Viewpoint What you cannot stand in characters?

[Jet]

Not psychology, your argument post is only tangentially related to what I wrote. It's like I said "Vegetables are a good source of Fiber" and you replied with "Veganism is so unhealthy, you're wrong". Reading your post I looked like - -



Because I don't see where in any of my posts I said anything against competition. You started talking about how type-matchups and strategy should be rewarded which... It... Should? I'm talking about Marty Stu overpowered warlords in RPs, the kind with no weaknesses. The type that makes everyone roll their eyes and think "oh this shit again?". You're talking about participation trophies and equating my posts with RP communism. Obviously there will be inequality, but the issue is when someone does everything possible to be the most unfairly balanced, and it's a common thing. I'd say every battle RP has at least one of these clowns.

It seems like you have some greater point which is disconnected to my posts. To me it seems like you're using this argument as a platform to say other ideas that aren't connected, which is fine and all but it has nothing to do with what I've written here. That's why I wrote the bit about arguing with someone else, it really does seem like it.

 

[defenderofberk]

Attention all people who do this, a normal person with extremely pale, almost white skin is not pretty! She is instead likely in need of some serious medical attention and should be rushed to the nearest hospital!

I also feel attacked

 

[Whisker]

Unpopular Opinion: Characters who have magical powers. Period. Particularly in settings where there are also characters with no magical powers. That rarely ever seems to go well in RP in my experience.

 

[Jannah]

Unpopular Opinion: Characters who have magical powers. Period. Particularly in settings where there are also characters with no magical powers. That rarely ever seems to go well in RP in my experience.

Eh...it works in high fantasy settings, and occasionally low fantasy settings.

 

[Whisker]

Eh...it works in high fantasy settings, and occasionally low fantasy settings.

I disagree. While it does work in the genre, it rarely seems to work in RP a lot of the time. Mages and magical characters seem to have some of the fewest well-written restrictions in the rp lore about what they can and cannot achieve. As a result, it often turns into Magic Mcgee torches the Orc Army with his Inferno Storm but its okie dokie because he has weaknesses to Ice Magic. In short, mages are often troublesome in that they may or may not have any counterpart to actually present any meaningful challenges to them without significant asspulls.

 

[Jannah]

I disagree. While it does work in the genre, it rarely seems to work in RP a lot of the time. Mages and magical characters seem to have some of the fewest well-written restrictions in the rp lore about what they can and cannot achieve. As a result, it often turns into Magic Mcgee torches the Orc Army with his Inferno Storm but its okie dokie because he has weaknesses to Ice Magic. In short, mages are often troublesome in that they may or may not have any counterpart to actually present any meaningful challenges to them without significant asspulls.

There's ways around that, such as writing the lore in such a way that can limit the usage of magic or limiting it to specific spells. Or the GM can throw obstacles in the way that hinder specific types of magic.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I disagree. While it does work in the genre, it rarely seems to work in RP a lot of the time. Mages and magical characters seem to have some of the fewest well-written restrictions in the rp lore about what they can and cannot achieve. As a result, it often turns into Magic Mcgee torches the Orc Army with his Inferno Storm but its okie dokie because he has weaknesses to Ice Magic. In short, mages are often troublesome in that they may or may not have any counterpart to actually present any meaningful challenges to them without significant asspulls.

I went on a huge rant about this a while back. A lot of problems would be solved if characters actually had to cast spells instead of magic being freeform.

 

[Whisker]

I went on a huge rant about this a while back. A lot of problems would be solved if characters actually had to cast spells instead of magic being freeform.

Well, Im glad someone else noticed this problem instead of it just being this weird hangup about mage characters being OP even if by accident (though I have been told to my face that mages are better than almost every character because of this).

 

[Whisker]

There's ways around that, such as writing the lore in such a way that can limit the usage of magic or limiting it to specific spells. Or the GM can throw obstacles in the way that hinder specific types of magic.

Sure, but most do not. Magic is considered an integral part of high fantasy and most GMs do not want to impose on freedom of character choice, which is absolutely fair. However, even if a mage character makes a list of weaknesses, they rarely ever have to deal with significant repurcussions of actually using magic. They can often use their powers indefinitely for an unlimited amount of time even if its restricted to a single branch of magic OR by use of a wand. There is often very little progression in how their powers are used or leveled. And there is often very little drawback for actually using magic to begin with. Furthermore, if you decide there is free range magic, it often comes at no explanation of why or with a set of challenges for every specific mage in the rp.

It just has been my opinion for a longtime that mages/wizards etc are the easiest characters to abuse under the guise of balance and lore.

 

[BackSet]

And as a trade off, D&D mages, while overpowered if minmaxed correctly, are so tedious to play it's not even worth it.

I know a few people who could give advice on how to limit and control magic characters in rps.

 

[Whisker]

And as a trade off, D&D mages, while overpowered if minmaxed correctly, are so tedious to play it's not even worth it.

I know a few people who could give advice on how to limit and control magic characters in rps.

I usually impose a "science rule" in my high fantasy rps in that for every magical feat performed there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, you MAY perform some high-tier magic, but it may have unintended effects and should be approached with caution. For example, a mage may call a bolt lightning from the sky to deal with a monster, but as a result, we may experience pouring, sloppy rain for a few days as a result of the weather pattern being disturbed. If its used repeatedly or for a long time, there may be long-term weather effects to deal with like snow in July. It just removes a lot of the headache for me when dealing with them so they don't take out my monsters or perform OP feats of magic over and over.

 

[ashwynne]

Whisker
I would agree that characters with magic are easiest to abuse when it comes to power scaling. But I'd disagree that they're always annoying. Characters with magic in a well-worked world that has an interesting magic system are the best. It just requires well set-out and enforced lore/rules which will come down to quality of GM or quality of plotting. If things are not accounted for in those systems then I'd posit it's not an issue of characters with magic but rather with world building and system creation. Magic (and the abuse of it) just highlights the system flaws.

I've been in/seen quite a few RP's with magic that feel both real and restrictive. I have one in which successive use of spells within a certain timeframe leads to physical death (or at bare minimum being incapacitated which means you're going to be dead lol). The longer a spell is held, the more agonizing the physical pain as magic is taken from the earth and wants to return to its natural state at all times. Means timing is everything and failure is highly likely.

In another, magic is similar to a muscle. Careful practice increases the potential for power/duration of spells, but it's a little like balancing on a razor blade: lose your focus and exceed your natural maximum and you're either dead or badly injured. Emotions can make it unstable and while "maximum control" can vary from person to person, it cannot be excessive. We also have limiters in place such as a requirement for spells to be spoken rather than cast willy nilly AND they are elemental based. If you don't have fire/flame near you then you won't be able to cast any flame related spells. If you want to cast a water spell but the only available water is within your body/ground, then the spell isn't going to be as powerful and/or may have repercussions for the caster (sucking water from your body is never a good plan lol). Encourages creativity but imposes limitations.

Point being... it's all very doable. A knight with quick reflexes and a cunning mind stands a very fair chance against a mage who has to be able to say their spell on time, make it land, and put just the right amount of power into it. It REALLY all comes down to worldbuilding.

But it's definitely tedious to set up. I'm not about to deny that. It's also easier in my case because I primarily do 1x1. I limit group RP's to people I already know or those who have a stringent recruitment process so all players are willing to work together to make a good story.

 

[Whisker]

Whisker
I would agree that characters with magic are easiest to abuse when it comes to power scaling. But I'd disagree that they're always annoying. Characters with magic in a well-worked world that has an interesting magic system are the best. It just requires well set-out and enforced lore/rules which will come down to quality of GM or quality of plotting. If things are not accounted for in those systems then I'd posit it's not an issue of characters with magic but rather with world building and system creation. Magic (and the abuse of it) just highlights the system flaws.

I've been in/seen quite a few RP's with magic that feel both real and restrictive. I have one in which successive use of spells within a certain timeframe leads to physical death (or at bare minimum being incapacitated which means you're going to be dead lol). The longer a spell is held, the more agonizing the physical pain as magic is taken from the earth and wants to return to its natural state at all times. Means timing is everything and failure is highly likely.

In another, magic is similar to a muscle. Careful practice increases the potential for power/duration of spells, but it's a little like balancing on a razor blade: lose your focus and exceed your natural maximum and you're either dead or badly injured. Emotions can make it unstable and while "maximum control" can vary from person to person, it cannot be excessive. We also have limiters in place such as a requirement for spells to be spoken rather than cast willy nilly AND they are elemental based. If you don't have fire/flame near you then you won't be able to cast any flame related spells. If you want to cast a water spell but the only available water is within your body/ground, then the spell isn't going to be as powerful and/or may have repercussions for the caster (sucking water from your body is never a good plan lol). Encourages creativity but imposes limitations.

Point being... it's all very doable. A knight with quick reflexes and a cunning mind stands a very fair chance against a mage who has to be able to say their spell on time, make it land, and put just the right amount of power into it. It REALLY all comes down to worldbuilding.

But it's definitely tedious to set up. I'm not about to deny that. It's also easier in my case because I primarily do 1x1. I limit group RP's to people I already know or those who have a stringent recruitment process so all players are willing to work together to make a good story.

I know it is kind of irrational, but I have just had so many annoyances/horror stories regarding mages that were in bounds according to the lore of their respective rps that I instinctively cringe at magical characters in general.

 

[SP3CT3R]

I usually impose a "science rule" in my high fantasy rps in that for every magical feat performed there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, you MAY perform some high-tier magic, but it may have unintended effects and should be approached with caution. For example, a mage may call a bolt lightning from the sky to deal with a monster, but as a result, we may experience pouring, sloppy rain for a few days as a result of the weather pattern being disturbed. If its used repeatedly or for a long time, there may be long-term weather effects to deal with like snow in July. It just removes a lot of the headache for me when dealing with them so they don't take out my monsters or perform OP feats of magic over and over.

That seems like a bad idea, since bad weather affects everybody, and a player with no morals might take advantage of this to troll people. If a character's actions have consequences, they should solely affect that character unless you trust their player enough to let their character get deterred by a side effect that targets another player.

Like how in BNHA, why do i use this anime as an example for everything the drawbacks to the characters' quirks always affect them directly in a way that will make it harder for them to fight. E.G. How Yaoyorozu uses up her body fat to create things and gets tired from not having any stored energy, or how Kaminari's quirk puts him in a daze. If a quirk has a drawback that doesn't affect the user directly, it's in addition to one that does, because something like not being able to control one's quirk and causing lots of collateral damage would be of little consequence to a villain who doesn't give a shit about what they destroy.

 

[ashwynne]

I know it is kind of irrational, but I have just had so many annoyances/horror stories regarding mages that were in bounds according to the lore of their respective rps that I instinctively cringe at magical characters in general.

That's totally fair. I can definitely see how it could be abused to the point that it's a major turn off. I've gone a little bit the other way in being massively obsessed/a fan of magic characters in RP's where the systems are well done. The whole topic really gets the fingers flying xD



As far as another thing I cannot stand in characters: exaggerated flaws.
Okay, so hear me out here. Nobody likes a perfect character that never does any wrong and always knows what to do. But a character who has flaws that are SO exaggerated also drive me insane. 90% of the time they would preclude the character from either:
a) being a part of whatever dangers/plots/relationships they're in (your insanely shy agoraphobic is NOT going to agree to go on a quest to slay a dragon)
b) would lead to them being dead/broken up with/cut off from others

It's one thing to make your character have a temper. It's another to have them throwing chairs around every second post because RAAAAAGE. Other people would not choose to be around someone like that. There's very few rational reasons to put up with them. And most of the time, the few ways that you COULD make it work are not in play. You're just expected to have your character still stick around/interact with them because... ???

There's a whole slew of other similar examples to this one and all of them give me headaches xD I love character growth as much as anyone else, but when you make a character that is ENTIRELY odious or incapable of communicating? My characters are not going to care to deal with that. Not unless there is a major benefit that outweighs all the bad stuff (which would then make it very interesting... but that rarely is the case in these situations)

 

[rae2nerdy]

Related to above when the character is an antisocial douchenozzle that refuses to interact with other characters. Like why are they wasting time?

I had someone who literally had their character walk away from any interaction. Like I would have to write my character cornering them in a room with no escape because otherwise they would literally walk away after my character spoke.

The other person flat out admitted they did it to troll their partners. “yeah I make my characters super antisocial and wait to see how long it takes my partners to say something.”

Like retroactively it makes me so mad. At the time I was more shocked at the gall but in hindsight that is such a toxic thing to do.

 

[BackSet]

For example, a mage may call a bolt lightning from the sky to deal with a monster, but as a result, we may experience pouring, sloppy rain for a few days as a result of the weather pattern being disturbed. If its used repeatedly or for a long time, there may be long-term weather effects to deal with like snow in July. It just removes a lot of the headache for me when dealing with them so they don't take out my monsters or perform OP feats of magic over and over.

One small issue: it doesn't work in the broader scheme of things. If you impose this "scienc rule" then it has to effect the whole world. However, it seems centered around just the PCs. If this is how the world works then you might as well have periodic bullshit weather effects. It's not like the PCs are the only people in the world who are using powerful magic. What do you have when people use giant fire spells? Volcanoes errupting from the earth? Great, now fifty precent of the world is covered in volcanoes. It just doesn't work. If this rule is in place, the whole universe has to follow it. Otherwise the universe has no consistent eternal logic.

 

[Melpomene]

Related to above when the character is an antisocial douchenozzle that refuses to interact with other characters. Like why are they wasting time?

I had someone who literally had their character walk away from any interaction. Like I would have to write my character cornering them in a room with no escape because otherwise they would literally walk away after my character spoke.

The other person flat out admitted they did it to troll their partners. “yeah I make my characters super antisocial and wait to see how long it takes my partners to say something.”

Like retroactively it makes me so mad. At the time I was more shocked at the gall but in hindsight that is such a toxic thing to do.

Ugh.

I hate that. Someone doing that just to troll is just a fucking asshole thing to do and that breeds malice on the website. I have enough malice in my life, I need no more

I think I specifically hate things like that because it usually means my partner basically expects me to do everything. At least in regards to any relationships (platonic or not) building.

 

[Rust]

I'll give any character a chance, but the only types I really can't stand are those who constantly hog the spotlight- as in they will act a certain way so that everyone will worry/pay attention to them and only them and their problems.

It's worse in doubling when the person who's supposed to play my character's 'love interest' ends up making them talk to/worry over their own character more than half the time. xD

 

[Crayons]

That's totally fair. I can definitely see how it could be abused to the point that it's a major turn off. I've gone a little bit the other way in being massively obsessed/a fan of magic characters in RP's where the systems are well done. The whole topic really gets the fingers flying xD



As far as another thing I cannot stand in characters: exaggerated flaws.
Okay, so hear me out here. Nobody likes a perfect character that never does any wrong and always knows what to do. But a character who has flaws that are SO exaggerated also drive me insane. 90% of the time they would preclude the character from either:
a) being a part of whatever dangers/plots/relationships they're in (your insanely shy agoraphobic is NOT going to agree to go on a quest to slay a dragon)
b) would lead to them being dead/broken up with/cut off from others

It's one thing to make your character have a temper. It's another to have them throwing chairs around every second post because RAAAAAGE. Other people would not choose to be around someone like that. There's very few rational reasons to put up with them. And most of the time, the few ways that you COULD make it work are not in play. You're just expected to have your character still stick around/interact with them because... ???

There's a whole slew of other similar examples to this one and all of them give me headaches xD I love character growth as much as anyone else, but when you make a character that is ENTIRELY odious or incapable of communicating? My characters are not going to care to deal with that. Not unless there is a major benefit that outweighs all the bad stuff (which would then make it very interesting... but that rarely is the case in these situations)

I mean, yeah, I totally agree with you. Magic systems are awesome. These are some great examples.

However, what this whole issue really boils down to is: Are the other players jerks? If they are not jerks it's perfectly possible to have a freeform magic system, because you can trust the players not to abuse it.

People who enter an RP to tell stories and have a truly collaborative experience are going to be fine to play with however the magic system works. People who enter an RP to power-trip are going to attempt to abuse systems as much as possible. Having something structured may inhibit them a bit more, but you know they'll still be trying to weasel out of the consequences.

I feel like what makes these systems work is primarily that you are choosing to play with good players.

 

[BackSet]

Also some people are overly blatant with their OP CSes so those guys are easy to root out.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Unpopular Opinion: Characters who have magical powers. Period. Particularly in settings where there are also characters with no magical powers. That rarely ever seems to go well in RP in my experience.

So, any d&d wizard?

 

[Emotional Enigma]

I dislike super generic characters. Like if you wrote the description I could think of 100 other characters just like them. Add something in that makes them unique please but believable. I don't care if something small like, "Loves the color green and thinks ostriches are the devil". Or give me a past experience they had, "once smeared chocolate on his pants in the 3rd grade and has been called shit pants in high school for it".

 

[Becker]

Okay, rant time

One of, if not -the- biggest thing that annoys the ever living hell out of me is when people don't do their research and jumps in with a character that simply does not work within a setting/lore. I've been on and off this site for a couple of years now and I can count of one hand the number of RPs where the characters actually make sense and fit in. I find it so mind-numbingly frustrating when someone really wants to play a character that would fit well in -a different- themed RP but instead drops them off into a world that clearly doesn't work (and then they wonder why people are giving them grief).

Examples:

• Wanting to play as a WK:40k Dreadnought in a high-fantasy medieval world. (how is that even a thing?... )
• A Dwarf wanting to have a magazine-fed, semi-automatic shotgun in a Lord of the Rings themed world.
• Playing as a brown-bear in a post-apocalyptic world and wondering why no-one wants anything to do with them.
• Playing as a literal fox in a super-hero, vigilante thing.
• Super edgy, Spanish teenager Commander from a Noble family in a Metro themed world.
• Anyone that wants to roleplay as a furry in a world that has no mention of anthropomorphic characters.
• Generic under-aged, super tall and strong super human that's always drunk but somehow manages to achieve everything in life.
• Joining a Valkyria Chronicles RP (WW2 theme) and having weaponry that you'd find in a Sci-fi comic.

 

[Crenando]

• Playing as a brown-bear in a post-apocalyptic world and wondering why no-one wants anything to do with them.

I dunno, I think there could've been a way to work that.