How To Roleplay - Credit To Karmi for giving this to me.

Introduction

First of all, I would like to say that half of this work was done by another site (How to Roleplay) but presently this site has not been running by a few of my friends and I'm pretty much the only one active there (Genjyo_Sanzo87) and well I have to give lots of credits to Elle-kun for coming up with this idea and it was inspired by her frustation against Mary-Sues and not to mention people who just don't...RP well, to her that is. I guess it isn't a bad idea to be giving some credits to them for their wonderful work and well, I have had done my part on that site too and now I'm sharing it with all of you. I also would like to thank Jynx-nee and Seegen-san for allowing me to do this =]. It helps alot, trust me. Especially those who don't have any idea how Mary-Suing, God-modding and One-lining is like.



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God-Modding/Mary-Suing & Gary-Stuing



"*Poke poke* God-modding is not fair! WAKE UP!"

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Yes, God-Modding is not a very fair thing to do in RPing and is certainly not very entertaining or interesting when it is done too often or rather too much. It is also pretty much something that could be in the same meaning as 'Mary-Suing and Gary-Stuing'. A glossary popular known in the world of fanfics actually but yes, don't be surprise it is also another forbidden rule in role-playing. The only difference with God-modding and Mary-Suing is that:

God-mode: Your character never gets hurt and remains unhurt in the whole time in the whole RP story. Extremely powerful, and just....role-model a character like a god.

Mary-Suing/Gary-Stuing: However, almost the same thing but....is either extremely weak or regardlessly powerful in everything. This 'Mary-Sue' character grabs the most attention in the rest of the RP thread/story.

Alot of people follow this 'Mary-Sue' trend thing because it could be easily inspired by movies with characters that never dies and so. We, or I in this case, don't blame you for unleashing the best of your imagination and creativity BUT it should put to a limit. It may be an OC (original character) made of gold to you, but to the reader's eyes/RP partner's eyes, it may just be another gold turn to rock to be thrown away. It is quite acceptable if your RP partner is a close friend of yours and so it doesn't offend each other or anything. But to general RPers, it is an undeniable eye-sore.



Avoiding Mary-Sues/God-Mode characters (How to spot one)
(Over here, we're using Mary-Sues more often because our times of RPing, alot of the OCs (original characters) are made from authoresses and majority of them are female original characters. But keep on reading, as I said before, this will be a great help to spot a God-Mode character as well as a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu character)

A Mary Sue is a character that is usually described to be flawless and/or capable of doing anything that the offending canon character can already do. Mary Sues are commonly found in fanfiction, but can also be found in role-playing games, original (and sometimes published) fiction and even in everyday life.

Mary Sues are usually girls who are essentially "perfect". They can beat the main lead (of whatever canon series) at whatever they're good at, everyone she come in contact with likes her. There are cases when her behavior doesn't even raise an eyebrow. All the males in the series of question like her and she can even make them fall in love with her.

If you find yourself with an OC that acts like this, here's what you can do to avoid it:

Description.

Description is important depending on what type of story/roleplay you're writing. It's used to paint a picture in you and your readers' minds about what a character looks like, how they move and how they act.

How can you know if your character is treading in Mary Sue territory?

01. Physical descriptions that go out of hand

Example:

Her long blonde hair with red and blue tips cascaded over her shoulders, her hands to her face with tears trickling from her bleary crystal blue eyes. She halfheartedly glanced at her freshly manicured nails, painted with blood red designs over a black background. She smoothed out her spider-webbed red anagram shirt and frustratedly rattled her leg, causing the chained belts adorned on her pants to jingle. She cried a bit more, eyeliner streaking her pale face, wondering why her life was so bad. Beating her hands against her legs caused her abundance of black bracelets on her wrist to shake... and so did the poor girl's mind.

The problem with this is that there's too much focus on what's she's wearing and not her feelings. There's a bit of insight on to what's she's feeling... but it's enough enough to explicitly imply her thoughts.

02. History: Is there a need for angst?

Something like this is very cliched:

"No, stop!" She cried, wiping her tears and smearing eyeliner on her hands. "That's what my father did! You... don't make me remember my horrible past!" She wiped her tears more, reducing her frantic cries to sobs.

When she was growing up, her father was quite strange. She always used to enjoy being around him until one day, something happened to change her life forever. She used to hate to come home after the incident, worrying immensely of the blood and tears that would be shed. Years after it occurred, she'd relieve her self with a razorblade because it took away her pain as she said to herself. Everyone wondered about her and offered to help, but she always insisted she was okay and retreated to the darkness, where she is now.

In order to retain realism, you'd know that not everyone has had a horrible past. There are way to work out a character with a backstory such as this, but not when your character acts in such a way like:

03. Attitude and Personality

If your character acts a little like this:

"Move out of my way!" She shouted, hands on her hips.

"There's no need to shout!" A redhead girl answered her back, frowning.

"Who cares about what you say!" She flipped her long, blonde hair that had red and blue tips and smugly laughed. "NO one even likes you."

"I can say the same for you," the redhead smiled weakly. "It's only fair."

The blonde, name brand shirt clad girl's lip trembled. "How dare you make fun of my life! Just when I find a new school, make friends with everyone and is good at just about everything, there's always someone to ruin it for me!" She began crying when a group of people approached the scene.

"What's wrong?" someone asked the blonde.

"She's being a bully." she answered. The group sent the redhead a glare.

If your OC acts like this, which in this example the OC (the blonde) is playing the "victim", she may be a Mary Sue. The reason is that she's implied she has accomplished all the things a Mary Sue would do (making friends with everyone and the teachers, perfect grades, good at everything) and she's using that as a "defense" to make everyone side with her in a argument like this.

These are the three main things to avoid when creating an OC. All characters are not perfect. Making your OC completely flawless isn't going to get the canon characters to like her immediately or to make one of them fall in love with her.

Friendships and relationships take time--and this can definitely work with your OC. If you remember these tips, you'll be on your way to making a great, if not, successful OC.

(credit to: bullet_starfish)



What is a Mary-Sue/God-Mode character

Here is another guide to 'What' is a Mary-Sue/God-mode character.

There are, of course, exceptions to the stereotype, but they tend to follow a trend.

If the character has a few of the following traits, it should safely be a Mary Sue :-

- So stunningly beautiful they could rival Helen of Troy

- So incredibly intelligent they are capable of anything

- Speaks a wide variety of languages

- Knows everything, from knitting to hacking and exactly how to kill the enemy to how to get the guy/girl

- Can do everything imaginable

- Has no outstand faults (in the author's eyes)

- Incredibly sweet, cute, adorable and loved by everyone, no matter how much of a traumatic, violent and tragic past they had.

- So much of a vicious, cold, heartless Ice Queen/King they hate everyone, but their cold exteriors are inevitably melted by the love interest.

- Has an army of jealous enemies

- Has an army of fangirls/boys

- Stronger than everyone else in the story

- Defeats everyone in a matter of seconds

- Will ALWAYS be the only one to figure out That Big Dangerous Plot/Puzzle/Drama

- Has some other sort of tragedy or visit from the past

- Has all the money in the world, to buy fancy outfits, go on long distance voyages and buy everything their hearts desire.

- So 'complicated' that 'no one can understand them' and they 'feel so alone', so much so they might just kill themselves and 'end this misery', before being saved by love interest

- Looking to avenge deaths of someone they loved who died/suffered

- Will be hurt very badly, but make startlingly quick recovery and/or uncover some sort of hidden power they never knew they had

- Will rarely die. If they do, then rest of cast will mourn themselves to death, be it literally or not, or the Mary Sue will come back to life in the style of Jesus

- Wears fancy outfits, most of which are completely impractical

- Can run in the highest heels

- Can use every weapon they find

- Develops new powers/strengths when required

- Is either a devoted lover or a whore (suits male and female)

More often than not, the Mary Sue will remain a reflection of what the author wants to be. Beautiful, strong, smart, loved

(credit to: Karasu-kun)