PS Character Test Project

[Silavur]

Are you taller...
...shorter
...thinner
...thicker
...stronger
...weaker
...better looking
...uglier
...other
...other
...other
...other than most of your race? [check all that apply. Use 'other' if you have unnamed traits.]

I think that this doesn't apply as much. If these mere Mary-Sue qualities meant to be avoided then you character would have to be exactly as described in the settings. Only when these traits become overwhelmingly against the settings for your race are these Mary-Sue qualities. And even hen only if you have several of them together.

Are you the gods' gift to the opposite sex?

We've already used this one in another form of question.

Your guild stands for the following:
Helping new people.
Fighting for money. [aka, mercs]
Fighting for a cause.
Killing people for money. [aka, assassins or bounty hunters]
Overthrowing the government.
You are your own government.
You are a secret organization that controls the government.
You are the survivors of a war.
Your leader was the victim of some bad event, and started a guild as a result.
It is basically a club.
It has nothing to do with an actual job.

Your guild's name is two or more random words tossed together because they sounded cool.
...I had to use a thesaurus.
...It is Latin.
...It is badly used Latin.

I feel like this is an attack on specific guilds in game. And even if it is not, a guild is a completely other list of questions to test RP competency. And a character had no choice in the name of their guild or the way it is operated. Most join guilds before they knew what RP was, but stay with their guilds even after. [Also on a side note if "survivors of a war" means Survivors of Vaern, then you need to read our history.  ]

I would also prefer it if the telling people to just stop and make a new charater would stop. I understand the humor implied behind these statements, but some will not understand and I think it's better to not tell someone to "never do it again, or find another game to play"  even if they have not quite gotten the full hang of RP fighting. Sorry, I did not mean for this to be a bash on Under the Moon, but I felt it necessary to be said. Of course it is possible that only I have those views, and in that case by all means I am sorry.

[Under the moon]

The points all add up in the end, and having some of those things is not bad. Having a lot of them is.

The question of height/etc has a specific wording to it. If you claim to be taller/shorter than most of your race, then you deserve a Mary Sue point, as you are trying to make yourself 'unique' by saying you are not like most of your race. If you say you are short/tall for one of your race, that is different, and you do not get a point. You are then just descibing your height, but not making it a unique feature, as there could be many people your same height who are also short/tall for that race.

The guild question was only aimed at those who create the guilds, but perhaps the name questions could be left off, and applied to a "Are you in a Mary Sue guild?" list.

As for the questions, those are the typical reasons folks try to use to create a 'unique' guild, but in fact, they are not unique at all, and quite cliche.

[Marqsaynt]

The wording may be a little too subtle for some people (like me) to pick up on. When I read those two sentences I pretty much see them as asking the exact same question. Maybe something along the lines of "are you a giant among your race, are you unusually small for your race, are you hideously ugly for you race, etc." would be a little easier for some of us less attuned test takers. 

[bilbous]

It would seem to me that given a bell curve distribution for racial traits nearly half the people will be taller than most of their race and a similar amount will be shorter than most. All that claim really says is which half of the curve you are in. I am not certain even claiming to be in the top/bottom 5% is particularly noteworthy as player characters are supposed to  be the exception to the unimplemented masses that we never see. Even Hydlaa as large as it seems would only be a small hamlet if all that there is to be seen is all that there was to it. I figure there is at least 100 people to every one we can see and at least ten times the number of buildings in the city proper. It just isn't possible to put the theoretical populous in the game. so the npcs we see are also the exceptional ones.

[Silavur]

Indeed. so it would be, "Is your character unusually tall/short/pretty/etc. for his/her race?" And we already have already have a question like that. So instead maybe the question should sum it all up then, "Does your character posses an unusual physical trait that distinguishes them uncharacteristically from their race? [taller/prettier/stronger/etc.]"

[bilbous]

Is your idea of roleplaying hanging around a smelly smithy, as opposed to a huge plaza that nobody uses, or a tavern, or basically anywhere EXCEPT said smelly smithy?

It would seem to me that a smithy might smell like a barbecue to a Kran....

[Zwenze]

An old dwarf enters the plaza and shouts: "We all have our characteristics. Some are shorter while some are taller. Respect your self and others. You are all individuals!".
He makes a pretty stupid face as someone shouts back: "No, I am not!".

-----------------------------------------------------------

It seems to me that this mary sue thing goes a bit to far. Of course its bad when there are too many mary sues. If every char is larger then the average of his race something is definitly wrong.

But if all characters are anti mary sue, how boring would that be? All are uniform. No one is taller or shorter, no one is beautiful and no one is ugly. No one had troubles during their child hood, no one had any kind of event during their live.
That would be even unrealistic.

Sure there are things one should avoid when creating a character like having to many positive aspects and no negative or beeing far to clyche. I think its the balance that matters. And that issue is far to complex then to be handeled in a simple charcter test. Alltough this test can give some insights and tips what not to do. Like avoiding beeing a king of a distant land or god modding.

But hammering down all characters according to a test will not work. Either people will ignore the test or in the long run all charcters will be optimized to that test leading to a new clyche. The anti mary sue.

Character creation is a complicated thing. That can't be fixed with a simple test.

[Zan]

Like UtM already said, the test works by adding up all the points you answer positive to. It should be made so that everyone will have a few points they have to cross off.Only when you cross off half of them or more for one character, then you're being a Mary-Sue.

I get the feeling that people are thinking they have to make a character that answers negative to every single question we're thinking up here Definitely not the case.

Nobody is trying to fix anything either, we're just trying to have people think first, create then. And if you want to make a Mary-Sue .. by all means go ahead!

[Silavur]

Well put.

[Waylander]

Do your characters die whenever they meet a certain character?

(That ones for Moon )

Do you think a guild is evil because it has "Dark" in it?