11:27 pm
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First Essay Ever...on Character Creation
First, I wish to let everyone know, that anything I write is not meant to be taken personal by anyone who reads it. It's just a friendly, yet stern, resource for others. Feel free to comment on anything I write, I value everyone's thoughts and opinions as if they were my own....Now onto the Essay!
I've noticed things when reading character profiles for rpg's, and boy let me tell you...some people just dig their own graves. Those people just seem to ignore the rules, and the suggestions offered by the staff, posting characters that are just so horrible. Now, I'm being a bit harsh; not all of them are horrible. Alot of them are pretty well written. But there are things that they do which almost break the rules of any good rpg; One, they are so overpowered, it's almost impossible to play with them. Two, they lack originality. Three, they just post things that get on my nerves. XD I am a moderator on an X-men Rpg, so I have had some experience dealing with these types.
Powers are essential for alot of Rpg's. Especially in the Marvel, or Fantasy areas. Alot of times, powers can shape the history of a character; like Ororo Munroe's life was based alot around her powers for a time. But although your personalty can be altered by your powers, your personality isn't shaped by them...you have to have something before you had them, right? Anyways, my problem with alot of Oc's that I have seen, is their blatant need to come up with the best, most beautiful, most powerful, young, character. They end up submitting profiles that make us roll our eyes. They have no flaws, besides being mortal. In every thread, they have to outdo someone, have to fight, have to be the center of attention. A plot isn't good to them, unless they are at the center of it. Only they are the chosen one, only they can defeat the monster, or save the day. You can see it coming the minute you read their application. Those are always plagued by extreme levels of power, paragraphs focused soley on how good they look, histories involving them being ex-asassins and what not...What I'm saying is this; Is it too hard to put in some weaknesses, flaws, and limits? Why do people have to be the best? Why not train up your character? Why not let them grow in the game? Why not just avoid writing thread apon thread about how despite another characters years of learning and training, you could easily have killed them at 13? Why not save us the grief of a bad exchange by making someone realistic? Not everyone can be the rich, perfect, dangerous, etc.
A reason why I am so biased against overpowered characters, is because of their penchant of godmodding. Alot of people get this term confused with powerplaying, but Godmodding is a big no. Pretty much (for those who do not know), godmodding is a term for when you have a character that is uber-powerful, unstoppable, and never takes any damage in threads, but dishes out hits that kill in one blast. And overpowered characters are the biggest culprit of this. It annoys Rp'ers because we don't like to sit in a thread, and read about these characters sending, "a volley of fire that would be impossible for anyone to dodge, as the 16 year old boy destroyed the entire city around them with a devlish grin..." and then read, "Despite being the X-men, this boy was untouchable, moving so fast that none of their attacks even came close to striking him." Can you not see why this is annoying to me?
Once, just once, I would like to see someone come up with an original power, instead of the usual fire, water, etc. I have nothing against elementals, but what gets me is that we could get tons of Storm clones, Pyro wannabe's etc., with the exact same personality, etc. They often play into a stereotype; I once read about an African America character who talked in horrible English in their threads (purposely, because I read their words in OOC, and they were written really well...), smoked marijuana, and had a do-rag. Being black myself, I could tell that this person made no effort to expand upon the character beyond just using a stereotype as an excuse to be lazy. In another place, I read about a girl who could use fire like the best of them, yet had died black hair, pale skin, could steal powers by touching others, and was a major goth wannabe. (Let the record stand that I have nothing against Goths, alot of them were my friends growing up...) Ooh...original...right. Excuse me if I laugh...Why not choose a power that's different? Storm was cool, too many others like her ruins the variety of the power. Wolverine is awesome, but there's no reason why he's gonna have 10 long lost girlfriends who were also in Weapon X so they have the same powers as him, of course only better because it wouldn't be complete without the nod to the Sue. Why not come up with something like redistributing your weight, so that you can move quicker and climb things easier when lighter, and then can withstand more when heavier?
I guess you could say, one of the main things that gets me about certain people and their characters are how they post their character's interactions. I once read this thread where someone spent an entire half a page going on about how much of a head turner they were, despite not wanting the attention, and how classy of a drink she ordered, how much better she was than the other female teachers, etc. You know, the usual "Oh woe is me, I'm so hot, yet I hate it when men come onto me because I'm an ex-killer with a trust problem, but I'm walking around all seductively...." Hauntingly familiar? Sues across many universes use this constantly. And then I was horrified to read that someone had actually responded to it, hooking up with her character. And worst still, nominated her for best writing. What the heck? I just don't like it when people have to belittle others, and write about appearance, get recognition as if they were the best writers in the world, but then interesting characters can't get a single person to reply to their threads...it's like Bizarro world!
Another thing I hate about what I've seen in threads is when someone has to invade a thread, do all sorts of stuff in one post, and turn it from a group effort into a man to man fight between two people, and the rest are just oh so incapable that they can only watch...like a Dragon Ball Z fight, between Goku and Frieza, only alot less cool...But I'll elaborate more into this in my next essay.
In conclusion, there are many things that I notice in certain OC's that makes me roll my eyes and say "next". I'm just ranting in this, there's no reason to take what I say as an insult to you or anyone you've created. I hope those of you who did read it all, enjoyed what I wrote, and are looking forward to my next essay...Feel Free to Comment!
Current Mood:  calm
Current Music: Monster by the Automatic
Tags: character creation, fanfiction, oc, rpg
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