Mary Sue- Not sure I understand

[Uzzy]

But why on earth does a man need this level of detail for a deity of lust? And as you can read on the first one they roleplay orgies. And it is not something out of the ordinary for Ed's games.

I will not judge what another man does in private. Nor do I really care, as long as everyone consents. As far as I'm aware, that's the case. I'm also aware that he spends plenty of time doing intricate political roleplaying sessions, along with adventures and the like.

Now, what's wrong with details on the marriage ritual? He has details on all sorts of things, from Lliiran (Dancing) Assassins, the Dwarven language, rural Realmsian houses and the window tax in Suzail. The man has details on everything about the setting. Which includes, unsurprisingly, entirely normal human actions, such as sex. If that was the only thing he had in the Realms, then your point might have some merit. But it isn't. It's a tiny, tiny part of the published Realms and his own, unpublished Realmslore.

 

[Aeolius]

I'm not sure if she qualifies, but I have maintained the same altruistic NPC protagonist in four of my online games since 1995. She's died a time or three, but I always seem to find the means to bring her back. She enjoys interacting with the party in dreams and portents, currently awaiting the party's help in resurrecting her spirit from the Region of Dreams.

I always jokingly tell people that "I DM, so that my hags have someone to play with". Truth be told, it's not so much a joke. I see myself in her; she's a hag, a witch, a dreamer, a heretic, and a bit of an eccentric. She enjoys propagating a large family, even if her progeny do not always behave.

I had my first hag dream more than a year ago. There was a covey of hags in a dilapidated mansion lit with green, blue, and violet. It was glorious.

I tend to begin each campaign by developing the BBEG. Somehow, they always seem to be relayed to Xaetra. She's enjoying the ride as much as I, so onward we go.

 

[vic20]

Also, try using Google Image for Ed Greenwood (NOTE: I keep Safesearch ON, so don't come crying if you foolishly don't use it). Dude. It's Elminister. Sorry.

Huh. Absolutely nothing at all comes up here, so I think you're imagination may be on overdrive...

 

[Oni]

I guess you never read the FATAL/Forgotten Realms actual play reports before they were yanked from the site in question. I'm still trying to undo that damage almost eight years later.

I can't figure out if you're joking or not.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Huh. Absolutely nothing at all comes up here, so I think you're imagination may be on overdrive...

Here he is performing a Sharess marriage ceremony.

 

[Uzzy]

Oh no! The fiend, holding a stuffed dog. Or actually, a stuffed cow. Called Bossy. Seems familiar, actually.

 

[jdrakeh]

I fell off my chair after reading this. I really would have liked to have read that.

The AP reports were horrible — so much so that I emailed WotC legal about them, as I couldn't imagine at the time that they weren't somehow damaging the FR trademark by mere association. I'd describe them in detail here, but it would probably kill Eric's grandmother.

It has since become clear that the FATAL play reports weren't too far removed from Greenwood's own vision of the Realms, based on his public comments about being reined in by TSR/WotC where matters of sex and violence were concerned.

The comment concerning liches is what brought this back to mind for me. Let's just say that Byron Hall and Ed Greenwood apparently think a lot alike when it comes to those two subjects.

 

[jdrakeh]

I can't figure out if you're joking or not.

Absolutely not joking. I tried looking for the pages in the Wayback machine, but I'm pretty sure it was on the old site (prior to the FatalGames domain going live or, at least, before the archive was caching it).

 

[Set]

Around season 5 of Buffy, there was another perfect Mary Sue, only, unlike Jonathan in season 4, she wasn't played up as a joke. A former boyfriend, Riley Finn, shows up in town, and his new wife, Sam Finn, is a textbook case.

Her backstory is that she was some sort of volunteer nurse in a third-world country, only a few months ago, when her team of charitable do-gooders were wiped out by demons. Despite this Mother Theresa-esque backstory, she's introduced to the narrative swinging down on a bat-line to kick the butt of a demon that is handily throwing Buffy (who has actual super-powers, and has spent five years fighting these things) around. She's better looking, taller, smarter, a former social worker / doctor, married to Buffy's ex-boyfriend (who is implied to have been psychologically damaged by his relationship with the self-absorbed Buffy, and only Sam 'saved him'), etc.

She gives magical advice to Willow, who has spent years becoming the most powerful witch on the planet, and has an advisor who has access to the best magical resources on the planet and has been dabbling in magic since the days of Woodstock. But Sam Finn, former social worker, knows better than all of them!

She gives relationship advice to Xander and Anya, whom she's just met and knows nothing about. But Sam Finn has the magical words of wisdom pulled straight from her perky derriere to make things right!

She offers psych and fighting advice to Buffy, the 'one girl in all the world, Chosen to fight the monsters.' But Sam Finn, some random bimbo who just discovered the world of the supernatural, and has no super-powers at all, is conveniently better at this, too, just as she's just automagically better at everything else.

She's the perfect Mary-Sue, being better at any single skill than over-specialized masters of those skills, *and* being presented as morally virtuous, and placed in a position to *lecture the hero* when Buffy is set up to fail at a task.

From the moment she bat-lined into the scene, to her final words of wisdom on the way out, her entire presence one-upped everyone else in the show and made them look inferior or damaged or weak in some way.

(And that's the worst kind of Mary-Sue, one that isn't just better at everything than everyone else, but someone whose presence inexplicably makes everyone else dumber, weaker and less competent than they were before she arrived.)

 

[Brennin Magalus]

Elminster from Forgotten Realms is a Mary Sue. Partly because he's very knowledgeable, wise and powerful. Partly because he has sex with lots of hot magic elven babes. And mostly because he's a stand-in for the author, Ed Greenwood.

And he's lame.