Causes of "badass" becoming "boring"
Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2021 6:17 pm
So a basic kind of issue that some people mess up on, usually in people first coming onto the chat, figured it is good to give some kind of advice.
So, the first serious issue is, making characters defined by a trait. Being defined as 'badass' is not really any different to being 'obnoxious' or 'a stamp collector'. There are thousands of badass characters in media, so it is not special. So off the bat it is aiming for a very bland character.
Generally if you think you need to make a "badass" character, you'd do far better to make a character that other people come to the conclusion is badass than try to force it.
The definition of badass is very vague and okay let's look Dragonball. Is Yamcha badass because he died stepping into a suspected trap for Krillin because Krillin couldn't be brought back? Is Hercule badass for standing up the the villains despite the certainty of death? Or are neither of them badass because they can't destroy planets and stuff (Yamcha couldn't at the time he took the bullet for Krillin at least)? Different people answer differently.
There are some unfortunate kinds of "badass" too, mainly ones that are "badass" because, and entirely because, they have powers or special training or something like that; in many superhero comics, said heroes may lose powers, often for a considerable time, and find means of resolving conflicts despite not having them, in short, characters being special only because of some ability they have or etc tends to mean poor characterisation.
The best characters on here that can be called "badass" i find tend to be the ones that if they lost any powers, don't change as characters at all.
Further there's some issues, often associated by people basing on characters, and being too strict to source material, sometimes having a very long list of abilities that outside the context of a movie or game or tv series they come from are functionally redundant and make character profiles too focused on such things, like, you generally don't need sound kamehameha and earth kamehameha and fire kamehameha and another earth kamehameha and freeze kamahameha and an additional earth kamehameha and air kamehameha.
Even moreso in some characters based off of series or games potentially given many possibilities for abilities, giving them abilities that say something about the character's personnality tends to be better than pretty much everything they may need ever.
Characters that seem to need their powers for doing pretty much anything and can't seem to do anything outside of using them also seem... kind of bland.
Further, a lot of prey characters are depicted as.... very formidable adversiaries sometimes, maybe because it is sexier to see someone vey tough be dominated, or people may just not like a very innocent character be abused. Point is, there are already many characters that are "badass" but it does them no good in the context of rp.
In basic I'd say trying to make a character primarily for a purpose of said character appearing badass is a pretty bad idea.
So, the first serious issue is, making characters defined by a trait. Being defined as 'badass' is not really any different to being 'obnoxious' or 'a stamp collector'. There are thousands of badass characters in media, so it is not special. So off the bat it is aiming for a very bland character.
Generally if you think you need to make a "badass" character, you'd do far better to make a character that other people come to the conclusion is badass than try to force it.
The definition of badass is very vague and okay let's look Dragonball. Is Yamcha badass because he died stepping into a suspected trap for Krillin because Krillin couldn't be brought back? Is Hercule badass for standing up the the villains despite the certainty of death? Or are neither of them badass because they can't destroy planets and stuff (Yamcha couldn't at the time he took the bullet for Krillin at least)? Different people answer differently.
There are some unfortunate kinds of "badass" too, mainly ones that are "badass" because, and entirely because, they have powers or special training or something like that; in many superhero comics, said heroes may lose powers, often for a considerable time, and find means of resolving conflicts despite not having them, in short, characters being special only because of some ability they have or etc tends to mean poor characterisation.
The best characters on here that can be called "badass" i find tend to be the ones that if they lost any powers, don't change as characters at all.
Further there's some issues, often associated by people basing on characters, and being too strict to source material, sometimes having a very long list of abilities that outside the context of a movie or game or tv series they come from are functionally redundant and make character profiles too focused on such things, like, you generally don't need sound kamehameha and earth kamehameha and fire kamehameha and another earth kamehameha and freeze kamahameha and an additional earth kamehameha and air kamehameha.
Even moreso in some characters based off of series or games potentially given many possibilities for abilities, giving them abilities that say something about the character's personnality tends to be better than pretty much everything they may need ever.
Characters that seem to need their powers for doing pretty much anything and can't seem to do anything outside of using them also seem... kind of bland.
Further, a lot of prey characters are depicted as.... very formidable adversiaries sometimes, maybe because it is sexier to see someone vey tough be dominated, or people may just not like a very innocent character be abused. Point is, there are already many characters that are "badass" but it does them no good in the context of rp.
In basic I'd say trying to make a character primarily for a purpose of said character appearing badass is a pretty bad idea.