Very cool concept. I'd be interested in joining. Do you have sort of outlines for what races of monster might or might not be acceptable?
Vampire? Werewolf? Lovecraftian Detective? Hills Have Eyes type cannibal? Undead Cowboy? Gamblers with debts to demons?
I have a rather specific idea myself which is sort of a Native American version of a vampire.
You might look at the Deadlands Tabletop Game for some inspiration. Similar concepts although explicitly American.
If you go to the Stuff I Did link in my bio, in the second post there there should be a link to a Deadlands thread I started some time ago and a short Campfire Story
If it's a GM choice he should let all the players know an expiration date for the current timeframe and how long the skip will be.
If it's just the players they should vote on whether to have one and how long to make it. I usually don't even particularly folks going "The Next Day" for their character if no one else is because it ends up confusing the timeline.
You might still get some utility out of the original CS too as what your revamped character aspires to be/do. Or as a character trait to completely subvert.
This ended up being a tangent about character development rather than Mary Sues but I'll post it just the same, in a hider. If it's too much a tangent let me know and I'll get it deleted and post it somewhere else.
She wants to be an idol.
She's just a Mech Warrior singing to herself while stomping around in her steam suit. Annoying some and entertaining others in her squad. Maybe finds another pilot who has a guitar and sings along with their playing.
Or it doesn't go the way she wants it to, her voice isn't great for singing, but her love of attention and practice writing songs makes her a great speaker and she winds up being the beating heart of her unit, while still yearning to be a pop star.
Or her desire for attention, writing ability, and love for her squad make her a born leader. She'll never stomp across a battlefield singing her latest hit to drive her troops forward and stomp out the enemy...but she has command of a group of capable men and women who adore and respect her and will fight with all of their hearts for her because they know she will fight with all of her heart for them.
She wants to make her Mech a force on the field
She built her own suit, and she gets some respect for it and she can contribute, but she yearns to pilot one of those real whiz-bang mechs. More than that she dreams of improving her own design and one day maybe the luckier, richer, more famous pilots out there will be proudly driving a Müller Designs product.
Or she gets recognized as someone making the most of a suit with limited capabilities and gets some training from another pilot on one of the junker or surplus mechs. Or the opposite direction, one of her superiors says "goddam look what Rilla is doing with that janky ass Mech" and while she doesn't get the Mech she's dreaming of and she doesn't get to design her own Mech she gets picked up to teach other pilots how to get everything out of their suit.
Just Straight Subversion
You might also just pick one or two of these Mary Sue type overpowered or over ambitious aspects and subvert them hard to both bring Rilla Müller more down to Earth and make her more interesting. Or just twist them a little.
Going with the Medic thing.
She's lightly armed. Running out there bringing injured troops back behind the front lines to be fixed up good as new. She's got a Mech utility bag so she can apply First Aid on sight and she can propel herself with steam power to increase her speed and agility and rush the more critical cases home and save their lives.
She's incredible, dashing all over the battlefield in her suit. Stopping bleeding with judicious application of Quik-Clot or sewing up torn flesh even as bullets pepper either side of the temporary cover. Splinting bones. Offering kind words and encouragement. Or maybe reminding the troops their duty only ends in death, now get your ass out there and fight.
She's crippled. She lost the use of her legs in her first engagement years ago. Outside the suit she's either in a wheelchair or in constant pain. Sometimes both. She's fearless in getting to wounded soldiers because she knows firsthand that every second counts.
I like the general disregard for the safety and comfort of himself and others that your Avatar displays with those open wounds on his face. Very disrespectful, very disturbing, very cool.
I have very low expectations for Starfield. Fallout 4 but the jetpack no longer requires you to wear Power Armor and everything's been shined up a little. And probably still shit tier writing.
How about a Shang Chi type if Shang Chi was a Jackie Chan movie?
Police Story / Rumble in the Bronx type vibe.
Great fighter, very agile, can take a beating, gets harder/better/faster/stronger as he fights. Maybe as a sort of gimmick he carries a pistol/rifle but never actually uses it because reasons.
I bigly and enthusiastically agree with you Havoccultist.
Below is my ranting. Helpfully hidden so the folks who never pay any attention can more easily ignore this. Helpfully divided into five subsections and then a little bit about how maybe the circle could be broken. I'm just so helpful.
Problem 1 : Mismanagement (not involving Mahz)
Problem 2 : Divided Userbase (by method of interaction)
Problem 3 : Mahz (as a digital manifestation of mismanagement)
Problem 4 : Who to Hand the Reins To
Problem 5 : An Increasingly Niche Hobby
Here We Goooooo
Problem The First : Mismanagement (not involving Mahz)
One of the bigger, if not THE biggest, problems with this site/Discord/community at large is that the Discord has, over years of mismanagement, become much more active than the forum yet often not due to the purpose of the Discord/Forum. There are many reasons for this. Primarily the one Havoccultist pointed out.
The political channels have for many years been the main source of much of this issue. Whether they're called Current Events, Current Affairs, Debate, Discussion, Politics, or whichever iteration they've served as little more than an echo chamber...yet having stood as long as they have when they are eliminated the issues once contained there end up distributing themselves throughout the rest of the Discord. Without a proper balance or staffing this inevitably leads to mass conflict which inevitably leads to a seventh or eighth or thirteenth iteration of such a channel in order to quarantine such discussion. The circle remains unbroken to this day.
Problem The Second : Divided Userbase (by method of interaction)
Another cause of this problem is just inherent in the form. The community is divided into three essential forms, in my thinking.
Forum Sidebar Discord
Each serves a different purpose and has different writing requirements and expectations.
If all were calibrated primarily toward RPing there would likely be a more vibrant RPing experience. They are, in descending order, instead, increasingly calibrated to socializing. So you get forums with relatively few posts but mostly RP related and not a lot of socializing. A small portion of the community actually posts RPs with any regularity. On the other end, in the Discord, you have a massive user base with many many posts very few of which are actually RPing or even calibrated even vaguely toward RPing. Many of the most prolific users of the Discord have not actually RPed in a year or more. Some haven't even posted on the forum at all for over a year.
Somewhere in the middle are the folks who primarily just mess about in the status bar. There's probably more actual folks in this group that occasionally write than there are in the Discord, despite there being dramatically more Discord users than Side Bar users.
Few use all three methods. Many who use one or two of these methods are unaware of many of the users who use the other ones. It doesn't help that the community has further divided itself through separating out into increasingly small cliques.
Problem The Third : Mahz
For years now, as long as I've been here and long before that as well, Mahz has been flaky. I use that term euphemistically. Not here far more often than he is. Not engaged even when he is here. Fobbing off most of what most would view as the duties of the owner of a forum onto one admin or another. Taking a completely hands off approach. Steadfastly refusing to deal with the issues plaguing the community even when he does on occasion acknowledge them.
Yet not ever willing to leave it in someone else's hands.
Problem The Fourth : Who To Hand The Reins To
Having been here for some time, though admittedly not near so long as some others, and having been active in the forum, status bar, and at one time the Discord, there is no apparent best choice to replace Mahz were he to decide to hand over the reins, not that he ever will.
I do not believe if he were to just decide tonight to hand it over to one of the current staff, or as Hedgehawk just said one of the former staff, that it would fix anything at all. It would, in my opinion, lead to little more than a temporary shakeup followed by a return to the status quo. Much like the rule change the forum had a year ago or so. Rather than a group of folks with varied approaches who have learned from the mistakes of the last few years we seem to me to just have a collection of mini-Mahzes. Which is a fun thing to say or write but not so terribly useful for managing a community.
Were that to happen, were he to hand over the reins, and it won't and he won't, it would still likewise result in little to no lasting or fundamental change. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Problem The Fifth : An Increasingly Niche Hobby
Much as I, like anyone, would like to think that the state of this place is due entirely to INSERT CURRENT LEADERSHIP AND OR PETTY PERSONAL GRIPES and that if only I had control every fault would immediately evaporate and things would flourish under my iron rule...it is a hobby which has always been relatively niche and which is losing ground to other more immediately gratifying hobbies.
It's a problem bigger than Mahz/Hank/Ruby/Legend/Poo
Not bigger than me, but then I'm special.
RPing is a creative endeavor which requires some creativity, some writing prowess, some effort, and some participation from others with similar or greater creativity, writing prowess, willingness to put in effort, and perhaps most difficult to achieve interest in whatever goofy ass idea you or I have decided we want to write about.
It is a fucking miracle anything ever gets written at all.
So how do we solve all/any of this?
1 - Establish a Diverse and Balanced Mod Staff for the Discord / Close the Discord / Abolish Politics and Enforce Rules Evenly (likely via a Diverse and Balanced Mod Staff)
In all fairness this one may be much less of an issue now than it used to be. I've heard good things in recent months and if that shitshow has now been tamed then big hand of applause for whoever tamed the savage beast.
2 - Attempt to direct Discord/Status Bar activity more towards actual RPing and less toward Current Events activities better suited to Twitter. Push contests and similar events more, participation in general.
3 - Nothing. Mahz needs to decide to fish or cut bait but cannot be forced to make that decision
4 - Expand that Diverse/Balanced Mod team to the forum and focus on the community. Introduce democracy so the user base has more say. Help foster an environment where someone might become the next leader after Mahz. Ideally a position where there are several folks who might aptly take the reins.
5 - Just write more. Help Calle make room for more writing contests by setting them up ourselves. Maybe a fan fiction section. The best way to ensure there is more RPing here is to RP more. Discussing Movies and Games and Music is great. Writing shit is better. RP as a band. RP out the movie you want to see or the alternate ending you'd rather have seen. Be the difference you want to see in the world. Other motivational speech sounding type shit. You can do eeeeet.
Otakuforreal,
Prince Potter,
Tlaloc,
Festive,
Joshua Tamashii,
sharkbites,
Ojiro Mashirao,
iFain,
RolePlayerGuilt,
fledermaus