The Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test

[goto124]

This was posted in the Worst Players thread. Thought I could bring it here.

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

What scores did you get? What characters did you use each time you took the test? What thoughts went through your mind as you answered the questions?

[Arbane]

#72: Good grief. Being a Chosen One is 40 points all by itself. So with just that, my current Pathfinder Oracle (pretty much a Chosen One by definition) hits 38 points.... Given that she's a beautiful warrior-woman with a magic sword she won in her backstory by wrestling a dead king, I'm surprised she scores that low, really.

The test doesn't seem to be all that well designed for tabletop RPG characters not run by the GM - no matter how Badass(tm) and Special(r) we want our characters to be, we're at the mercy of character generation, the dice, and the GM's veto....

Yeesh, I tried to score one of the other characters in my party, and got -20. I have no idea how that happened. (Especially as she's a medusa (with magic earrings to disguise her and turn off her petrification powers) witch who we just found out is petty nobility.)

[Seto]

Hmm, I got 28 for an old character I played in a free-form Naruto RPG. Frankly, I liked this character, and wanted her to be awesome (combat-speaking), enough for her to be a Mary Sue, but she's saved by the facts that
1- she was an all-around very unpleasant and immoral person without being at all justified.
2- she often got beaten up by more powerful characters because she's just so verbally assaulting, annoying and reckless.

I agree with the fact that this test is really only well-designed for a story you write and control yourself.

[Oneris]

My character's a wizard. I'd be lucky to get less than 30 from class alone.

Edit: I literally took the test only checking what a level 8-15 wizard would fulfill and got at least 70.

[Yora]

Oh dear, this is the opposite of a litmus test. This is taking forever and still only a quarter down the page.
It could hardly be much more removed from "dip it in, does it turn red or blue?"

[goto124]

Before I go on, the website did say the traits themselves aren't necessarily negative. Maybe I'm proving the point with my comments- that some of these traits can be used for good, not-mary-sueish purposes.

I scored a 13.

The traits I ticked:

3, 4, 17 bcd. I imagine my characters to be attractive-looking, though I don't dwell on this when RPing. Both Axanot and Kelcey wear impractical clothes (bikini and bathrobe respectively) due to Rule of Cool and Rule of Sexy.

24. Kelcey talked about feminism in a chat with another PC, and that's it. One of my beliefs is 'don't shove your beliefs down other people's throats'

40a. I use this for Conservation of Detail. Where does Kelcey get the money from? Just buy whatever you wanted to buy already. I don't have her use it to buy plot-breaking magic items, or such.

42. To a certain extent, it's why I play adventurers.

Random comments:

I wonder how applicable 6a is, especially in TTRPGs where 'what exactly did your PCs eat' is often glossed over.

I didn't understand 47.

How often does 59 happen in TTRPGs due to the need to move on and not bother the player? I imagine it'll be less common than novels, but not completely invalidated.

The opposite of 79 is usually done for Tabletops- avoiding sexual topic because they can creep out the other players. Heh.

[Lord Torath]

#72: Good grief. Being a Chosen One is 40 points all by itself. So with just that, my current Pathfinder Oracle (pretty much a Chosen One by definition) hits 38 points.... Given that she's a beautiful warrior-woman with a magic sword she won in her backstory by wrestling a dead king, I'm surprised she scores that low, really.

The test doesn't seem to be all that well designed for tabletop RPG characters not run by the GM - no matter how Badass(tm) and Special(r) we want our characters to be, we're at the mercy of character generation, the dice, and the GM's veto....

Yeesh, I tried to score one of the other characters in my party, and got -20. I have no idea how that happened. (Especially as she's a medusa (with magic earrings to disguise her and turn off her petrification powers) witch who we just found out is petty nobility.)

Huh. I just clicked all 3 boxes for 72 Chosen one and got a score of 5 points...

[Eldan]

Just for fun, I did myself, giving the either most permissive answers possibly when in doubt. I also refer to all other existing people as "canon characters".

I can with confidence say that I'm not basing my own looks on myself. I do however have my own name.


I got 78, even after clicking pretty much every Desuifier. Guys, I think I'm a terrible Sue.

[VincentTakeda]

Just scored my most recent 2 creations and got a 57 and 88 respectively... They're in a superhero system, so they're supposed to be a bit over the top... but man. Getting into the 50's seems almost accidental when you're trying to create a pc you actually like for any reason at all.

This seems almost like a guide to making characters that are not special in any way.

'How to create the average npc townie...' or at best 'how to make your pc seem as close to a mundane average npc townie as possible'

The only escape seems to be making a physically and mentally disabled fat ugly old lookin vampire eunich who is also mostly dumb and wrong and troubled... Which I agree fits the description of 'least likable endgame of character design'... Pearl from the Blade movies.... That'll buy you 52 points worth of 'not sucking' to work with...

Apparently I'm the opposite. I seem to like creating pcs that have a lot of good qualities for some reason. Seeing as i'm creating characters for superhero comic book style games... I wonder how characters like iron man and wolverine score...

[goto124]

I also wondered what 'canon characters' meant in the context of fanfiction.

If I based my character off a canon character, such that my PC is inspired by, but not quite, the original canon character, is she 'my character' or the 'canon character'?

While we're at it, many of the traits involve the actions of the other characters. In context of a Tabletop, that would involve MASSIVE railroading and infringing on other players' agencies and land the offender in the Worse DM/Player thread. Usually it's the DM, who has a lot more control over the players. It's also why DMPCs are hated.

Another way is to be a Minion-o-mancer, and have your servants worship you (literally or metaphorically). Could be slightly better, but no good either.

[IZ42]

Most of my characters end up 10-15 range. I'm apparently good at not making Mary Sues.

[mikeejimbo]

I think Mary Sueness would be more relative than this test implies. If everyone in the canon/at the table could score 30+ I'd say that it's more likely none of them are Sues rather than all. That said, I also disagree that good characters "should" exhibit some of these traits. Characters in a realistic genre often wouldn't, and realistic fiction is still written.

I scored an 8 for one of my TTRPG characters, and I don't think he's boring, though admittedly his back story isn't incredibly well developed.

[Oneris]

While we're at it, many of the traits involve the actions of the other characters. In context of a Tabletop, that would involve MASSIVE railroading and infringing on other players' agencies and land the offender in the Worse DM/Player thread. Usually it's the DM, who has a lot more control over the players. It's also why DMPCs are hated.

The creator's addressed that:

If your character is a role-playing character and the only reason you can answer 'yes' is because of other players acting of their own free wills (IE, everyone has their characters throwing themselves at your character's feet and you've done nothing to force this) do not answer yes to the corresponding question.

Most of these tropes really only apply to situations where you have full control over NPC actions, like your character's backstory. In fact, a question that should be added to the RPG section is "Has your character been magnitudes more competent or intelligent in xir backstory than xe has so far proven to be in-game?"

[WarKitty]

The creator's addressed that:


Most of these tropes really only apply to situations where you have full control over NPC actions, like your character's backstory. In fact, a question that should be added to the RPG section is "Has your character been magnitudes more competent or intelligent in xir backstory than xe has so far proven to be in-game?"

Although this should have a caveat on it...my one player wrote a relatively competent thief D&D character. And then proceeded to never roll anything higher than a 5 on related rolls.

[Ravian]

Haven't tested any RPG characters so far (I'm more of a GM most of the time anyway (and tend to avoid GMPC's so that's out of the question). I did however test an original fiction character I have ideas for (who is a full on deity) and ended up with only a 13. I'm glad that I appear to be avoiding most of the pitfalls, but I do think it's a little strange that so many RPG characters fail in this regard where a deity can succeed. (To be fair, the aim of the story is for him to struggle with his role and make not-so great decisions, so he probably would have been rather sue-ish if it wasn't for all the de-suifing points he picked up.)

[Oneris]

The test isn't perfect, and there's a rather well known page of commentary on its pitfalls, accessible here.

Really, the defining trait of a Mary Sue is the incompetence of the writer in making their character appear to fit in within the world. I do recall a certain fanfiction author taking a generic mary sue character and trying to make her 'work' within the universe yet still retaining all her defining traits, (color changing eyes and hair, extreme beauty, tragic backstory linked to main protagonist), but it got lost on geocities and I don't remember the link.

[Hunter Noventa]

I tested my Tiefling Magus from my current PF campaign, and got an 18. Of course, the entire party is made up of badass chosen ones at this point.

A note in regards to RPG characters needs to be added to the effect of anything regarding abilities or power level should be considered relative to your party, rather than the world, I'd think.

[Mastikator]

Tried this for two characters that I've played in past games. The first one was a dragon that had shapeshifted into a human and disguised as a cleric of high social status with plans of conquest. The DM allowed this on the conditions that I retained none of my dragonic powers and the moment I shapeshifted back the character would become an NPC. I got a few "if your character is a vampire" negative points, figured that a dragon that can't overcome its greed, vanity and selfishness should count. I did a lot of planning on how the psychology of the dragon should work and how it should try to emulate humans. It didn't have any magical cleric powers that clerics normally have, since it was only pretending. The only thing it did benefit from was centuries of knowledge and wealth.
Got: 31
The other players were very annoyed when they found out that the character was in fact a dragon in an otherwise low fantasy game. Heh.

The second character was a blacksmiths apprentice who naively "went on an adventure" with the other PCs, despite having no adventuring skills. He was genuinely bad at everything, except for repairing armory. (he wasn't even good at that) In addition to having no skills or experience he was half blind.
Got: -11
The other players did like this character quite a lot, in spite (or perhaps because) he was so useless.

[Segev]

While this test can be amusing to run for kicks and grins, it really is terrible for judging RPG characters. It might come close to being decent for freeform, multiversal ones where anybody can make anything at all.

One of its bigest problems is that it conflates "self insert" and "mary sue" in ways that they shouldn't be. There is definitely correlation, but neither causes the other, and being one does not add to being another. The reason they correlate is that self inserts often also are meant to be the author's power fantasy joining the setting to show just how awesome and special they are.

But a self-insert doesn't need to be a mary sue, and a mary sue doesn't need to be a self-insert. Mary sues can be utterly different from the author.

RPG characters are going to come off oddly in this test because they tend to be strongly controlled by premises which are, to this test, flags for being Mary Sue. Add in "normal for..." as a disqualifier for anything "counting" as a sue trait, and it becomes highly subjective whether this is "normal" for a character or being a PC makes it normal or what.

In all, it's a decent test for your original character you're inserting as a major new participant in the plot of your fanfic. Even then, it's imperfect due to the conflation of "self insert" with "mary sue." But that's where it will have the most meaning.

It's pretty bad at judging RPG characters.

[kardar233]

I find this one to be marginally better, personally.

[TheThan]

I just ran Anakin Skywalker through it for kicks and it came back with 155.

[Segev]

I find this one to be marginally better, personally.

This one is still conflating "self insert" and "mary sue," which isn't highly surprising given that it's very clearly directed at original characters in fiction works by a single author. This is most evident in the "Mommy Likes Me Best" section, which, if viewed through a lens of RPGs, makes no sense as a "mary sue" gauge. It's there to detect the author/creator-of-the-character warping all characters in the story to like their character. When the character is a PC, his creator doesn't control the reactions of other characters. So "people yell at him for a bad attitude, then apologize later and say he was right" type things are not the creator's doing, but the doing of the GM or other players deciding the NPCs or their own PCs feel that way.


Also, the "I sometimes imagine myself to be [character]" question is always a dangerous one. I imagine myself to be just about any character I create or am writing, even if I don't personally like them, at various times. My imaginary landscape tends to have me filling all the roles and talking to myself. ^^;

I think that question alone made the character of mine I ran through this come out as a "10, he has my nose" on the scale, and made the summary blurb say "[Character] is suspiciously similar to who you want to be." It's one of only two I selected on that page. (Moreover, that's the page which is most guilty of conflating "self insert" with "mary sue.")

As ever, the weights are up to the writer of the test. It remains more geared for writing original characters for fiction than for RPG characters.

[Segev]

I just ran Anakin Skywalker through it for kicks and it came back with 155.

Hard to be sure you ran him through fairly; you don't know for sure what Lucas thought people's reactions to him would be. (Admittedly, if you go in assuming he's a sue, you're able to make some solid guesses.)

[Yora]

I did Mara Jade based on her first appearance, and she got a 25.
Still want to see what Thrawn would get.

[mikeejimbo]

Also, the "I sometimes imagine myself to be [character]" question is always a dangerous one. I imagine myself to be just about any character I create or am writing, even if I don't personally like them, at various times. My imaginary landscape tends to have me filling all the roles and talking to myself. ^^;

I think that question alone made the character of mine I ran through this come out as a "10, he has my nose" on the scale, and made the summary blurb say "[Character] is suspiciously similar to who you want to be." It's one of only two I selected on that page. (Moreover, that's the page which is most guilty of conflating "self insert" with "mary sue.")

I had similar results, and the only reason I selected that I sometimes imagine I'm the character is because I was using an RPG character. That's kind of the point!

[Oneris]

I just ran Anakin Skywalker through it for kicks and it came back with 155.

A large part of Mary Sues is deliberately mimicking iconic traits of pre-existing characters in an unimaginative attempt to be special. Filtering for these traits independently of cause has the side effect of marking many of the original characters as a Sue, even if they're the original.

That's not to say Anakin's not a horribly written character though. The concept was nice, but the execution was angsty.

[Excession]

I did Mara Jade based on her first appearance, and she got a 25.
Still want to see what Thrawn would get.

Do we really need a test to tell us that Thrawn is a massive villain-sue?

[Segev]

I had similar results, and the only reason I selected that I sometimes imagine I'm the character is because I was using an RPG character. That's kind of the point!

Looking back at it, I also clicked that he shares my sexual orientation (straight), my sex (male), and I rather expect people might like him.

I notably did not click that I'd feel attacked personally if people didn't. I just tend to think he's a likable sort of fellow.

I'm honestly unsure that you can write a protagonist that you don't expect to be loathesome to your audience and whose headspace you want to stay well outside of without tripping that section's alarm bells. Which suggests to me it's over-sensitive.

[Yora]

Do we really need a test to tell us that Thrawn is a massive villain-sue?

I just ran it through and got a 38. Most of the things I checked are simply from the fact that any prime antagonist has a major impact on the plot. We did a shared reading of the books the last two months and looking at the facts, he isn't really that Sue-ish at all.
He makes way too many mistakes and failures for that. He's just very good at telling his superiors he is always in completely control and making his enemies run around in panic, mistaking happy accidents as part of genius plans. He's great at making himself look much more capable and succesful than he really is. Quite clever writing.

[TheThan]

Hard to be sure you ran him through fairly; you don't know for sure what Lucas thought people's reactions to him would be. (Admittedly, if you go in assuming he's a sue, you're able to make some solid guesses.)

A large part of Mary Sues is deliberately mimicking iconic traits of pre-existing characters in an unimaginative attempt to be special. Filtering for these traits independently of cause has the side effect of marking many of the original characters as a Sue, even if they're the original.

That's not to say Anakin's not a horribly written character though. The concept was nice, but the execution was angsty.

I actually tried to be fair.
I picked the subjective ones I know to be true.
For example it’s well known that Lucas is a car guy, he used to work on classic cars (might still do for all I know) as a kid and (I think) race them. When we meet Anakin, he’s already a great pilot and builds his own race car.
So yeah,
I left all the other really subjective ones blank, because I don’t know lucas’s feelings on the character personally.

But even if we take out assumptions on Lucas’s feelings towards the character we get the following:

Anakin skywalker:

• has a small scar that makes him look distinctive, but doesn’t detract from his looks (before cyborg body that is)
• has been in a lot of physical fights with little noticeable injuries
• Born a slave
• Adopted by another group (jedi)
• he joins a group that he is too old to join (the jedi)
• A child prodigy
• A chosen one
• A major villain has personal obsession with him
• Dresses differently than the rest of his sort (wearing leather instead of wool or whatever they’re supposed to be wearing)
• Has a short temper
• Is always bending and breaking rules
• Is fueled by a desire for revenge (for the death of mommy in EPII. the jedi killed in EPII, for the loss of his hand in EPIII, and so forth)
• Has a rebellious streak
• He is the best at what he does,
• He has powers and abilities that are uncommon (and is strong in those powers)
• His powers allow him to “just know” things, control other people etc
• He’s powerful enough to take out legions of enemies
• He knows at least 2 languages
• Most of his screwups are forgiven by the jedi order
• He uses a bladed weapon in post-modern time
• He is renowned for his power
• He forms a bond with a major villain (but fails to redeem him)
• Characters that criticize him have a grudging respect for him.
• He falls in love with someone at first sight,
• His relationship is treated as amazingly deep and profound
• Former relationships pail in comparison
• His romance is deeper and more intense than any other shown in the series (He and Padme have children, which is more than Han and leia ever do in the canon).
• By the end of Episode III, he has lost his best friend (Obi-wan), his spouse (Padme), and both his children (Luke/Leia). (While only one actually died at the end, he believes they are dead)
• He makes nearly everyone else look weak by comparison
• He is spared an otherwise ruthless villain
• becomes a cyborg
  

The list goes on.
Anyway I just retook the test with a more conservative estimation of Anakin Skywalker’s mary sueness, I stopped at part three but I did click some for part five. I still came back with 108. Without the subtractions Anakin scored a 117. So the subtractions made less than a 10 point difference.