Hello Mary Sue, Goodbye Flawed RPG Characters

Thanks to Skotos.net for its article discussing the problems of perfect 'Mary Sue' characters in online MUD/MUSH environments. The author starts by explaining: "Mary Sue is what, in writing, is called an author avatar, wherein the writer creates an idealized version of him/herself and sticks the resulting character into the story." But as this is part of playing games, what's the big deal? It's argued: "The herd of people trampling over each other to be the most at something, be it beauty, wealth, or grotesqueness, is going to affect everyone else's characters. For starters, if the standard for beauty has been raised so high that pretty people are average, the average characters are now ugly. If the standard for wealth goes from a million dollars to a trillion, the millionaires are the new middle class. It messes with the game's dynamic, and that's bound to make people who are trying to create reasonable and balanced characters cranky."

Mary Who

[Killjoy_NL]

Cool, then by that definition, I'm perfect :D
And all you guys are below me :P

(This is a joke people, laugh)

So what they're saying is...

[Anonymous Coward]

people who spend an innordinant amount of time crafting a gritty dramatic version of themselves are displeased when their unreal life begins to go the way of their real life?

And they've been determined to be cranky? My God, what a revelation! New Bibles will need to be printed!!

Wanna know what I think?

[Brutus (moo)]

No you don't, but I'll say it anyway :) First of all, since I am not too familiar with non-graphical (and thus, non-commercial) multi-player dungeons (such as EQ, UO, and Asheron's call on the commercial side) I cannot safely say something along the lines of "but how can they even create perfect characters when there are limitations?", but what I can say is this; if there are no limitations, there should be! This may not be completely relevant but I've played Diablo II back when it was...normal, and I've seen some characters (specifically barbarians, amazons and paladins) that each was unbeatable by anything that you attack it with other than the above three, kind of like rock paper scissors, barbarians would beat amazons who would beat paladins who would beat barbarians, and so the cycle went on. When little old level 87 amazon me tried to intefere, I got as they say...my ass wooped, so I understand what this article is talking about, and sometihng has to be done. On the extreme side a solution might be to just completely erase everything in such games every few months, but that would simply annoy everyone, including mary sues. On the less extreme side, people could be appointed to watch for such perfect characters when being created in various games and to make them a bit less perfect as needed. I wonder if this will even get read.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Derkec]

One solution is in fact to wipe everything out. The mud I used to play did this every couple of years. There were other approaches in place as well, such as progressively slower levelling and pretty much requiring groups to work together to level. It helps, but isn't perfect. More importantly is developing a culture within the game where having the best ___ isn't the most important thing to most of the players. Encouraging people to do creative and interesting things was key. People don't want to be the best, they want to be important. In a game that isn't very interesting, be it gameplay or culturally, the only way to be important is to be super-high level, or really ugly or rich. If a game has more ways to express yourself, there will be more ways to be important. That and MUDs often have the advantage of having a smaller player base than something like EQ. It's easier to stand out among fewer people.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Merkuri22]

On the extreme side a solution might be to just completely erase everything in such games every few months, but that would simply annoy everyone, including mary sues.

If you did that on a Diablo II server I think Mary'd sue.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[TwistedSquare]

Surely the game play should provide rewards for balanced characters? In your situation it is the design of the game that allows those three types to be better than the others - something the designers should fix! In MUDs, they should make characters need all their skills in some way at one point to make sure the characters balance themselves out.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Blakey Rat]

Ok, I'm sorry, but you're utterly missing the point here.

What you're describing is min-maxing... creating characters specifically to ensure that their stats are as high as possible and they can beat other characters in combat. This is a problem because it produces hundreds of characters who are the same race, class and have the same skill set.

What the article is talking about is Mary Sues... they have *nothing* to do with stats, skills, or race in a game. They only have to do with the story telling aspects of the game. How the character acts, behaves and speaks. The coded combat system has nothing to do with Mary Sues whatsoever.

Seriously, if you haven't played a text-based RP MUD, MUSH or freeform chat before, this article simply does not apply to you... your comments here are moderated incorrectly because, really, all they are is off-topic.

And moderators: Please make sure you know the topic before you moderate.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Hamshrew]

I think that's a little harsh. He saw something about Roleplaying, has some experience in a similar vein, and chipped in his opinion in a way he thought was helpful. Insightful? No, not really. But Interesting. Outside viewpoints don't exactly hurt, and it definitely wasn't off-topic.

Re:Wanna know what I think?

[Blakey Rat]

I stand by what I said. When we have an article about min-maxing posted, then I welcome the great-grandparent to duplicate his post in that article where it is more relevant, but here it has nothing to do with anything.

It might be interesting, but it's certainly not insightful and it's definately off-topic.

Yes, a Mary Sue character might min-max. But they're just as likely not to. The two behaviors aren't related.

Not just MUDs

[kylus]

This is a common problem in any setting where the individual player has near-limitless control over the abilities of his or her player character. In the IRC Free Form RPG I frequent we have called them 'GodPCs' and they are a recurring and annoying problem. People, especially younger ones, tend to think that the point of such games is to have 'the best' PC and they do not realize that a balanced character with flaws and weaknesses can be much more fun to play and develop in the game's setting rather than one that has nothing to work on, and can kill mighty dragons with his or her left pinkie finger.

Sadly, the article is correct when it says these sorts of characters will always be around. What we've attempted to do is give new players or those we see with potential 'Mary Sue' characters some pointers and advice, along with some educational writing [arangoth.org] about how to make a good player character. That's really the best one can do.

Re:Not just MUDs

[TwistedGreen]

"Sadly"? Come on. It's a game; it's supposed to be fun. What's wrong with being able to kill mighty dragons with his or her lefy pinkie finger? Sounds like a great idea to me.

Your way is one way of playing the game. There are others. And I wouldn't call the resulting conflict a 'problem;' it is simply a game design issue that needs to be addressed, in order to provide the environment needed for foster many different playing styles. Remember, every person has a different idea of what's "fun."

Re:Not just MUDs

[theghost]

The problem arises in interaction between two or more different playing styles. The person who creates a balanced, moderate character isn't likely to ruin the fun of everyone else, but the Mary-Sue that comes in and slays all the dragons with a wave of their pinky has just ended that story for all the other players.

If a game was designed to be free-form and one of the players abuses that freedom then it's not the game's fault - it's not a design issue. A game that doesn't cater to all playing styles isn't flawed, it's just not meant for all players.

Mary-Sues are players who are in the wrong game, but the open nature of the games they are in only makes that fact obvious to the other players, not to the Mary-Sue.

Re:Not just MUDs

[TwistedGreen]

My point is that if a game is designed to be free-form, you can't "abuse" that freedom because it's a part of the game. My idea of 'abuse' is exploiting a bug or hole in the game in order to do something that wasn't originally intended to happen. But if the player is allowed to pump up their character like that, then what's the problem? Perhaps people who want a more "realistic' game should move to another game or stop whining. Perhaps these two styles of play can't co-exist.

But if we step back a bit,

Re:Not just MUDs

[theghost]

My point is that if a game is designed to be free-form, you can't "abuse" that freedom because it's a part of the game. My idea of 'abuse' is exploiting a bug or hole in the game in order to do something that wasn't originally intended to happen. But if the player is allowed to pump up their character like that, then what's the problem? Perhaps people who want a more "realistic' game should move to another game or stop whining. Perhaps these two styles of play can't co-exist.

Abuse doesn't just refer to br

Re:Not just MUDs

[kylus]

Fair enough, but in this type of game it's not usually about who can blow things up fastest or be the strongest; they're more about developing a character, interacting with other characters, and having fun along the way.

I agree with you that there are infinite number of ways to play the game, but when one person's way--such as being the best at everything, or immune to everything, etc--encroaches on the fun of others, that's a problem. The point to stress to players is to temper the ability to make a char

Re:Not just MUDs

[Blakey Rat]

Well, that's one of the reason that free-form RP sucks donkey balls. To be frank.

Play on a MUD like Eternal Struggle where the code of the MUD provides structure to the game, and players like this will be much less of a problem. (But not gone! The article *is* right when it says they'll always be around. We can minimize, but we can't eliminate.)

Most of the time, when we get 'free form' chatroom-type RPers on the MUD, the first thing they say is, "wow, this is SO much better!" Some of the structure

Re:Not just MUDs

[chris_mahan]

Personally, I would like to see skillsets deteriorate, just like in real life: if you don't use it, you lose it, and it takes a lot to maintain it.

I would say that clothing, armor, swords, etc need to be maintained, or they get dull, frayed, etc and break.
Martial arts skill too, etc.
Then people would just be average in most skills and good or very good in a few. This would force a balance in the game.

Also, No classes: Anybody can do anything they want, as long as they're willing to train and maintain that

Funny Mush Stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I always love the "oneupsmanship" that occurs on MUSHes. On the MUSH I played, you'd have characters who would have a child, for example. Then someone would have twins. Then triplets. Kinda got ridiculous for the low-tech world the MUSH was based on.

real life

[h0mer]

I'm not seeing a problem with anything. If you make your character within the permissible rules of the game, you've done nothing wrong.

There are a lot of people better than you in a certain area in real life, MMOs are no different. Some people want to roleplay and some want to wreck shop, each group pays their $9.95 per month.

Re:real life

[SoVeryWrong]

I agree with this statement to a point, but it's not so much that people are better than you. They just have more disposable time than you do, or they're playing off a template posted on warcry for the express purpose of being all powerful. This wouldn't be a huge problem if the majority of MMORPG players were roleplayers, because each character would be put in context. That isn't the case, however, so it ends up with you ass up in a field somewhere with a 14yo kid in global chat exclaiming how he just '

Re:real life

[Eustace Tilley]

How would you make a MMORPG signifigant for 'casual' players, yet not boring or too easy for the 'hardcore?'

• Calendar-based rewards such as rental income, interest, dividends, employee earnings, and factory sales, that accrue whether the player is online or offline.
• Distinct rewards for logistic, strategic, and tactical activities.
• In-game auctions of equipment and pre-built characters, both for hourly rental and outright sale.

Re:real life

[Reapy]

There is no answer to that question. What you are really asking is, why can't a person who playes 5 hours a week be just as good as someone who plays 40 hours a week? The answer is they wont, ever. This is a simple fact of life. If I play volleyball once a week for 5 years, I am probably going to be decent. But joe powergamer plays 5 times a week for 5 years. He's going to kick my ass at it, because he puts more time in it.

Here is the difference though, with a game like EQ, where time is almost the only factor in strength. You can limit the ability to gain power or level/skill up to such a small degree that the casual guy would hit the ceiling in a month or so. But that means it'll take the powergamer about a week.

This questoin just frustates me. It's like, I want to be as strong as the powergamer!!!111 I'm going to put in 40 hours and I want to not die to the power gamer!!! It is going to take me a month to put in 40 hours!

Ok, so the designers make a game that takes 40 hours to max out. Uber gamer puts 40 hours in one weeek and is maxed. "casual" players bitch.

You can limit the amount of time in real life hours. That would suck. "Sorry, you played too much, come back next week." Or they log in and cant make any gains at all, guess what, they'll move on to the next game.

You can have everyone come into the game max skill and power and let them configure their guys before the game starts. This is like rpg quake though, no skill or stat gains isnt what people want, and anyway, causual players would still get owned BECAUSE THEY DONT PUT THE TIME IN!

God damn people, thats how life works, you want to be social, learn to be social, you want to be good at a sport, play the god damn sport, you want to lose weight, fucking exercise, you want to be good at a game, put the time in.

Re:real life

[Retric]

Make time sinks that lvl out with each expantion so that new people lvl faster than old people did though those lvls.

Aka zones that you need to do long quests to enter but lead no where. ect. This way you have the "best" players become more powerfull over time but casual players can meet any of there goals. Geting into the city of gremils takes 30 game hours. And there are 45 such city's. With several power rankings.
Each zone / city has the best item of some type and ok stuff in the others. You can

Re:real life

[SoVeryWrong]

I agree there is immaturity on both sides of the fence, but there has to be some happy medium somewhere. In the current implementations (that I've played at least), only one of those groups can have fun at a time.

I kind of see where you're going with your analogy, but for people who equate themselves with their character it becomes personal. The difference between "my character is a level 56 jizzmopper. He's pretty swank," and "I'm a level 56 jizzmopper. I'll beat your ass," can be the difference betwe

Re:real life

[Blakey Rat]

I've been MUDding for years, and I've never seen anyone put serious effort into RP on a MMORPG. The best I've come across is Horizons, where people will actually shut up (sometimes) if you correct them on saying OOC stuff over IC channels... but it's still nowhere CLOSE to a good RP MUD.

That said, if you know a MMORPG where people actually RP, I'd really love to hear about it so I can give it a try.

Who is the what now?

[Walkiry]

I find this rant to be very close to the endless bashing of "munchkins" and "power gamers" you see in every RPG discussion (be it on the internet or somewhere else). Frankly, I don't see the point.

I don't play games to be the star in someone else's eyes, or to try and make people glare at me in disbelief due to my near-god status. When I play a game, I do so because it's fun, and the challenges/rewards it presents keep my interest on it.

This includes multiplayer games. I'm there to play my game, and possibly play it with people I get along with. The power-gamers don't bother me in the slightest, I don't do power-gaming myself, but if someone else likes then who the hell am I to say that's the wrong way to go? Fun is where you find it. My fun is playing the game my way and making my own challenges within the system, and playing along people with similar goals.

The original article strikes me as someone whinning that they want everyone to pay attention to them but they can't because someone else is better at doing that, and then goes on a long tirade about how bad these cookie-cutters are. Perhaps they should stop worrying so much about the others (be it the Mary Sues or the "faceless masses that see them shine") and pay attention to actually playing the game.

Re:Who is the what now?

[*weasel]

It's really not at all like the powergamer/munchkin rants. It's a seperate situation that's really only a 'problem', in games where one person literally can not be more powerful than any other.

You don't mind powergamers, because they don't bother you while you play a game. With Free form Role Playing (FFRP), Mary Sues can and do get in the way of other player's stories.

Mary-Sues are a trend that's only 'a problem' in free-form roleplaying MUSHES, MOOS and IRC RP (FFRP). These games have no hard and fast 'rule' systems, and leave all aspects of storytelling up to the players -- a sort of authorship anarchy. The only rules regarding character design and interaction are social rules.

If you want your vampire to have the BFG9000 that destroys Chicago - you can have it. Players might choose to ignore you, or even warn/ban egregious offenders - but they can't actually stop you from doing it. Similarly, there is no BFG, there is no Chicago, and there is no result of your destruction - unless other players decide to react to it.

If you've never seen it done, it likely seems entirely arbitrary, or at least, off-the-wall. Even after you've seen it done - most wonder how it can be consistantly fun. But that's neither here nor there. People do enjoy it - but it relies on everyone to cooperate. It's more communal authorship, or spontaneous play-acting, than traditional game playing.

Mary Sue's are unavoidable in FFRP, because while everyone likes to play games - not everyone is a good author. Free-form Roleplaying relies on players to not step on each other's toes and to be at least decent storytellers.

It's for that reason that 'idealized' characters are looked down upon. Not because they're 'best' but because those characters have been done to death - and their stories are old hat.

Even well-behaved 'perfect' Mary Sues are considered undesireable because their perfection denies the opportunity for character growth through storytelling. Their flawless moral compass removes any chance at dramatic tension, or emotional weight to conflict (because the perfect Mary-Sue will always win).

Archetyped Mary Sues (E.g. knockoff Drizzts, Rasputins, and Sherlocks) are considered undesireable because those characters have been done to death. Few people want to read yet another story where Holmes catches the villain whilst everyone else bumbles about. So in the average social setting, most people won't want to cooperate with the stories such players want to tell.

Much of the 'fun' people have in FFRP, is in the creation of their own character, and the discovery of other characters. With Mary Sue's - this entire aspect is lost.

In other persistent worlds that have rule systems (MUDs/EQ/UO/etc), at the worst Mary Sues becomes snicker-worthy. Someone might roleplay a Mary Sue in EQ, but just because they want to be the greatest warrior ever doesn't mean anything. They have to work through the system like everyone else. They don't automatically have the power to completely derail the story being told by others. (arguably because there isn't one, not in the same way as in an FFRP)

Re:Who is the what now?

[Walkiry]

What I wonder is why in such case would the MS be a problem. In a free-form Role Play (I've seen this in plenty of places, I frequent a board where there is a forum dedicated to it exclusively), as you said, it comes as a collective effort, and having one player come in and destroy everything with a Deus Ex Machina or an Uberpowerness as the Favoured Child of the Gods is as disruptive as typing /ignore in the IRC channel, or letting the post be buried in the thread as you continue ignoring it.

I understa

Re:Who is the what now?

[*weasel]

They're considered a problem because they can walk into a collaborative environment and disrupt it. Sure it's not always catastrophic, and it's often times just a temporary diversion until the pre-existing cooperative decides to tune her out through whatever means. And if those bothered just roll their eyes and work in the MS, everyone might well wind up having a great time.

But the disruptive events are a frequent enough occurrence that FFRP players see it as a serious problem. Essentially, it's the onl

Re:Who is the what now?

[Ayaress]

You're not making the right distinction between MMORPGs and MUDs/MUSHs.

MMORPGs make you do all the work with character development - you're actions determine your experience gain and income, your reputation and "background" doesn't extend before you clicked "Continue" on the character creation screen.

That's one cup of tea.

MUDs/MUSHs tend to work more like table-top pen-and-paper RPGs. How would you like it if you were playing D&D, and you're friend insisted on being Lotar - the rich, dashing, heroic Warrior/Wizard/Fighter/Cleric/Archer/Shaman/Priest /Barbarian/Healer/Paladin/Thief, son of three or more assorted Gods and their unholy union with the Queen of someplace-or-other who seems to suddenly know the exact skills he needs suddenly every time he gets into a new situation?

It's annoying in MMORPGs, but they're mostly marketed to that kind of player, and they usually make you spend years making a functional Warrior/Wizard/Fighter/Cleric/Archer/Shaman/Priest /Barbarian/Healer/Paladin/Thief, whereas specialists who accept weaknesses (by not leveling every skill in the book) will have a functional character in a fraction of the play-time, and can then go on to master other skills as well.

In MUDs, where interaction between players and continuing storylines are the top priorities, one or two characters like this can really fsck up the game as a whole. Also, those characters who take weaknesses initially often can't diversify later, or are limited in their ability to do so. There the main reason I quit playing those games.

Some of them even give players the power to *create* characters already on the road to the aforementioned ludicrous state of being, and lets them do whatever bizzare thing the player can type (like, to continue the example used in the article, having quintadecituplets, only to have somebody else have twins without the help of a wife just to outdo you), and leave the "rules" to be enforced by GMs or even the players as a whole.

Re:Who is the what now?

[Walkiry]

>> You're not making the right distinction between MMORPGs and MUDs/MUSHs.

That's because I think it's unnecessary. I don't see much difference between someone who puts a demi-god in a MUD or someone who has munchkined his character so that he's untouchable in an RPG (be it a MMO or a Pen & Paper). I've dealt with the "All 18/00 with more artifacts that you can count and knows the rules books to heart" player in real P&P RPGs, they're not nearly as annoying as portrayed there.

So this char

Re:Who is the what now?

[the_ed_dawg]

How would you like it if you were playing D&D, and you're friend insisted on being Lotar - the rich, dashing, heroic Warrior/Wizard/Fighter/Cleric/Archer/Shaman/Priest /Barbarian/Healer/Paladin/Thief, son of three or more assorted Gods and their unholy union with the Queen of someplace-or-other who seems to suddenly know the exact skills he needs suddenly every time he gets into a new situation?

...or the 1st level mage with a magical sword that only he can equip that does damage in multiples of h

It's a sign of immaturity, of course...

[Crash Culligan]

Some people haven't thought through this "roleplaying" thing enough to realize that it's not just about them. People who try to play the absolute bestest of the bestest need to realize that what they're doing is not just aggrandizing themselves, but putting great effort into upstaging others with their wishfully wondrous accomplishments.

On the Bartle scale, I'd have to qualify someone like that either as a KS- or a SK-. They couldn't care less about the world, all they want to deal with is the people, and the preferred form of dealing-with is "oohing and ahhing."

These people need a dose of balance, and not necessarily administered orally either. There are no shortage of point-based systems (like Hero [herogames.com] or GURPS [sjgames.com]) which will enforce power level restrictions through scarcity. They will try to build their ubercharacter, fail, and then say that this is a stupid game, of course. (Sour grapes make the best whine.) Coerce them however you can to build something that fits in with everyone else, and then remind them repeatedly that it's an ensamble game, and that everyone else has a part in it too.

Yes, I know, those aren't MU* systems. But there are places that run them. As I run one of them, I won't publish any links; I don't want to slashdot myself!

Yeah Right

[nes11]

"and that's bound to make people who are trying to create reasonable and balanced characters cranky."

does anyone seriously believe that anyone out there doesn't try to make the best characters possible?

Re:Yeah Right

[arkanes]

Absolutely. You're being kinda blinded by the gameplay mechanics of 'computer' RPGs. The article is talking more about freeform social stuff (the computer part is incidental, really), where theres plenty of people (and the point of the "game", really) is the RP, not the game mechanics. You'll also find people who, say, aren't willing to exploit cheats or macros because they don't find that fun and get cranky when they get beat on by people who do.

About role-play, not stats

[th3walrus]

I think some of you have it confused. Mary Sues aren't about using the game mechanics to build the perfect character. People skilled at tweaking out the rules to max their character are fully in the right to do so. Lame in my opinion, but in the right.

Mary Sues have standard character stats (or no character stats in games that don't use them), but role-play as if they're perfect. Every girl is a hot, catsuit wearing, sexy but independantly strong woman. Every guy is a bad ass trench coat sporting, dual pistol weilding, mysterious assassin. Blah, blah, blah. What Mary Sues don't realize is that by playing that sort of character they're wearing out the things they love most about the character. Now, whenever my characters meet the seductive temptress or the mysterious assassin I get to go "That's nice. I think there's a booth for you guys over there. Go sit with them" because they're played out.

In games that use character stats, Mary Sues are really about people saying to hell with those stats and not role-playing appropriately. They need to be reprimanded by whoever is in charge of the game. Games without stats and poor leadership are just asking for Mary Sues so I'd say they deserve what they get for not laying down the law.

I agree with the arguments of people who whine about them. Whining doesn't get you anywhere though. Good role-players will use them to their advantage. The real world has Mary Sues; kids who think they know everything, who think that they're invincible. Fantasy worlds should have them too. They're fun to proove wrong.

Interesting read...

[gamgee5273]

...my wife made an observation that my "avatars" always look like me (a South Park caricature, my Final Fantasy XI character, and some other items that I've drawn or had drawn in the past) in some way: white guy with brown hair (receeding, if an option), beard or goatee. Not really idealized, IMHO.

She's a psychologist and believes that it means I have a positive self-image. I'm not sure if she's right (who am I to disagree with a psychologist, though?) but I has made me think about the dynamics of character choosing in something like an MMORPG. A male friend of mine on FFXI chose to be a Mithra (the "catgirl" race). His view was that he thought the Mithra would be good as monks in the game... but he's also a huge anime fan and I wonder how much something like Outlaw Star (or the thousands of other "catgirls" in anime) may have subconsciously informed his decision.

Then I look at the diminutive Tarutarus in the games and wonder how many of them are males. They're so small and "cute" that I don't know how many men would choose that race, or how many women would choose the huge, hulking Galka race...

The only MMORPG I've ever played is FFXI, so I can't speak to EQ or any of the others... but have people had similiar questions about their online companions? Is there more of a chance for idealizing a character in one of those?

Re:Interesting read...

[Joe the Lesser]

I'm male and play a tarutaru, but I chose it more for the humor value, which may or may not speak about my subconscious(Do I have low-self esteem, or am I confident enough in my sexuality to play an innocent looking character?). Who knows. But chicks dig /panic ;-)

Re:Interesting read...

[Tofino]

I'm 6'6", 220. I played a Tarutaru for two reasons: first, in real life I'm tired of hitting my head. Little (har!) danger there. Second, I've played the large races before, specifically in DaoC. Not being able to see around your character is EXTREMELY annoying -- with a Tarutaru there's little (snort!) to get in the way. Yeah, and there's the /panic :).

Google "Mary Sue Litmus Test"

[Anonymous Coward]

How irritating is it when writers on the Web tell people to Google for a set of specific terms and then don't bother to provide a link to click on?

Writers: please learn something about the medium you're using! Hyperlinks have proven to be quite useful!

Anyway... Google "Mary Sue Litmus Test" [google.com]

Re:Like Penny Arcade right?

[ChibiTaryn]

You realise you're talking about CARTOON CHARACTERS right? Cartoon characters are generally pretty stylised, I don't know if you can really say if a character is good or bad looking based on a stylised cartoon character design. Particularly when it's something as stylised as Penny Arcade, where there is not a great amount of detail used in the characters themselves. Are the characters in The Simpsons good or bad looking? Plus, I'm sure the guys at PA probably DO feel that their girlfriends are good look