[b]Mary Sues, God Modding, and the Quest for a Cool Character: Part One[/b] What excites most roleplayers is writing posts about their character. They might have an idea for one or inspiration strikes when they look at a role play. Regardless of how it starts, they usually have to turn their idea into a character sheet and submit it for the GM to review. Sometimes these characters bring concerns to the GM or other players. A good GM will often give feedback on characters that don’t quite fit the setting, if they don’t outright reject them. Though a less experienced or overconfident GM may decide to accept the character as-is. This character may cause open tensions if the other players aren’t passing messages along in private. If they hate it enough, they may even leave an RP that they otherwise enjoyed. But the player with the offending character just wanted to write a story. Certainly they didn’t want to ruffle any feathers. What happened? Let’s look at the type of character that might cause that kind of reaction. You’ll have to forgive me for not writing a full character sheet. But there should be enough there for you to gauge the character. [hr] [center] [hider=Picture][img]https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fc/a9/ee/fca9ee416f1aba08bab21c3cb79fdc52.jpg[/img][/hider] [color=gold][h1]Rilla Müller[/h1][h3]The Superstar[/h3][/color] [b]Age 21 | Female | 120 LBs | 5’ Mechsuit | Popstar | Neko[/b] [/center] Rilia is a young pop idol that’s taken Germany by storm! She’s also an engineer that’s used her knowledge of electronics to make her own mech suit to protect her homeland. Her suit can create powerful shockwaves and fire condensed sound in the form of projectiles. She can also overcharge her mech’s arms and shoot lightning bolts from them. Lastly, her suit gives her incredible athletic ability, allowing her to jump over buildings or beat cars in a drag race. [hr] Trashy anime idol garbage may not be your cup of tea, but the question remains: Is this a character you would accept into an RP? Do they seem like a god modder (or a power player) looking at the sheet? What even are god modders? To answer that question, we’re going to briefly hop over to the fanfiction space. Much like roleplaying, Fanfiction writers usually create characters that play alongside other characters they didn’t make. The only difference is that they control everything. Some of the more detestable “fan characters” can feel a lot like god modders, but are called Mary Sues. You’ve likely heard of the term Mary Sue before, but what does it really mean? Everyone says it’s a character that’s too perfect or powerful, but that can’t be right. Superman isn’t considered a Mary Sue. He has every power imaginable, yet his fans adore him. Here’s a history lesson. Back in the seventies, they didn’t have the internet to pass around fanfiction. Instead, it was submitted to “fanzines” to be published and distributed at conventions. The most popular one for Star Trek fanfiction was “The Menagerie,” which had to sift through a lot of crap to get to the good stuff. One of the editors (Paula Smith) was so fed up with a certain kind of story that she wrote “A Trekkie's Tale,” a parody that featured one Lt Mary Sue as the main character. It’s not required reading, but I’ll include it here if you want a look. [quote] "Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet—only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her. "Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?" "Captain! I am not that kind of girl!" "You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us." Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?" "The Captain told me to." "Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind." Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship. But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies, Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood. However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday on the Enterprise. [/quote] To summarize, The original Mary Sue is not a god modder in the traditional sense. While she is impossibly smart for her age and has a lot of skills, these are more indicators of being a god modder. What really makes Mary Sue a Mary Sue is that the world’s logic bends to her whim. It’s possible for a “fifteen and a half” year old to have youthful beauty. It’s a bit harder to believe that she became a Lieutenant at such a young age. But to be a better doctor than Dr McCoy, more logical than Spock, refuse Kirk (ew, dude!) and man an entire ship that needs four people to pilot makes her become nonsensical. Emulsion is thoroughly destroyed. This is why characters like Superman aren’t Mary Sues. While powerful, his universe functions in a way that he can be that powerful. Moreover, his stories are still interesting (usually!) because as mighty as he is, we see time and time again that he can’t right every wrong. Going back to Rilla Müller’s character sheet, we really don’t have enough information to determine if we’re dealing with a problematic character. We need to see what kind of RP she’s being placed in. Let’s say the RP is an anime inspired version of an alternate history world war two setting where Hitler never came into power and the Germans ended up joining the allies. The other very important difference is that the prominent technology for this alternate history closely matches the steam-punk aesthetic. The issues become really obvious now, don’t they? Rilla Müller isn’t as egregious as Mary Sue, but she has a number of immersion breaking features that don’t make her compatible with the setting. While Germany had its fair share of singers, they didn’t really have an idol culture like Japan did. Moreover, idol culture didn’t really start until well after WWII ended. Rilla is also a neko/cat girl, which isn’t something most steampunk or historic fiction pieces would allow for. Perhaps the biggest offender is her electric powered mech suit, which should be powered by steam in a setting like this. Without a proper explanation, her electric/sonic arments seem out of place. The next question is, can we save Rilla Müller? Is there an acceptable character hiding somewhere in there? Among the numerous bits of sentence-long-writing-advice is something called “Kill your darlings.” Like most writing advice, it doesn’t do much to explain the nuances of the problem it’s trying to solve. The idea is that you might have a cool character, but you might not have room for them in the story you want to tell. But you don’t always have to “Kill” your darling, you might be able to change them. Let’s pretend I thought up Rilla Müller as she is on our character sheet. Since then, I’ve read the RP’s interest check and realize that she doesn’t quite fit. The next step is to strip away everything that conflicts with the setting but stopping at what’s important to me. I do this by asking myself why a character is the way they are. Does Rilla need to be an idol, or can she just be someone who likes singing? Does she need to be a neko, or am I more interested in a character with a certain personality type? Does she need to be a wiz with electricity, or could she be a wiz with steam? These answers are going to be different for everyone, but I find that any time I do this, I end up with a character that’s scaled back from my original idea but is just as fun to play. The trick is separating what you want from what you need to be happy with your character. [hr] [center] [hider=Picture][img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/0d/ed/47/0ded4758684964624d02291fb1d854b5.jpg[/img][/hider] [color=gold][h1]Rilla Müller[/h1][h3]Backyard Tech Superstar[/h3][/color] [b]Age 21 | Female | 120 LBs | 5’ Mechsuit | Engineer | German[/b] [/center] Rilia is an up and coming engineer that built her own steam powered mech suit in her father’s workshop. Her suit uses pressurized steam to fire brass steaks and has a steam thrower for boiling targets that get too close. Lastly, her suit is capable of using its hot steam to propel her as she runs and jumps, increasing her speed and mobility. [hr] This isn’t the only correct version of Rilla Müller that we can make. I could lean into her being a singer instead of the engineer direction. She’s only 21 so I don’t want to give her a lot of skills that she doesn’t need. But you don’t need to know how to build mech suits if you want to pilot them. Though if she’s going to be a singer, maybe she likes it because she likes helping others. She could have enlisted as a medic or some kind of support role. I also decided to grab a picture with a more flamboyant appearance this time. The ribbon on her head kind of looks like a pair of bunny ears. If I cared enough, I could probably search for an image of a girl with a bow on her head to get the cat girl look if it was something I really wanted to keep. [hr] [center] [hider=Picture][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1089216474998128771/1128280513329758309/Prinz.Heinrich.Azur.Lane.600.3658270.jpg[/img][/hider] [color=gold][h1]Rilla Müller[/h1][h3]Medicinal Superstar[/h3][/color] [b]Age 21 | Female | 120 LBs | 5’ Mechsuit | Medic | German[/b] [/center] Rilia is a singer by trade but decided to become a medic to help with the war effort. She goes into battle in a steam powered mech suit armed with a single machine gun. Her suit is also equipped with an assortment of tools to quickly bandage up wounded soldiers and get them back home. Lastly, her suit is capable of using its hot steam to propel her as she runs and jumps, increasing her speed and mobility. Perfect for bringing the wounded back from the front line. [hr] We could do a few more, but I think these two results show that no matter how absurd a character concept, it can be boiled down to its core components and work with anything. It’s easy to get excited to play your ideal character and forget that Roleplaying is, actually, a social activity. If you just want to write stories about your ideal character you can do that on your own. But the real joy of roleplaying comes from the interactions. Having your character do something and then having another character react to it. Discussing directions for the plot to go while keeping enough back that there’s still a surprise. While you shouldn’t feel the need to bend over backwards for everyone, you should do your part to avoid joining an RP with a character that doesn’t fit. If you can’t be satisfied with anything but the character you’ve envisioned, then maybe that RP isn’t for you. And don’t hate on people who submit these kinds of characters. Mary Sues aren’t usually a sign of a nasty, maleficent player. They usually don’t understand the setting or want their character to come across as really cool. I have more to say on the behavior of Mary Sue type characters, as they’re a bit more than what I outlined above. I’d also like to demonstrate how how you can go about making your characters instantly likable. But I’m going to save that for another article that will deal with posts rather than the character sheet. This is already coming out a little later than I wanted, so I hope you read the next one. Until then, pay attention to a roleplay’s theme and setting, and you’ll never have to worry about your characters fitting in.