Mary Sues; Do YOU harbour them?

[Illiterate Scribe]

So, Mary Sues. The bane of storytelling. But, deep within your heart, do you play one? Use this handy test, to test your current campaign characters to find out, and share your shame here!

Paid for by the citizen's council for 4e thread reduction.

Well, the main character that I'm currently playing on these boards:

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• Azariah L'Imre - mad artificer from Sigil with Wis 7. Painfully little understanding of the way that the world works, together with epic levels - Mary Sue Score - 9.

Not too bad.

So, what do others get?

[chiasaur11]

4 for a concept kicking I'm around.

Kobold Paladin, raised with no contact with his own species, believes Kobolds to be a race of legendary heroes and saints.


Low score.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Genre Savvy veteran metal-wing clad swordmaster, a 6. More or less what I was expecting, since he is supposed to be the hero of a story I'm writing.

[Worira]

Gah! Trying to do this for a character who's a vain changeling is impossible!

[BRC]

I was doing my latest Dnd Character, but I ran into trouble because, first of all, It's an evil campaign. And secondly, He's A villain with Good Publicity who intentionally uses tropes that most people consider "Heroic" in order to further his evil goals. For example, he wields a rapier and focuses more on speed than brute strength specifically because those are things often associated with heroe's.

[Valairn]

Funnily enough my character is a good looking princess from a foreign land, but I still only scored a 6, probably due to her being completely unlike me, honorable and dedicated to authority.... heh

[Triaxx]

Nay! Tempus, Thor! Strike down the fool!

Please, let's not corrupt D&D with accusations of: It r teh Mrry Sue. I hates Joo!

[Arbitrarity]

Huh. Being a bard makes most of these scores remarkably high. I mean, you get 3 or 4 for the music section, maybe 2-3 for renown, and D&D means you do pick up skills fast.

Wait, being part of an RPG is an instant 5 points?
Bleargh, my character over the past year is a 27, at least.

[Cubey]

I was going to take this test for some of my NPCs that hang around the group. The problem - I'm DMing Exalted. Checking points on abilities that are not only common in Creation, but you EXPECT an Exalted to have is enough to make even the most original Solar a total Mary Sue.

[Indon]

I tested Indon, the character that is literally my avatar (making him, by definition, a Mary Sue).

He scored 31.

[Worira]

The aforementioned vain changeling got a 48. I win!

[MeklorIlavator]

I was going to take this test for some of my NPCs that hang around the group. The problem - I'm DMing Exalted. Checking points on abilities that are not only common in Creation, but you EXPECT an Exalted to have is enough to make even the most original Solar a total Mary Sue.

If the character is expected to have these abilities because of his race(granted, Exalted isn't a race, but it fits with the general spirit of the rule), doesn't it tell you not to check them?

[Saph]

Niriel got a 23. Not a surprise, since she's a singer and harpist.

John only got a 9, though. Poor guy probably could do with a bit more favouring.

- Saph

[Cubey]

If the character is expected to have these abilities because of his race(granted, Exalted isn't a race, but it fits with the general spirit of the rule), doesn't it tell you not to check them?

Not in all cases. Let's take the test though with Rules as Intended, not as Written...

[Indon]

If the character is expected to have these abilities because of his race(granted, Exalted isn't a race, but it fits with the general spirit of the rule), doesn't it tell you not to check them?

That's for questions that specifically ask, "Does your character have an unusual <Attribute>?"

The "Is your character awesome" questions, that doesn't apply to.

[Flickerdart]

13 for an RP character I have knocking around another forum's RP (which I also happen to DM. Shut up, he' there to kick the plot into gear when it dies).

[Prophaniti]

I actually tend to get negative scores when I do my D&D characters... I like them to have glaring flaws. Haven't tried with my main character in my novel yet. I haven't written anything for it in months and I need to go over it again to remember it all...

[Cubey]

13 and 5, for an NPC that hanged around from the start, and a Player-Character-Turned-NPC-After-Player-Left, respectively. If you count stuff like "learning really fast", "having a magical weapon" or "defeating dozens of enemies easily", which are the default for starting level Exalted characters, add ~25 points to each.

What can I say? Characters I make with the intention to hang around the party have some Sue potential if roleplayed the good wrong way, but I make doubly sure not to steal spotlight with them. They usually serve one of these roles:
1. Comic relief
2. Doing boring parts of the quests, with the interesting left to the players
3. Causing (or getting into) problems instead of solving them. In moderation of course. Sues are bad, but so are Scrappies
4. Giving the party a friendly push if they get stuck

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Wow, apparently being multi-lingual makes you a mary-sue...

[Edea]

My Wizard character got a 0 O_O. I think that's because of all the Desuifiers she has.

[Gerrtt]

23 for my what my first D&D Character would have become in the long run.

[Talya]

Huh. Being a bard makes most of these scores remarkably high. I mean, you get 3 or 4 for the music section, maybe 2-3 for renown, and D&D means you do pick up skills fast.

Wait, being part of an RPG is an instant 5 points?
Bleargh, my character over the past year is a 27, at least.

Try doing it for a bard/sorceress/heartwarder and high priestess of a goddess of beauty/passion/love.

Still came out under 20 though.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Gah! Trying to do this for a character who's a vain changeling is impossible!

I know seriously. Let alone a vain Changeling spellcaster.

Of course, the test says to ignore things that are "commonplace" in the setting. I guess anything that comes from actual game rules can probably be exempted, since it's available to everyone and you're not just making your character stupid...magic, shapechanging, things like that. I'd say anything that requires a Level Adjustment or a particularly obscure PrC counts as MS, though.

[FMArthur]

96 is probably really bad... Looking back, I really can't see how this data makes my character zoom off the charts. He vaguely resembles my ideal self, but also struggles with problems I wouldn't and goes through hell routinely. He's not especially popular and not hated a whole lot, does not attract a lot of affection and while he is gifted, he still goes unnoticed by his peers. He's got magical powers but it's also quite common and (surprise) as the main freaking protagonist in my story, yeah he does save the day more often than anyone else. He doesn't have a very good education, but as a scribe he knows 4 languages. The only thing I can think of that does this is his history of being a constant victim. The ability to fly at great strain without wings (and subsequently become comatose from the energy drain) might also affect it.

[Indon]

So I went over a character in an actual story I wrote; scored a 10.

[Cainen]

For one character - 45. The thing, though, is that I deliberately made him a Gary Stu to show off how blatantly incompetent the management of his employers was - he was the best militaryman on base, the best shot, all that.

And he was a VTOL transport pilot who never got involved in combat once during his tenure. A stark contrast for more humor than just making something powerful because I could, and he never stole the spotlight once.

The rest of them - 1, 6, 8, 10, 7, 12, 18. Obviously, as the campaign's power level starts to increase, so does the score there.

[Prophaniti]

I also got a really low score (3) on a major character in my story who's a vampire. This is mostly because I treat vampirism as an actual curse, not a 'I'm a bad ass sexy blood drinker.' trope. Being a vampire sucks (no pun intended) big time in my world (though it does still make you strong enough to rip heads off one-handed...).

[Flickerdart]

I know seriously. Let alone a vain Changeling spellcaster.

Of course, the test says to ignore things that are "commonplace" in the setting. I guess anything that comes from actual game rules can probably be exempted, since it's available to everyone and you're not just making your character stupid...magic, shapechanging, things like that. I'd say anything that requires a Level Adjustment or a particularly obscure PrC counts as MS, though.

Really? An Illithid with an effective +14 ECL wouldn't do so well there at all.

New challenge. Stat and flesh out a by-the-rules D&D character that has the highest score possible. Winner gets a cookie.

[Worira]

Vampire Half-elf Half-dragon Bard named something like Dymond Ravynwyng.

[Cainen]

New challenge. Stat and flesh out a by-the-rules D&D character that has the highest score possible. Winner gets a cookie.

Well, rolling all 18s is by-the-rules, and so are templates, and so are elves, and so are classes that get blank checks to rewrite reality and other peoples' mentalities...