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Hello Mary Sue, Goodbye Flawed RPG Characters
Thanks to Skotos.net for its article discussing the problems of perfect 'Mary Sue' characters in online MUD/MUSH environments. The author starts by explaining: "Mary Sue is what, in writing, is called an author avatar, wherein the writer creates an idealized version of him/herself and sticks the resulting character into the story." But as this is part of playing games, what's the big deal? It's argued: "The herd of people trampling over each other to be the most at something, be it beauty, wealth, or grotesqueness, is going to affect everyone else's characters. For starters, if the standard for beauty has been raised so high that pretty people are average, the average characters are now ugly. If the standard for wealth goes from a million dollars to a trillion, the millionaires are the new middle class. It messes with the game's dynamic, and that's bound to make people who are trying to create reasonable and balanced characters cranky."
Cool, then by that definition, I'm perfect :D :P
And all you guys are below me
(This is a joke people, laugh)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
people who spend an innordinant amount of time crafting a gritty dramatic version of themselves are displeased when their unreal life begins to go the way of their real life?
And they've been determined to be cranky? My God, what a revelation! New Bibles will need to be printed!!
I always love the "oneupsmanship" that occurs on MUSHes. On the MUSH I played, you'd have characters who would have a child, for example. Then someone would have twins. Then triplets. Kinda got ridiculous for the low-tech world the MUSH was based on.
On the extreme side a solution might be to just completely erase everything in such games every few months, but that would simply annoy everyone, including mary sues.
If you did that on a Diablo II server I think Mary'd sue.