The keep your mouth shut was in reference to people picking on others. Of course you can go to a forum and express your opinion on a generalized subject, but none of us have the right to approach others for the purpose of insulting what they enjoy. If that succubus is over there "RPing" with that...other Succubus, then its not the place of someone who thinks that succubi are overdone to interrupt so that he can tell them how much he loathes their preferred character type.
And this is not something I would ever do, and really... that's not the way to handle something.
I tend to disregard it if I don't like it. Avoid.
Now, if say, IC, that demon is acting like a jackass... well, it is an open public area, and IC I can be a jerk.
How many do you think will go past the green part?
Meredy, the point of my post was not to knock every player who has a succubus / demon character, nor those who roleplay non-hetero inclinations. All of that is fine by me if it is done well and all. I was simply finding it curious how I rarely see a succubus who is not a lesbian, or for that matter a non-hetero character who is not a demon of some kind. In Caprice, that is.
I occasionally visit Caprice, and when I do I look at as many descriptions as I can. This is pretty much what I do IRL at clubs: I check people out. When I'm out in the world I rarely have time to look at people because most are zooming along on their quests, so I have no idea how prevalent this is among the general population. Kinda like IRL, actually, now that I think about it...
Also, when I see the combination Demon(ess) / Non-human species + Non-het preference + Only child of the Daemon Lord Khr
I know it wasn't your intention, and this thread, to my surprise is quieter and more mature than many more on the same topic (160 posts, no lock, no "Edited to remove..."? that's a good score).
But the thing is, for you to know the details you cited, it means you had to read the whole bio.
I'll retake mine as example, with the first 4 lines only, you know that I won't sex you up, I won't get so deep into IC that you'll fear making an ooc comment, and that I'm mostly there for light fun.
Going further, you'll see that despite her race / age, I specify her personality's "age", and in her case 20 is rather youthful / silly. ^_^
Down the list, you get that she's not interested in flirting, and if you survive till there, you'll even see a bit of her background.
Note the little sentence about her being cautious of "dark denizens of the lower planes"
Who do you think it's there for? :-p
My only regret is the in-game inability to link to the PRIMUS page...
No, my posts, and DLL said it with more strength and passion is: those, good or bad, RPers who grant themselves the right to judge and trivialize your character based on its sole look, or meta-information.
I've had, and even recently, some "mature RP", "looking for real RP" players walk up to me and start asking me What "a filthy demon" was doing in "their" club...
I would have understood if I was using the "demon-girl" costume where the horns and tails are visible.
But as it was, I was under her "human disguise" spell and even if I'm prepared to, you know, explain myself about the standard issue heroes like Hellboy must face, namely "What's a demon doing here?", I find it hard that, having no reason to suspect me, they "just know" I'm a demon, and that I'm bad.
So, barring their character's ability for True-Sight, first why suspect me if I do nothing or say nothing?
The answer is simple: they read the start of the bio and didn't bother to read it fully.
Else, they'd have seen the "There're things in the night that go bump. I'm the one who bumps back" theme of her demon-hunting job...
And usually it's those very same people who complain about demons who start these threads to bash some more.
Now, you aren't like that and this discussion is interesting because it shows how mature, even tempered people may perceive my toon.
---
Now one point I went over and DLL mentioned too is that Super-Hero is supposed to be aligned to the Comics and be easily "categorized" in one of its main genre.
Well that'd be a little hard for people like me who, being Europeans, or just non-US citizen, don't have the same "America America" kind of feelings.
I find most of those tights wearing heroes ridiculously simple in their concept.
"My mommy and daddy died in an accident where I got my powers. We discovered that a very bad person caused the accident for his/her own profit. Now I serve Justice to avenge them and prevent that drama to happen to anyone else."
...
Sure, it's fine for everyone to have his/her own ideas to play with and I would never call out their concept.
But sadly, the only times I tried to interact with said type of toons, there was almost nothing behind the shiny paint of values.
They did not bother to get a back-story because their looks and basic persona granted them some immunity to the "oooohhh you look evil, hence you're evil" attitude.
---
Now, to get (finally, pheww, walls of text are tiring aren't they :-p) back to your original question: "Why so many succubi that aren't interested in males?"
I'd say, first archaic cultural taboo: being gay or bi is abnormal, abnormal is evil, evil is demons...
Say thanks to 2000 years of Judeo-Christianism for that; it's hard to break the taboos.
And even in this time of "Freedom", just look how parents react if their child announces that their sexuality isn't the "normal" one...
So yeah, first the idea that not being straight is evil.
Second, the terrible misconception about succubi...
Those are demons that go after weak males to steal their seed.
But do you think people bother to look it up?
Nope, it's easier to just make a sexy demon...
And third... rule N°1 (God knows how I hate it!): There're no woman on the Internet.
Men just looooove to get in our pants. (And I don't mean only physically. XD)
So if they are to play a sexy demon girl, will they find it attractive to go flirt with that burly handsome dark haired guy over there?
YUCK no!
It's not manly to do so!
They'd rather just pretend that the other succubi they're hitting on is REALLY a girl...
Kinda makes me laugh... XD
Ps: I'm really bored in the office, and this is a topic I love talking about. :-p
The keep your mouth shut was in reference to people picking on others. Of course you can go to a forum and express your opinion on a generalized subject, but none of us have the right to approach others for the purpose of insulting what they enjoy. If that succubus is over there "RPing" with that...other Succubus, then its not the place of someone who thinks that succubi are overdone to interrupt so that he can tell them how much he loathes their preferred character type.
As the OP of the post I never said about insulting others, and I would not do that. I was more interested in the lack of originality and the stereotypes that seem to be very prevalent in CC.
Meredy, the point of my post was not to knock every player who has a succubus / demon character, nor those who roleplay non-hetero inclinations. All of that is fine by me if it is done well and all. I was simply finding it curious how I rarely see a succubus who is not a lesbian, or for that matter a non-hetero character who is not a demon of some kind. In Caprice, that is.
I occasionally visit Caprice, and when I do I look at as many descriptions as I can. This is pretty much what I do IRL at clubs: I check people out. When I'm out in the world I rarely have time to look at people because most are zooming along on their quests, so I have no idea how prevalent this is among the general population. Kinda like IRL, actually, now that I think about it...
Also, when I see the combination Demon(ess) / Non-human species + Non-het preference + Only child of the Daemon Lord Khr
Now, to get (finally, pheww, walls of text are tiring aren't they :-p) back to your original question: "Why so many succubi that aren't interested in males?"
I'd say, first archaic cultural taboo: being gay or bi is abnormal, abnormal is evil, evil is demons...
Say thanks to 2000 years of Judeo-Christianism for that; it's hard to break the taboos.
And even in this time of "Freedom", just look how parents react if their child announces that their sexuality isn't the "normal" one...
So yeah, first the idea that not being straight is evil.
Second, the terrible misconception about succubi...
Those are demons that go after weak males to steal their seed.
But do you think people bother to look it up?
Nope, it's easier to just make a sexy demon...
And third... rule N°1 (God knows how I hate it!): There're no woman on the Internet.
Men just looooove to get in our pants. (And I don't mean only physically. XD)
So if they are to play a sexy demon girl, who they find it attractive to go flirt with that burly handsome dark haired guy over there?
YUCK no!
It's not manly to do so!
They'd rather just pretend that the other succubi they're hitting on is REALLY a girl...
Kinda makes me laugh... XD
Ps: I'm really bored in the office, and this is a topic I love talking about. :-p
I whole heatedly agree on this. I know 3 other females in rl that play this game and NONE of them have lesbian/bi succubi characters.
And...why not just make a sexy character...does it have to be an ill conceived succubi?
/wanders off to add "immune to poisons" to any of his demoniacally related chatrachters.
Hehehehe, mine isn't immune...
She gets sick, real bad.
Then gets over it... fast. ^_^
(Else, it'd make no sense to take damage from the Qularr's guns, and the Infernal power-set... XD)
Different biology is affected by different things. Demons wouldn't necessarily get drunk, or be strongly affected by subtle human poisons, but some things - such as Infernal,s powerful corrosives - are pretty much universal.
That said, a demon close enough to the human genotype to impregnate our womenfolk likely shares most of our chemical tolerances and intolerances.
Different biology is affected by different things. Demons wouldn't necessarily get drunk, or be strongly affected by subtle human poisons, but some things - such as Infernal,s powerful corrosives - are pretty much universal.
That said, a demon close enough to the human genotype to impregnate our womenfolk likely shares most of our chemical tolerances and intolerances.
As the OP of the post I never said about insulting others, and I would not do that. I was more interested in the lack of originality and the stereotypes that seem to be very prevalent in CC.
I was referring specifically to DirtyJokerJesse's response to DevilLordLaser's post, not anything you said.
Different biology is affected by different things. Demons wouldn't necessarily get drunk, or be strongly affected by subtle human poisons, but some things - such as Infernal,s powerful corrosives - are pretty much universal.
That said, a demon close enough to the human genotype to impregnate our womenfolk likely shares most of our chemical tolerances and intolerances.
Under most, fictional, circumstances that I am aware of the ability to interbreed with humanity is not related to the demon's genetics. By definition something with the racial abilities of a demon are less closely related to humans, genetically, than a chimpanzee.
Aware, and when i'm not tableting my posts between classes I'll have more to say, but my point stands - if they DO get it done the usual way rather than via some manner of black ritual, then they can get drunk
On all points, I'm agreeing with kittyotix on this one, and also agreeing with frozenbones.
However, it seems like 90% of the characters I encounter are magic-based. I know that the root of 'superpowers' in Champions Lore is based off a supernatural event (I think), but that's not where the pain comes in.
The annoyance is with the characters who live by the philosophy that 'magic is the most powerful force, and your guy doesn't use it so I can destroy you and you don't have a chance'. That, and the fact that anyone with a magic-based character can do damned near anything explainable with 'I haz magics', regardless of powerset. There's no fun in playing with someone who can mind-read, make your weapons turn to rotten wood, teleport you to hell, become intangible so your bullets go right through them (despite them not knowing you were even there), see through cloaking technology, extinguish flames with a handwave, put up impenetrable force shields at will, mind read and take over your mind with no effort, and otherwise get a freebie at metagaming/god-moding because 'you're magic'.
I'm sorry, but get the drop on Dr. Strange and put a bullet between his eyes and he'll die just like anyone else who takes a bullet to the head. Hell, even Thor can die (just like any Norse God, and even Egyptian and Greek ones).
I like the old D&D concept- yeah, magic is badass. It can do amazing things, things that normal people could never do. But it's not like snapping your fingers, making armpit noises, or forcing a belch: It requires precision, concentration, and time... some things that an acrobatic gun-monkey or super martial artist can make difficult, if not impossible. And most magic-users are useless in close quarters when you're beating their face to mush.
Magic gives good RPers something fun to toy with, and bad RPers an excuse to godmode because it's so vague as a power (though, really, it doesn't take much to specify what your magic specialty is).
As far as the demon players go... well, I have to admit, I don't like most of them. All I see is 'I can do X because I am a demon'. Well, last I checked you can destroy anything in material form. It may be tougher, it may not respond to the laws of human physiology- but a Rocket-Propelled HE grenade is going to leave a nasty mark on anything it hits (provided what it hits is still intact to assess). You can't sit and tell me your 'demon' is tougher than an Abrams tank (considering that he's level 6 and sits in Caprice looking for ERP all day).
Because of this, in character, I spill over my bias. When Wraith hears some demon talking big **** to intimidate someone, he walks over and embarasses them. Reminds them how stupid it is to talk down to mortals in a club full of superheroes dedicating to protecting those mortals- and that's something an immortal demon should consider, unless he's spent eons playing 'how big is the next booger I pull gonna be?'. He also asks why if they're so powerful, why they aren't ruling parts of the world or at least in the papers a little. And this is a guy with no real super power (although I have the vague 'killer instinct' as a power, and I discuss with a mature player how that could be used in a battle, provided we get into one). I love it.
I'm personally for the rule that your character should be able to do what's in his powerset, or at least something related to it (Wraith can fight with a knife, despite there being no knife attack. He knows a few martial arts quite proficiently, despite his melee attack being 'Bullet Beatdown').
And I agree with you on all your points too Jesse.
Most of my characters are magic powered, due to the fact im a wiccan and love the thought of magic powers based characters. I dont see the use of magic should make your characters Uber...after all...when you PVE there are times that you get your asses kicked so hard u need to chew toilet paper to clean your bottom. This is not the sign of an Uber person...just a falible one.
And...true story. I was in CC earlier, just killing time before work and 2 guys were talking...and one of them went *character name looks at a lonely male dancer and with a twitch of his fingers...snapped his neck*...Ummmm he was in a room full of bad **** superheroes and descided to kill an innocent..that seems a bit silly if you ask me
2 guys were talking...and one of them went *character name looks at a lonely male dancer and with a twitch of his fingers...snapped his neck*...Ummmm he was in a room full of bad **** superheroes and descided to kill an innocent..that seems a bit silly if you ask me
.....
I dunno, if it was an NPC in the bar, I woulda strangled their necks. How many times have those guys came along and started pushing me around?
The main point of contention, Kitty, is the assumption many players seem to be giving off when they rant about how terrible gods/demons/furries/what-have-yous are - that assumption being that everyone playing those characters is some manner of immature douchewhale, while every single player wearing tights and chest-logos is a respectable, upstanding member of the Champions community who couldn't possibly be just as terrible a roleplayer as the teenaged angst-machines behind all the 'dark ERP' characters.
Heh...the last time Jesse and I had words on the subject, he more or less told me to my face, "I don't care how well written, logically consistent, or plausibly flawed your characters are. They're demons, so they suck." Ask him - hell, even if you don't, I'm sure he'll chime in on the matter .
That's pretty much exactly what I'm talking about - the blanket assessment of all (type X) characters as immature/bratty/godmod-y/ERP-dERP bait. I could sit here and rattle off bio data till the flesh is worn off my fingertips, wouldn't change the minds of folks like that. Heh...I'm just too stubborn not to try anyways, in the hopes of maybe swaying the decisions of some folks who haven't settled on a choice yet.
* * * Post Break: everything beneath this is separate from everything above this and is what I wanted to write earlier on, save for the sad fact that I was in LabVIEW class and my tablet sucks at posting.* * *
In regards to immature players, an overemphasis on ERP (and its resulting dERP-ness), and the tremendous abundance of lesbian demons in Caprice...I may be able to offer you a unique viewpoint, Kitty. I am a card-carrying G.I.R.L. - I play predominantly female characters despite my own non-female gender because I generally find them more interesting. There are notable exceptions, but many of the concepts I run with, both in Champs and in my own off-game roleplaying, just work better in my head as women. And before you ask, yes - I have female characters who are in fact straight. It hasn't been an issue in Champs given my no-Caprice rule, but I can, have, and may well in the future play a heterosexual erotic encounter from the female perspective.
Didn't start that way, though Early on, I largely played either asexual characters or, when a given character was too emotionally or sexually charged to go that route, a lesbian character because in that particular age bracket and when one is first experimenting with playing off-gender characters, it is distinctly uncomfortable to put oneself in the role of being, ahh...administered to...by a male. It takes a while for a male player, new to roleplaying or not terribly good at it, to wrap his head around the disconnect between "Me" and "Her" required to accept that role in the context of the game, especially given the heavy societal disapproval of gay relations and activities in men.
(DISCLAIMER: I'm aware lesbians can still have it just as bad, especially when it comes to close family. I still believe gay men generally have it a lot worse than gay women, but that's a discussion I'm hoping to avoid here. If you must have it, please keep it to PM. I promise to be polite.)
Anyways. A lot of the terrible RP you're seeing may well be a younger player's fumbling experiments at trying to see it from the other side, and given some of the societal influences on them - i.e. anything on HBO - can you really blame them too hard for having a terribly skewed vision of female sexuality? Or sexuality in general, for that matter? It's the "gimme your strongest hooch!" problem all over again - these are players who're more interested in the allure of the forbidden than anything else, who don't really even understand what they're trying to portray. Just like these players don't really realize that sucking down an entire bottle of vodka is a great way to get yourself sent to the hospital as opposed to impressing your friends, they don't really get that hurling themselves tatas-first into a giant orgy or "eagerly-but-meekly submitting to my dark Master" isn't really even remotely what it's cracked up to be.
Succubi, of course, are the living embodiments of giant orgies and that whole dark-master business. They're popular because by their very (assumed) nature, they do what the player wanted to do anyways - namely, have themselves as much outrageous, shockingly unrealistic ERP-dERP e-sex as they can. They figure they're playing the character correctly - after all, their succubus girl isn't any more of a **** than...well, basically anyone on True Blood, eh?
Basically, they don't really know any better. Give 'em long enough, or enough knocks on the head, and the ones that really care will eventually wise up and turn into something that may be worth spending an afternoon's gaming with. The ones that don't will eventually get bored and leave, replaced by the next wave of eager young erotic explorers. The rest of us just have to work around it since there's no real fix for it - one of those nature-of-the-Internet things.
Or, of course, they're lonely middle-aged men looking for interactive pron and none too picky about how they get it. Y'know, either way.
Anyways. I hope that sheds some light on the problem for any of you who still care, and in closing I ask this of Kitty, Meredy, and any of our lovely ladies still paying attention: how many of your lady friends, or you for that matter, have played a heterosexual relationship from the male perspective? Heh, think on that and how it'd hit your instincts a bit before condemning the lesbians too hard, eh?
The main point of contention, Kitty, is the assumption many players seem to be giving off when they rant about how terrible gods/demons/furries/what-have-yous are - that assumption being that everyone playing those characters is some manner of immature douchewhale, while every single player wearing tights and chest-logos is a respectable, upstanding member of the Champions community who couldn't possibly be just as terrible a roleplayer as the teenaged angst-machines behind all the 'dark ERP' characters.
Bit of a snip (and I do apologize for that, DLL), but basically that's been my whole driving point. They've got every right to be as terrible as they want as long as people they associate with, and they, themselves, are happy.
Who the [expletive] are you to tell them otherwise? The fun police? If they're not doing anything to bother you outside of existing in your locale, whatever. Just don't associate with them. There's nothing wrong with being a little elitist as long as you're not going off and being a prat about it at the same time, after all.
Don't gotta get along, don't even gotta like each other, but that don't mean we can't co-exist, right?
I've been spending more and more time in club caprice and what I've seen makes me laugh more than I'd ike to admit.
Vampires, Half Demons, Demi-Gods and anything inbetween... usually bi-sexual (or lesbian) meeting each other for the first time. Most (if not all) of these characters have been alive for at least one thousand years... some considerably longer. And of course, they can't die, they can't be hurt and they just kinda carry on living forever.
I had a Deadpool character that I used to have fun with, these same people used to give me a hard time saying I was "unorignal" and had little to no "imagination" because I choose to RP the merc with a mouth. Knowing what I know now I'd wager that there tiny "imaginations" couldn't possibly create a character that wasn't some mystic hundred (or so) year old super powered being that decided long ago they found people of the same sex rather appealing.
You give someone a biography and a little bit of time and all of a sudden they think they're Neil Gaiman.
Whats with that club anyway? Why is it always so melodramatic, its like the writers of Dawsons Creek got together with the writer of Twilight and exploded with a depressingly anticlimatic fizz.
I tried to roleplay in this game... figured people wouldn't rinse repeat all the crap I've read in some of the worst comics ever written... hoped that they'd try something new, refreshing even. But instead I'm shown the same old crap that EVERYONE keeps doing again... and again... and... well, you get the picture.
So let me be the one (not the first... and certainly not the last) to tell you that running around playing a Marvel, DC or any already established character (whilst clearly not allowed) is more orignal and thought provoking than your brooding bi-sexual vampire or omnipotent creature from a distant world who has chosen the name "Bob".
I honestly can not think of a single time I've been in that club and not cringed at the blurb coming out of some peoples mouths (keyboards).
Not all Roleplayers are like this, so please don't think I'm calling everyone talentless, boring and unorignal. Just the ones that are...
Anyways. I hope that sheds some light on the problem for any of you who still care, and in closing I ask this of Kitty, Meredy, and any of our lovely ladies still paying attention: how many of your lady friends, or you for that matter, have played a heterosexual relationship from the male perspective? Heh, think on that and how it'd hit your instincts a bit before condemning the lesbians too hard, eh?
lol...fair point
However I'd like to think that if I ever did...my character would be original and not some cacky rehash of a tired old, badly researched genre
lol...fair point
However I'd like to think that if I ever did...my character would be original and not some cacky rehash of a tired old, badly researched genre
My data tends to suggest that sometimes, you gotta go with the classics. Just because it's not original doesn't mean it can't work, or you can't do it in a new, and interesting way. If you spend all of your time worrying about being 'original', you leave less time on actually being able to achieve something *good*. Focus on doing something well, and doing something INTERESTING, and if at the end of the day it happens to be unique... well, awesome.
It's a thing that should be at the core of every designer in any industry - only hipsters worry about being 'unique', and even then, they tend to fail more often then not.
...I've tried to play guys before, but my general opinion still stands as 'boys are weird'. Every last one of'em. And people say girls are hard to figure out!
Best way to play off-gender characters, in my sort-of-humble opinion and from the standpoint of several years of being the one behind the virtual cleavage?
Play them the way you'd play any other character. You'd be surprised how easy it is to overdo gender characteristics, and you'd be flat shocked on how much girlyness or macho-fever people attribute to ordinary actions just because they're being performed by a person of the associated gender. The subtleties are nice, but you'd be surprised how much a character's gender sells itself.
Well, unless your guy goes around saying things like "OHMIGAWD I just love what you've done with your hair!" Heh, which is certainly in line with a particular breed of male behavior, just...not necessarily the sort of male behavior you're probably looking for
My data tends to suggest that sometimes, you gotta go with the classics. Just because it's not original doesn't mean it can't work, or you can't do it in a new, and interesting way. If you spend all of your time worrying about being 'original', you leave less time on actually being able to achieve something *good*. Focus on doing something well, and doing something INTERESTING, and if at the end of the day it happens to be unique... well, awesome.
It's a thing that should be at the core of every designer in any industry - only hipsters worry about being 'unique', and even then, they tend to fail more often then not.
...I've tried to play guys before, but my general opinion still stands as 'boys are weird'. Every last one of'em. And people say girls are hard to figure out!
Agreed. Particularly since whatever one did to try being different would likely be seen as similar to, or derivative of, something. In the end the supposedly unique character just ends up being less realized than another character where the creator's effort wasnt all expended on uniqueness.
Agreed. Particularly since whatever one did to try being different would likely be seen as similar to, or derivative of, something. In the end the supposedly unique character just ends up being less realized than another character where the creator's effort wasnt all expended on uniqueness.
I dont think originality equates to uniquness. It is almost impossible to be truly unique, but that does not mean you cant be original....
also....i cant believe i have started a topic that has 19 pages and counting
Hmm, I would normally consider an original idea to be unique...at least until the first copycat came along.
But at this point I havent seen anything in game, or in literature, that was all that original. Its almost always derivative.
lets see if we can make it to 25 pages !
hmm i disagree....take the whole idea of creating a witch character (specially as its Beltaine in a few weeks, to all you wiccans out there lol). This would not actually be unique, but it can be made very original.
Or say you created someone from Supermans planet. As long as the story was fleshed out in an original way, then once again...not unique but original
hmm i disagree....take the whole idea of creating a witch character (specially as its Beltaine in a few weeks, to all you wiccans out there lol). This would not actually be unique, but it can be made very original.
Or say you created someone from Supermans planet. As long as the story was fleshed out in an original way, then once again...not unique but original
And i say 30 pages at least
I guess that our views on what is original, i this context, differ. Even so your efforts to make the character your own are all that count (IMO).
I guess that our views on what is original, i this context, differ. Even so your efforts to make the character your own are all that count (IMO).
30 it is.
Well, you can't make a character "you're own" when the majority of the back story and quirks of the character were already taken from the original source material. It's fine some people need springboards and such, but there comes a time when you are one of 20 different Lillith characters all sporting the same if eerily similar backgrounds, you pretty much have no real claim to originality of character or making it uniquely your own.
Do you like the background and storyscape you've assembled for that character?
If the answer to all three is "yes", then it doesn't matter if you're the thirty thousandth guy to make a Lilith. If the character is satisfying for your own personal self to run, then you're doing it right. After all, every modern myth grows in each retelling, ne? Who's to say that your Lilith won't end up becoming one of the definitive examples of the breed?
Heh...'sides. Lilith is cool. Who would you have rather had as the Biblical mother of humanity - a fierce, independent woman with no problems speaking her mind, or some dumb blonde who thinks taking advice from talking snakes is a good idea?
Every single character I've ever created and RPed as has come from my head. Which is full of stuff. Lots of input. And even the characters I start off thinking of as being my own whole-cloth originals, I eventually see the seams where the bits and pieces came from.
Every angel character you conceive of is informed by every angel you've ever experienced. The way you put the parts together are your own unique take on it, and it's yours... but at the end of the day, particularly after so many years of media and storytelling, there is very little new under the sun.
While I've just come back I'll say before I left again I still didn't find it fun to have more than a equal chance of being beat up by 4 thugs and an Otis. That doesn't even rate Aquaman level of superheroness.
Do you like the background and storyscape you've assembled for that character?
If the answer to all three is "yes", then it doesn't matter if you're the thirty thousandth guy to make a Lilith. If the character is satisfying for your own personal self to run, then you're doing it right. After all, every modern myth grows in each retelling, ne? Who's to say that your Lilith won't end up becoming one of the definitive examples of the breed?
Heh...'sides. Lilith is cool. Who would you have rather had as the Biblical mother of humanity - a fierce, independent woman with no problems speaking her mind, or some dumb blonde who thinks taking advice from talking snakes is a good idea?
S'actly. If you're having fun, and the people you're playing with are having fun and enjoying themselves... Eff anyone and everything else*, man.
Standard operating procedure in any game for me. Keeps everything nice and simple.
...though I will admit to, on occasion, some people are just.. laughably bad. Fully content to keep that to myself, though. Who'm I to throw stones, after all?
(*DISCLAIMER: As long as no EULA, TOS, or other legal violations aren't being committed, anyway.)
Heh...the last time Jesse and I had words on the subject, he more or less told me to my face, "I don't care how well written, logically consistent, or plausibly flawed your characters are. They're demons, so they suck." Ask him - hell, even if you don't, I'm sure he'll chime in on the matter .
This is false.
I don't think I told you this to your face... I hope not. Otherwise...
Well, I don't remember saying this so eloquently, either. Maybe if I was in your face you can tell me what I'd been drinking... gotta go find that stuff again, apparently. (Note: Last time it was Bactine and RC Cola poured over gravel in a jar.)
I personally don't like demon characters. I think they're boring and, well, kinda lame. (Except for maybe like, three I've gotten to know). But let's be honest here, I'm allowed to not like certain types of characters, right? I try to avoid them. I don't go buy Spiderman comics, because I hate that guy.
But demons aren't the only ones...
-Catboys. It's just weird to me. Saw a picture of this oddball teenage boy someone posted with cat ears on, a tail, and furry arms... really skinny and strange looking kid. Freaked me out a little. I'm a little scared that people like this exist.
-Anthro characters. Because I apparently can't use "The F word" to describe them. Don't make sense to me. A werewolf, animal spirit, manimal, something like that... okay. But a random talking wolf person named Dave... that's just an Anthro? Don't like 'em. Never have. Never will. Mind you I am stating a specific type of mythological character type and not a group of people. There's been some confusion.
-Woobie characters. Look it up if you don't know what I mean. Seems like a cheap attempt at attention fishing if you ask me, and it gets old and annoying really, really fast.
-Robots. I thought they were fun at first but now, they get on my nerves.
-Power armor. Wraith is convinced they just give this crap away on the street.
-Supermusclemen. MOTHER OF GOD. How do you dudes wipe your butts? Being obscenely huge as a super-strength character, I get... but just a nomal guy that is THAT huge? That's not normal. Hell, I don't think it's healthy. Go see a doctor or something.
-Misguided Morally Uprights. This is where I have a character clash a lot, and it doesn't bother me... until it borders on harassment. Wraith kills. Deal with it. While you were doing nothing about a problem, he dealt with it his way (ask him why one day, you may like his answer). But don't sit there and think that there are absolutely no grounds whatsoever for deadly force. Any sentient being is authorized to use deadly force when it's appropriate (Defense of own life, defense of innocent life, etc.). Wraith wouldn't kill someone who surrendered. He always gives them a chance. But calling someone a murderer and threatening him... well, let's face it... the last six times this has happened the people randomly assumed he was just some merc for whatever reason.
-HATEFUL lesbians. I won't even touch the succubus issue. For some odd reason, it's okay for a 'lesbian' to snap randomly at any male she encounters and say she hates them. Because... whatever, I don't care. A person of a different race tried to steal my bike once, I didn't join a hate group. Come on BOYS, I know what you're doing. Real lesbians don't act like that... I should know, I've trained a few.
-Idiots with guns. And Wraith uses guns. Apparently, some folks think you can shove a gun to someone's nose to solve an argument. In public. These are the sort of characters who don't need anything more dangerous that a tube sock with a boiled egg in it, much less a firearm. It's idiotic, and as a gun owner there is nothing more stupid and wretched than someone who flashes around a gun to make a point. You're resorting to a tool to make your point because you're obviously too stupid to make yours without acting like a savage.
MAIN POINT
I don't like certain things. You are free to express yourself by playing something, I am free to express myself by saying I don't like it. Am I going to get in your face about it and ruin your gaming experience? No. Would my character be a jerk to you if you act like an idiot? BET. Do I have a problem that you've chosen something I don't like as your character? Absolutely not. Enjoy your game, go on. Do what you do, just don't break the rules and don't come to me demanding that I embrace your concept.
Don't confuse 'disliking' something with 'oppression.'. There's a HUGE problem with that in modern society. You can HATE anything you want, just don't act on it or do something unfair. Your feelings are your own.
And you can dislike something, people can question your dislike, and so on and so forth. This freedom of speech is something, ain't it?
You realize practically the only thing you didn't identify as automatically bad were gritty street vigilantes, right? Heh...and here I thought I was stuck in a rut. Rutty rutty rut rut rut...
Anyways. Like Ashen said, calling a jackass a jackass is a God-given right. If someone's being belligerent in Caprice, let 'em have it. They deserve whatever they've incited and get no sympathy from me. If they're just off on their lonesome, though...well, you're as free to privately sneer at my demons as I am to privately sneer at the Cape Squad types as they are to privately sneer at your hard-bitten vigilantes. Provided nobody makes an overt issue of it, we can all sneer and sneer alike.
As far as originality goes, I like to think I come up with interesting characters and origins. Most of the time I try to put a twist on things that nobody would really expect, or lampoons most of the cliches. One of my favorites is The Archivist. Her whole job is getting new and obscure books for her employer, who is a spirit that lives in a library. The spirit went as far as to have a rune tattooed onto her tongue that prevents her from speaking so she can never accidentally spoil anything.
Another is for a character I haven't been able to make yet, Kor the Huntsman. He is going to be a child that was abandoned and raised by wolves. Except the wolves are extremely intelligent and often ground Kor for being too wild.
Will I won't try to say every idea I have ever came up with was original or unique, I do think it comes down to execution of the idea.
Don't confuse 'disliking' something with 'oppression.'. There's a HUGE problem with that in modern society. You can HATE anything you want, just don't act on it or do something unfair. Your feelings are your own.
Thank you for that. This point should be taught in school, every year. Trying to force people to love everyone or everything merely means that you end up with people that don't know how to handle their own negative emotions.
-Catboys. It's just weird to me. Saw a picture of this oddball teenage boy someone posted with cat ears on, a tail, and furry arms... really skinny and strange looking kid. Freaked me out a little. I'm a little scared that people like this exist.
-Anthro characters. Because I apparently can't use "The F word" to describe them. Don't make sense to me. A werewolf, animal spirit, manimal, something like that... okay. But a random talking wolf person named Dave... that's just an Anthro? Don't like 'em. Never have. Never will. Mind you I am stating a specific type of mythological character type and not a group of people. There's been some confusion.
DEAL WITH IT :P
I find cat boys creepy too.
Antho characters...Jesse that actually made me laugh in agreement. Seeing a wolf man, walking upright, wearing a suit and trying to be suave is funny and scary at the same time.
The one thing that really creeps me out are the characters that have used super shrinkers to make themselves look like pets. All the girl characters then go all mushy and say things like 'squuueee...giggles...cuddles....'
Yuk....now, dont get me wrong. I LOVE animals and have had pets all my life, but i dont do that in rl (well maybe if the pet in question is a big cuddly dog, but lets not get into that lol), and i dont know many people that do.
Do the pet-character people get a thrill out of being in-game hugged by an obvious man being a girl?
-Catboys. It's just weird to me. Saw a picture of this oddball teenage boy someone posted with cat ears on, a tail, and furry arms... really skinny and strange looking kid. Freaked me out a little. I'm a little scared that people like this exist.
-Anthro characters. Because I apparently can't use "The F word" to describe them. Don't make sense to me. A werewolf, animal spirit, manimal, something like that... okay. But a random talking wolf person named Dave... that's just an Anthro? Don't like 'em. Never have. Never will. Mind you I am stating a specific type of mythological character type and not a group of people. There's been some confusion.
DEAL WITH IT :P
I find cat boys creepy too.
Antho characters...Jesse that actually made me laugh in agreement. Seeing a wolf man, walking upright, wearing a suit and trying to be suave is funny and scary at the same time.
The one thing that really creeps me out are the characters that have used super shrinkers to make themselves look like pets. All the girl characters then go all mushy and say things like 'squuueee...giggles...cuddles....'
Yuk....now, dont get me wrong. I LOVE animals and have had pets all my life, but i dont do that in rl (well maybe if the pet in question is a big cuddly dog, but lets not get into that lol), and i dont know many people that do.
Do the pet-character people get a thrill out of being in-game hugged by an obvious man being a girl?
I find the wolf-people a bit... alarming. (must... resist... obvious... set-up... for... Beauty... And... The... Beast... Song... Time...). They're just... hanging out, acting normal, and nobody actually goes "My Flub, that's a wolf standing upright! By Jove, how most exceedingly strange!" Because it's strange as heck, from our perspective. Maybe if there were non-super wolf-people citizens, occasionally, it wouldn't seem so utterly bizarre for these animal people to be everywhere and anywhere, but otherwise I'm surprised more people don't go "OMG WHAT A WOLF" in-character whilst in Caprice. Then again, that is a nightclub where giant policerobots go to... Talk to random people then leave?
As to catgirls... I refuse to acknowledge a catgirl that comes up to people in a friendly manner, is giggly, is cheerful, and is generally not cat-like at all. Cats are real jerks. Sure, they seem cute, but that purring? Mental reinforcement to get you to feed them. Rubbing itself against you? Marking you with scent glands under its skin. Miaowing? "OI, HUMAN FEED ME NAO OR I WILL GO AND POOP IN YOUR CLOTHES.".
If someone made a cat-person who actually acted like a real cat and not like poorly-thought-out anime stereotypes (which are okay in their respective shows, but when real people are acting them out in a setting for free, it's just plain wrong.).
The demon problem actually has made me avoid making demonic characters for some time now, although I think that posessed people actually could be more fun to play as and actually more compelling, character-wise, and you get a bonus because you're basically playing two characters within one body (and powerset), meaning you have two different personalities to use for different situations, (if in doubt, chose the one that benefits you least. It's unexpected and may lead to interesting situations later.)
Comments
And this is not something I would ever do, and really... that's not the way to handle something.
I tend to disregard it if I don't like it. Avoid.
Now, if say, IC, that demon is acting like a jackass... well, it is an open public area, and IC I can be a jerk.
Calling a jackass a jackass is a god given right. I'm pretty sure its even in the constitution.
Club Caprice: The only club in which you can buy a drink for a succbus.
Nothing more EVIL than sitting around drinking and talking about how stupid mortals are.
It is more evil if they twirl their mustaches too.
Succubi... with mustaches???
Ok, I have my next nemesis... XD
Meredy, the point of my post was not to knock every player who has a succubus / demon character, nor those who roleplay non-hetero inclinations. All of that is fine by me if it is done well and all. I was simply finding it curious how I rarely see a succubus who is not a lesbian, or for that matter a non-hetero character who is not a demon of some kind. In Caprice, that is.
I occasionally visit Caprice, and when I do I look at as many descriptions as I can. This is pretty much what I do IRL at clubs: I check people out. When I'm out in the world I rarely have time to look at people because most are zooming along on their quests, so I have no idea how prevalent this is among the general population. Kinda like IRL, actually, now that I think about it...
Also, when I see the combination Demon(ess) / Non-human species + Non-het preference + Only child of the Daemon Lord Khr
But the thing is, for you to know the details you cited, it means you had to read the whole bio.
I'll retake mine as example, with the first 4 lines only, you know that I won't sex you up, I won't get so deep into IC that you'll fear making an ooc comment, and that I'm mostly there for light fun.
Going further, you'll see that despite her race / age, I specify her personality's "age", and in her case 20 is rather youthful / silly. ^_^
Down the list, you get that she's not interested in flirting, and if you survive till there, you'll even see a bit of her background.
Note the little sentence about her being cautious of "dark denizens of the lower planes"
Who do you think it's there for? :-p
My only regret is the in-game inability to link to the PRIMUS page...
No, my posts, and DLL said it with more strength and passion is: those, good or bad, RPers who grant themselves the right to judge and trivialize your character based on its sole look, or meta-information.
I've had, and even recently, some "mature RP", "looking for real RP" players walk up to me and start asking me What "a filthy demon" was doing in "their" club...
I would have understood if I was using the "demon-girl" costume where the horns and tails are visible.
But as it was, I was under her "human disguise" spell and even if I'm prepared to, you know, explain myself about the standard issue heroes like Hellboy must face, namely "What's a demon doing here?", I find it hard that, having no reason to suspect me, they "just know" I'm a demon, and that I'm bad.
So, barring their character's ability for True-Sight, first why suspect me if I do nothing or say nothing?
The answer is simple: they read the start of the bio and didn't bother to read it fully.
Else, they'd have seen the "There're things in the night that go bump. I'm the one who bumps back" theme of her demon-hunting job...
And usually it's those very same people who complain about demons who start these threads to bash some more.
Now, you aren't like that and this discussion is interesting because it shows how mature, even tempered people may perceive my toon.
---
Now one point I went over and DLL mentioned too is that Super-Hero is supposed to be aligned to the Comics and be easily "categorized" in one of its main genre.
Well that'd be a little hard for people like me who, being Europeans, or just non-US citizen, don't have the same "America America" kind of feelings.
I find most of those tights wearing heroes ridiculously simple in their concept.
"My mommy and daddy died in an accident where I got my powers. We discovered that a very bad person caused the accident for his/her own profit. Now I serve Justice to avenge them and prevent that drama to happen to anyone else."
...
Sure, it's fine for everyone to have his/her own ideas to play with and I would never call out their concept.
But sadly, the only times I tried to interact with said type of toons, there was almost nothing behind the shiny paint of values.
They did not bother to get a back-story because their looks and basic persona granted them some immunity to the "oooohhh you look evil, hence you're evil" attitude.
---
Now, to get (finally, pheww, walls of text are tiring aren't they :-p) back to your original question: "Why so many succubi that aren't interested in males?"
I'd say, first archaic cultural taboo: being gay or bi is abnormal, abnormal is evil, evil is demons...
Say thanks to 2000 years of Judeo-Christianism for that; it's hard to break the taboos.
And even in this time of "Freedom", just look how parents react if their child announces that their sexuality isn't the "normal" one...
So yeah, first the idea that not being straight is evil.
Second, the terrible misconception about succubi...
Those are demons that go after weak males to steal their seed.
But do you think people bother to look it up?
Nope, it's easier to just make a sexy demon...
And third... rule N°1 (God knows how I hate it!): There're no woman on the Internet.
Men just looooove to get in our pants. (And I don't mean only physically. XD)
So if they are to play a sexy demon girl, will they find it attractive to go flirt with that burly handsome dark haired guy over there?
YUCK no!
It's not manly to do so!
They'd rather just pretend that the other succubi they're hitting on is REALLY a girl...
Kinda makes me laugh... XD
Ps: I'm really bored in the office, and this is a topic I love talking about. :-p
As the OP of the post I never said about insulting others, and I would not do that. I was more interested in the lack of originality and the stereotypes that seem to be very prevalent in CC.
I whole heatedly agree on this. I know 3 other females in rl that play this game and NONE of them have lesbian/bi succubi characters.
And...why not just make a sexy character...does it have to be an ill conceived succubi?
Are they?
/wanders off to add "immune to poisons" to any of his demoniacally related chatrachters.
Hehehehe, mine isn't immune...
She gets sick, real bad.
Then gets over it... fast. ^_^
(Else, it'd make no sense to take damage from the Qularr's guns, and the Infernal power-set... XD)
That said, a demon close enough to the human genotype to impregnate our womenfolk likely shares most of our chemical tolerances and intolerances.
Even more so his half-breed offspring. :-p
What? *looks at his suitcase full of poison syringes* Do I have to use guns every time? *sighs* (:D)
I was referring specifically to DirtyJokerJesse's response to DevilLordLaser's post, not anything you said.
Under most, fictional, circumstances that I am aware of the ability to interbreed with humanity is not related to the demon's genetics. By definition something with the racial abilities of a demon are less closely related to humans, genetically, than a chimpanzee.
Succubi are like female dwarves or cold war era eastern eurpoean female athletes...they all have facial hair to one extent or another.
And I agree with you on all your points too Jesse.
Most of my characters are magic powered, due to the fact im a wiccan and love the thought of magic powers based characters. I dont see the use of magic should make your characters Uber...after all...when you PVE there are times that you get your asses kicked so hard u need to chew toilet paper to clean your bottom. This is not the sign of an Uber person...just a falible one.
And...true story. I was in CC earlier, just killing time before work and 2 guys were talking...and one of them went *character name looks at a lonely male dancer and with a twitch of his fingers...snapped his neck*...Ummmm he was in a room full of bad **** superheroes and descided to kill an innocent..that seems a bit silly if you ask me
.....
I dunno, if it was an NPC in the bar, I woulda strangled their necks. How many times have those guys came along and started pushing me around?
It was self defense!
Most of my trips to Caprice, and this thread itself, contradict this. Everyone knows that Caprice is full of lesbian succubi, not superheroes.
Well, lesbian succubi god heroes then...but heroes neither the less
Heh...the last time Jesse and I had words on the subject, he more or less told me to my face, "I don't care how well written, logically consistent, or plausibly flawed your characters are. They're demons, so they suck." Ask him - hell, even if you don't, I'm sure he'll chime in on the matter
That's pretty much exactly what I'm talking about - the blanket assessment of all (type X) characters as immature/bratty/godmod-y/ERP-dERP bait. I could sit here and rattle off bio data till the flesh is worn off my fingertips, wouldn't change the minds of folks like that. Heh...I'm just too stubborn not to try anyways, in the hopes of maybe swaying the decisions of some folks who haven't settled on a choice yet.
* * * Post Break: everything beneath this is separate from everything above this and is what I wanted to write earlier on, save for the sad fact that I was in LabVIEW class and my tablet sucks at posting.* * *
In regards to immature players, an overemphasis on ERP (and its resulting dERP-ness), and the tremendous abundance of lesbian demons in Caprice...I may be able to offer you a unique viewpoint, Kitty. I am a card-carrying G.I.R.L. - I play predominantly female characters despite my own non-female gender because I generally find them more interesting. There are notable exceptions, but many of the concepts I run with, both in Champs and in my own off-game roleplaying, just work better in my head as women. And before you ask, yes - I have female characters who are in fact straight. It hasn't been an issue in Champs given my no-Caprice rule, but I can, have, and may well in the future play a heterosexual erotic encounter from the female perspective.
Didn't start that way, though
(DISCLAIMER: I'm aware lesbians can still have it just as bad, especially when it comes to close family. I still believe gay men generally have it a lot worse than gay women, but that's a discussion I'm hoping to avoid here. If you must have it, please keep it to PM. I promise to be polite.)
Anyways. A lot of the terrible RP you're seeing may well be a younger player's fumbling experiments at trying to see it from the other side, and given some of the societal influences on them - i.e. anything on HBO - can you really blame them too hard for having a terribly skewed vision of female sexuality? Or sexuality in general, for that matter? It's the "gimme your strongest hooch!" problem all over again - these are players who're more interested in the allure of the forbidden than anything else, who don't really even understand what they're trying to portray. Just like these players don't really realize that sucking down an entire bottle of vodka is a great way to get yourself sent to the hospital as opposed to impressing your friends, they don't really get that hurling themselves tatas-first into a giant orgy or "eagerly-but-meekly submitting to my dark Master" isn't really even remotely what it's cracked up to be.
Succubi, of course, are the living embodiments of giant orgies and that whole dark-master business. They're popular because by their very (assumed) nature, they do what the player wanted to do anyways - namely, have themselves as much outrageous, shockingly unrealistic ERP-dERP e-sex as they can. They figure they're playing the character correctly - after all, their succubus girl isn't any more of a **** than...well, basically anyone on True Blood, eh?
Basically, they don't really know any better. Give 'em long enough, or enough knocks on the head, and the ones that really care will eventually wise up and turn into something that may be worth spending an afternoon's gaming with. The ones that don't will eventually get bored and leave, replaced by the next wave of eager young erotic explorers. The rest of us just have to work around it since there's no real fix for it - one of those nature-of-the-Internet things.
Or, of course, they're lonely middle-aged men looking for interactive pron and none too picky about how they get it. Y'know, either way.
Anyways. I hope that sheds some light on the problem for any of you who still care, and in closing I ask this of Kitty, Meredy, and any of our lovely ladies still paying attention: how many of your lady friends, or you for that matter, have played a heterosexual relationship from the male perspective? Heh, think on that and how it'd hit your instincts a bit before condemning the lesbians too hard, eh?
Bit of a snip (and I do apologize for that, DLL), but basically that's been my whole driving point. They've got every right to be as terrible as they want as long as people they associate with, and they, themselves, are happy.
Who the [expletive] are you to tell them otherwise? The fun police? If they're not doing anything to bother you outside of existing in your locale, whatever. Just don't associate with them. There's nothing wrong with being a little elitist as long as you're not going off and being a prat about it at the same time, after all.
Don't gotta get along, don't even gotta like each other, but that don't mean we can't co-exist, right?
Vampires, Half Demons, Demi-Gods and anything inbetween... usually bi-sexual (or lesbian) meeting each other for the first time. Most (if not all) of these characters have been alive for at least one thousand years... some considerably longer. And of course, they can't die, they can't be hurt and they just kinda carry on living forever.
I had a Deadpool character that I used to have fun with, these same people used to give me a hard time saying I was "unorignal" and had little to no "imagination" because I choose to RP the merc with a mouth. Knowing what I know now I'd wager that there tiny "imaginations" couldn't possibly create a character that wasn't some mystic hundred (or so) year old super powered being that decided long ago they found people of the same sex rather appealing.
You give someone a biography and a little bit of time and all of a sudden they think they're Neil Gaiman.
Whats with that club anyway? Why is it always so melodramatic, its like the writers of Dawsons Creek got together with the writer of Twilight and exploded with a depressingly anticlimatic fizz.
I tried to roleplay in this game... figured people wouldn't rinse repeat all the crap I've read in some of the worst comics ever written... hoped that they'd try something new, refreshing even. But instead I'm shown the same old crap that EVERYONE keeps doing again... and again... and... well, you get the picture.
So let me be the one (not the first... and certainly not the last) to tell you that running around playing a Marvel, DC or any already established character (whilst clearly not allowed) is more orignal and thought provoking than your brooding bi-sexual vampire or omnipotent creature from a distant world who has chosen the name "Bob".
I honestly can not think of a single time I've been in that club and not cringed at the blurb coming out of some peoples mouths (keyboards).
Not all Roleplayers are like this, so please don't think I'm calling everyone talentless, boring and unorignal. Just the ones that are...
lol...fair point
However I'd like to think that if I ever did...my character would be original and not some cacky rehash of a tired old, badly researched genre
My data tends to suggest that sometimes, you gotta go with the classics. Just because it's not original doesn't mean it can't work, or you can't do it in a new, and interesting way. If you spend all of your time worrying about being 'original', you leave less time on actually being able to achieve something *good*. Focus on doing something well, and doing something INTERESTING, and if at the end of the day it happens to be unique... well, awesome.
It's a thing that should be at the core of every designer in any industry - only hipsters worry about being 'unique', and even then, they tend to fail more often then not.
...I've tried to play guys before, but my general opinion still stands as 'boys are weird'. Every last one of'em. And people say girls are hard to figure out!
Play them the way you'd play any other character. You'd be surprised how easy it is to overdo gender characteristics, and you'd be flat shocked on how much girlyness or macho-fever people attribute to ordinary actions just because they're being performed by a person of the associated gender. The subtleties are nice, but you'd be surprised how much a character's gender sells itself.
Well, unless your guy goes around saying things like "OHMIGAWD I just love what you've done with your hair!" Heh, which is certainly in line with a particular breed of male behavior, just...not necessarily the sort of male behavior you're probably looking for
Agreed. Particularly since whatever one did to try being different would likely be seen as similar to, or derivative of, something. In the end the supposedly unique character just ends up being less realized than another character where the creator's effort wasnt all expended on uniqueness.
I dont think originality equates to uniquness. It is almost impossible to be truly unique, but that does not mean you cant be original....
also....i cant believe i have started a topic that has 19 pages and counting
Hmm, I would normally consider an original idea to be unique...at least until the first copycat came along.
But at this point I havent seen anything in game, or in literature, that was all that original. Its almost always derivative.
lets see if we can make it to 25 pages !
hmm i disagree....take the whole idea of creating a witch character (specially as its Beltaine in a few weeks, to all you wiccans out there lol). This would not actually be unique, but it can be made very original.
Or say you created someone from Supermans planet. As long as the story was fleshed out in an original way, then once again...not unique but original
And i say 30 pages at least
I guess that our views on what is original, i this context, differ. Even so your efforts to make the character your own are all that count (IMO).
30 it is.
Well, you can't make a character "you're own" when the majority of the back story and quirks of the character were already taken from the original source material. It's fine some people need springboards and such, but there comes a time when you are one of 20 different Lillith characters all sporting the same if eerily similar backgrounds, you pretty much have no real claim to originality of character or making it uniquely your own.
Is playing the character fun?
Do you like the background and storyscape you've assembled for that character?
If the answer to all three is "yes", then it doesn't matter if you're the thirty thousandth guy to make a Lilith. If the character is satisfying for your own personal self to run, then you're doing it right. After all, every modern myth grows in each retelling, ne? Who's to say that your Lilith won't end up becoming one of the definitive examples of the breed?
Heh...'sides. Lilith is cool. Who would you have rather had as the Biblical mother of humanity - a fierce, independent woman with no problems speaking her mind, or some dumb blonde who thinks taking advice from talking snakes is a good idea?
Every single character I've ever created and RPed as has come from my head. Which is full of stuff. Lots of input. And even the characters I start off thinking of as being my own whole-cloth originals, I eventually see the seams where the bits and pieces came from.
Every angel character you conceive of is informed by every angel you've ever experienced. The way you put the parts together are your own unique take on it, and it's yours... but at the end of the day, particularly after so many years of media and storytelling, there is very little new under the sun.
S'actly. If you're having fun, and the people you're playing with are having fun and enjoying themselves... Eff anyone and everything else*, man.
Standard operating procedure in any game for me. Keeps everything nice and simple.
...though I will admit to, on occasion, some people are just.. laughably bad. Fully content to keep that to myself, though. Who'm I to throw stones, after all?
(*DISCLAIMER: As long as no EULA, TOS, or other legal violations aren't being committed, anyway.)
This is false.
I don't think I told you this to your face... I hope not. Otherwise...
Well, I don't remember saying this so eloquently, either. Maybe if I was in your face you can tell me what I'd been drinking... gotta go find that stuff again, apparently. (Note: Last time it was Bactine and RC Cola poured over gravel in a jar.)
I personally don't like demon characters. I think they're boring and, well, kinda lame. (Except for maybe like, three I've gotten to know). But let's be honest here, I'm allowed to not like certain types of characters, right? I try to avoid them. I don't go buy Spiderman comics, because I hate that guy.
But demons aren't the only ones...
-Catboys. It's just weird to me. Saw a picture of this oddball teenage boy someone posted with cat ears on, a tail, and furry arms... really skinny and strange looking kid. Freaked me out a little. I'm a little scared that people like this exist.
-Anthro characters. Because I apparently can't use "The F word" to describe them. Don't make sense to me. A werewolf, animal spirit, manimal, something like that... okay. But a random talking wolf person named Dave... that's just an Anthro? Don't like 'em. Never have. Never will. Mind you I am stating a specific type of mythological character type and not a group of people. There's been some confusion.
-Woobie characters. Look it up if you don't know what I mean. Seems like a cheap attempt at attention fishing if you ask me, and it gets old and annoying really, really fast.
-Robots. I thought they were fun at first but now, they get on my nerves.
-Power armor. Wraith is convinced they just give this crap away on the street.
-Supermusclemen. MOTHER OF GOD. How do you dudes wipe your butts? Being obscenely huge as a super-strength character, I get... but just a nomal guy that is THAT huge? That's not normal. Hell, I don't think it's healthy. Go see a doctor or something.
-Misguided Morally Uprights. This is where I have a character clash a lot, and it doesn't bother me... until it borders on harassment. Wraith kills. Deal with it. While you were doing nothing about a problem, he dealt with it his way (ask him why one day, you may like his answer). But don't sit there and think that there are absolutely no grounds whatsoever for deadly force. Any sentient being is authorized to use deadly force when it's appropriate (Defense of own life, defense of innocent life, etc.). Wraith wouldn't kill someone who surrendered. He always gives them a chance. But calling someone a murderer and threatening him... well, let's face it... the last six times this has happened the people randomly assumed he was just some merc for whatever reason.
-HATEFUL lesbians. I won't even touch the succubus issue. For some odd reason, it's okay for a 'lesbian' to snap randomly at any male she encounters and say she hates them. Because... whatever, I don't care. A person of a different race tried to steal my bike once, I didn't join a hate group. Come on BOYS, I know what you're doing. Real lesbians don't act like that... I should know, I've trained a few.
-Idiots with guns. And Wraith uses guns. Apparently, some folks think you can shove a gun to someone's nose to solve an argument. In public. These are the sort of characters who don't need anything more dangerous that a tube sock with a boiled egg in it, much less a firearm. It's idiotic, and as a gun owner there is nothing more stupid and wretched than someone who flashes around a gun to make a point. You're resorting to a tool to make your point because you're obviously too stupid to make yours without acting like a savage.
MAIN POINT
I don't like certain things. You are free to express yourself by playing something, I am free to express myself by saying I don't like it. Am I going to get in your face about it and ruin your gaming experience? No. Would my character be a jerk to you if you act like an idiot? BET. Do I have a problem that you've chosen something I don't like as your character? Absolutely not. Enjoy your game, go on. Do what you do, just don't break the rules and don't come to me demanding that I embrace your concept.
Don't confuse 'disliking' something with 'oppression.'. There's a HUGE problem with that in modern society. You can HATE anything you want, just don't act on it or do something unfair. Your feelings are your own.
And you can dislike something, people can question your dislike, and so on and so forth. This freedom of speech is something, ain't it?
I also hate wings. DEAL WITH IT :P
Anyways. Like Ashen said, calling a jackass a jackass is a God-given right. If someone's being belligerent in Caprice, let 'em have it. They deserve whatever they've incited and get no sympathy from me. If they're just off on their lonesome, though...well, you're as free to privately sneer at my demons as I am to privately sneer at the Cape Squad types as they are to privately sneer at your hard-bitten vigilantes. Provided nobody makes an overt issue of it, we can all sneer and sneer alike.
Another is for a character I haven't been able to make yet, Kor the Huntsman. He is going to be a child that was abandoned and raised by wolves. Except the wolves are extremely intelligent and often ground Kor for being too wild.
Will I won't try to say every idea I have ever came up with was original or unique, I do think it comes down to execution of the idea.
Thank you for that. This point should be taught in school, every year. Trying to force people to love everyone or everything merely means that you end up with people that don't know how to handle their own negative emotions.
I find cat boys creepy too.
Antho characters...Jesse that actually made me laugh in agreement. Seeing a wolf man, walking upright, wearing a suit and trying to be suave is funny and scary at the same time.
The one thing that really creeps me out are the characters that have used super shrinkers to make themselves look like pets. All the girl characters then go all mushy and say things like 'squuueee...giggles...cuddles....'
Yuk....now, dont get me wrong. I LOVE animals and have had pets all my life, but i dont do that in rl (well maybe if the pet in question is a big cuddly dog, but lets not get into that lol), and i dont know many people that do.
Do the pet-character people get a thrill out of being in-game hugged by an obvious man being a girl?
I find cat boys creepy too.
Antho characters...Jesse that actually made me laugh in agreement. Seeing a wolf man, walking upright, wearing a suit and trying to be suave is funny and scary at the same time.
The one thing that really creeps me out are the characters that have used super shrinkers to make themselves look like pets. All the girl characters then go all mushy and say things like 'squuueee...giggles...cuddles....'
Yuk....now, dont get me wrong. I LOVE animals and have had pets all my life, but i dont do that in rl (well maybe if the pet in question is a big cuddly dog, but lets not get into that lol), and i dont know many people that do.
Do the pet-character people get a thrill out of being in-game hugged by an obvious man being a girl?
As to catgirls... I refuse to acknowledge a catgirl that comes up to people in a friendly manner, is giggly, is cheerful, and is generally not cat-like at all. Cats are real jerks. Sure, they seem cute, but that purring? Mental reinforcement to get you to feed them. Rubbing itself against you? Marking you with scent glands under its skin. Miaowing? "OI, HUMAN FEED ME NAO OR I WILL GO AND POOP IN YOUR CLOTHES.".
If someone made a cat-person who actually acted like a real cat and not like poorly-thought-out anime stereotypes (which are okay in their respective shows, but when real people are acting them out in a setting for free, it's just plain wrong.).
The demon problem actually has made me avoid making demonic characters for some time now, although I think that posessed people actually could be more fun to play as and actually more compelling, character-wise, and you get a bonus because you're basically playing two characters within one body (and powerset), meaning you have two different personalities to use for different situations, (if in doubt, chose the one that benefits you least. It's unexpected and may lead to interesting situations later.)