Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Comic profile

Well, in one case it was necessary to do a literal intervention - we all had to sit this person down and explain our unhappiness with their insistence on playing exotic inhuman mary sue types (one example: In Shadowrun 4th edition, a Fomori Drake Mystic Adept) and treating every game as a competition where the highest body count wins. Their characters were in the 80+ range on the Mary Sue Litmus Test:

http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm )

The intervention resulted in some weeks of depression, followed by a resolve to improve. That campaign I've mentioned with the slapstick comedy and the goblins? They're in that, playing as a lizardman druid who has had their share of awesome moments as well as their share of being comic relief. And even when they're doing the minmaxing thing, they're doing it for the group benefit - helping other players tweak their builds for optimal performance, that sort of thing.

But that was an extreme case - this is a person who was strongly influenced by the "Anita Blake" series (think "Bella from Twilight, only older, heavily armed, with all the powers of vampires AND lycanthrope and none of the weaknesses, and with an entire male harem who quickly reassure her that she's right about everything and that nothing is ever her fault." While innocent people die because of her crap... including a few kids), and still enjoys media with massively overpowered main characters ("Overlord," "One Punch Man," etc). The other friends I've dealt with were actually pretty quick to modify their behavior when problems were called to their attention.

To put it in FIM terms, think of that episode where Discord gets invited to play D&D, and the bit where Spike and Big Mac decide to give him another chance. Once Discord realized HE was the one at fault, they welcomed him back into the game - and he proceeded to make the game MUCH more enjoyable with his presence. :)

I had a game where almost the entire Good party decided to join up with Ba'al and become his minions. He had offered our lives and power for one of us being his champion, equipping the one Regalia of Evil (which would corrupt anyone even more) he had, and getting the rest.

I was the only one who decided it would be against my alignment. I was LG, almost a pacifist, and a monk. They decided to hold me down and force the first Regalia of Evil on me...a gauntlet. Making me turn evil and become the Champion of Ba'al. So my sticking to my principles made me the most powerful member in the party! ...And the one whose personality changed the most on the alignment switch. >:)

Heh. Run Rey through a Mary Sue litmus test, like the handy one at http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm. She scores well into Mary Sue territory.

Er, he just complimented them all by calling them "consummate professionals" in regards to their role-playing. Coming from a more experienced gamer/GM, that's not an insignificant compliment.

Besides, "warts and all" is a figure of speech, like if he'd said "these are your friends, the good, the bad, and the ugly." It wouldn't mean he was saying one of them was really ugly, it would mean they're a mixed bag of good and bad parts - like all gamers (and people) really are.

Yeah I think Twi's player has gotten too wrapped up in her earlier successes at circumventing the GM's plots and is now feeling stressed and pressured if she DOESN'T come up with some way to resolve things right away. Hopefully this arc will teach her to relax and enjoy the journey as well as the victory.