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So a believable flaw, not "I'm an emo and hate the whole world, look I have a scar.", and try to be original with it is the plan?

Try thinking of flaws on your own, there are countless, stimulants, gambling, PTSD, other things. There just are so many, but above all, be your own man, and come up with your own flaws, as everything else are just suggestions.

Beaviz81 wrote:Try thinking of flaws on your own, there are countless, stimulants, gambling, PTSD, other things. There just are so many, but above all, be your own man, and come up with your own flaws, as everything else are just suggestions.

This nails it, Make something that fits YOUR story

As Trondheim says, do it, and do it at your own terms.

There are two things I would recommend for fighting Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus. The first is this test which gives you a nice idea for whether a character is over the top or not. It's not perfect, but it's something I've been using for years to get an idea of where my characters stand.

The second is just to look through the GURPS set of Disadvantages if you have the ability. There's a list here but there aren't any descriptions on it. It's a really good way to flesh out your character a bit.

Just thought I'd throw these out there for anyone struggling with Mary-Sue Syndrome.

Thanks guys, once again the people of Dakka come up trumps.

What chars have you imagined then liquidjoshi? You can fluff out the basics here or PM as I love trading fluff myself as few things gives me better ideas or more satisfaction than trading fluff.

I have my own chars created with warts and all.

Well he's called Captain Awesome of Awesome squad, and he leads his Awesome Marines against Chaos on planet Kill-death. Except all the chaos are clones of Abaddon. All the marines die except Captain awesome. Then he blows up the planet by driving a land raider into the care and exploding the land raider. He manages to run out just in time to get warped back to the cruiser before the planet explodes and kills them all. The cruiser is caught in the blast but he survives because he is that cool. He survives planet fall onto Terra and takes the golden throne, becoming the new Emperor, because he's that cool.

No, I was just interested is all. I hope to write for the BL some day, so this kind of thing is pretty important.

Pretty tall ambitions. You should likely develop chars and such before contacting BL.

I know I will never write for them, a single page of writing takes me a week to write, and then I have nothing else to think about.

Then again I'm good at creating chars, but lousy at writing.

You forgot having Captain Awesome killing 800 Abbaddons in close-combat while drinking tea you wimp.

Anyway I was kind of serious, and designing Wardish chars is not a good idea. I seriously wondered if you had any chars written down with good virtues and flaws.

No, not yet. You'll be the first to know when I do anything even remotely serious.

Ah phew, going on this thread I have nothing to worry about. Always worried my main character would be seen as a mary sue, Magic weilding, martial artist Elf lass.

However I throw so much gak at her in the first three novels, you'd think she'd go mad.. oh wait she does.. well for a little while.

Sounds good liquid, you are welcome to PM anytime.

Shadowbrand wrote:I can't fething count how many times when I used to play on WoW I read Blood Elf character descriptions about how skinny, yet curvy around the hips they were and all their little weab mannerisms.

The Forsaken had nothing but two extremes, either a blubbering emo or a "I hate everything and it needs to die" anarchist. Their were very few characters with actual originality. Which thus led me to have no people to roleplay with.

I actually haven't even had a good roleplaying session since I quit, I have little to no interest doing it on forums and finding a decent pen and paper group in Prince George is a feat.

To be fair, the WoW lore itself has (or at least, when I stopped playing, had) the biggest, greenest Marty Sue operating almost like the prime setting protagonist. I frequently found myself wishing Thrall never made it out of the aborted Warcraft Adventures game. He's a great warrior, great strategist, and perfectly noble. His only flaw being that he is SO NOBLE that the bad people abuse his nobility. But then kicks their butts anyway.

I always assumed that we were supposed to find his character endearing because, "WOW HE'S AN ORC, HOW ORIGINAL"... except that is utterly superficial. Imagine how reviled he would be if he were Manly Manadin, the human Paladin. I mean, I actually liked Arthas, because he at least had the "I'm a self obsessed D-bag who just wants everyone to love and worship me, which made me really corruptable by... a... demon... sword..." Wait....

New theory....

Arthas in WoW is obviously the secret love child of Fulgrim and Horus.