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."

Comments

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Blakey Rat]

I stand by what I said. When we have an article about min-maxing posted, then I welcome the great-grandparent to duplicate his post in that article where it is more relevant, but here it has nothing to do with anything.

It might be interesting, but it's certainly not insightful and it's definately off-topic.

Yes, a Mary Sue character might min-max. But they're just as likely not to. The two behaviors aren't related.