(03-26-2015, 01:49 AM)Meoix Wrote:
- Brilliant human.... with a knack... skills in....
- Decent knowledge and some minor skill in...
- ...skills in building things when he was a teen... quite wealthy...
- ...skills in both Thaumaturge and Clergy jobs and he's a skilled machinist...
- Jack of all trades yet master of known in crafting classes.Â
- Quite brilliant in most sciences and philosophy, wealthy... a simplistic background... can read and write.Â
- ...he prefers to let others fight and can manipulate them via words to do so.
I'm going to be brutally honest with you, so please prepare yourself.
Flaws.
Where are his flaws? Does he have any? You can do all the tweaking you want with this concept, yet so long as the character is flawless, to my eyes, it is still a Gary Stu.
Take a moment to step back and look at what you've written. He is brilliant, was a child prodigy, he's wealthy, jack of all trades AND a master? Skilled thaum, conj, machinist.... he can read and write... and you can opt out of any life-threatening situation at will because he's also a master manipulator. And yet, for all these advantages, you've not listed a single flaw to balance him out.
Let's take a look at my main character for a contrast. For all his advantages, Osric still has his fair share of flaws which round him out as a character and make him seem more real and alive than the average Super McAwesome Cool Dude the Thirteenth. Osric might seem eloquent and well-spoken at times, but his language is rough and coarse, which some find distasteful. Furthermore, behind his somewhat-false humility he hides a confidence that reeks of arrogance, and that really rubs a lot of people the wrong way. He can read and write, but he is not well-read; he is more street-smart than book-smart. He knows very little of most fields of craft or trade, and magitek engineering is so far beyond him as to seem almost alien. Though he is a trained pugilist and fledling monk, his true proficiency is with knives, daggers, and other small-arms... yet focusing too much on one or the other frequently leads to his skills with the other growing rusty and unreliable, so it's a constant balancing act. And while he knows his way around an axe, he is so abysmal with one that he's better off not even picking one up.
A character needs to be bad at things, if you're looking to make them someone worth reading about and playing alongside. If you're looking to fulfill a power fantasy, though, by all means, go ahead with what you have.
![[Image: 1qVSsTp.png]](http://i.imgur.com/1qVSsTp.png)
