(09-12-2013, 03:00 PM)Lament Wrote: I didn't tell you that, and nobody should tell you that, either. In fact, I specifically said you can even consider that the main storyline actually happened to your character, which seems to be a big no-no as it would mean your character is really important, has a really rare talent, has met with every important person known to man, and has basically defeated every Big Bad under the sun, which is the quintessential Mary Sue. But that is how the game's story goes, that is the canon, and that is, obviously, entirely possible.Yeah, throw me in with the others who would find anyone who takes the story that seriously to be a little, ahem, off-kilter.
For whatever reason, 'you are the special one' is just re-used over and over and over again in so many stories across so many games, even when it's completely unreasonable to do so. It's a damn shame, I think, because obviously you can't have everyone being that special or else no one is actually special (I don't think I need to explain how that works, right?)
I must agree that a good RPer should only take bits and pieces from the story, as well as use the story to help build up their understanding of the game world and its lore, but actually being the main character is a HUGE no-no. It simply cannot be done. To do so would make your character the very definition of a Mary Sue, and we can't have that, can we?
All the same, most players aren't going to do that, and there are degrees here. Is it okay for someone to have claimed to have joined the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, be a member of a Grand Company, have killed Ifrit, Titan, and Garuda, and lived to tell about it? Maybe. They could be one of many who have done the same, after all. The problem here is essentially that, well, your character is just a little too competent, eh? Of course, that might not be a problem in and of itself - whether or not a character is interesting is not dependent on being physically vulnerable, after all. They might have an interesting psychology, and what is a character if not an intriguing psychological study case?
No, whether or not the character is interesting is not the problem here. The problem is that many of the players who push such competent characters frequently lack the chops to write for such characters, not that they are too powerful (although the latter can be a problem in a case of clashing egos - but this is exactly why I avoid PvP scenarios to begin with). As far as I'm concerned, what's most interesting is simply when a character is well-written within the confines of the lore. If the guy claimed to have killed Garuda is immaterial to me - if the player can pull it off, great! I have no quarrel with them. Sadly, this simply is not the case more often than not (hooray double negatives! *ahem*).
So as far as I'm concerned, if you want your character to be special, to have claimed to kill all the primals at least once, fine, but just know that everyone is going to be judging you more harshly, consciously or not, because of it. You could think of it as imposing a challenge upon yourself...
