Constructive Criticism: The Desperado

[Gambit]

Although positive feedback is given around here (although not as often as I would like sometimes), constructive criticism is often overlooked. Is it that we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or simply that we don't see anything that needs improvement?

Even the best can improve, and if someone is looking for advice so they can become a better writer, then we should do our best to assist them. Desperado is looking for just that. General suggestions are always good, but if you have anything specific, it might help a great deal to link to the post in question, or even use direct quotes.

Have at 'er!

[Desperado]

Come on, people, let's go, chop chop, I've got nothing better to do. Have at it with the criticism.

[Callie]

I can't think of any specific moments, most of the time I didn't think Desi was too bad an RPer ^_^ lots of internal-ness and things, it was good.

But then, of course, I didn't play against you that much.
When I have adequate time, I'll pull up a post at random and offer a critique of that

[Kitty Pryde]

Okay, so I read over your most recent post, putting on my stern face and vowing to come up with something, and I got... nothing. Really. The only thing that jumped out at me was the fact that it felt scattered, with all the "something"s and the "whatnot" and the "anywho", but it felt scattered in an intentional way which, frankly, is how I write. Maybe I should sign up for this constructive criticism thing too, huh? ;D

The only other thing I found was more of a me thing than a you thing, and that's that I don't think I fully understand Desi's powers. This is probably because I've missed a thread where you've explained them out. A girl can't read everything, after all! But I found myself unsure of the "shadowplane".

I'll have to try an older post, I guess, because I really have nothing majorly constructive to offer about the newest one, but maybe this bit of nothing will get the ball rolling.

[Desperado]

Well, Kitty, you're not alone. I don't fully understand Desi's powers. Whenever they were randomly generated for me a long time ago I thought I did, and then I realized that there were so many unanswered questions and I had really no way of answering them. Some of the big ones I went to Beast for answers, since he was part of the team that created my powers, but I didn't want to bother him with every little detail, such as where the heck does the matter that I imbue shadows with come from?

Unfortunately, my brain is incapable of thinking outside the established laws of physics, so I actually need excuses for things like that.

I don't blame them for it. Coming up with a power that works is very hard. A long time ago, I used to come up with powers for people who asked, and back then I sucked at it, but I'm learning. The problem with this power is that the power itself is very weird and there's a bunch of different possible sources for such powers in the Marvel comics universe. The primary one is Darkforce, and that's just nasty stuff that I really don't want to have to deal with. The whole I eat your soul thing is just not fun.

Oh, and don't go looking through past posts for explanations to my powers. As far as I'm concerned, they all got quietly retconned. I've just been too lazy to go back to those posts and delete them. ;D

[Callie]

don't go talking about deleting posts or I'll eat YOUR soul mister.

Still working on that not-so-frazzled-not-so-lazy thing

[Hank McCoy]

desperado said:

Well, Kitty, you're not alone. I don't fully understand Desi's powers. Whenever they were randomly generated for me a long time ago I thought I did, and then I realized that there were so many unanswered questions and I had really no way of answering them. Some of the big ones I went to Beast for answers, since he was part of the team that created my powers, but I didn't want to bother him with every little detail, such as where the heck does the matter that I imbue shadows with come from?

Unfortunately, my brain is incapable of thinking outside the established laws of physics, so I actually need excuses for things like that.

I don't blame them for it. Coming up with a power that works is very hard. A long time ago, I used to come up with powers for people who asked, and back then I sucked at it, but I'm learning. The problem with this power is that the power itself is very weird and there's a bunch of different possible sources for such powers in the Marvel comics universe. The primary one is Darkforce, and that's just nasty stuff that I really don't want to have to deal with. The whole I eat your soul thing is just not fun.

Oh, and don't go looking through past posts for explanations to my powers. As far as I'm concerned, they all got quietly retconned. I've just been too lazy to go back to those posts and delete them. ;D

Oh sure. Blame me. Or don't blame me. Or something.

To be honest, I'd completely forgotten that you were a "random powers" OC. For a while in my fight to keep OCs viable (against the better judgement of some others... ) in the face of the usual "my character is more powerful than your character" applications we typically get, we took some power generation stuff from other games. I wouldn't call our process scientific. It was a literal dice roll.

I still stand by that approach dramatically....I think it's a terrific way to put the player into the same mindset a latent mutant might be.

But I do see your dilemma.

The thing is, I'd argue that you don't necessarily have to understand all of the mechanics of a power in order to understand its nature and effects. For instance - we know Nightcrawler can teleport. How?

Beats the hell out of me.

I even have this nifty book called "The Science of the X-Men" that probably has some kind of explanation for it...and there may be one in the comics or cartoons I don't remember, too....

Pseudo-scientific, supernatural, I dunno... Part of the nature of X-Men storytelling is the search for understanding and training in powers beyond understanding. That journey really doesn't need to be the writer's...especially if you offload it to the character themselves.

There's no need to explain what hasn't yet been learned. And it gives at least two characters - or more - a reason to interact in looking for those answers.

I think part of the trick is to let Desi's internal narration fill the gap for what he doesn't understand himself...or simply go the "this is what happened and I'm not stopping to explain how" route.

All we really need to know is what it looks like and what he thinks about it as it's happening. The rest we'll figure out as we go. If it bugs him, then maybe he should find help in searching for answers that will satisfy him.

Regarding criticism:
My own thoughts echo much of what's been said. I certainly don't consider myself enough of an authority on how it's done (this is my first real RP experience, too) to try to tell anyone else...unless it's glaringly obvious.

A lot of what Gambit said about style in the other thread I agree with completely. It's an ever-evolving thing with me and I believe in giving people room to write and learn without trying to create some kind of ruleset. In fact....some of my proudest moments are in breaking what people like to say are the rules.

There really aren't any when it comes to the *how* of doing this.

That said, Desi...you're waaaaay too hard on yourself. (As many artists are, I think.) Critique is something everyone can use....but I would just say that people may not be as critical as you expect them to be.

Hopefully with some of the things coming we're going to make a few of the really difficult aspects a little....less difficult.

I better leave that vague for now.

[Desperado]

Actually, I believe that the system you guys used required two dice rolls, one to determine the type of power and then one to determine the power itself, but I'm an RP junkie ;D.

I found that site years ago. ;D Loved it ever since. I was actually considering doing that in my revamp, just to make things interesting. I tried a couple of rolls and got a few doozies, like the ability to see infrared. ;D In one of my other trial rolls I got Zombie Animation and threw that one out faster than...something that gets thrown away fast.

I realize now that the discovery of powers is an important aspect, but back then I was young an inexperienced. Now I'm old and crotchety, so I'm actually willing to say "his powers work because I say so, nyah nyah." Doesn't mean that he doesn't have an explanation for his powers, or his own little words for it.

Kinda like "Spider Sense" and "bamf." Not to mention "snikt," which I actually saw used as a verb in a Deadpool comic.

Stinky garbage! That's what someone throws out fast!

But you're right. You don't have to understand all the mechanics of a power in order to use it right, but that doesn't change the fact that I still want to. It's the engineer in me. ;D