yea what is a mary-sue character? i have heard that term but never knew what it meant

A mary-sue is a character that steals the spot-light in a roleplay, and tends to be an overpowered character. This is a common asset that many roleplays pick up on, though it is a negative asset to say the least, since this highly discourages others to join the roleplay, let alone post.

Laement, that's not quite the definition of a Mary Sue. The overpowered part is a common problem with Mary Sues, but there's much more that goes on besides that. The Wikipedia page is a great resource, and there's also a topic in Discussion and Debates about them.

Cloud, Wikipedia has a very strong discussion about Mary-Sue character: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

The gist is that a Mary Sue is idealized by its author, to the point that the author favors that character. When roleplaying it is important to have a good sense of the big picture, of the story that is being written, and to not see your character in competition over the audience's attention with others' characters.

Reading about Mary Sues will help you recognize your idealizations in your characters, and will remind you that roleplaying is a collaborative activity, wherein characters are pawns, and not manifestations of their writers.

It generally happens that a writer will try to fulfill their fantasies by using the Mary Sue - give them superpowers since the author cannot have any, give them riches or political prowess that the author may lack, have them be a daredevil with dashing good looks while the author is computer-bound... It is important to remember that your character has strengths and weaknesses, and cannot fluidly adapt to every situation, and can be confused, flustered, and not have the ability to act accordingly under certain circumstances.

Laement, while I don't mind your participation, please remove the bold-face font from your plug above.

Cloud, let me know if you have any more concerns about Mary Sues, or any other aspect of roleplaying. We can always chat over PM if you would prefer.

I'm up for some practice! It's been such a long time since I was last in an RP. Now I'm out of school & I want to keep my writing up. I love a challenge & I LOVE to write... my skills have just faded a bit (: Any good prompts you could share?

Welcome Mannie!

I've taken the liberty of searching through your posts and reading up on some of your IC writing (New York University Roleplay).

After reading a few of your posts in there I can make only a few remarks. With regards to problems to identify, you have a few spelling error, tense problems, and in a couple of cases omitted words. Overall, these are only minor errors, but you might consider rereading your works a few seconds after posting them, and correcting any mistakes you may have made. Clean writing makes you look more professional, whereas minor mistakes may be detrimental to others' perceptions of you.

Your tense sometimes changes when you switch from events to thoughts, and then to the "consequences" behind the thoughts. I feel as though you are switching voice from the limited narrator to the character, which you have already been doing by designating a certain phrase or sentence as a thought. I suggest that you set thoughts into italics, as in:

I think too much, he thought. Perhaps I might want to think less...

... while keeping your voice and tense the same outside of those thoughts and of dialogue.

Apart from that, I wasn't able to find any issues with your characters or your character interaction, so my prompts would not do you any good. However, I can recommend http://Ficly.com which allows authors to write short, 1024 character stories, and then write sequels and prequels to others' stories. If you want to keep up your writing, make a habit of going on there daily, choosing a random Recent or Popular story, and writing a sequel or prequel to it. By reading a large variety of writers' works, you will open yourself up to many new styles.

If you do think that you might have a concern with roleplaying that I have not touched upon, I would be more than glad to help you work through it!

Alias, thank you for taking the time to review some of my writing! It's greatly appreciated!

I've ALWAYS had trouble with tense, it seems. I often switch all around in my writing, no matter how hard I try to catch myself. Thank you for bringing this old problem to my attention again. I'll try to pay attention to others writing & the tense they use, so I can match appropriately.

I'm not sure how to italicize here. This is my guess... testing - YAY it worked!

It's nice to know my character and interaction is good. I role-played way back in middle school (I'm now 21), so I was hoping I still had the knack for collaborative writing.

I'll definitely check out that site; It sounds quite fun!

THANKS AGAIN!

I'm in a real pickle now.

I fired Alucroas a PM asking for a battle because, quite frankly, he commits hypocrisy by saying that the Hall of Records exists only to let fighters measure their skill when it clearly states in "What is the Hall of Records?" that its true purpose is to allow fighters from different sites to mingle, and thus contribute to a richer experience.

Thusly, I challenged him to a battle of honor. Haven't heard back from him yet, but I'm guessing he's going to smell blood on me and go for the opportunity, so I'm going to have to be able to fight like a son of a bitch to win this.

Anyone willing to help me prove that nice guys don't necessarily finish last?

Dang it Treali I thought you were going to say you were stayingand would offer your experience to help out those who struggle at role-playing to get better, but you crushed it with the "officially leaving" bit.

Ah well I still hold out hope you come back and add your skill to our community.

Qb why are you wanting to fight Alucroas? LoL just kidding, I read the post, and I applaud you. Anyway I think you are fairly well versed and have a much better than average understanding of how to write entertaining and effective fighting posts. I think you will do better than you think.

Haha, I'm glad that my thread has become a gathering ground for... other Mentors?

Anyway, QB, you might have a real problem. If you have read the Play-by-Post Combat and Forum-Based Dueling RPA article written by Pseudosyne and myself, you'll have a great idea of how to be a clean, friendly, fun duel writer who is courteous, consistent, and adaptive. But if you're looking to fight dirty, you will need to up your game. I don't meant "dirty" as in cheating, but simply abiding by the guidelines in the article wont be enough - each of your posts needs to be innovative and evocative, while still within the limits of courtesy and propriety.

The above linked guide suggests that each point has a 1) full defense and 2) a full attack. An alternative post mode involves 1) acknowledgement of damage from opponents previous attack 2) the end of your previous attack 3) defense against your opponent's latest attack 4) setup of your next attack. My suggested mode requires your opponent to judge the effects of your attack - which also means that you must explicitly explain what the attack is meant to do. If you are making a feint, you must say so, and leave it up to your opponent to decide if their character falls for it. I feel that this is a form of dueling which determines which player is a better writer, while also allowing for that writer's character to win by the other player's concession. Between two experienced players, no judge is necessary - one player will concede simply because of the other's superior writing ability (and will do so with pride).

The 4-part-per-post method is very much different: players are bound to be cryptic, hiding their true intentions, but giving their opponents a chance to muck up a defense before posting how stupid that player's character was when they fell for a feint. Then they acknowledge that the damage they were dealt was minimal... This method is dirty, but it is much more interactive - players become their characters, and feel and think with them. This is a very Mary-Sue and Metagaming friendly environment, and you might recognize it from the Master and Nonpareil fight. While it is more exciting for both players and audience, it is far more cryptic and more of a "Topper" game. I don't personally partake in this style, but I can see how would be conducive to your fear of someone "smelling the blood on you". If this is the mode you'll be using, your best bet is to think ahead of time of some feints that your character might be able to pull off, and to brainstorm how to pass them off as intended attacks while leaving enough breadcrumbs. When the feint is exposed, you want for the intended attack to be revealed and have everyone, opponent and audience, yelp "OMG, I can't believe I missed something that was so clear!" (From my perspective, something that the Nonpareil Master fight lacked was clarity).

I know this isn't very concrete advice, but I hope that it helps you understand the nuances of different battle styles to help you better adapt to whatever system you'll be using. Also, if you know that your opponent will be making feints, you can better identify them. Keep in mind though that your character might not be as intelligent as you, so you might not want to have your character identify every feint (while using the narrator voice to suggest that the preceding attack may have been a feint that your character failed to recognize).

I recommend determining with your opponent which battle style (of the above, or perhaps another) you will be using, so as not to wind up with the shorter straw. Feel free to discuss my thoughts and suggestions, as I do not claim absolute knowledge in this area.

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EDIT: If you guys got confused by the 4step system, here is an example of it so far as I understand my own ramblings:

Duel Start:

Player 1 prepares attack1A.

Player 2 defends against attack1A, but does not describe consequences.
Player 2 prepares attack2A.

Player 1 describes the consequences of attack1A on Player 2.
Player 1 defends against attack2A, but does not describe consequences.
Player 1 prepares attack1B.

4step System sets in:

Player 2 acknowledges consequences of attack1A.
Player 2 describes the consequences of attack2A on Player 1.
Player 2 defends against attack1B, but does not describe consequences.
Player 2 prepares attack2B.

Player 1 acknowledges consequences of attack2A.
Player 1 describes the consequences of attack1B on Player 2.
Player 1 defends against attack2B, but does not describe consequences.
Player 1 prepares attack1C.

Repeat. The "parts" of each post don't need to be in that same order, nor are they ever explicitly labeled.

If that doesn't make sense, let me know. This system draws each attack out over four posts, hence why there are four parts to each post by the end of it. You can see why I don't approve of it... though I'm no longer sure is anyone even uses this system (despite my accusation that some players do o.O). Thoughts?

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EDIT: On third thought and after conversation with Pseudosyne, NEVER use that system. After rereading Nonpareil vs. Master I recommend that you forever abandon the idea of having your character win. Were I to judge that duel, both players would be disqualified - near the end they were both bordering on Godmoding just to win. A duel should be about making a collaborative roleplay that happens to be fight. The winner is the better writer, the one who is witty, clever, innovative, and continues to uphold the maxims of good writing, of which Clarity is near the top. Not the one whose character wins. From mine and Pseudosyne's judging experience, fighters may have lost, even died in the duel, but the skill they demonstrated was graded superior. Duel and strive to write well, not to Godmode your suddenly Mary-Sue-esque character to KO the opponent.

Saken, every writer has a different concept of how "long" a post should be to make it good roleplaying. I subscribe to the Paperback Page school of thought, where a paperback page is ~350 words long, easy to read, and has enough space to put what you want to put. By limiting yourself (whether it be to 1024 character, 350 words, or any other length) you are ensuring that, if you could possibly have written more, that everything you did write was necessary.

Have you heard of Chekhov's gun? Chekhov wrote in a letter to a friend "One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Too much detail means too many unnecessary details. Ask yourself if the detail you are writing means something. Let's say, for example, that you are in a duel with a friend in a forest. You are given the task of describing the setting, but you're not sure just how much you should write - after all, there are so many things you can say about the forest.

Here are a few I would say are important:

• What season is it? If its Autumn, there are leaves on the ground and it can be hard to run without slipping.
• What time of day is it? If it is nighttime, there are no shadows and it is hard to track, so someone can hide easily.
• Where are the characters in relation to the wind? Can the other character smell your approach? If not, you can sneak up on them.
• What is the weather? If it is raining, it will be hard to move around, and steps might make loud *splotch* sounds.
• How dense is the forest? If it is a loose forest of saplings, you can see your opponent. If it is a dense old wood, then your opponent can hide behind trees.
• What kind of trees are they? The dynamics of running on evergreen needles are different from running on large leaves.

Notice that last one: it would only be necessary if the season was autumn.

Many players start off by saying how they smell the breeze and watch the sunset - and so long as they use these details to imply answers to questions like the above, then those details are good. But when they start trying to differentiate the red hues from the yellow hues, unless they plan to use their orange-red armor for camouflage, then the colors of the leaves are useless fluff.

Let me know if that helped you differentiate good details from bad ones

Ok, I haven't role-played in a couple months now, and I just started back up. If you can, can you help me identify some of the problems in my posts? I know that some of the problems I've seen when I reread my stuff are: Repetition, either my posts lack detail or it has to much irrelevant detail, I use certain description words a lot and I never use any of the others I could be using, and other various problems. If you do see any that I haven't mentioned, could you please bring it to my attention, and help me figure out a solution for these problems.

Hey Goddess!

I flipped through a few of your posts, and here is one from Follow You into the Dark that caught my eye as a good representation.

Demon Goddess wrote:Elizabeth stood there in the rain, no umbrella, and no jacket. She shivered and stood on the sidewalk, standing by a roof that jutted out just enough for someone to stand under. But she didn't notice it. All she noticed was the cars racing past, everyone in the cars racing to get somewhere. She sighed and nodded at someone she knew as they walked past her. She was considered crazy, but she didn't care. She felt the rain soaking her to her core, and she enjoyed it. The dye in her hair was fading a bit, and soon it would be time to redye it. All she could think about at that moment was that night. The night she had lost everyone she still had.

Your sentences have pretty similar structure, and you start many of them with "Elizabeth" or "She" or 1word+"she". Try to vary the structure, and change some sentences to not even mention her until the middle or the end, or if possible, cut her out of the observations completely.

The big issue however, is that your descriptions don't convey emotions - they come out grey and flat, rather than what I assume you perceive as evocative. Rather than focusing on her shivers, you add excess descriptions of the surroundings - rather than focusing on what she was thinking about, you merely say that she didn't care about some other things. We as the readers get nothing more than an image of a wet female standing on a street in the rain, and we learn nothing about her or her personality until the very end (when she mentions she night she lost "everyone"). I hate to reference my own articles, but I've written Building Mood Through Preconceptions which might help you out. The four-step process for scene writing in the middle of that page is really what I suggest you try. The method suggests that you determine your goal before you start writing, and outline key points that you want to mention. Then imagine the scene from a variety of perspectives (your own, other characters', other players', NP readers'), and choose the one that makes the most sense for your goal. Then flesh out the scene, hitting your outline and completing your goal, with a perspective in mind. I think this will help you evoke emotion in your readers.

Your subsequent paragraphs have a little more depth, but the best way to hone your skills is to practice. Even if my method doesn't jive too well for you, try it out a few times the next time you make IC posts - just thinking about certain elements will give you a better feel for how to use them with your own style.

Or let me know if that process didn't work for you and why not; I'll work on it to make it better!

I've been roleplaying for a good while now and believe I have grown more comfortable with it in addition to learning much while here on the site.

I understand the concept of quality over quantity so, rest assured, long posts are not necessarily a goal of mine so much as a result of my thoughts. Anyhow, I would like to know if you would recommend that I work on anything particular, be it grammar, style of writing etc.