This is a page with helpful roleplaying
hints.
Beware of Godmoding
Godmoding is either trying to control another person's
character or making a character who is too perfect or too
powerful. Make sure when you roleplay that you describe
only your character's actions and responses to other
character's actions. Also, don't make a character who
knows everything and can do anything. For example, no one
but Stryker should know all about Wolverine's past, and
even he can't know absolutely everything. Xavier doesn't
even know everything there is to know about Wolverine's
past, so why should your character know more than him?
Also, be careful about your character's abilities. They
can be pretty powerful, but there has to be a limit to
their power. Even Magneto has his limits. If your
character is a teenager, they can have a certain amount
of power, but they shouldn't be as powerful as an adult
mutant like Storm, and they probably shouldn't have as
much control over their power since they're rather young.
Skills and abilities should be reasonable as well. Since
this is a comic-book-movie reality, your character can
have more skills than common sense allows in the real
world. However, there are still limits to their skills.
For example, your character shouldn't be a genius
computer hacker who is a 10th degree black belt in karate
and can speak 10 languages fluently. Your character can
be a computer hacker. Your character can be a black belt.
Your character can speak a few languages fluently. But
they cannot do all three. Pick one talent and go with it.
No Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus
A Mary-Sue is basically a character who is too perfect
(especially when it comes to appearance) and has little
depth. A Gary-Stu is the male equivalent. Often, the
profile of a Mary-Sue character focuses on physical
appearance and achievements rather than personality and
character motivation. It is a form of godmoding, though
godmoding tends to focus more on skills, talents, and
powers rather than appearance.
Here's an example of a Mary-Sue
profile:
Destiny Love is 5'6 and weighs 100 lbs. She has
platinum blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. She is a
human but she is on the side of the mutants and is good
friends with Xavier. She goes to Xavier's school and is
captain of their cheerleading squad. She has a crush on
Bobby Drake, but he doesn't know it. Right know, she is
wearing a pink tank top from Abercrombie and Fitch and a
white miniskirt with ruffles. She is wearing purple
eyeshadow and red lipstick.
Notice how the person begins by
mentioning appearance very specifically. The character is
severely underweight, but somehow the person considers
that attractive. Despite being a teenaged human, her
character somehow managed to not only befriend Xavier but
also gain admission to the school despite having no
powers at all. She also has a crush on a canon character,
and the roleplayer probably intends on having her
character date Bobby and fulfill the roleplayer's own
fantasy rather than be realistic. She keeps focusing on
appearance and unlikely circumstances. The name of her
character is very unlikely and too much of a cutesy name.
It also has nothing to do with the character herself; it
just "sounds pretty." Please avoid all these
mistakes. This is not a real profile (I just made it up),
but sadly, many people have written profiles very similar
to this one.
Names
Try to name your character something reasonable. It
doesn't have to have some kind of meaning, though that
would help. It doesn't have to be fancy. After all, Jean
Grey and Scott Summers are examples of names of
characters in X-men, and they're not fancy. The mutant
nickname (like Cyclops or Wolverine) should have some
meaning, but it's usually not hard to think of a name.
There's a difference between their mutant name and their
real name. Please don't just give your character a weird
name just because it sounds cool. In reality, it usually
sounds pretty stupid. I've heard of names like Butterfly
Fire and Jade Diamond. Who the hell would name their kids
that? You don't have to give your character a really
common name, but try not to go overboard on the
weirdness.
The Tortured Soul
We have way too many applicants whose characters are
orphans, abused by their parents, murderers, runaways,
and/or have some kind of overblown, overdramatic past.
Although it is true that in real life, people have been
abused by their parents, not everyone in the world has
had some great trauma in their life. There are other ways
to make your character interesting than to add
melodramatic event to their past.
Post Length
Two or three sentences is simply not enough for a post.
I'm not instating a rule about it, but I would appreciate
it if you tried to write at least a full paragraph per
post. One or two paragraphs should be fine.
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