thus far, I've played:

A rogue with a very specific set of anxieties and personal rules (mostly stemming from his 3-foot halfling stature) that caused him to be often at odds with the elected-by-default party leader, in a way which cause spontaneous LARPing of arguments (leader-guy was a LARP veteran, and I've dabbled, so I guess it was inevitable).

A Space Marine whose fanatical and poetic love of the Emperor of Mankind (heh, yay for general role-playing forums... only that top one was in a DnD [or even fantasy] game) gained me many an out-of-character high-five or hug or the like, simultaneous to many stern looks and long talks in-character.

A migrant worker who would really just like to get his paycheck and a damn drink, who took a it of concinvcing to accept that he was/is a werewolf.

A cackling-mad, self-interested mad scientist who has thus far managed to delay the main goal of the other characters (essentially, leave the wreckage of the crash and get to point B) by almost a month in the name of getting enough toys built.

A few other one-offs and limited runs are in there, and they weren't generally as self destructive (I only just now noticed that trend), and my current group (who I have been gaming with since the second character there) considers me one of the best role-players in the group. I blame it on the fact that I'm constantly thinking about my characters when I'm not gaming. Also, the fact that I make sure my characters are at least as nuts as I am.

That said, I don't want to toot my own horn-- just point out that I'm pretty sure none of those were Mary Sue or all-to-heavily archetypal (other than the mad scientist maybe)...

Knaight
2011-12-27, 09:08 AM
Cus, really, they are the same person.

That really only applies for the first movie (number 4) and the book Eragon, and even then it's tenuous at best. Luke lacks many of the more Sueish qualities, such as the overt narration stating that Eragon acts in a morally perfect way all the time. Plus, all the meaningful victories in Star Wars other than the first Death Star were due to either Leia, Han, Lando, or Vader.

Thrice Dead Cat
2011-12-29, 01:55 PM
Also, I should remind you that Tropes Are Not Bad. I've read pretty good books where the protagonist was blatant mary sue without ruining the story.

I've got to agree with this. I like playing magical nerds, which some people can see as being that "special snowflake" syndrome or a Mary Sue, in so far as the basics of 3.X/d20 go.

My first character was definitely kind of a wish-fulfillment half-elf rogue who was very tongue-in-cheek and un-serious. I also keep going back to "Magical monkey sage" as an archetype, simply because it's fun to throw in random monkey noises while playing a character and chatting with the rest of the group. I've played a bit of "team mom" with a War Weaver, whose sole goal was to keep her "squad" alive while trying to be the voice of reason.



Fast-forward five years from my first character and I'm currently DMing a tabletop Eberron group, I've got a friend playing a magical robot swordsman (Roughly, a taciturn Warforged Factotum/Warblade), another friend going Psychic Warforged who jams more gems into himself than makes sense (because Crystal Master with Warforged is weird and interesting), a loner Kalashtar Factotum (The player draws heavily from Indiana Jones but made outlandish threats in the first few sessions, so I kind of see him as being comedic relief), a Changeling aspiring-crime boss, a hillbilly halfling druid, a "runt" drow turned 'forged, and a favored soul of the Host named after the Simo Häyhä (http://www.badassoftheweek.com/hayha.html).

It's a broad generalization of the group and I try to run it as "pulpy" as possible, what with shenanigans and Eberron's high-magic lost-tech-ness. There's probably some wish fulfillment in there, but we all have a good time and do absolutely silly things with airship combat.

Cerlis
2011-12-29, 03:22 PM
That really only applies for the first movie (number 4) and the book Eragon, and even then it's tenuous at best. Luke lacks many of the more Sueish qualities, such as the overt narration stating that Eragon acts in a morally perfect way all the time. Plus, all the meaningful victories in Star Wars other than the first Death Star were due to either Leia, Han, Lando, or Vader.


i remember him acting immature, selfish and rash throught the series :smallconfused:

Aidan305
2012-01-01, 02:03 PM
Oh hey, you played there to? who were you?
I was Deacon


I found myself playing a fairly sue-ish character in a group of such last night for a once-off. We were a party of bards, famous throughout the land, and with such amazing skills that the game started with us giving a rock concert and a great wyrm gold turning up to tell us just how good we were. We also had the "Hot elven back-up dancer triplets" as well. The game worked well because it was intentionally over the top and sue-ish with emphasis being placed on those characteristics.

Lord Raziere
2012-01-01, 08:06 PM
oh yeah, Deacon Liadon! :smallbiggrin: You gave me the Epic Non-Detection Rod! Thanks for that! Which reminds me: make Epic Non-Detection Rod with Storyteller system somehow.

Socratov
2012-01-02, 12:34 PM
I forgot who said it (although I remember seeïng it on a certain Sherlock episode, used by Irene Adler), but: "No matter how good the disguise, it's always a self protrait".

so no matter how much you do your best at making a character ulike yourself, it will end up with at least some of your own qualities. That leaves us with the question: do you grow as a person while roleplaying characters, growing more the more characters you play? Or does your 'self portrait' become less apparent while you play more characters?

Another way to look at it is through system mastery. AS you haven't mastered the system, you are best off playing yourself (or at least trying to) since it will require the least effort to roleplay while you try and acquaint yourself with the system. When your system mastery increases you will pursue other concepts, trying to explore different mechanics of the game. Ofcourse the only way to enjoy yourself with a certain mechanic is to make it your own and give it your own storywise backingso yet again you create someting in your own image. Don't worry, it's as much a human flaw as divine, if anything it shows creativity in reinventing yourself. My flaw in creating characters is 1) they all have great social skills, and 2) they are, if possible, chaotic neutral, 3) I somehow happen to like bards... no idea what this tells me abou tmyself though... :smallamused: