To a RPer I know in a semi-PSL game: please stop attempting clever and witty characters. You never write this well. If you want to play someone intelligent, please make them academically gifted but perhaps a little more average in other ways. I feel secondhand embarrassment for you every time I watch a non-genius character who just has a lot of common sense and a bit of wit run verbal circles around your "genius".
This would be a lot of fun if you were deliberately writing them as thinking they are a lot smarter than they really are, but...nope. You seem to actually think your characters are responding intelligently when they're coming across as dumb and unsubtle twits with poor reading comprehension.
The player is not on plurk and to be quite honest, I really don't know how to bring this up without coming across as mean. It's a semi-PSL with only ten people.
I have politely pointed out flaws in the player's plot ideas when we were discussing them and something was glaringly obvious to me, but those were more specific things rather than "Yeah, that witty and clever type of character you like to write? You're not good at it. At all." I'm only going to make an issue of it if the player OOCly complains about their characters not being given credit as being the geniuses they are.
Right now, I only tag their "genius" characters when they tag me first. Fortunately, in the current thread where I'm dealing with this, I am playing a character who is very blunt.
having mental handicaps is the best way to play geniuses tbh. my main muse is very gifted, both academically and otherwise, but the series also shows us that he can have very flawed trains of thought, come to wrong conclusions, show strong personal bias, and make some really boneheaded mistakes. he wouldn't be nearly as flawed if he was a perfect smartypants who was good at everything.
See, that shows character balance and comes across as less obnoxious. This game is an all OCs game and this mun is just terrible at writing witty and strategic geniuses. Like, these supposed brilliant schemes are shit I would have seen through when I was fifteen and I am not some strategic prodigy. As an example, her evil character who was supposedly good at convincing people that he's a great guy would always ask "What's in it for me?" whenever any character asked him for a favour. No matter how minor. And he would refuse to do the favour without some sort of compensation. But apparently nobody was ever supposed to know that he was a selfish ass.
The mun was at least not a drama queen when characters figured out the character wasn't that nice...but the mun really needs to stick to things he/she can capably portray.
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(Anonymous) 2013-04-09 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)This would be a lot of fun if you were deliberately writing them as thinking they are a lot smarter than they really are, but...nope. You seem to actually think your characters are responding intelligently when they're coming across as dumb and unsubtle twits with poor reading comprehension.
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(Anonymous) 2013-04-09 11:33 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-04-10 12:21 am (UTC)(link)I have politely pointed out flaws in the player's plot ideas when we were discussing them and something was glaringly obvious to me, but those were more specific things rather than "Yeah, that witty and clever type of character you like to write? You're not good at it. At all." I'm only going to make an issue of it if the player OOCly complains about their characters not being given credit as being the geniuses they are.
Right now, I only tag their "genius" characters when they tag me first. Fortunately, in the current thread where I'm dealing with this, I am playing a character who is very blunt.
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(Anonymous) 2013-04-10 05:44 am (UTC)(link)well no shit
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(Anonymous) 2013-04-10 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)The mun was at least not a drama queen when characters figured out the character wasn't that nice...but the mun really needs to stick to things he/she can capably portray.